Page 42 of Death Will Follow

“You once told me you’d touched yourself with me in your thoughts. Guiding your hands.” Callan lifted her foot and propped it atop his knee like a step stool. “Show me how you touched yourself.”

This, denying himself what he craved most, was how he would earn her forgiveness. For losing control. For breaking from the plan. For frightening her.

Nova nodded and leaned against the railing, turning her knee out and gathering the flimsy gown at her hip with one hand so he could see her sex. She slid her hand between her legs, sighing softly as she toyed with her clit while he watched, rapt. Callan lost all sense of time until, behind her, the sky brightened once more. He tightened his grip on her ankle as the lightning revealed her easing two fingers inside her glistening cunt. His mouth began to water, and he swallowed hard, eyes flicking up to her face.

“It’s not enough,” she whimpered, a frustrated crease forming between her brows.

She needed more. Needed him. Callan clenched his jaw and drew in a steadying breath, bolstering his resolve. Determined to deny himself.

“I’m going to help you, Starlight. You’re going to ride my face with my fingers inside you until you come. And when you do, I’m going to lap up every sweet drop. Do you understand?” His voice was firm as he delivered the instructions, more for himself than for her.

Nova gave a jerky nod, and he reached his hand up to her face.

“Open your mouth.”

Nova eagerly obliged, leaning forward with her lips parted for him. Callan slipped his middle and ring fingers into the warmth of her mouth and pressed them down on her tongue.

“Suck.”

Nova closed her lips around his digits, drawing them further into her mouth and swirling her tongue around them. Callan shuddered, imagining her soft lips wrapped tight around his cock instead. With a groan, he took his fingers from her mouth and slid them between her legs, teasing at her entrance before pressing them inside her.

“Gods, love. You’re soaked for me.”

Half-mad and unable to wait a heartbeat longer, he settled his mouth over her clit and curled his fingers, putting pressure on the spot he knew would soon have her legs trembling.

The wind whipped around them, the air temperature plummeting as the storm drew near. Nova tunneled her fingers into his hair, tugging at the roots as she rode his face just as he’d told her to. Callan tongued her clit, intoxicated by her breathy moans barely audible over the approaching tempest. Her body tensed but he didn’t slow, carrying her over the edge until she cried out in time with a clap of thunder.

Callan smiled against her cunt before dragging his tongue slowly along her slit. When he was satisfied he’d made good on his promise to leave nothing behind, he pressed a trail of kisses along her inner thigh. Nova hooked her fingers under his chin, and he gazed up at her but made no move to stand.

“Forgive me?” he asked.

“I forgive you, love,” she panted. “Do you not also want to finish?”

Callan glanced down at his lap, then back up to her lovely face, her pale cheeks flushed the most tempting shade of pink. He ran a hand over his mouth and down his chin before shaking his head. Rising to stand, he pulled her against him.

“The taste of you. Those sounds you make only for me. Feeling you come apart on my tongue, around my fingers. It is more than enough. It’s everything.” He tipped her face up to his and kissed her deeply, his tongue gliding against hers as the first swollen raindrops pelted down from the sky.

“Come,” he murmured. “Let me clean you up and put you to bed.”

He grasped Nova’s hand in his and led her through the terrace doors before they both got caught in the storm.

Eighteen

Though the rhythmic patter of rainfall normally soothed her, the brilliant lightning and booming thunder instead flooded Nova with unease. She’d found herself on the edge of sleep more than once, but each time she’d been wrenched back from the precipice by the sudden, breathy whisper of her name in her ear.

It was no use. Nova sat up, silently slipping from the bed she shared with Callan. He slept like the dead, blissfully unaware of the storm raging outside. She’d nearly reached the chamber door when she heard it again: the faint whisper of her name, there and gone in an instant, as if the noise had dissipated into thin air along with whoever had uttered it.

A chill bloomed at the base of her neck, prickling her scalp. Nova turned in a slow circle and scanned the darkened corners of the room, lit only by random flashes of lightning. Her gaze passed over Callan, lying still on the bed, his chest rising and falling steadily, before settling on the woven pouch that held the Kinslayer shard on the bedside table.

A sudden desire to see the length of broken blade consumed her. A nagging urge, like an itch between her shoulder blades demanding relief. Yes—despite the memory of its sting still burning faintly on her palm, she needed to hold it in her hand once more. Slowly, as if led by an invisible tether, Nova crossed to the table and lifted the flap of the pouch, revealing the jagged scrap of metal within. The hushed whisper of her name breezed through her mind like an unwelcome draft. A sheen of magic rippled along the shard, enticing her.

Before she could think better of it, Nova seized the blade. A fiery pain erupted in her hand, her eyes snapping shut instinctively. But then, the pain fell away, and Nova blinked her eyes, finding she was no longer in her chamber in the Tundara Estate.

A vast, grassy marshland stretched out around her, her feet sinking slightly in the saturated earth. Wind gusted across the landscape, sending thick fog swirling around her. Nova squinted, trying to discern her location, but it was impossible to see further than a few strides in any direction. Then, the fog parted, clearing a path to a raised mound of earth looming in the distance. The echo of a mournful wail floated on the wind, raising the hairs on the back of her neck.

That which you seek, seeks you.

The whisper was so close, Nova whirled around, certain the speaker stood directly behind her, but saw no one. She spun again and found herself once more in Tundara, searing pain leeching from the blade into her flesh, slowly spreading to her wrist. She couldn’t release it. Sweat beaded on her brow as she willed her painfully contracted fingers to drop the weapon.