Page 40 of The Garnet Daughter (The Viridian Priestess #3)

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

“ A ugust?” I pat his shoulder and press my lips between my teeth, trying to hide my smile. I’m not sure why, but I find it charming that he finished so soon, that when he was able to lose control with me, that he couldn’t hold back.

He groans again, and when he finally faces me, he avoids my eyes. I can tell he is a little embarrassed. “Sorry,” he mutters.

“Don’t be.” I run my hand up the back of his neck, still as ignited as before, in fact maybe even more. “I wanted it.”

“I assure you, that’s never happened before.”

I wonder if my assumption about him flirting with everyone is also as inaccurate as assuming his experience. “Has anything happened before?” I ask the question delicately.

He smirks. “Tease me if you like.”

“I would never.”

“A long time ago, but nothing like this.” His fingers never stop dancing across my skin. “And I wouldn’t mind. I like when you tease me.”

“I’ll remember that.” I smile wickedly at him.

“You don’t know what you do to me, Callia.” He sighs, and it has a playful grumble to it.

Regaining his confidence, he presses his lips to mine again, taking control of and hovering over my body, pressing into me as if he didn’t just come without warning.

“We should . . .” I pant through his increasingly deep kisses. “We should go. More predators may come.”

“No, you will be able to keep a lookout.” He kisses down to my collarbone and then smiles like he is up to something.

“I will?”

He kneels in front of me, his eyes hungry and pupils dilated. I gasp when his strong hands come down with him, holding the backs of my thighs like he’s caught me in a snare.

He slips his thumb beneath the hem of my undergarment, waiting to see my response.

I’m panting again, a flutter in my stomach turning to hot coiling in my core at the thought of what he is about to do. His large body bends at my feet, somehow looking just as powerful this way.

I place my palm on the top of his hand to help pull down the side of the fabric, and it’s enough permission for him to take it the rest of the way, pulling it in haste and kissing back up my thigh.

I lean my head against the tree trunk, overcome with the anticipation of his mouth on me. He drags his tongue up my inner thigh, making my skin break out in a pebbled chill, a glimpse of the pleasure he will give where I need his lips most.

My leg is lifted, suddenly hitched over his shoulder. He shifts my weight and holds my opposite hip tightly, positioning me exactly where he wants.

His hot breath pants against my sex as his mouth lowers between my thighs.

I gasp and practically scalp him with my grip when he slides his tongue through my slit in a slow devouring motion.

He hums deeply, almost like a growl as he tastes me, his eyes glazing over when he reaches the slickest part of my body.

He watches, gauging my reaction, studying my gasps and whimpers, determined to prove himself as he runs his tongue over my flesh again and again.

“Oh, August,” I moan, and almost assume he came all over again by his response. He clutches my backside with delicious bruising force and pulls me closer into his hungry mouth.

His previous release is still plastered on my stomach, slowly running down toward his current efforts. I watch it arch over the mound of my pussy and spill into the seam, mixing with my own wetness.

August pulls back when he notices, tasting himself on me.

His eyes are so wild with desire, I have to hold onto the tree.

My knees threaten to buckle as his finger runs through the rest of his cum, sliding it through the curls of my sex and down into my folds and drenching me in an entirely different way.

He leans in again, and my next breath is stolen from me, replaced by a shiver that runs across my entire body. Then a guttural sound escapes me as he wraps his lips around my clit, keeping his eyes on mine and focusing his full attention on the sensitive bud.

I squirm on his tongue, holding onto his shoulder and the tree for support as every nerve ending fires within me.

I do my best to keep quiet in our hiding spot among the oasis trees, but it’s impossible not to moan his name again and let the waves of euphoria that are slowly building and tightening in my pelvis take me.

I dig my nails into his shoulder and my hips thrust in rhythm to his ministrations, the now steady and unrelenting force of his tongue undoing me. I praise him and tell him how he is making me feel, how much I love this, and he never stops, never changes pace.

The walls of my core clench, wanting to be filled, but he grasps me with two strong hands, keeping me firmly in place.

Every muscle in my body restricts as my climax peaks.

Stars explode behind my eyes, my head falling back against the bark as I ride his mouth, unable to speak a single coherent sentence.

The hand that holds my hip so tightly soothes against my skin, his thumb running back and forth across my flesh, letting me know he is satisfied.

The last of the shuddering pleasure he has elicited runs its course through my body. I try to catch my breath as he kisses my inner thigh one last time before hiking up my undergarment and standing to his full height.

He seems much more pleased with himself now that I am the one out of breath and dizzy. I kiss him softly, leaning my weight into him as he wraps his arms around me in an embrace. It feels warm and safe, and I never want to leave this oasis.

He kisses the top of my head, holding me and waiting until I gain my composure.

“No other predators in sight then? We got lucky.” He sighs.

I panic and pull away from him. “I forgot to keep watch.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He grins so warmly my heart flutters.

The muscles in my legs have been transformed into mush. What would normally be a somewhat challenging climb is now an impossible feat.

We did not wait long enough to recover before we dressed and found the path the animals took up the face of the steep rocks.

It’s thin and barely the width of a single person, but the wall beside it has pockets cut into the surface, like grooved holes for a climber to place their hands.

At first, we believed them to be naturally occurring, but they are smooth and too patterned.

I can’t see inside them, but I can feel the indents for each human finger.

Placing my hands into rock so worn down by time, likely since the beginning, fills me with a sense of dread I cannot explain, as if my body knows something my mind doesn’t, a deep sense of time I can’t even fathom.

The air this high is cool and windy when we break through the misty cloud layer, the sound of the waterfall below eerily far from us now.

“Hand on this one. The one lower is too shallow.” August juts his chin to his hand placement. It grips the small ledge tightly, the tendons flexing as he moves to the next spot ahead of me.

I glance over the opposite side. It’s not a sharp drop, instead rocky and steeply inclined, which is worse. If either of us falls to our death, I would rather it be quick and not bouncing my way to the bottom, breaking all the bones in my body.

“We must be close. The ward is thicker.” I strain my way over to the too tall hand placement. “It’s testing our intentions.”

“Do you think the old god knows we are coming?” August says with huffing breath.

“We should assume . . . it does,” I spit out, my finger gripping the handhold so tightly my knuckles burn.

The next one at this height is too far, so I balance myself and go back to the grooves carved in lower, but the moment I lean to take another step, bending to reach my next safe spot, the ground beneath me moves, crumbly rocks shift, and I slide farther than I intend too.

I gasp and cling to the wall, splayed against the surface with nowhere to place my hands but flat against it.

August shouts something, but all I can hear is my pulse bouncing off the side of the ancient cliff face and back into my ear canal.

“I can’t move,” I whimper.

“You can . . . slowly.” August’s voice is stern. “Press into the wall and slowly straighten your knees.”

“Alright.” Air shoots in and out of me faster than it should. I can’t stop picturing the sharp rocks below, waiting for me to breathe too deeply, to expand my lungs just enough against the wall to lose balance again.

“Calliape, stay with me. That’s it, steady.” August’s voice is gentler now that he hears how close I am to hyperventilating.

My cheek drags against the rough texture as I straighten my knees, pressing into the cliff face, hugging it with widespread arms.

“Good girl, now your right hand, move it toward mine nice and slow.”

My heart beats so hard, I’m dizzy. Closing my eyes makes it worse, so I focus on August’s hand and slowly reach for it.

He waits patiently, keeping his arm extended and flat against the rock with mine. When I feel his warm skin, I exhale in relief and sink closer to the immoveable wall.

“Perfect. Can you find the one on your left? I can’t see to help you with that one.”

I test my grip and determine it solid enough to lean my weight in that direction and trail my fingertips up to the same height until the groove of a handhold is present.

“Got it,” I tell him and finally take a satisfying breath.

We painstakingly shuffle our way to the top, taking it slower than before.

August reaches the steep plateau first, climbing to the ledge and reaching down to pull me the rest of the way.

I grasp his strong hand until we both roll onto our backs, out of breath and happy we did not plummet to our deaths.

He turns to me, all grin and dimple. “Climbing isn’t so bad when you have even more reason not to fall.” He wiggles his brows suggestively.

I dig my elbow into his side, trying my best to laugh and not be embarrassed by his playful teasing. “Thank you for keeping me calm. If I fell, I don’t know how the ward would have affected me if I needed to fold.” I pant.

“Of course. How close are we to it?” He sits up, resting his fatigued arms on his knees.

“We are well within it.”

The sky is murky, the eclipse light mixed with the foggy clouds of this altitude casting a masked ceiling above us.

“Looks . . . empty.” August stands next to me, holding a hand out for me to take.

When I do, he pulls me upward until I crash into his chest, pinned against him.

I gasp in surprise at the sudden change in orientation. “You did that on purpose.”

He tucks a curl of my hair behind my ear and kisses me, so quickly and so pleased with himself I can feel him smiling against my lips. “That was on purpose too.”

First Mother save me, I have never seen him this happy.

“We need to look around,” I say sternly and regretfully wiggle out of his hold.

The plateau is not much bigger than the cargo hull of the ship we came in, open on the one side we ascended but encased on all the others. The walls around it are sharp and jut upward.

“I thought this was the top, but now I’m not so sure.” August runs his palm across the rock surfaces, seemingly cut and smoothed, looking completely different than the ones we clung to on our way up.

I shake my head and search for another trail to the level above, but there is nothing. “This can’t be right.”

“Look.” He points with his chin to the middle of the plateau, where a ring of rocks and charred logs are arranged as if this place were used by someone recently.

“But there is no wood up here,” I point out, and for some reason, the hair on the back of my neck stands up. Why would someone camp here? Did they bring logs that size with them up the steep climb? It doesn’t make sense.

“Odd place to make camp,” August adds and then takes a seat at the base of a smoothed boulder near the stone fire circle. He adjusts the long First Son weapon, laying it next to his leg and pulling the waterskin out from his hip. “Thirsty?”

“Go ahead,” I say, but he shakes it violently for me to take.

I tilt it back and pour a long swig of the water he collected from the oasis below and hand it back. The perimeter of the plateau only takes me moments to walk the length of. I run my hand along the smooth stone, hoping something will present itself.

“It has to be the ward,” I conclude.

“You said it could read our intentions. Maybe it doesn’t like what it saw.” He sighs.

“I don’t think either of us have solid enough intentions for it to know for sure.” I slide down the rock to sit next to him, giving up on my search.

“What now, Calliape?” he asks patiently.

“It spoke to me. That has to count for something, at least an audience,” I think aloud.

“And what about—” He makes big eyes, afraid to say anything too definitive.

I sink down a little, my muscles sore and begging for rest. “The elders said it keeps the balance. If First Son is going to attack the Estate, then I imagine we will need help from every priestess in it, including the ones like Ferren.”

“If they were . . . culled.” He swallows hard. “That would be a great advantage for First Son’s army.”

I nod. “I cannot think of a more imbalanced world.”

He runs his knuckles across my leg, gently soothing that thought. “We have come this far. It saw you, maybe even recognized you.”

I have done everything I can, hyperfocused on details I can’t control. But I know all the way down to my bones it is not over, and hearing that August believes in me perhaps even more than I do myself fuels my desire to finish this.

My body leans forward on its own, closing the distance between us until my lips press against his. I let out a sigh into his mouth when he deepens it, his tongue sweetly brushing against mine in an intoxicatingly slow kiss over too soon.

Eventually, we both recline into a more comfortable position, the fatigue from the long day finally sinking its claws in and forcing us to rest. The air has a chill to it that was not present before, even though it is long before sunset still.

It’s heavier to breathe in, each exhale like taking in cold smoke.

I want to ask August if he finds it as strange as I do, but he is breathing so steady and deep next to me, it’s almost hypnotic. Even turning my head to face him makes it swing to the side as if the weight of it can no longer be supported by my own neck.

Fog creeps toward us, low on the ground of the plateau until it covers our laps in a blanket. And as I start to panic that we are not in control of what is happening, my eyes close and I’m taken over by what I hope is deep sleep.