“You remember that nightmare I used to have? The one with King Cimmerian ordering Kane to kill me?” He nods and his face tenses as he listens to me continue. “Well, it was more of a premonition than a nightmare.”
He releases his hand from mine and sits up on his elbow. “What do you mean by that?”
“The day of the palace attack, he took me to the mountain I had dreamed about so many times before. That same exact nightmare played out just as it had in my dreams, word for word.”
“But Kane didn’t unleash his dragon-fire on you?”
“He did.” Despite knowing that I’m alive, Damien’s face is full of panic and concern. I put my hand on his chest in an attempt to slow his accelerating heart rate. “I died that day. Turned into a pile of ash—at least that’s how Ryder described it. He got there but not in time.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We always knew I was different. That my power was more advanced. It just turns out to be a little bit more than that.” His brows furrow. “When I went to Cyron with Cylas, Artemus rescued me. We went to a safe house and while I was there, I was able to translate my father’s letter. After that, Ryder took me to see the Divinity Oracle. It turns out that my parents weren’t my biological parents. They were just my guardians that the Oracle had sent to me when I was a baby. The truth is, I was born from The Mother. Not as a witch…but as a phoenix.” His expression is impossible to read. “Say something.”
“I—I don’t know what to say.”
“Oh.”
I move away from him slightly, but he instantly pulls me back in. “Not because I’m scared or love you any less.” He traces his thumb across my cheek and down my jaw as his eyes follow. “But because I guess some part of me always knew there was something different, something special about you.”
“Do you think of me differently now?”
“No. I’ve always seen you as extraordinary. Phoenix or not.”
He pulls me in, kissing me so deeply that it feels like it’s being imprinted on my heart. A wave of relief washes over me, knowing that he accepts every part of me, even the parts he hasn’t seen for himself. As if it had never left, that feeling of safety I seem to only feel with him comes rushing back.
“I love you, Damien Delecroix.”
“I love you, Reign Calloway.”
He rubs his fingers over the curve of my ass in soothing motions that could put me to sleep if I didn’t have an insatiable desire to be closer to him. He must be feeling the same because he grabs two handfuls of ass and pulls me on top of him. I reach for him, needing him as much as I need air to breathe.
He’s rock hard when my hand wraps around him and his hands squeeze my hips, reacting to my touch. When he slides into me, it’s as if my body remembers him. He tosses his head back into the pillows as he slips deeper inside me.
“Fuck.”
My fingers dig into his chest with each movement. We alternate between fast and slow strokes. Each of us holding on as long as we can. When I move my hips in small circles around him, his eyes roll back. It takes him a moment to come back to me, but when he does, his mouth wraps around my breast like he’ll die if he doesn’t claim every inch of me.
He gently removes the hair from my shoulder and kisses it as I press my body into his. We’re wrapped in a blanket of overwhelming love. Our breaths become unified as we cling to one another. For so long it has felt like a piece of me has been missing, but now it feels like everything has been set right again.
Every move he makes sends an electrical current through my body. The sound of his low moans in my ear makes it harder for me to hang on. I can tell by the way his veins are bulging thathe’s just as close as I am. My lips crash into his and with one last thrust, sweet release falls upon us. We breathe into each other as our bodies shake with pleasure.
When the stars in my mind fade away, I rest my head on his chest, closing my eyes as I cling to this moment that feels like a dream I never want to wake up from. His arm pins me to him and the familiar sound of his heartbeat matches my own as if we are one body.
One heart.
One soul.
Chapter 37
Ryder
It feels like I’ve been punched in the gut when I see her standing in his room. A moment ago, I expected Damien to be the one answering the door, but instead it was Reign who swung open the door.
“Ryder!” She’s looking at me with wide eyes as her face begins to flush. “I was just—"
“Sorry to interrupt,” is all I say before vanishing without having the conversation I had come there to have.
When I land in the middle of the Dead Lands, they welcome me with open arms. Much like the Shadow Lands, there’s an eeriness to them that I find comforting. Where the Shadow Lands are a dark, ashy color, the Dead Lands are covered in molten, black rock left from the Baltic Volcano. Narrow streams of thick, glowing lava run through the earth, separatingthe spike-like hills and mountains surrounding the unstable volcano.
