Page 69 of Omen of ice
“Are you so desperate that you’ll try tricking me into kissing you?”
“How am I tricking you?” I grin. “You forget that we’re linked. I can feel your desire just as plainly as I do my own. So, don’t play—”
“Oh, Goddess. Would you shut up already!” Tania growls and grabs two handfuls of the front of my shirt. She pulls me in and crushes her lips to mine.
Idofeel her desire as I do my own, but to be fair, the move is all mine. I can’t say I don’t like it, though. Her coming for me first, along with the blazing warmth of her lips, fans my flames higher, hotter, than they’ve ever been.
The kiss is demanding, insistent, and when I wrap my arms around her waist and drag her close to chase away what little space separates us, I find myself craving so much more. I slide my hands up her back and tangle them in her hair, beneath her long braid. Without hesitating, I tug the string free and run my fingers through her flame-red locks.
In turn, Tania clutches the back of my head and backs me up against a large percher tree. The impact as she crushes her body to mine sends leaves fluttering to the ground around us.
I’m not sure who breaks first, but one minute we’re lost in each other, the sensation nearly too much to take, and the next we’re both stumbling in opposite directions, breathing heavy and batting lust-fogged eyes.
I can’t make out what I’m feeling through the link. It’s chaotic and muddled, and it takes me a moment to catch my breath. “See? That wasn’t complicated at all,” I lie.
As the forest stops spinning, I find myself more confused than I’ve ever been. Sure, Tania and I have a relationship that differs from any I’ve had before, but for some reason, the kiss feels odd. Strange in a way I’ve never felt. I hate to admit she’s right, but anything more than this might complicate things between us.
It’s the damned link. It has to be. It has us so tied up together that our emotions are a tangled mess. Without it, a simple brash would be just that.
Tania is still breathing heavily. She leans against the tree and watches me like she’s trying to see straight through.
“I’ll take the first watch,” I manage to whisper, still not taking my eyes from her.
She swallows, and I’m sure she’ll back down, but she doesn’t. “That’s all right. I’ll take the first watch.”
“Then I guess we’ll both take it.” I slide to the ground where I am, not daring to move closer to her.
A few moments pass, and Tania does the same, settling across from me. Her gaze skims the tree line, bouncing between the noises of the forest.
There’s no way to know for sure what inhabits these woods now. Books say that centuries ago, the woods here were thick with harpies and tree nymphs, but they seem to have moved on. The only real signs of life are several large bird nests scattered about, nestled into the thick branches of the surrounding trees.
Tania is amped. The kiss should have been a tension breaker, but instead, it’s made us both uneasy. It thrums along my skin, reverberating beneath my ribs. Like her presence in my head, it’s an itch I can’t quite scratch. “Tell me about the Order,” I say.
“Why?”
“Because I’m curious. And since you’ve made it clear that you’ve no interest in passing the time in moreinterestingways…it will keep us awake.” Gods know where my mind will wander if I dare go to sleep. “Do you miss it?”
“Yes,” she says. Then, after a moment, softer: “No.”
“The estate was friendly to me, but I was never truly happy there. I never belonged. Not really. It was familiar, and there was a certain level of security that came from that despite the less-than-ideal conditions.”
“I get that.” She picks up a small rock and rolls it between her fingers several times before throwing it into the brush. “We’re trained to be fearless. Taught to willingly court death with a song in our hearts if the need arises.”
This is it. Another opportunity for me to tell her the truth. All I have to do is open my mouth and spit it out. “Tania…”
She lifts her gaze to mine. “You have nothing to feel guilty about.”
I nearly choke on my own tongue. “I don’t—”
“I feel it. Your guilt.” She leans forward, narrowing her eyes just a bit. “Unless…there’s something else?”
In an instant, the inside of my mouth dries out. My throat is thick, clogged by words that I desperately want to push out—but can’t. “It won’t ever come to that. The death part.”
She studies me for a moment, then shakes her head, just once. “That isn’t what you want to say, Valen.”
“No. It’s not.” There’s no point in lying to her. We’re past that now. I won’t add insult to injury by trying.
“What aren’t you telling me?” There’s no malicious suspicion in her voice, and that makes this all ten times worse. If she was angry, if she demanded me to confess, I would do it. I don’t think there’s any way I could refuse her. She has more power over me than anyone else ever has. I don’t intend to tell her this, but if she looked—really looked—she’d see it for herself.
