“Don’t . . . leave me again,” I whispered.
He kissed my hair, pressing me harder against his chest.
For the first time in days, I felt at peace, embracing this new reality where both of us were together, and everything else seemed insignificant. Maybe it was naive, maybe it was foolish to fully immerse myself in someone else and give away so much power, but I did not care. He was here, he was mine, and I was ready to follow him wherever he would go.
I placed my head back to his chest, full of this new emotion, and suddenly, everything that made my heart ache with worry, disappeared. There was simply no room for anything else. I sighed, feeling too tired to keep my eyes open.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
TYNAN
Istood by the window, staring out at the outlines of the mountains in the dim light of the moon. Alina shifted in the bed, and my eyes snapped back to her. She looked so exhausted that, despite how much I wanted to take her again, I did not dare wake her.
My mind revisited the last two hours as I admired her gorgeous body with soft creamy skin with a gold dust of freckles on her shoulders and arms. Her agonizingly slow movements when she mounted my hips. Just thinking about the perfect curve of her breasts, her eyes on my face, her careful motions and I was hard again.
When the first rays of light touched the mountains on the horizon, I carefully opened the door and stepped into thecorridor. My steps were light as I left the castle and hurried down the sets of stairs.
My body craved the exhaustion of intense training. I started to run along the side road and only stopped when the sun lit up the whole valley. I walked for a while, breathing heavily, before performing some light exercises until my arms were shaking, and only then I took out the knives and practiced throwing them in quick succession. I just walked over to collect my knives and bent to pick up one of the blades that fell to the ground.
The sound of voices made me pause.
“If you would just let me –” Frid’s voice carried loud and clear.
“There’s nothing to explain.” Victor responded.
“Do you or do you not?”
“Just move on.”
“I don’t want to move on.”
“Well, that’s your problem, isn’t it?”
“Then stop being so weird!”
“What?”
“You are. Why are you watching me all the time? Is there something that bothers you? Spit it out!”
“Fuck! Just leave me alone, will you?” Victor was losing his patience.
“Fine. I get it.” Frid walked past me, without realizing that I was crouched behind the wood target.
“I’m curious now. What exactly do you get?”
“It doesn’t matter what the others say. There’s no way,and both of us know it. There’s no reason to keep thinking about it. I’m surely not going to spend a minute of my day thinking about you.”
“Fine.”
“Great!”
“Fine.”
“There’s just one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Fuck you!” Frid sped up, leaving Victor standing alone.
