Page 82 of Renegade Kingdom
Outside the window, the strange colors of the Fifth Court swirled and shifted. I could feel the magic of this place pressing against my awareness, old and powerful and somehow aware of us. But it wasn’t threatening. It felt almost... welcoming. Like the court itself was pleased that we were here. That she was here.
“Five more minutes?” she asked, looking up at me with those beautiful eyes.
I smiled, pulling her closer, pressing a kiss to her forehead. My lips lingered there, breathing in the scent of her, memorizing the feel of her in my arms. “As many minutes as you need. As many as I can give you.”
She snuggled into my chest with a contented sigh, and I closed my eyes, letting myself sink into the moment. Into the peace.The bear rumbled his approval, settling into a satisfied doze in the back of my mind.
There would be challenges ahead. I knew that. There would be Nymeria to meet and Arik to face and a realm to save. Challenges almost made it sound too easy. Because there would be battles and sacrifice and, more than that, there would be pain. Nothing about what came next would be easy.
But right now, none of that mattered.
Right now, there was only this room, this bed, and the woman in my arms. Only the bond that tied us together and the love that made it unbreakable. Only the warmth of her body against mine and the steady rhythm of her breathing as she drifted back toward sleep.
The world could wait.
This couldn’t.
“I love you,” I murmured against her hair, so soft I wasn’t sure she could hear it.
But her arms tightened around me, and she pressed a kiss to my chest, right over my heart.
“I love you too,” she whispered back. “Always.”
I closed my eyes and let the peace wash over me.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Alyssa
The knocking came while I was still tangled up in Tank.
Three sharp raps on the door, impatient and familiar, and I knew before I even opened my eyes that it was Fizzle. Nobody else knocked like that. Nobody else would dare interrupt what had been the first real peace I’d felt in weeks.
Tank’s arms tightened around me. “Ignore it,” he murmured against my hair.
The knocking came again. Harder.
“You can’t ignore me, and I wouldn’t recommend trying,” Fizzle’s voice came through the door, clipped and irritable. “Get up. Get dressed. It’s time.”
Something about those last two words made my stomach drop.
I pulled myself reluctantly from Tank’s arms and reached for the clothes that someone had left folded on the chair by the window, trying not to think about how intrusive that felt or the fact that to our knowledge there were no other living creatures in this Court. Tank was already moving, his body shifting from rest to alert in the space of a breath. He pulled his shirt over his headand his eyes found mine, that immediate, instinctive sweep he always did. Checking I was whole. Checking I was safe.
I opened the door. Fizzle sat in the corridor, his small form perched on a ledge of crystal that jutted from the wall. His eyes found mine and held them.
“Time for what?” I asked, being purposefully obtuse.
“You know what.” He hopped down from the ledge and started walking. “She’s been waiting for you. She’s been waiting for averylong time.”
The voice in the wind. The whisper that had followed me across this realm, through forests and battlefields and frozen wastelands. The presence I’d felt at the edges of my awareness since the first moment I’d set foot in Nymeria.
My mother. Not the woman who raised me. The being that created me.
Tank’s hand found the small of my back. Steady and warm, just like always. I leaned into it for just a second before we followed Fizzle into the shifting corridors of the Fifth Court.
The others were already gathered in a wide antechamber, and I didn’t have to ask how they knew. The bond was humming with it. Something was coming. Something big. Dean was leaning against the far wall with his arms crossed, his jaw tight, his eyes tracking every shadow. The wolf was close to the surface. I could feel it through the bond, that coiled, restless energy that meant he was on high alert. Maddox stood near the centre of the room while Ryder was pacing. He stopped when I entered and opened his mouth, probably to make a joke, but nothing came out. He just looked at me with those sharp eyes and nodded.
And Damon. His eyes were clear. Lucid. The nightmare was quiet, at least for now, and the man underneath was watching me with an intensity that made something in my chest tighten.
