The Puppeteer and The Poisoned Pawn (The Pawn and The Puppet series Book 3)

Skylenna

It was hell trying not to touch him as we walked to a destination he insisted on.

Hiking up to the opening, I recognize it before I can take my next breath. The purple wisteria dancing in the breeze, the long blades of grass and lavender plants. A meadow that holds the power to instantly put me at ease.

The fictional meadow I thought only existed in my mind. Actually, not even just my mind. But a corner of it, dark and hidden from all thoughts and memories. A safe location that I can only access in dire stress.

Ambrose Oasis.

“How?” I spit out, gaze sliding from each perfect detail that I thought I had dreamed up.

Kane turns to me, holding my hands. “I figured you hadn’t been here yet.”

I shake my head. Maybe I really have gone mad now.

“Ambrose Oasis is real?”

“Yes.” He nods. “Would you like me to tell you about—”

His words are drowned out by the sound of children laughing and the thuds of a galloping animal. DaiSzek knocks a little Skylenna over, licking her face as she screams in laughter. Kane brought me here when I stopped eating at the age of seven. Depression can bite down and take hold of anyone at any age, I learned quickly.

“You brought me here to visualize our own secret haven. One that Jack didn’t even know about. You trained me to use this as a safe place to go to in my mind.”

Kane smiles sadly. “I have an Ambrose Oasis, too, in the inner world. Only Dessin’s been there.”

I look back at the beautiful landscape. The vibrant sunset lighting the horizon on fire.

“I still have so many questions,” I say without looking at him. “I found most of the answers myself. But I guess I really wanted your perspective on what happened. How it all happened.”

He steps up behind me, his hot presence warming my back. My eyes flutter closed automatically, and I lean against his hard chest and stomach. His nose grazes my hair, breathing in deeply, savoring me. I feel the bulge in his pants growing at my backside.

He said he loved me. He loves me. Powerful endorphins filter through my neurons.

“Is this why you brought me here?”

Kane exhales. “Yes. I’ve waited a long time to have you, feel you, claim you as mine.” A large hand skims through my hair. “I needed it to be somewhere special to both of us.”

My back erupts in chills, and I can’t believe this is really happening. A day ago, I believed the loves of my life were dead. I would never see them again. I’d never feel their touch. Their affection. And that was a tormenting fate I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

“Okay,” I sigh happily. Yelping as he lifts me off my feet, hooking my legs around his waist to carry me to the middle of the meadow.

I brace my hands on his taut shoulders, looking down at those chocolate-brown eyes, feeling a wave of love splash over me.

“Kiss me, honey.” He lowers me back down to my feet, keeping his hands on my ass, squeezing until I’m flush against his chest, ravenous for his lips against mine. I tilt my head back, opening for him eagerly, and he swoops down. We’re a mess of licking, biting, and moaning. I reach my hand down to his erection, rubbing it through his pants.

“Christ,” he hisses. “You can’t do that now. I want this to last.”

Butterflies fill my stomach. I love the power I have over him this way. I love feeling him break away from the friendship role and finally admit he wants me.

It broke my heart the day he kissed me, then said it meant nothing. We’ll talk about that soon, but for now, we’ve earned this. We’ve fought long and hard to find our way back to each other.

“May I?” He breaks away from our kiss, pausing before he works the laces from my dress. I nod, panting. His fingers brush over my collarbone, making my center flood with heat.

After undoing the bodice, he sets my breasts free, yanking down the material until I’m stepping out of it.

He looks at me for several seconds, chest rising and falling aggressively. I lift my arms to cover my breasts in sudden insecurity, but he lurches forward, snatching my hands and drawing them away from his view. “Don’t you dare,” he rasps, low and deep. “You’re far more beautiful than what I imagined.”

He acts quickly, like he just can’t take it anymore. My hands are being cupped in his own, tenderly, and he’s clenching his jaw. Muscles are tightly coiled over his arms and chest.

“Do you want to taste me?” I ask.

His eyes flash to mine darkly. When did he drop to a knee?

“You don’t know what you’re asking,” he chokes out, staring at my body like he’s stuck in a trance. “Once I start, I won’t be able to stop.”

My toes curl, and the muscles in my lower belly contract.

“I want to go slow our first time,” he explains, maybe to me, maybe to himself.

“Have me however you want me. As many times as you want.” I want him to lose control. I want to ruffle his feathers, to see this man that has always respected me and cared for me, become undone.

And he doesn’t disappoint.

Kane licks the underside of my left breast slowly as if testing the waters, and his eyes close in ecstasy. He snatches my nipple in his mouth, groaning against my skin until my groin floods with untamed flames. He twists my right nipple with his other hand, pinching it until it’s hard and at his mercy.

“God, Kane,” I gasp.

While he sucks and nibbles, a hand nudges my legs apart. “Tell me you’re wet for me, honey.” I hardly recognize the pained tone of his voice.

I don’t have to answer. Because his thick fingers run up my center, slippery with the evidence of my arousal.

“Oh,” I breathe out. How did that happen so fast?

My eyes snap closed as he nudges my entrance with his thumb, groaning at how tight we both know it’s going to be. “There.” He pushes the tip of his thumb inside, only a little, and I release all of the air trapped in my chest. “Is that what you need, my love?”

My knees become wobbly, and I’m certain his thumb inside me and mouth suckling my nipple are going to make me collapse.

He glances up at me, and those eyes are so dark and hazy, I’m not sure if he sees me. But he reacts to my instability swiftly, hooking his hands behind my thighs and scooping me off my feet, lowering our bodies flush to the grass. He’s on his back, and I’m sitting on his chest. Squirming to pinch my thighs together because my wetness has dripped uncontrollably down my legs.

“Up,” he commands, pulling my legs toward his head. “On my mouth.”

I suck in a sharp breath. “What? No.” I clench up, gawking down at his audacity.

He pauses, gazing at me like his hunger won’t wait. “I’ll take care of you.”

But I’m still uncertain. He wants me to—sit on his face?

“I’ll show you how.” He smirks, though it doesn’t touch his eyes.

“How what?”

“How to ride my tongue until you come.”

My back arches, and if it’s at all possible, I’m wetter than before. Tingles spread over my stomach and thighs, and I don’t care how strange this is. I want to do as he says.

I nod once, shocked at the words coming out of his mouth. That small confirmation urges him to lift my hips, angling my center directly over his mouth.

“Relax,” I hear him say. “Lower yourself to me.”

I fight the instinct to stay stiff and hover over him. With loosening muscles, his mouth meets my clit. I suck in a sharp, edgy breath. At first, he kisses me, soft and nice, then his tongue licks through my wetness, and I shudder.

Dear God.

His groans vibrate against my pussy, sending fireworks up my spine. And he feasts like this is his last meal. Calloused hands bracing my hips, tongue dipping inside me.

I moan through my teeth, but it somehow turns into a frustrated growl. This position on top of him feels euphoric. And it’s far more attractive that he is treating this act like it’s for his pleasure and not mine. Like he can’t be disturbed while feeding. Like he’s in a drug-induced haze, blacking out in an uncontrollable frenzy to taste every bit of me. This sends my bloodstream roaring with pleasure.

“I want you to fucking suffocate me, Skylenna,” he grits out, digging his fingers into my hips, rocking me back and forth on his tongue.

Hot breath whooshes from my lungs.

I instinctually no longer need his guidance. That frenzy infects my need to chase the building tension inside me. I flex my muscles, rolling my hips back and forth, faster and harder.

And Kane is sucking and licking and biting, and the friction is driving me mad with lust. I have to lean forward to place my hands on the grass, grinding on his mouth until I’m almost—

“Oh, Kane!” I shriek, clenching down as waves of explosive bliss shatter through my lower belly, ricocheting through my upper thighs.

“Fuck,” Kane growls, lifting me off of him. “I need you. Now.”

We rip off his clothes together, throwing them into the field. And he’s sitting upright, pulling me into his lap. “You’re going to keep your eyes on me when I slip inside you.”

I bite my lip. I can’t believe this is happening. Fierce affection for this man chokes me, and I nod. His hands pull my hips closer until the head of his cock is nudging my slick pussy.

“You are the reason I survived this experiment, Skylenna.” Kane’s eyes are drunk and shadowed but still heavy with emotion. “You are the reason I chose not to stay in the inner world. You are why I’ve lived through my trauma. You are the love of my life.”

A tear slips from my left eye. I grip his shoulders as he lowers me onto his length, working his way inside me. My mouth parts as he lets me sink downward, and we hold that gaze, drinking each other in while our expressions reflect our pleasure.

“I love you,” I exhale, adjusting to his massive size stretching me. “I love you so much.” Even though I’ve done this once before with Dessin… I was not expecting my soul to sigh and my heart to melt.

Slowly, I slide my hands down his back, feeling for the burn scars, tracing the way the skin has morphed, and pouring my love into each inch of pain he suffered.

Kane keeps one hand on my waist and the other on the side of my face. Tears fill brown eyes, glistening up at me as I find the hilt.

I roll my hips on him, and he moves with me, an unhurried rhythm, a gradual build of friction.

All I’ve had since he’s been gone is grief, rage, death, and destruction. It’s been my fuel. My way of life until he came back to me. Gradually, those warm eyes crack through the cold armor and bleed into my bitterness.

As the sun goes down and the sky darkens, the meadow is filled with yellow glowing lights. Small and floating.

I point them out to him.

“Fireflies,” he whispers with hooded eyes. “I told you I wanted it to be special.”

He begins bucking his hips, bouncing me on top of him, all the while keeping his forehead to mine. His hard cock hits a spot inside me, again and again; I clench around him.

“Yes, god yes. Do that again,” he breathes.

I tighten around him again, and we both make deep sounds of pleasure.

Kane unfurls his restraint, turning my head and whispering in my ear, “Tell me you thought about this when I kissed you in the lagoon.”

His pace picks up, and he’s tightening his arms around me like a python.

“Tell me you wanted me to rip your panties off and make love to you under that waterfall.”

His hot breath and fantasy sliding across my ear break me. I wrap my arms around his neck and howl as I come on his cock, watching fuzzy glowing fireflies swim across the sky.

“Focus, sweetheart,” he says as I come down from my high. “Will you let me come inside of you?”

After a moment of blurry vision and distorted sound, I process what he’s asking and pull myself back to look at him.

“But… I could get pregnant.”

“Yes.” He stares back. “You could.”

“Isn’t that bad?”

“It’s reckless. But the thought of spilling inside of you, giving you a baby… it makes my dick so hard.”

And strangely, it spurs me with a rush of power, and I’m blind with the need to feel him have an orgasm inside me. I nod, grinding against him faster, and he growls his approval.

“Tell me again.” He slams his hips into me.

I melt a little, knowing exactly what he wants to hear.

“I love you, Kane.” I kiss him deeply. “I am so in love with you.”

His eyes hood like he’s about to pass out, then he stabs me with his cock once more, ending at the hilt and roaring against my lips.

“I love you, honey.”

Dessin

The sound of DaiSzek walking the perimeter of the meadow wakes me.

It takes me less time to adjust than it does any other alter. I’m, in a way, the bearer of most memories. I can judge who would best be able to hold certain levels of trauma. That’s just the way it is with our system.

I roll to my side, noticing that Skylenna is facing away from me, sleeping deeply. Her eyelids flutter with the dream she’s in. Her soft cheeks are pink, her long hair tangled, and even in sleep, she clings to my arm draped around her waist.

The sight makes my stomach do a somersault. She sucks me in like a vortex, her glowing presence splitting apart the dark clouds of my mind and soul.

I let out a breath, running the backs of my fingers over her cheekbone. What have you been through while I’ve been away, baby? It’s difficult for me to think about. But looking down at her, I see the exhaustion creating shadows under her eyes. She’s been through hell alone. I wish I could take that pain from her, erase those bad memories. Because, if I’m being truthful, I would destroy this world if I lost her. And if I had to watch her die in my arms?

I’d become the devil himself.

Skylenna mewls in her sleep, shifting her ass to push lightly against my—fuck.

I want to touch her. Do things to her that would wake her up in disorienting surprise. I want to watch her eyes roll back into her head. Want to make her needy for me. We spoke about this opportunity before she fell asleep. I couldn’t help myself; I had to ask permission to wake her from sleep if the urgency to bury myself inside her overtook me. She laughed and said yes, of course. And in return, I gave her my consent to wake me with her mouth. Any hour of the night.

My teeth grind together as I try to rein it in. But her round ass is pressed against my groin. I look down and instantly imagine that she is bare and offering herself for me to slide in. My cock stands freely at the visual.

I curse under my breath.

There’s so much we need to talk about. I’ve been meaning to ask if the pile of ash that was once the Emerald Lake Asylum is her doing. I want to hear about what she went through while I was in a dark, looming limbo. Healing in that casket. I need to learn about her mind, how it works, how she handled it. And I want her to ask any questions she has left because finally, we get to answer freely. We get to speak our truth.

Keeping her in the dark was agonizing for all of us. And we will never do it again. Not to mention, I’ll have to actually die before she constructs another genius plan that involves me rotting in a box and her losing her mind, possibly going on a wild killing spree.

Although, the thought of this delicious, long-legged, golden-haired goddess slaying the staff, the council members, the conformists like a madwoman makes my cock press painfully against its restraints.

Okay, fine, questions will come after I put my hands on her. I won’t fuck her yet. No, she deserves to be heard, have answers. Talk.

I reach my hand over her throat, and without realizing what I’m doing, my hand closes. I wonder if it would make her little cunt wet to feel me put pressure here. Choke her a little. My cock grows against her ass, and I adjust myself so I don’t completely lose it.

My hand drags down to her breasts, heavy and so fucking soft as I slip my fingers under her nightdress. I use two fingers to tug on a nipple, fighting the need to groan in her ear at how easily they perk up for me.

Skylenna shifts and sighs sleepily, happily.

My heart thuds inside my chest.

My girl had to watch me die. I remember looking up at her as the blood started to spill into my lungs like a dam bursting, and she was so painfully in denial, so sure I was indestructible, so confident I could stitch myself up and walk away from the sickle that went through my chest.

And all I want to do now is make up for that. Heal the wounds that must have permanently scarred her sweet, gentle heart. I want to love her so deeply, so madly, that she forgets that day entirely. I want to chase away her hell and deliver her to heaven.

My index finger teases her clit through her panties, rubbing gently. The motion drives me up the wall, and I have to slip a finger in if only for a second, just halfway. I’m breathing erratically, like I’ve been sprinting uphill. Not even fighting in a battle could make me this amped up. Only her. Only my girl.

I wedge into her opening to discover my fondling has gotten her wet, even though she’s still fast asleep—she’s soaking. The beast inside me presses my hips forward into her ass until I’m shaking with primal need. I pull that finger out to taste her. That’s all I need. To have one small taste of her arousal on my tongue, that’s it. That’ll keep me at bay until she wakes up and we talk. I suck the slickness off my finger and lose my fucking mind. That sweetness of her pussy could make a man do anything to be in her bed. To hear her moan. To be the one that fucks her senseless.

That’s it.

We’ll talk after.

I’m sorry, baby, I tried.

Freeing my cock from my trousers, I angle her back to arch for me, tilting her ass upward so I can prod my way in. Her soft cunt clenches over my tip. I hiss through my teeth.

Wider. I need her to open up for me.

Hooking a hand under her knee, I hoist her leg over my hip, spreading her pink folds enough for me to push my way through. She’s so fucking wet, it’s slick and less work to inch my way in.

Skylenna makes a delirious sound, arching her ass against me like even in a sleepy state, her body craves my dick as deep as she can get it. I bite and suck her earlobe.

Wake up, Skylenna.

She turns her head, looking at me with green eyes that look almost golden in the sunrise peeking over the tree line. “Morning,” she coos.

I smile. Fuck, she’s so cute. Sleepy Skylenna is my favorite.

“Do you like waking up with my cock buried inside you?”

She nods, losing her breath. But I can see the wheels turning in her head. She’s trying, in her half-awake state, to determine which alter I am.

“It’s Dessin, baby,” I say.

She grins, and I could explode inside her right now if I’m not careful. “I missed you,” she says drowsily.

I fuck her in lazy, slow undulations. Biting her shoulder. Pulling her hair so I can clamp my teeth down on her neck. She tastes like the lavender she’s slept on all night and sweat. And that only makes me hungrier. I pull Skylenna’s leg up wider, showing off her swollen clit to the open meadow.

“Would you like me to make you come?”

She pants. “Yes.”

And I know what she thinks I’m about to do. She waits, writhing against me, looking down at my fingers hovering over her glistening clit.

But I’m too strung tight with the desire to fuck her dirty today. That one night in the thirteenth room did very little to suppress the beastly cravings to mark her every which way with my semen.

My fingers dip toward what I want, the tight rim behind her cunt. I skim it with the pad of my thumb. And, like expected, my little wanton goddess squirms at the lightest touch.

“Dessin,” she breathes, caution in her voice.

“I have plans for every single one of your holes,” I snarl in her ear. Pulling my hand back, I spit over my fingers, lowering them back to the puckered rim I want to explore.

“Are you sure?”

Oh, that insecure tone just won’t do. I rub my wet fingers over that spot until she’s twisting and slippery with need while I continue to saw in and out of her slowly.

“You like that, don’t you?” I ask, but it’s strained and husky, betraying how close I am to climaxing.

She nods, needy and desperate, and fuck me because I’m so goddamn close I might have to pull out and take a breather.

But she’s edging, tipping right over. I push my thumb halfway inside that precious little hole, and she seizes up, the muscles in her lower abdomen spasming as she clenches around my dick. The sensation gives me temporary blindness. I no longer hear her cries of satisfaction because my ears ring loudly, blackness crowds the edges of my vision, and that tight leash around my orgasm snaps like a thin ribbon. I fuck her viciously, mindlessly, an incoherent creature of want. And it implodes within me like a tidal wave.

I pull my cock out, slick and heavy between those soft thighs, and shoot a white stream over the perfect swell of her ass. I grip her like a rabid animal, clutching her hips and breasts as I pulse and thrash through the last rapturous effects of my orgasm.

She slumps back to her resting position in the grass, humming her enjoyment, the way she does when she eats something tasty. I smile to myself, admiring my handiwork on her backside.

“Fuck,” I exhale. “You look perfect covered in me.”

Skylenna huffs out a laugh, looking out at the sunrise that blazes through the morning sky, lining the white clouds and reflecting off the dewy leaves.

“Promise to wake me up like that as often as you can?” she murmurs sweetly.

I close my eyes. It feels like she’s scraping a wound in my chest, yet at the same time, kissing it better. Promises of staying with her. Promises of waking up next to her. Promises of loving her for a lifetime.

I sigh. “I promise.”

My semen drizzles down her back, and I’m hard again. Just like that. I blow out a breath, ripping off a piece of my shirt to clean her with.

“You’re lucky I’ve turned a new leaf and decided to be a gentleman,” I tell her, wiping the shred of cloth over the spill. “I’d like nothing more than to leave you in this mess, stain my scent into your flawless skin.”

She laughs, a feathery sound, like sunshine trapped in her lungs. There is a secret chamber in my heart where I store that beautiful symphony. It could chase away any dark thought. It could kill any nightmare.

But what’s worse is I almost forgot that sound while we’ve been separated.

I lean down, nuzzling my nose into her neck, inhaling her smell of jasmine and rainwater, committing it to memory.

“You’ve never been this affectionate with me,” she whispers, still watching the sunrise.

“I know. I couldn’t be until now.”

The greatest challenge of my life was never surviving Demechnef training or manipulating my enemies. It was resisting the gravity that pulled us together, the magnetic energy that drew me into her atmosphere. Even after we first met in the asylum, I was dying to grab a fistful of her hair and feel her writhe in my lap.

How could I slow down the pace at which I was falling deeply in love with her?

“You wanted it to be less painful for me when you inevitably would—die.”

I answer with a sigh.

“It didn’t work.” Her voice is cold and detached. A new shell of bitterness surrounding her energy that wasn’t there before. I suspect she developed it while I was gone.

“Are you ready to talk about it?”

Skylenna closes her eyes, reliving something sinister, dark, suffocating. My veins pump with a spurt of adrenaline, making me want to physically attack her demons, slay those disturbing memories floating around her head.

“I don’t know where to start,” she says quietly.

I’ll take the lead then, baby.

“Can we talk about the asylum?”

She’s still for a second, muscles in her back taut and hard. “Not yet.”

“Okay.” I think about what she probably wants to know most. “Are you wondering about what happened after I died?”

She nods stiffly.

“I asked Warrose to give me the vial of spring water from the Naiadales colony after my heart stopped beating.” It’s not even worth discussing the way we damn near came to blows when I asked him to do that. I placed a heavy burden on his shoulders that day. “He didn’t think it would work. Didn’t want to give you false hope if I really ended up dying.”

“I don’t understand why you couldn’t just fake your death in an explosion or something less—awful.”

“I wish I could have. It was hell for me to watch your reaction before my heart stopped.” I rub a hand across my face. “But unfortunately, it had to be traumatic. It had to be graphic. It had to be too much for your brain to handle.”

Skylenna’s breath is uneven. I stroke a rough hand over her waist, placing a kiss on her shoulder and lingering there until she smiles.

“The spring water obviously worked. Just not as quickly as I would have preferred. By the time I woke up, my wound was completely healed, and—”

“But where did you go when you died?” Skylenna interrupts, tilting her head to face me.

I know what she wants to hear. But I was just as disappointed as she will be hearing the truth. “It was a darker, mirrored version of our world. Drained of all life. I wandered there until I opened my eyes again in the casket.”

“So you didn’t… see anyone?”

I sigh, wishing to God I could say yes. “No. I didn’t make it that far. It felt like a limbo, a resting spot until I chose to move on or go back.”

She continues staring without so much as a blink.

“Scarlett wasn’t there. She moved on to a better place.”

She tries to mask the emotion that I just triggered. But she fails. God, she fails miserably. Her eyes glisten with relief and heartache.

“I’m sorry you didn’t get to see Sophia and Arthur again.”

Me too, I hear Kane mutter close to the front. His voice sounds like my own, as do all of the other alters. But there are unique traits that always help me pinpoint who’s speaking. When Kane comes close, I feel the pang of guilt in my chest, anxiety, and humility. And unfortunately, he stays very close to the front when Skylenna is around. She has always been his anchor. Without her, even as a child, he would have buried himself deep in the inner world. Never choosing to resurface again.

Skylenna rolls over onto her other side, facing me now.

“I saw you in the asylum… I died, I think. From the simulated drowning. And I saw you there. Was that real? Or was it a dream?”

A tendon in my jaw tics. She did die. I wasn’t sure if it was real either when I saw her in that hallway. I thought maybe it was my own thoughts manifesting. But it did happen. They fucking killed her. Acid swims angrily in my veins, and I clench my fists until my knuckles turn white.

“That was real.”

“You were… not just you, Dessin. You were Kane, and Greystone, and all of your alters. How is that possible?”

It’s true. When we died, it was as if the trauma we endured to split us had never happened at all. “We fused, I think. Became whole again. One soul.”

Her eyes flare. “Why didn’t you tell me about faking your death then?”

“Because I was still dead, baby. I didn’t know if it would work or for how long I was dead. And you looked—tortured. I couldn’t put you through losing me all over again.”

She looked worse than tortured. That innocent, moral light that usually sparkles in her emerald eyes was extinguished. There was a murderous shadow seeping out of her pupils, a new perspective on life that lacked happiness.

“Why didn’t you come find me when you woke up? Why did I have to put myself in danger, like I did when I was a girl, just to get you to reveal yourself to me?” she asks in her best attempt not to sound frustrated.

Tell her the truth. We were afraid it didn’t work. We—

I know, I bark at Kane.

I rub my temples. “We did go looking, but… if the plan didn’t work, if you didn’t become like me, if your mind didn’t achieve the level of complexity that other female subjects had—this would have all been for nothing.” My heart knocks around my chest, and I swallow. “You would have had to grieve my death for nothing. You would have suffered for nothing. And I was… afraid to face you if you didn’t remember. We all were.”

Skylenna’s face is unreadable. I wish I knew what she was thinking.

“Kane knew that if you touched the cross, saw how we always found you when you were in danger, you’d do it again in hopes we’d come back to you. And that’s how we’d know for sure if the plan worked.” Christ, saying it out loud makes me sound like a coward.

The meadow is still and waiting for her response, with the exception of a couple of purple wisteria petals drifting over us in the wind.

“And… Vexamen has sent more squadrons. They’ve invaded Hangman’s Valley. It’s only a matter of time before they make it to the city line.”

Skylenna furrows her brow. “What would you have done if it didn’t work?”

“Found you with my tail tucked between my legs.”

She snorts. My cock jolts at the sound.

“Can you explain how you seem to know when I’m in danger?” she asks, and her brow softens from the slight diffusion of tension.

I shrug. “It defies logic, but I’ll try. It’s like a sixth sense, I suppose. We noticed it when you and Kane were children. The first time it happened, you twisted your ankle jumping down a tree while Kane was hunting for food. We knew it immediately. His heart pumped fiercely like he was being attacked. And his only instinct, thought, and focus was to find you.”

Her eyes glaze over, and I can tell she’s seeing it happen now. I’m eager to learn all of the ways her mind works.

“We knew it wasn’t a coincidence when we felt that panic every time Jack locked you in the basement. That’s how he was always there to let you out. I’d get us in trouble, and the punishment was the isolation tank. What my instructor didn’t know was that I knew how to escape it. He thought he was leaving me in for a day or two and had no idea I’d use that time to break us out so Kane could be with you.”

“Wow.” She shakes her head. “I always thought you were psychic. Well, I guess you kind of are.”

I chuckle.

“I’m sorry I was so angry with you when I found out who Aurick is.” She looks up at me, and I remember how much that information wounded her. I’ve never seen her that furious. Neither has Kane. “I can’t believe that was all my idea. To let Aurick think I was clueless, which I was. But it was by choice.”

“I struggled every day with that secret. I almost broke him in half at the ball. I even tried to cheat the system by giving you cryptic warnings about him.”

But Kane kept reminding me that this was Skylenna’s wish before she lost her memories. We had to respect that.

“I just thought you were kind of jealous.” She laughs.

“I was jealous he got to sleep under the same roof as you. I was territorial that he got to buy you nice things. I was angry as hell that he thought he had you.” My cock grows instantly. The need to claim her again is primal. To mark her. To fill her until she’s gasping for air.

Skylenna’s gaze falls to the tent in my pants, and her pupils dilate.

“I always wondered why I was so attracted to you. I never let my guard down around Aurick. But you…” She trails off, running a hand over my thigh. “I wanted you from day one, even though I knew how wrong it was. You were all I could think about.”

I am painfully hard now.

She leans down, running her bottom lip over the bulge. My chest rises and falls like a fucking animal.

“It was weird for me,” I say, snatching her chin in my hands. “I’ve always known you were important to Kane. You were his whole world, but seeing you for the first time as a grown woman…” I remember watching her take a seat in front of me while Suseas lurked like a creep. Her chest had filled out. She suddenly had these womanly curves, and those thighs no longer had a gap. She was tall and lean, and so fucking beautiful. “And on top of that, you weren’t afraid of me. I figured it had something to do with your body remembering ours. But still—you gravitated toward me, and it drove me mad.”

Her long fingers curl around my girth. She squeezes, making me writhe under her hold.

But Skylenna snaps her head up, looking out into the distance, and she releases me with a throaty gasp.

I lock my jaw and whip my head around at the distraction.

A black fluff trots into the meadow, locking eyes with my girl.

“Cockblock,” I grumble.

“DaiSzek!” Skylenna’s voice breaks, and she covers her mouth as tears spring to her eyes. She quickly throws on her clothes. My heart throbs at the sight of her running to him, falling to her knees as they embrace. DaiSzek uses his weight to topple them both to the ground as she cries, coos, and kisses him.

He stayed at my grave until I woke up. Maybe he caught the scent of my body healing, maybe it was our bond that told him to stay, either way, Warrose made sure he would so I would have a way out. But once my heart started beating, DaiSzek started digging until I could push open the casket lid. There’s a chance I would have died all over again if he didn’t wait for me. But that meant that he couldn’t be there for Skylenna while she experienced the most devastating days of her life.

I walk over to their heap of blonde hair and black fur on the ground, kneeling down to scratch DaiSzek’s belly.

And seeing her laugh through her tears, throw her head back in relief and happiness… I vow to give her this as much as I can and as long as I’m alive.

A family. A home.