Page 38 of The Bound Zodiac

He kissed me, and it wasn’t soft or playful. This was deep, needy, teeth and tongue and hunger. His mouth crashed against mine, tongue sweeping over my lower lip, and I felt myself open for him without even thinking.

The edge of the countertop dug into the backs of my thighs, but I didn’t care. I hooked my ankles behind him and dragged him tighter, his chest flush to mine, and the line of his cock was so hard against my core it was almost ridiculous.

Fuck, I wanted to tear his pants off.

He didn’t let up, not for a second, hands sliding up my bare thighs, fingers digging in just enough to leave marks. His mouth dragged over my jaw, down my throat, biting at the delicate skin until I gasped. My hands were in his hair, tangling at the nape, and when he ground against me, I felt heat bloom between my legs so instantly I nearly swore out loud.

I wanted to undo his belt, wanted to feel him bare and heavy and thick in my palm, but my brain was so fried from exhaustion that before I could even move my hand, I yawned. Mid-kiss. The most colossal, humiliating yawn of my life, right into his mouth.

Theo froze, and then had the audacity to laugh. He dropped his forehead against mine, and the sound of his deep laugh melted every bit of tension in my body. “Am I boring you, love?”

“Sorry,” I choked out, trying to get my breathing under control. “I think I’m actually dying of exhaustion. Rain check maybe?”

He pressed a quick, lingering kiss to the corner of my mouth, then my cheek, then my hairline. “Get some sleep, love,” he murmured. “I’ll see you when you wake up.”

He eased me off the counter with hands gentle now, ran his thumb over my cheek, and then in the span of a few seconds, disappeared through the door.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

LUCAS

It’d been seven long, arduous days of sitting cross-legged on cold stone floors while Tala talked us through meditation techniques. A full week of Jupiter sitting three feet from me and not touching me, not touching any of us, because she was so afraid that Nightfall could feel it if she let her wall slip for even a second. She didn’t have enough faith in herself, because we all knew she could keep them out.

I understood it. Intellectually, I understood it. The bond was too new, too volatile, too enormous. Nine men funneling through a single axis was unprecedented for a reason. If she opened the floodgates even a crack, if any of us lost ourselves in her the way we all wanted to, the cascade through the bond could knock a man unconscious. But it would also hurt Percy, Aiden, Draco and Eris to know that she was with us and not them. Not that they bloody deserved her.

I wanted her. That was the long and short of it. I wanted her in ways that made me feel like a teenager again. I felt stupid and desperate and completely out of my depth. I wanted to lay her down on every surface in this tower. The counter where I felt the moment Theo pinned her, the worn wooden desk in my room, the stone windowsill that overlooked the courtyard, the goddamn floor if it came to it. I wanted to feel her nails in my shoulders and hear the sound she made when I was inside her, the sound that had been replaying in my head on a loop since returning from Dominion.

That night, Rowan and I had fucked her until she was a puddle of need in our arms. I’d replayed it so many times, every detail preserved in perfect, agonizing clarity. The way she’d arched when Rowan had her from behind. The way she’d gripped my cock and pulled me to her mouth. The exact pitch of the sound she’d made when I’d finally, finally slid into her.

I’d fucked my own hand every night for weeks thinking about it. Standing in the shower with my forehead pressed to the tile, or lying in the dark with my jaw clenched so tight my teeth ached, and every single time I came with her name in my mouth and the taste of copper from biting my own tongue.

It was pathetic.

I put my glasses back on and crossed to the window. Down in the courtyard, the fog was starting to burn off. Another day of meditation. Another day of sitting in a circle with my hands on my knees while Tala talked about psychic and emotional containment and the layers of the bond. Jupiter listened to every word like her life depended on it, because it did. Because all of ours did.

She sat close enough during these sessions that I could feel the warmth of her body, close enough that I caught the faint scent of her shampoo every time she shifted. She’d lean forward when Tala spoke, silver eyes bright and focused. I watched her take notes in a small black notebook she’d started carrying. I watched her chew on the end of her pen when she was thinking, and pull her hair over one shoulder when it fell into her face. Every single one of those small, mundane movements made me want to put my hands on her, so badly my cock was going to wither and fall off.

The bond does not function like a wall, Tala had said in one of our meditation sessions. It is a door. You can open it. You can close it. You can lock it, and you can knock on that door too.

In an emergency, Tala continued, pacing the circle with her hands clasped behind her back, the axis can force the bond open whether you want it or not. This is not a gentle process. It will feel like having your skull cracked open. But if your axis is dying, or if the shield is scattered and they need to find you, they will do it, and there is nothing any of you can do to stop them. The reverse is not true. You cannot force the bond open from your end. You can only knock, and hope she answers.

On the fifth day of training, when I thought I would scream if all we were going to do was meditate, Tala introduced us to Richard. I already knew him, of course, but I couldn’t remember a single conversation I’d ever had with him in my years with the Order. He was a distant relation to Theo by marriage I was pretty sure.

He was a small man, maybe five-foot-six, thin as a rail, with white hair that stuck up in every direction and glasses so thick they magnified his eyes to twice their size. He carried a leather satchel that was older than he was.

“Richard Hargrave,” Tala said. “He has been studying Ophis magic since before most of you were born. He will be handling the theoretical portion of your training.”

Richard didn’t look at us. He was already unpacking his satchel, laying out star charts and notebooks and what looked like a handheld device made of dark iridescent metal that I recognized immediately. The astrolabe.

“Good morning,” Richard said, still not looking up. “Sit.”

We sat. Jupiter sat directly across from him, her notebook open on her knee. Richard’s eyes flicked to her and I noted the sense of reverence. Like he’d spent his whole life reading about something and had finally, against all odds, encountered the real thing.

“The Ophis home world,” he began, unrolling the first star chart across the stone floor between us, “orbits a binary star system. Two suns. Not the kind you’re picturing—not a primary and a companion. These were equal. Twins. They orbit each other, and the planet orbits them both, in a figure-eight pattern.”

Jupiter leaned forward. “A figure-eight?”

He nodded. “Stable for millions of years. The gravitational mathematics are—” He waved a hand. “Beyond the scope of today. The point is that the light on the Ophis world is not like light anywhere else. It’s violet, you see. The atmosphere refracts the binary light through a layer of crystalline particulate that existed nowhere else in the recorded galaxy. The sky is violet. The oceans are violet. The plants are…actually the plants have enough chlorophyll that they’re an exquisite shade of emerald.”