Song of Blood and Reign

Chapter 61

Chapter 61

The heart beating beneath her ear was faster than normal, though the body she was pressed against hardly moved other than the rise and fall of breaths and fingers trailing over hers on his chest. They played with the band that encircled the ring finger of her left hand, twisting it around and around.

Lyv breathed in deep, pressing her nose to the hollow of his shoulder before kissing him there. Finally, the male who held her moved, trailing his other hand up the bare column of her spine to make her shiver...and grazing over a certain spot along her ribs he knew made her wriggle.

"You'd better stop that," she mumbled against him.

She could practically hear the smile in Jai's voice. "Or what?"

"I don't know...yet...but I'll think of something."

A few more moments passed before she leaned back to look up at him. He'd fallen asleep before she had, though his eyes still seemed tired. There was a hard set to his mouth, like he was concentrating on something or remembering a previous conversation. He was staring up at the canopy of the bed before he felt her gaze and met it with another smile.

Lyv smiled as soon as he did. "Good morning."

"Good morning, princess."

"How long have you been up?"

"Not long," he told her, leaning down to press a kiss to her mouth. "A dream woke me up."

"It wasn't bad, I hope?"

"No, it wasn't. Just...a memory, really. Of the morning I gave this to you."

"Another lifetime ago."

"Almost literally, too. But still, it wasn't bad."

Lyv's own dreams hadn't been either. It had just been a replay of what happened the evening before – the two of them sharing the bath, Lyv leaned back against Jai's chest with his arms secured around her, and the two of them just talking. It ended the same, too, with them lying side by side in bed, hearts racing, breaths catching, and staring at one another as they slowly descended from the high they just reached together.

Now, Lyv pushed herself up on one elbow so she could look down at him. She was dressed in his tunic – a clean one, not the dirty one from the night before – and the neckline fell over one shoulder, allowing Jai to reach up and trace patterns on her skin.

"We should probably get up, you know. Didn't you promise Bence we'd all do one final sweep of the city to make sure everyone was out this morning before we..." She could hardly stomach the words. "...before we leave as well?"

Jai didn't even need to see inside her head to know what she was thinking, what she was feeling. She'd already broken down to him the night before when they were in the bath. "I know you hate this, but everyone will be safe in Dalcaine. I can promise you that."

"You can't, actually, because we both know Corliss and Guinevere don't only want Escarral to fall into darkness. Their plan includes Dalcaine and even Ethran. All three lands, every single soul that inhabits it. The whole world we know of."

"Then I guess it's a good thing we plan on not letting that happen and then taking absolute care of our world and everyone in it, huh?"

All Lyv could do was nod and give him the smallest of smiles.

Though they would have gladly spent the rest of the morning in bed, they had other matters to attend to.

And every step Lyv made around her rooms broke her just a little bit more.