His mouth found mine, the scent and taste of me still fresh on his lips. He kissed me, once, twice, a third time, then smiled against me, fingers finding mine and lacing together. “Tell me what you're thinking,” he murmured.
Thoughts were difficult to reach, so engulfed in the satisfying weight of him. “I’m thinking you’ve done that three times now,” I panted softly. “And I haven’t once.”
“Jealous?”
My mouth twitched. “Maybe.”
“Mmmm.” Kye nosed my cheek aside, planting a kiss in the hollow under my ear. “Maybe I like the way you say my name as you come undone. Maybe I’m vain enough to do it all night, playing your voice like my own personal harp, plucking your strings one at a time until you can no longer speak any word but my name. Maybe it drives me wild, to hear the song of you.”
He began to stray lower, lips wandering the cleft in my neck, the curve of my shoulder. “Sing for me, Leihani.” My lower half still somehow both tingling and deadened from the onslaught of his assault, I didn’t think I could withstand a second round. I clawed at his shoulder, pulling him back to me.
“Sadistic woman,” he purred. “Let me do it again.”
“No.” It was half growl and half laughter, though all of it threatening.
He sighed and drooped, dragging the tip of his tongue across my upper lip. “I won’t stand for this oppression.”
“You’ll have to,” I wheezed, mouth parting for him. He wrenched my chin slowly down with the soft push of his, opening my jaw wide, unrushed as he delved into my mouth. Still limp, I found the roots of his curls with my hands. Loose, lazy ringlets, as though they couldn’t decide between spirals or waves. I wrapped a finger around one as Kye drew back to kiss my nose, then slid off me and onto his side, leaning on a tattooed elbow.
He gathered me to him, my back to his chest, worming his arms around my waist and leaving not a breath between our skin. My eyes flickered over the walls. Wood hidden in the dark.
“I can’t sing,” I murmured.
He chuckled, burrowing himself into my hair. “I can’t either.”
“No, that’s not what I mean.” I swallowed silently. “That’s how we do it. That’s how we seduce. I can’t sing to you.”
My thoughts flickered back to Hadrian. Had he somehow eaten a bit of shield weed? It seemed unlikely; the aquatic plant was foreign to Calderian waters. Why hadn’t Thaan’s song worked on him?
“So…I’ll never hear you sing?” Kye asked.
“It means, if you do, you won’t remember it. Not unless you maintain a diet of shield weed. The market in Vranna was full of it, but I haven’t seen any since. But I keep some in Calder.”
“Ah,” he mumbled into my hair. “I suppose I’ll have to start eating it, then. I think it might break my heart a little if I never heard you sing.”
41
Maren
Iwoke to the beautiful sound of soft snores against my navel. We’d rotated in our sleep, diagonal over the bed. Kye’s arms still wrapped around my stomach, his cheek pressed into my bare middle like a pillow.
I played with the ends of his hair, tangling my fingers in it, determined not to glance at the walls. The sun sat low in the sky, the morning still early, but it was bright enough to see white petals floating in the breeze. Outside our door, a pair of miniature feet ran down the hallway.
There was something about small children running, the simple act of it so carefree. I twirled a lock of Kye’s hair around my finger and wondered if he’d spent his earliest days sprinting palace halls. I hoped he had.
Another pair of feet ran down the hall, these much larger. The sound shuddered through the walls, rattling the tapestry on its single hook, and I closed my eyes before the room began to shrink. Kye turned his head against my skin, inhaling a sleepy sigh. He dropped a kiss onto my belly. “The wood?”
I shook my head, fighting not to answer him, because speaking a fear out loud made it real, and the walls weren’t really closing in on me. Walls didn’t groan and click and rock. Ceilings didn’t slowly lower while floors raised under your feet. It was all in my head. In my head and under my skin and down to the molecules in every drop in my blood.
A third person ran down the hall. Their steps echoed behind them, and I clenched my fists tight. Kye heaved off the bed.
“Give me just a minute to pack us up and then we’ll—shit. It’s snowing.”
Snow?
Despite myself, I let an eye crack open, setting one foot onto the cool floor. Kye had already turned from the window, pulling things out of his leather bag. Outside, clouds smothered the blue sky with white, and the petals I’d thought I’d seen were shapeless pieces of fluff, drifting down to the frosted grass.
“Arms up,” Kye said, guiding an unfamiliar woolen dress over my crown.
