Reunion

Reunion
Amval

I punch the burlap sack, trying to maneuver it into something comfortable. Grain crunches under my fist, but when I lay my head back down, it feels exactly the same. Morning reached the cave hours ago, but I barely slept last night. Every time I managed to pass out, I had the same dream—Kaloni, standing over me with Yalim’s sword. Every time, I woke up just before I either escaped or her blow landed true.

And this burlap bed isn’t exactly helping me to rest.

Frustrated, I sit up and abandon sleep altogether in favor of pulling out a roseapple for breakfast. Joli said she would be back when she could. When she knew more. But if one of these crates has some method of keeping time, I haven’t found it yet, and I don’t know what I would be counting down to anyway. At least I don’t have to bother with my veil anymore. The air in here is stale enough after she dragged a false cave-in, just stones attached to a thick wooden board, into the entrance without muffling it further.

Something rustles outside. I jump to my feet and grab that pry bar Joli almost used against me last night. It could be—should be—her, but I don’t intend to take that risk. The cave-in shifts aside. I inhale deeply through my nose.

And smell violets and ink.

Before Ingrid even fully enters the cave, I throw myself at her, pry bar forgotten. She grunts softly as I wrap her in a desperate embrace, gulping lungful after lungful of her scent. A heartbeat later, she folds herself around me, shaking slightly.

“Joli and Cirocco are coming behind me,” she mumbles into the crook of my shoulder, her voice washing over the tender skin of my mark like warm water. “I asked them to wait. I needed….”

She doesn’t have to finish the sentence. I needed her, too. There are so many things I have to say, but first, I press my mouth to hers.

Everything in the world realigns in the clash of lips and teeth. It’s messy, hungry, as desperate as my arms around her. She grabs at my hair, my tunic. I touch every inch of her I can reach.

I only let her go when I can’t resist my lungs’ screaming any longer, but neither of us backs more than an inch away. My gaze roves over her face like I’m memorizing it all over again. Her pointed chin, the sweet bow of her lips, the pink in her cheeks. Goddess above, I missed her like a limb.

“I am so sorry,” I say. “Kaloni is… out of control. I don’t recognize her anymore. The sister I knew never would have done this.”

“People change.” She drags a thumb over my stubbly cheek. A shaving razor did not make the list of emergency items to pack. “And your siblings have far more secrets from each other than you expected, clearly.”

We both look around at the crates and boxes proving I barely knew Joli. Ingrid knew before I did.

“I’ve missed so much,” I say. “I’ve been too busy trying to be the hero. Be my father.”

“I’m just glad you listened before it was too late. I saw soldiers headed to the stable on my way out,” she says.

My heart skips a beat. “Nur was looking for me, but I hid from her. Could you make sure she isn’t punished?”

Ingrid stares at me and then smiles helplessly. “And your friends, too?”

“If you can.” Tek and Mesut shouldn’t be in too much trouble, but I’d rather be sure.

“That,” she says.

“What?”

“That’s the kind of king you should be, if you ever get to.” She cups my face. “Someone who thinks about his boss when he’s on the run for his life.”

King. What an impossible thought, after all this time. But there is a glow in Ingrid’s sky-blue eyes that almost makes me believe it could happen.

“I…don’t know what I would’ve done if you actually died,” she whispers.

“Avenged me,” I say with a smile.

Her only answer is another kiss. Hungry, all teeth, and I need more. I grab her and crush her closer. Her moan pours into my mouth. It lights me on fire, barely starting to fill that pit of need. We’ve made too many mistakes, almost lost each other too many times. I love her too much to ever let her go again.

With my hands, my lips, I swear to her that she’ll never have to avenge me.

“We don’t have much time,” she mumbles against my lips.

“Then let’s make the most of what we have.” I kiss away from her mouth, down her throat. She tightens one hand in my hair, and with the other, starts untying the front of her dress.

I’ve never seen her wear a dress that ties before. I slant a crooked smile up at her, wondering if this was what she planned, why she asked the others to wait all along. Ingrid just smiles back at me as she strips out of her undergarments and lets them fall to the ground.

I graze my hands up the backs of her legs as I kiss down to her breasts. She rolls into my touch. Goddess above, if we had the time to spend.

But we don’t. And though I know all I need is the sweet heat of her, I don’t intend to leave her without the kind of apology she deserves.

My mouth trails down her chest, down to the thin web of skin over her hipbone. Her groan echoes through the mine, and I shush her teasingly.

Her hand tightens in my hair, driving me toward the apex of her thighs. Exactly where I want to be. Her legs fall open as I lick between them and find her already drenched, already wanting. I lap up how much she has missed me. She is so warm, the taste of violets and ink on my tongue like the sweetest liquor I can imagine. A life spent drunk on this might be the best one I could live. She rocks into me in desperate rhythm, crushing my nose and smothering all breath from my lungs.

I move with her. For the first time in my life, the air can wait.

Her legs start trembling, and I hook them over my shoulders in one smooth motion, taking all her weight. She muffles a cry against the back of her hand, just barely. My cock throbs when I look up at the whole length of her, golden, shining, and splayed. All mine.

A new flood of wetness soaks my face as she yelps my name. I hold her and kiss the faint burns my stubble left on the inside of her thighs until she stops shaking.

Finally, I set her back on her feet. “How far behind are—”

She pushes me to sit on the burlap-sack bed, then straddles me, open dress flaring behind her in a riot of color. Any answer disappears in another claiming kiss. I lick her taste back into her own mouth, and she rolls her hips against my lap. She kisses me harder, deeper, pushing me back until I’m reclining on the sack. My hardening cock lines up with the wetness of her entrance, and I moan as she grinds down onto it.

Abruptly, she pulls back, glancing at the doorway. “Not far, but I don’t want to wait. Can you be fast enough?”

I smirk. “Can you?”

She nips my lower lip, and I hiss. In revenge, I thrust my aching cock against her through my pants.

“Point taken,” she murmurs.

I lean up to capture one of her nipples in my mouth. She gasps and clutches the back of my head. We’ve only been separated for a few days, but every day I woke up expecting the worst. My timing isn’t what I’m worried about. I swirl my tongue over the skin, coaxing every nerve to life. Ingrid rocks against me, the fabric of my pants clinging stickily to my legs.

Hunger and need rumble through me like the first strains of a growing storm.

Ingrid and I both reach for my pants in unison. Our fingers tangle, holding hands more than racing forward for a moment. The wanting ache of my mark makes me press my mouth, my teeth to hers. She moans low in her throat.

My cock springs free, and Ingrid positions herself above me. I bite down on her vulnerable skin to stifle my groan, and she lowers herself down, stretching to fit me perfectly. I could spend forever here, with Ingrid staring down at me and my cock inside her. Every morning I woke up without her wound my nerves a little tighter; all of that melts out of me now.

Never again. We will never be truly separated again.

I sit up suddenly, crushing her to my chest and changing the angle. We don’t have time for me to sit here and marvel at her beauty, how she glows in the lantern-light and must be memorialized. I swallow the moan she almost chokes on from her lips, and together, we set a bruising pace. She kisses back as hard as I do, leaving behind the sting I know means marks in the morning. Pleasure rips through me in tidal waves, threatening to pull me under.

Not without her.

I thread a hand between us to find the bud at her center, and she jerks as if struck with lightning. I strum her in rhythm, another instrument I intend to learn to play to perfection. Luckily, I’ve always been a quick learner. A few cycles, and she shakes apart on top of me again.

This, I can watch. Her head thrown back, hair stuck to her face in sweaty swirls, her mouth open in euphoria. Seeing her undone throws me over the edge, muffling her name in the crook of her neck. Even after pleasure returns my limbs to me, I just hold her there, tight against my chest. Feeling every single inch of her.

Alive. Warm. Willing to give me another chance. Willing to fight what seems like the whole world at my side. She kisses the side of my head weakly, boneless and spent.

Someone raps on the false cave-in.

“Really hoping I didn’t just hear what I thought I did,” Joli calls. “This is my cave, and I’m happy to kick you out of it!”

Ingrid laughs helplessly against my shoulder.

“Just give us a minute,” I reply.

Joli groans.