“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. There. Like that—arching against me, your hips off the ground.” Kavya sounded overwhelmed. “I’ve never seen anything so powerful. I’ve never felt so powerful.”
“Faster.” He was thrusting up to meet every downward clench of her tight fist. So close, burning, he moved to enclose her hand in his once again.
“No,” she said sharply. “Mine.”
Leaning down, she found where his neck met his shoulder and sucked, licked, scraped her teeth across his heated flesh. It was her teeth, and the appreciative moan she hummed against his taut muscles—primal. Urgent. Earthy and strong. The combination sent him rocketing over the edge.
He cried out a hard curse and snapped rigid. The sky closed to black along with his eyelids. He didn’t see colors or stars; he only felt. Kavya pumped twice more before he came, streaking his abdomen with the hot proof of his release.
“Oh! Oh my.” The first was shock. The second was satisfaction. “That was . . .”
“Bloody fantastic,” Tallis scratched out. He tried to swallow but couldn’t. He needed water. He needed a steady breath. Later. “Are you sure you haven’t done this before?”
“Never.” She licked up to his earlobe, then caught his lips in a kiss that balanced between sweet and savage. “But I liked it.”
“Not more than I did.”
A blush—her blushes were always a surprise—turned the apples of her cheeks golden pink. “That was all right?”
“Very all right.” He pulled her close for another kiss, this one sweet enough to make him think, if only for a moment, that they were the forever sort of people. That wasn’t the case and never would be.
After a cursory cleanup, he forced a smile. “We’ll definitely need another bath,” he said blithely. “Not that I’m complaining.”
“And there you go again.” Her eyes were hazy and distant, when she met his gaze at all. “Tallis gone. The Heretic returned.”
He stood sharply, which meant shoving her off and away. Not his favorite chore. He set about reassembling his armaments and looked down at Kavya, who’d brought her knees to her chest. Obviously she wasn’t in the mood to explain herself, and he wasn’t in the mood to listen. The orgasm that had held back his worries wasn’t strong enough to keep them at bay forever.
Still sitting, Kavya aligned her knuckles in that odd, fastidious way.
He couldn’t resist. Not again. “Why do you do that?”
Her brown eyes were lightened by the sun, which made them look more like caramel. She narrowed them, but beneath her outward aggression was a different timbre—as if she’d been caught doing something wrong. “What are you talking about?”
Tallis nodded toward her knotted hands. “Your fingers interwoven, clasped so exactly.”
“I do nothing of the kind.”
“Keep lying about inconsequential things and we won’t be allies much longer, let alone lovers.”
“I should only lie about the consequential things?”
He offered a rueful shake of his head. “I can spot the big lies. The little lies, though—they chip cracks in mortar and wear away stones. As powerful as the elements. So . . . your call.”
“You act like this is some sort of test,” she said.
“Why shouldn’t it be? If I’m going to make a plan with anyone . . .” He shrugged. “Then it’s all about trust.”
—
Kavya looked down at her interwoven fingers. “How did you know?” she asked softly.
“Just my eyes and a really strong desire to know who the hell you are.” He touched beneath her chin and urged her face up, up, until she couldn’t look away. “I had a dream version of you, and a version of you intended for the rest of your followers, and then . . . here you are. Forgive my curiosity.”
“They’re—” Kavya had to stop, swallow, start again. “They’re the mountains. My knuckles. They’re the mountains and valleys of the Northern faction, where I was raised. I’ve never liked their chaos. The randomness. Too many hiding places and secrets and places where the sun came over the ridge at different times, different intensities. Nothing could be counted on.”
“Your homeland.”
She nodded. “My mother showed me how to line up my fingers and the knobs of my knuckles just so.”
“Like that?” Tallis knelt and traced the even bumps. “Perfectly aligned?”
“Yes.”
“Order out of chaos?”
She unclasped her fingers and shook feeling back into her numb hands. “But not anymore.”
“Because I caught on? That’s not fair. I’ve been surrounded by shadows and mirrors for longer than I care to remember. I find one solid, reliable truth and a woman willing to open up and explain what it means—and what? Should I apologize? I won’t, Kavya.”
Standing, she grabbed his pack and adjusted her stance. Not exactly order out of chaos, but with the strong foundation of the mountains. “We’ll reach the nearest village in a half hour or so. Then you’ll need to steal a moped, not a car. You’ll learn why when we get into Jaipur. We should reach the Old City before dark. Perfect place to hide. Plenty of time to plan.”
Kavya kept her steps evenly paced although she was crumbling on the inside. Everything she’d known was shattered or frozen or covered in blood. Pashkah would find her, eventually, no matter where she bedded down for the night. The tension in her spine promised as much. Tallis had her back. He was a living, unpredictable cyclone—the same entity, but always changing speed, direction, force.
He caught up and walked beside her in silence, as if they hadn’t shared the most intimate acts of her life. Her feet ached and started to bleed, but she said nothing. The physiology of the Dragon Kings meant she would heal quickly once they took shelter for the night, but that didn’t mean it hurt any less in the moment. The agony built until she was burned by hot coals with every step.
“I need to stop,” she said abruptly.
He eyed her as if she were a tree that deigned to speak. “Are we far off?”
“No.”
“Then we keep walking.”
“I’m stopping.” She sat as abruptly as she’d spoken. Immediately she pulled one foot cross-legged into her lap. Blood covered her fingers.
“What in the Dragon?” Tallis squatted and balanced on the balls of his feet. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“You’re the one in tune with the physical world. Or maybe that ebbs for a while after you come.”
“So mouthy now that you know what you’re talking about.” He stared back along their trail. The tight defensiveness in his expression fell away. “Fuck.”
Kavya followed his line of sight. Smears of blood marked their progress. “Do you have any water left in the bottles?”
“Yeah. Give me one foot.”
“Why?” She pulled her stinging foot more closely against her body. “Just give me the water.”
“No.” He proved his will by pulling her leg across his lap. His strength was always such a glorious surprise. In this case, however, it was also infuriating when he tended her feet as if she were a child with a scraped knee.
“Fine,” she said tartly. “Start working on that plan.”
“You still want to unify your people.”
“Of course. Pashkah killed my allies. Now I look like a victim, a traitor, or a cohort. I need to restore that faith and work to fix the chasm between the factions.”
“Say that again,” he said, his blue-eyed glare made indigo by the shadows cast by the sun at his back.
“To fix the chasm? What of it?”