Page 28 of Ashborne: Defiance

Loss of independence.

Loss of the only good left.

And in my mind, I saw the avid smile, the fervent eyes, the lust, and I knew it was right.

This is what you were meant for.

I winced as the memory burrowed across years. Years. Every step I’d taken to walk away. Every decision made for good, instead of darkness. Every stifled appetite.

And I shook my head.

I was never letting her back in.

Never.

10. Bound to You

SOUNDTRACK: Worship by Saint Vice

~ GRACE ~

The night felt like endless hours of running, calling, my heart squeezed in a slipknot that tightened my chest.

I couldn’t measure time. The air grew colder, but my body continued to thrum with heat, and now that sensitized flesh between my thighs pulsed, and my lower stomach ached, painfully hollow.

The dragons sang and called in waves. One of them roared. But, even when they quieted, the drive never stopped. I kept hearing the memory of his voice in my head.

Grace… God, Grace. I need you. Please. This is torture.

Was it him? Or only my body wishing for him?

Unable to answer, and unable to deny him, I stumbled through the trees, pausing at times to catch my breath and assess that tug in my chest, adjust my line, then push forward again.

Each time the dragons rose to their peak, my mind turned back, flashing between Vane kissing and touching me, and that incredible, impossible wave of pleasure when I’d thought of him and touched myself in the cave.

I wanted that feeling again—my body demanded it with every step—but I wanted it with him. He pulled at me, and even though I hated myself for it after the way he’d spat disgust at me. Yet, the drive so unrelenting, I couldn’t deny it. I couldn’t deny him.

Then, he came alive inside my chest, nestled right alongside my heart.

I staggered to a halt, one hand to my breastbone, gasping. But even though I shook with disbelief, there was no denying, he was there.

“Vane?” I murmured his name, confused and afraid, and still pleading.

And that space in my heart pulsed.

I stumbled forward.

The dragons were asleep and some semblance of sanity had returned. Yet, my body ached with weariness and hunger. I couldn’t stop looking for him and cursing whatever it was that kept us apart. Was he moving? Or was I just a poor measure of the direction he lay in?

Nearly an hour later, dawn crept up, the faintest line of gray to silhouette the mountains against the sky, when I finally found him.

I’d been confused—my chest insisting he was further down the hillside, while the land sloped up. I’d been running circles without realizing it, until, in my frustration, I broke the spiral and pushed to the summit in an attempt to gain a view—only to discover the deceptive hollow, a soft crater, before it continued up to the mountains.

Vane had hidden himself in it.

Water flowed from the mountain peak above, pooling in a small swimming hole. It smelled fresh. Probably why he’d chosen this spot.

My throat was parched and I ached for a drink—but not as deeply as I ached for him.