Page 150 of The Hunted
Except apparently, now he did.
“Do you?” he asked.
She started grinding again, but this time, with a purpose. Above him, she nodded, the loose strands of her red hair that he’d not been able to gather in his fist falling over her shoulders and swaying the closer she brought him to orgasm.
He could feel hers, too.
The way she shivered.
How her muscles tensed.
The wildness in her eyes.
“I do,” she breathed.
She came. He followed right after. His I love you, too came out clear, and strong, though.
As it should.
• • •
“Look,” Eryx murmured.
Arelle turned her head to the left where she rested on his chest, using him as a pillow. He didn’t mind, and besides, like this, he could hold her close. He’d climbed into one of the slated windows of the tower, using the stone ledge as a backrest before she’d joined him and curled into his lap. Here, they could watch the bay, the sea, and even the sky.
Arelle sighed. “The sky is purple.”
It had been that way for a while.
He merely hadn’t mentioned it.
“Do you smell that?” she asked.
He didn’t need to ask what.
“There’s smoke in the wind.”
“Something is burning,” she whispered.
“Atlas. Atlas is burning.”
He didn’t need to be told.
A kingdom was changing.
A war had begun.
Down below, sea foam gathered on the rocks of the shore surrounding the watchtower. Another good sign that the storm had stopped, and they would have calm for a while. Bathed in the purple of the sky, he pressed a kiss to the top of Arelle’s head.
“What do we do now?” she asked. “Where do we go?”
“We do have options. I have … connections in places. Allies, though I’d hesitate to use them when their loyalties can be bought rather easily. Or we stay and—”
“Die?”
She made a good point.
He had a feeling that allowing Poe to go back to the sea would change what happened underwater. Arelle told him what she’d seen after escaping—Mattue and Eryx’s dead father—which meant the kingdom on land would be in upheaval as well.
