I walked over to him, shrugging out of my boots before I straddled him over the edge of the bed. “I’m just tired,” I answered honestly. “I feel so mentally drained and it scares me because this war hasn’t even started. We’ve barely done any fighting and yet I feel so exhausted.”
He tucked my hair behind my ears before cupping my face. “This war has been happening for the past century. It’s just been in secret and only now is coming to light. And,” his thumb started stroking my cheek, “don’t feel guilty about being tired. You’ve been through a lot, Rumor. You’ve been fighting your entire life—”
I stopped his words as I pressed my lips to his. “Thank you for trying to comfort me,” I murmured between kisses. “But I don’t want to be coddled right now.”
If we kept talking, if I kept opening up, I’d break down, and I’d admit he was what had me so anxious. I was terrified this war would mean I’d lose him. I was so scared of the prophecy, and I thought about it every day, going over the riddle Dovelyn chanted, trying to make sense of it.
Without a sacrifice from Light and blood spilled from Dark, the chosen one will lose his spark.
I didn’t want to think about it now. I didn’t want to know what we’d have to sacrifice or whose blood we’d have to spill in order to keep him alive. Right now, I just wanted to get lost in him, to embrace the feeling of being alive for as long as I could.
He bit into my lip, causing me to hiss. “What do you want then?” He teased, tugging on my lip before letting go.
I ground my hips forward, pressing into him as my nails raked down his back. A warmth settled around my body as I looked down to see Tezya burning our clothes off.
“I liked the shirt I was wearing today,” I murmured as he flipped me around so my back hit the cot.
“Too bad,” he said as he kissed my neck, then my collarbone. “I like you better without it.” His hand cupped my breast as I arched into him. He pushed my legs apart, widening my hips, and lined himself up, about to fill me entirely—
A loud cough echoed from outside of our tent. “Tezya. Scotlind. Get dressed.”
“Fuck,” Tezya groaned. “Go away, Kallon. Whatever you needcan wait until later.” He bent down, applying another kiss to the tender part of my neck.
“No, it can’t,” she said, “it has to be now.”
Tezya looked down at me, meeting my gaze, then covered my mouth with his hand as he plunged into me the next second. His eyes glinted as he watched me struggle to not make a sound.
“I’m busy,” was all he responded with as his hips started to move. His hand never left my mouth as he tauntingly pulled in and out of me.
We should… stop.My voice was breathless in his head. I kept gasping out loud between the gaps in his fingers, unable to control it.
There’s nothing more important than this right now,Tezya groaned as he thrusted deeper, hitting the back of me.
“Please don’t tell me that getting your dick wet is more important than this war?”
Tezya’s free hand tightened into a fist around the sheets. He stilled his movements, but he didn’t pull out of me.
“What do you want?” he spat.
“Dravenburg called a meeting,” she said, then to my embarrassment, seemed to be addressing me, “come on, babes, I know you can hear me in there.”
“Dravenburg can wait,” Tezya growled. I still couldn’t speak with Tezya’s hand clamped over my mouth. I didn’t trust my voice even if I could.
“No, he can’t. I don’t know how long the meeting right now will take, but Scottie and I still need to train today before the bigger one starts tonight. Unless you want her to not practice and be completely vulnerable when it’s time to fight because she didn’t learn the drop in her reserves, and she used all of her abilities to help me portal, and then someone’s going to kill her when…”
Tezya half growled, half shouted at her. “Okay. Okay—we’ll be there in five.”
“It’s starting now—” she insisted.
“Five minutes,” he yelled, his voice left nothing to be questioned. Then he turned to me, his hand unclenched around the sheet before it found purchase at my hip, driving himself deeper inside me.You have five minutes to come all over me.
Everyone was alreadyin the tent by the time Tezya and I entered. Since the big meeting with the entire camp was tonight, we were having ourgoalsmeeting now. We were making progress—we agreed on more things this week than we had in all the previous weeks combined—but it still felt too slow.
“What should we do about Sie?” Dravenburg asked.
“What do you meanwhat should we do about him?” Peter seethed, his smile disappearing as he set down the croissant he brought with him.
“I don’t think he should fight,” Dravenburg said.
