“Swimming?” he said with a lifted brow.
“It’s hot.”
Kenson looked down at his uniform. He was dressed for battle, one he would lead men into in just a few short hours. In all truth he should be prepping them, but the opportunity to see Reveca was too tempting for him to pass up.
Slowly he unbuttoned his coat. When she whistled he chuckled a near silent laugh, flashing a carefree smile that he only let her see.
He took everything off but his bottom undergarments. He’d sensed her fear, that trembling that possessed her when their moments became too intimate.
Deep down, that innocent girl that she was would emerge in moments like this. He didn’t want that girl to ever leave Reveca, would wait forever for her if he had to. He’d traveled less than stellar roads in life, lived through one too many dares, and even though while he was doing that he was fighting for much needed change, he still crossed lines that were better left alone. He wanted it be different with Reveca. He wanted to savor her for all that she was.
Slowly he made his way into the water. She eased back. That innocent little sexy smile was on her lips, but he could tell she was nervous.
“You sounded so fierce tonight,” she said finally.
He raised his brow as he lowered himself in the water. “You heard me?”
“Maybe not every word, but I knew it was you.”
“It was intense,” he said as his stare slowly moved across her face.
“You don’t agree with them.”
“I don’t agree with a lot of people.”
“But you’re going to listen to them?”
Kenson bit his lip. If this were any other time, he would have moved his armies on. He would have told this coven that had sought his protection that he didn’t have time to protect them from wars they invented. But it wasn’t any other time. This time Reveca was involved. This time his fight had a deeper reason. He was fighting for honor, the honor of holding a noble woman for the rest of his life.
He wasn’t clear on where Jamison or even Lorecan came from. He’d heard the legends, seen their power, no doubt. What he was clear on was that they were not hired henchmen; they were not brute warriors but the men behind the war, the ones moving the pieces, those that supposedly had the ability to see the ‘big picture.’
Kenson believed that in order to have the favor that either of those had with Reveca’s father, he’d have to bend to their will. Without doubt, it was not easy for Kenson to bend. In fact, it was a brutal hell.
“I’m going to defend your land,” he said finally.
“Mine.”
“Yes, yours…the nature here calls you by name.”
She laughed. “Most of this land is swamp. Am I the queen of the slithery things that crawl through the night?”
“No…you’re the queen of that power I see in your eyes. There’s enough there to create your own little world.”
Reveca blushed and hoped that the moonlight didn’t reveal that.
“Why do you keep moving away from me? It was your idea to swim,” Kenson said as he splashed her.
She splashed back. “I don’t get you.”
Kenson ran his fingers through his dark, wet locks. “What’s there not to get? I’m by far not as complicated as your father’s favorites.”
“You’re not as damaged, either.”
He lifted a brow.
“Jamison, he’s running from something. Broke away from some life he didn’t want to live anymore. He doesn’t even know who he is. Lorecan, I don’t know, he’s too calm. You always have to watch out for the quiet ones.”
He lifted a brow. “The loud ones are dangerous too, always masking something.”
“And you’re neither.”
“You do get me,” Kenson said with a sly grin.
“No I don’t. I don’t know what I am to you.”
Something changed in the energy around them, it became heavier. The playfulness evaporated in an instant.
After an awkward moment she spoke again. “And your silence…it speaks volumes.” She moved past him. “I didn’t mean to spoil our escape.”
When she felt him reach for her arm she sucked in a deep breath, sensing that surge of energy swarm through her body awaken an unclaimed sensuality.
“I don’t want to terrify you.” His voice was quiet, deep, so smooth.
“I’m not terrified of a broken heart. I’ve been expecting it.”
His grip tightened on her arm. “That’s not what I meant.” He urged her to face him. She did, but she stepped back, stayed hidden in the water. Kenson let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “You’re innocent…you’re perfect. Someone like me, telling you that you’re everything—that would terrify you.”
“Everything?” she repeated with wide eyes, eyes that the moon was basking within.
“Everything. I’ve loved you from the first glance. I felt you before I arrived. I inhale your presence each day. I plot. I plan. I want nothing more than to make you mine and I will, one day. But I know that the gift of you, it doesn’t come without patience. It’s a gift that will test me.”
“You love me.”
Kenson clenched his jaw, unable to read her expression. He cursed himself for speaking his mind. It was inevitable, though. Each night before a coming battle he tended to do such things, yet usually that was him telling his men how much of an honor it was to know them. He’d never once told a woman anything even remotely close to this. “I do.” His stare moved over her angelic face. “You can run if you want. I get it.”
She didn’t run, she lunged across the water at him, molded her lips to his, just before parting them with sheer passion. The moment she felt his tongue move against hers she moaned.
Kenson wanted to stop, wanted to point out that she was very nude, that her body was wrapped around his like a vice and testing any and all restraints a man could be asked to have but he didn’t, couldn’t. No, she was life, and she was clinging to him.
Beneath the water he let his hands slowly move across her, felt himself smiling against her lips with the sound of her responsive moans. His touches were innocent thus far, but hearing those sharp breaths would lead you to believe they were anything but.
His lips broke away from hers, biting her bottom lip as they did so. Utterly slowly, his lips moved down her neck. That alone was wreaking havoc on Reveca’s emotions, her body, but when she felt his hand slide down her back, squeeze the flesh of her ass before moving lower, she quivered with a deep want that she had never felt before. The second she felt him slide his fingers within the heat of her, her entire body tensed. His lips halted on her neck.
“You feel that?” she gasped.
She could have sworn she felt his lips smile against her neck.
She rocked her hips forward. “Not this.” Her hands reached for his face, then moved down his shoulders. “That hum.”
He lifted his head and looked into her eyes. “That’s us, love. That’s us coming home.”
A gasping smile came to her just before her lips crashed into his. Her body rocked with his hand, and she fought not to let his lips leave hers, but when his lips moved down her neck, past her shoulders, when they claimed her chest she decided he must be a God, had to be. He was everywhere all at once, stimulating, pushing, awakening every inch of her mind, body, and soul.
She felt that hum began to build, growing and growing. It was like a flame, one that was meant to erupt, would dare to, only to settle once more.
“Kenson,” she breathed when she couldn’t focus her thoughts anymore. She felt a high began to consume her. All at once, the very cliff her body had been edging upward met its climax, and she cascaded over it. His lips broke away from her chest as he felt her began to quiver.
“Look at me,” he breathed.
And she did. She stared at him as she felt her body become utterly unraveled.
“Beautiful,” his husky voice said into the darkness.
Reveca’s body felt
like it had just performed every spell in the book, as if her energy had been pushed to its limits, but at the same she felt like she had been empowered, revitalized.
Her hands moved down his shoulders, down his chest, over every ridged muscle there, finally slipping beneath the only garment between them. He groaned as her hand ran the length of him.
“I want to make you hum,” she whispered as his eyes became hooded with every stroke of her hand.
“Love, I never stop in your presence.”
She claimed his lips then, rocked her body against his, moaned when she felt those deft fingers began to usher her toward another cliff of ecstasy.
Kenson felt his legs began to grow weary. The barrier of water was more than he could bear to stand any longer. He wanted to lay her across the bank. That one sliver of good in him hoped that transition would give her a second to think, a second to ask them to wait, and he would wait. He would fight this battle, and he would come home, demand her hand. He would demand they were joined that night, and if they were denied that, he’d ask her to leave with him, beg her to if need be. Hell, he’d downright insist that she did so.
Just as he rose them out of the water, her legs still wrapped around him, he heard a gasp from someone else.
On the bank were her parents, apparently out for a nightly stroll.
It was chaos after that point. Reveca unraveled her body from Kenson but she didn’t hide herself, she stood proudly by his side. That stubbornness didn’t last long as her mother ripped her away. Marched her to her room.
Reveca fought like hell to get back to Kenson, to defend him, told everyone in shouting distance that he took nothing she did not give him, that she loved him. When she started to pack her bags, her mother and her chambermaids tied Reveca to a chair. Told her that distracting a man before a battle was a bad omen and she had done just that.
Reveca thrashed, spoke every spell she could think of to undo her binds. Her mother spoke just as many, keeping Reveca bound.
From her room, she heard the army march out. She could feel Kenson, his dominant energy leading them all.
She felt sick, she felt doom. She didn’t want him to fight this battle. She agreed with him, those that were moving past the edge of their land would keep moving. Her coven was creating an unnecessary war, leading others to believe there was something on that land worth protecting.
That feeling never left, not once, but she did grow calm. She had to if she wanted to sense Kenson.
She told her mother that she loved him; it seemed more believable coming from her in a calm tone.
“I know this, child. Your father sought his army for a purpose.”
Reveca looked at her mother in shock.
“He had a dream. That dream showed your mate.”
“Then why did you rip me from him?”
“He had a battle to fight. You are not his yet, daughter.”
“You accept him. You vow that. When he comes back—you will not stand in our way. You’ll tell father that?”
Her mother stood, loosened the ties around her daughter’s arms. “If your father’s dream is true, when he returns we will not be the ones that stand in your way.” She looked down at her daughter. “You will be, child.”
Reveca didn’t understand that, and didn’t want to. All she could think was that before this night was done she’d be coupled.
She tried to tell herself that was the reason for the anxious feeling scratching against her soul, but as the hours moved on she couldn’t swallow that lie.
Saige was left to watch over her sister, and surprisingly when she saw Reveca begin to whisper words that would release her, she did nothing to stop her.
As Reveca dressed in a frantic rush, Saige spoke. “We’re cursed, sister.”
“What?” Reveca asked. Not really caring if she received a response.
“Father, the elders. They said we’re cursed. You and I.”
“And how are we cursed? They envy that we have mastered each of their arts already. They envy that Jamison, an outsider, has done so. We are not cursed, we are gifted.”
“That is an omen, sister.”
“To what.”
“Rapture.”
“I don’t have time for this, Saige.”
“Reveca,” Saige said gripping her arm as she went to climb out of the window. “If you leave here, you will spur the omens that have been spoken.”
“I don’t giving a flying fuck about omens. I have to know he’s okay. He has to know we’re not in trouble.”
Saige’s eyes filled with grief. “Reveca…you have to understand that the greatest things test us the most. They’re worth the pain.”
Reveca shook off her sister’s grasp and her words then ran toward the stables. Desperation. She owned that emotion.
She mounted her stallion bareback and yelled for him to go forward. He charged through the night like a bullet aimed at a distant target.
Reveca had no idea where she was going. The battle had grown quiet nearly an hour before. She called upon every connection she had with nature at large looking for guidance.
A massive crow emerged, flying straight as an arrow before Reveca and her galloping stallion—that was the path she followed. She never stopped, not even when she passed soldiers returning. In the air she sensed a victory, but like with any war she sensed the loss, the payment for that victory.
Her eyes misted as she told herself what she was feeling were her deepest fears and not a truth.
Moments later she reached an opening, one that bordered the river, and swamps on its other two sides. At the edge she saw Jamison. She saw Lorecan standing somberly next to their horses. She dismounted before her horse ever found the will to completely stop and began to run.
She stopped short. The moon was full, and dawn was daring to break against the horizon. There was enough light for her to see the carnage, the bodies laid across the ground.
In the midst of that, in the center, there were crows. They were not feasting, but watching. Silent crows encircling one body. They didn’t even bother to move as Reveca raced forward and fell to her knees.
Kenson, had a mortal wound right between his eyes. That didn’t stop her hands from rushing over him, her lips from touching his. Her tears fell like a river mixing with the rivulets of blood. She could barely breathe, felt her body roil but she wasn’t giving up. She pulled from deep within, pulled the power that was bred into her soul forward. She spoke spells, ones that were forbidden, ones that brought souls back from the clutches of death.
Slowly the blood vanished. The shock of that almost made her lose her focus but she kept on.
When he took a breath she gasped. When his eyes fluttered open she felt an eruption of emotions pouring out of her. He was only clinging to the edge, she knew that. She knew that she was nowhere near skilled enough to pull this spell off but she believed if she could keep him there the others would help her, they would combine their power and pull him back.
Kenson stared into her eyes, far past the surface. “You’re mine. I’ll live here for now,” he said as his mud stained hand reached for her chest.
“You’ll live in the flesh.”
He bit his lip as his dreary eyes moved over her. “Mine.”
She nodded her head frantically agreeing with him, but right then something happened.
She felt the air change. She felt powers she had only read about colliding. She looked up to see Jamison and Lorecan there, staring into the nothing around her. Lorecan glanced to Jamison, Jamison swallowed nervously, seemed far too weighted by the moment, then nodded.
That nod, it was deadly.
After Lorecan saw that he lifted his hands, and all the magic that Reveca had Kenson encased within vanished. She was nothing more than a girl holding a fallen love at that moment.
She screamed. That power she felt in the air, it grew denser, more massive. It was enough to make Reveca fear the unknown for the first time in her life.
Fear drove her
in that moment. She knew that power was taking him, that she could not stand by and let it.
She gripped the ground and spoke a spell. Normally she felt the welcoming call of nature’s power instantly, but whatever Lorecan had done had stripped her. That only made her pull even harder, use more conviction. She felt death calling her name but she kept on. If it was going to take Kenson then it was going to take her, too.
That struggle in the air faded. She felt it, but couldn’t see it. No, her eyes were squeezed closed. The spell she spoke, it was meant to halt time, to give a pause. That’s all she wanted right then. She needed a pause between life and death. A pause where she could negotiate with the powers that be, convince them that she deserved a life with her love.
When she opened her eyes, she knew he was gone. She knew that all her efforts were in vain. Through her grief stricken eyes she found shock, though.
The others, the soldiers that had fallen with Kenson, they were all standing, looking alive and well, but they weren’t.
The Edge, Reveca’s prison, was born then. The pause between two realms, life and death. She was no longer living but far from death. Every sense she owned was enhanced. The energy she had played with swelled within, understanding of that power came, too.
No amount of understanding, however, could stop the grief that she was drowning within.
Time, a lot of time passed before she allowed the coven to break her out of her prison. She walked amongst the living as a phantom. She saw the path between death and life, saw the hesitation, the beginning of reflection.
Later, much later, Jamison and Saige found the power, the spell, that would allow Reveca a life of flesh, a life where she could move through the living, and the space between.
Her anger, it never left.
She asked Jamison a million times what those silent words between him and Lorecan were that dawn. She could only ask him as Lorecan had left not long after Reveca’s life as a human ended.
Jamison had no answer he cared to give. Saige, she spoke of Rapture, of a fate.