Page 123 of Scorched Earth

Killian’s strong hands gripped her hips, moving her. Lifting her.

A whimper pulled from her lips as they came together, kisses desperate and frantic with a need that surpassed the need to breathe, nothing mattering but each other.

“Don’t stop,” she sobbed, her body teetering toward climax again. His teeth scraped her throat, the bite of pain making her dig in her nails.

Her darkness was still there. The need totakethat would be with her all her life, Killian’s life coating her hands and daring her to claim it.

Yet rather than tearing away from her, Killian only flipped her onto her back, his hands pinioning hers to the mattress. “You’re mine, Lydia,” he growled. “No one else’s. Not ever.”

A wave of pleasure rushed through her, driving away darker needs as her body shuddered beneath him. Killian groaned, his fingers tightening, her name on his lips as he pressed his cheek to hers.

There was no sound but that of their breath and the creak of the ship.

“Are you all right?” he asked, lifting his head to meet her gaze.

Lydia smiled up at him, the love of her life. The one she trusted above all else. “Yes.”

Killian laid her down on the narrow bed, curling around her back and then pulling the blanket over them both. TheKairenserocked on the swells, the rhythmic slap of the waves against the hull lulling her to sleep. Lydia’s last thought was that now that they were together, there was no power on Reath that would separate them.

44TERIANA

Logically Teriana had known that the Cel legions moved faster than any army on all of Reath, but she’d always assumed it was because of their access to xenthier stems.

She’d been wrong.

The legions moved quickly because their commanders made themrun.

It reminded Teriana of her trek with Marcus across Sibern, except this wasthousandsof men, all stretched in a winding snake down the lone road leading north, sunlight glinting off weapons, armor, and sweat-soaked skin. There was no stopping, everything—and she meanteverything—done in the all too short moments when the centurions allowed their men to walk. Which meant there were things Teriana bore witness to that she sorely wished she could expunge from her brain. The road both looked and smelled like a latrine from the men ahead of them, and she swiftly came to understand why Quintus had told her there were benefits to being in the front of the line.

“I’m not pissing off the side of a horse!” she’d snarled at him early in the journey, forcing him to veer into the jungle, where she’d crouched behind a tree to do her business, her eyes all for the endless ranks of men who were given no such grace.

“This is inhuman,” she’d added when she was once again behind Quintus on the horse, cantering up the sides of the column to regain their position. “No one should be treated like this. Not even animals are treated like this.”

Quintus had only laughed. “Welcome to the hard march, Teriana. But trust me when I say, Marcus is actually going easy on us, likely in deference to the puppies. The Thirty-Seventh has done worse, in far worse conditions. At least we get breaks to sleep.”

The longestbreakwas four hours, each of those hours spent curled up next to Quintus’s back pretending she wasn’t fully aware of the filth around her, her lids no sooner shutting as some ass of a centurion was shouting the order to rise. The order to march. The order to move faster orelse.

Theelsewould have quickly made itself clear even if Quintus hadn’t explained. “The ruse that all four legions are on those ships will only work for so long, then the Gamdeshians will discover we’re marching to the Orinok ford and whatever bridge Rastag has conjured. The Gamdeshians have access to cavalry, and Kaira will send reinforcements, so unless we want to fight ten times the current number defending that crossing, we need to beat them there.”

“How is this even going to work?” Her ass ached from bouncing on the horse’s back. “From what I’ve heard, the bridge doesn’t even reach halfway across. Rastag had to stop construction because the Gamdeshians were throwing rocks at them with their catapults.”

“Boats, I assume. I don’t recommend trying to swim in armor, plus I’ve heard that river has all sorts of creatures that bite swimming around in it.”

She’d heard the same. “But won’t the Gamdeshians use the catapults to hit the boats?”

“It’s harder than you’d think to hit a moving target.” Quintus rolled his shoulders, grumbling about how his back hurt, then he added, “Might be why the Forty-First is the vanguard and not the Thirty-Seventh. Though in truth, it’s out of character for Marcus not to put us front and center of the attack. He trusts us more than the others. At any rate, he and Felix will have an idea of the cost we will incur taking the northern banks, and they obviously reckon it less than us trying to land by sea on a heavily defended coastline.”

Not cost in gold. Cost in lives.

“Then what is the Thirty-First doing?” It didn’t make sense that Marcus hadn’t brought the older, stronger legion for this task. “Are they just sailing about, sunning themselves on the decks of the Katamarcan ships?”

“You’re asking the wrong person,” Quintus answered. “Though I suspect the right person isn’t going to be forthcoming.”

That conversation had been on the second day of the march, and the days since had proven Quintus’s words to be more than accurate, for Marcus hadn’t so much as glanced her way. Most certainly hadn’t spoken to her. All he’d done was ride down the muddy road looking straight ahead, showing little sign that the high stakes weighed upon him at all.

Trust him,she reminded herself over and over, touching the tiny ship bouncing against her cheek.This is what he does. This is what he’s famous for.

Yet for all her admonitions, it still hurt that Marcus refused tobring her into the fold. That they weren’t together, and never would be again.