Page 44 of The Unbound Witch

“Raven.” He gritted his teeth.

“Stop fighting her,” I coaxed. “I am not afraid.”

Hands clasped into fists at his side, he shook his head. “No. It is too much. You are recovering.”

“I am many things, but weak is not one of them.”

As if a dam broke, he slumped forward, fully spent from trying and failing to protect me from the goddess. Broad shoulders heaved, the muscles in his back rippling as he fell to a knee beside me. The purest white light descended from the sliver of moon peeking through the lunar window in the ceiling. A flash so blinding I had to cover my eyes to stop the searing pain. Though he struggled, I felt Bastian rise to stand beside me.

“You may look,” a voice as pure as starlight, as sweet and golden as honey said.

I slowly dropped the arm over my eyes, though the light was still so bright, I could not make out the edges of the face before me. I looked to Bastian, but he hadn't moved a muscle, his head still bowed, suspended in time next to me.

“Fear not,” the goddess said. “I have a message for you, Raven Moonstone. Even if your lover wishes to protect you, he cannot.”

I could feel the smile in her voice more than see it beyond the powerful starlight. My pulse rattled through my veins in a cadence I didn’t recognize as I stood in awe of the powerful being that had gifted our world the Book of Omnia so, so long ago.

She moved toward Bastian, her light casting the most beautiful glow upon his frozen face as she studied him. “I wonder if there is anything he would not do for you. Your Dark King might be fearful, but he is equally fearless. He sent you to the land with no magic, not to save himself, as he would let everyone believe, but to save you. He feared what the others would do to you should he die. He never planned on joining you. Hadn't even thought about it. He simply accepted his death and cast to protect you.” Her pause was infinite and nothing at all. “He is worthy, if not broken. Though the broken things we keep tend to be the most extraordinary, do they not?”

I blinked in response, only half aware my jaw hung open.

“Heed my warning and tread lightly, Raven Moonstone. A time will come when you must make a decision that will impact the world. A tiny seed left unplanted will always be only a seed. But change, even if one is content, inspires growth and rebirth. Do not be afraid to sacrifice what others would not.” As if the air had been sucked from the room, she reached for me, placing a fiery hot palm against my cheek. “I bless you.”

In a blink, the span of one second to the next, she was gone. Bastian gasped beside me, time no longer suspended, our combined power circling the interior of the barrier once more.

He pressed a palm to the cheek the goddess had touched, stroking his thumb back and forth. “She blessed you.”

“I think she warned me more than blessed me.” I placed my hand on top of his, feeling the texture of his knuckles against my palm as I closed my eyes, reveling in the fact that we were more alone than we'd been in a long time. That the goddess had come to, indeed, bless us. That my power and his power swelled to a suffocating entity within our circle, surging through our veins and bringing us to life in more ways than one.

“Warned you?” His gaze dropped to my lips, and I knew he was thinking the same thing.

“Nothing specific,” I whispered. “Just to tread lightly. And we will.”

He smiled, sliding his hand up into my hair as he squeezed, tilting my head back. “I've never known you to do anything lightly. You wreck worlds with mere thoughts and call down goddesses with sheer intention. You're unlike anything this world has ever known.”

I moved my hands around his waist and up his back, digging in with my nails as I narrowed my gaze upon him. “I'm just a Moon witch with a bad attitude.”

He groaned at my touch and the sound went directly to my core, heating me from the inside out. Melting me into a puddle.

“I don't believe a single soul would describe you with the wordjust, Miss Moonstone.”

“Then perhaps no one knows me at all,” I breathed, moving to my tiptoes to press my lips to his.

He was gentle at first, his massive wings surrounding us as the power swirled and the barrier held. His plump lips brushed along mine. But Bastian had never been the gentle type. He bit down on my lip until I gasped, taking the opportunity to press his tongue to mine, stroking it. With one hand still buried in my hair, he moved the other to my neck, then down to my chest, rubbing the swell of my breast with his thumb as he devoured me.

Every inch ignited. The power pulsating as if it knew my body was already on edge, his shadows moved up my legs like fingers, until every part of me wanted only one thing. The throbbing ache between my thighs, breasts tender, skin alight. He was fire, but I was, too, and I craved the burn.

I pulled away, panting, immediately missing his lips on mine. “We cannot do this here.”

“Oh, but we can,” he said, stroking a thumb over his swollen bottom lip.

“Can we go to the mountain?”

“No,” he answered, taking a dangerous step toward me. “We do not leave the barrier until tomorrow morning.”

“But...”

“Call them. Call Kirsi and tell her you're in danger.”