Page 7 of Reign of Stars and Fire

The Raven Queen

My hand trembledas I reached for his shoulder. What if I touched him and he was like mist? What if a single touch made him fade away?

His back was to me, and a loose tunic revealed the tanned skin of his neck and upper shoulders. One of his long, powerful arms was braced against a rocky wall, and he peered over the gentle falls into what looked like one of the many steaming springs in the Court of Blood.

The wheat shade of his hair was dark and damp, and the waves struck his shoulders.

My top teeth dug into my bottom lip as the desire to feel the warmth of his skin beneath my palm overpowered fear.

“Ari?” My fingertips brushed the rich black lines of the raven wing spanning up the side of his neck.

A wet sob slid from my throat. His skin was as warm as I remembered. The divots and contours of his muscular shape as firm as ever. And when he turned his head, those bright, amber eyes widened.

“What is this?” He reached his fingertips to my jaw and gasped when he touched my skin.

I closed my eyes. His touch was warm, rough, it was real.

“Sweet menace?”

Tears blurred my eyes. I dared not breathe, dared not utter a sound. Emotion bubbled to the surface, then burst in a maelstrom of tears and sobs and relief. I collapsed into his arms. The familiar embrace smashed me against his chest, crushing me, clinging to me, as if he feared I’d disappear as much as I feared the same.

“No. No you can’t be dead, Saga.” Ari’s face contorted in a look a despair. “Tell me you’re not—”

“Ari.” I trapped his face in my palms, stroking the sides of his jaw until the tension released. “I’m not dead. You’re not dead. You . . . you know that, right?”

He blinked, then looked around for a moment. “I fear, wife, that my normally astute memory is a bit muddled.”

I grinned and kissed the corner of his mouth. “You’re not dead. You’re sleeping.” I hurried through the purpose of his fae sleep, and slowly, Ari nodded.

“It’s a little clearer. But it does not answer how you are here.”

“I found the storyteller. C-Calista wrote three tales. She . . . she told me they would bring you to me, but I didn’t think it would be so real.” I dug my fingernails into his skin. By the gods, it was damp from the spray of water. It smelled like a rainstorm over a meadow. I breathed him in, kissed his jaw, his neck, the corner of his mouth.

Ari said nothing. Instead, he ran his lips across the curve of my neck, the warmth of his breath across my skin sent my heart spinning. He nipped at the lobe of my ear before whispering, “This can’t be a dream, you’re too delectable. Not even a dream could conjure up such sweetness.”

Ari pulled back and took my face between his rough palms. He smiled, a glassy sheen over his eyes. He let out a rough laugh, then kissed me. I was lost and no longer cared to question how this was happening so long as it never ended.

I flung my arms around his neck. He’d never be close enough until he cracked open and let me nestle inside. Ari’s tongue slid between my parted lips. I moaned and crushed my mouth to his with more fervor, desperate to taste the whole of him.

I planned to suffocate on this man.

Passion, desire, anguish, all of it collided in a messy, desperate kiss. Our teeth clacked. I bit his lip. He yanked on my hair, straining my neck.

I couldn’t stand straight by the time he slowed the pace. Ari kissed me tenderly, sweetly, then pulled away to look in my eyes. His thumbs brushed across the ridges of my cheeks, swiping tears aside.

“This is real. Tell me it’s real,” I whispered.

“Gods, I hope so.” He brushed hair out of my face, scanning my features as though he’d never seen them before. “We’re connected, you and I, and you feel real.”

Ari took one of my palms and opened it over the raven head on the side of his neck. The blood feather. A voice of the land, a piece of my heart. It was always meant to form a bond of hearts that held fast into the Otherworld.

“Where are we?”

“I don’t know.” He glanced around. “Perhaps a place of our own making.”

I felt no connection to this land. In truth, it looked like a gilded version of the Court of Blood. Less gray crags and cliffs, and more glittering, cerulean ponds.

All at once, panic flooded my chest until my pulse throbbed in my neck. I pressed my brow to his, my breaths coming too sharp, too fast. “Ari, I don’t think I can do this without you.”