Page 74 of Born of Starlight
When I moved to pull away, she held onto the back of my shirt. Her head was tilted just right, and I leaned in to let my lips brush hers.
It wasn’t fair to play games with her, but I wasn’t sure what game I was even playing anymore. Maybe the one where my heart gets roasted over a spit.
“See you in the morning, my beauty.” I spoke the words between our mingled breath before placing the gentlest kiss on her lips and then stepping back out of her grip, unwinding my limbs from her.
She looked confused but offered me a tired smile before she backed away and turned to walk down the iron steps.
As I settled into bed, Amara’s words returned to me.“She would bring you to your knees.”
What would I give to see Asterie from that angle?In my imagination, I dropped to my knees before her, tasting her, making every muscle in her body tense before I brought her to release. I couldn’t help wrapping a hand around myself at the thought.
After completing myself like a lusty teenager, I buried my head under a pillow.This infatuation is nothing.It was simply my power within her, tempting my ship toward the rocks.
No amount of lying to myself could veil that my fondness for the enchantress grew beyond whatever magic bonds threaded our fates.
Chapter20
Asterie
Amara awaited in a worn leather chair by the foyer fireplace. I was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to curl up under quilts and let sleep carry me away. Being awake meant facing how the Sisterhood had taken me and how Firose had aclaimover me.Did she own the power in my veins, my free will, my actions? Then how did I leave?
Amara owed me as many answers as I owed her, so I sank into the chair next to her, facing the flickering flames of the grand stone fireplace. Its mantle was laden with candles and botanical specimens that Wyeth had gifted me for winter solstice through the years.
“I saw it all fall. The Corridors…”
Amara stared blankly into the fire and nodded. Then she turned to the table beside us, where a bottle of dark liquor and two glasses sat, and poured a generous amount into each glass. “I’m not upset with you.”
She offered me one of the crystal tumblers, which I graciously took.
The liquor burned as it went down. I preferred wine, but this was an occasion for something harder.
“You should be. I left my tower without telling the Sisters. I kept a prophecy from you.” I swirled the amber liquid in the glass before taking another sip.
“You assume any of that matters to me more than your safety and happiness.” Amara shifted in her seat. “The visions, have they continued?”
“The nightmares continued until we got to Fen’s cabin.” I paused. “I’ve struggled to conjure anything since though. The moonstone, it will not respond to me.”
“Nothing at all?”
I shook my head, staring into the embers of the fire.
Surprise spread across Amara’s face, and she set down the glass. She knew as well as I did what that might mean for my fate. We’d always been free to speak when it was the two of us. Free to express ourselves.
“Fenris told me that Firose had Lynx patrolling the north woods. They seem to be collecting Wasteland defectors.”
I nodded. “Emmerick and I were attacked by a pride—we killed two of them before Fenris arrived, and they scurried off after seeing Vangard.”
“The Lynx. TheysawVan?” Amara stiffened.
Her reaction made me uneasy. “Yes. He killed one of them.”
Amara gripped the glass tighter and raised it to her lips. “Fen hadn’t told me that part.” It took a moment for her to speak again. “And the moonstone, before it stopped responding to you, it showed you no way to stop it? The coming war?”
“No.” I let my head sink back into the leather chair. “I tried to conjure path after path. I found no success for us as a unit, the Sisterhood. Then I tried alternate routes—eliminating elements and people. Each time, it just ended in war. It wouldn’t show me anything else. When I’d stopped trying—that’s when the prophecy came to me. And, this prophecy, itspoketo me.”
Amara pitched forward in her chair. “What do you mean it spoke to you? Prophecies don’t speaktoOracles. Oracles conjure them. Are you sure it was a prophecy?”
I sighed, running a hand through my knotted dark hair, realizing how much it needed combing. “It specifically said, ‘Don’t tell the others.’ Which, I’m sorry…I thought it meant you too.”
