Page 121 of Lady Knight and the Thief

Then, Torren kissed her, fully on the lips.

Cypress hungrily returned the kiss. Her hands slipped under the silken shirt to revel in the feel of his skin under her fingertips.

Torren ground his hips into hers as they kissed, her spine fully against the wall.

The kiss broke, and Cypress let out a sigh of content when Torren nipped along her collarbone, and an unmistakable thick bulge in the front of his pants pressed hard against her center.

Cypress wanted to reach between them and stroke it, to see if she could coax pleasure from him as easily as he had her.

For one maddening moment, Cypress considered telling Torren the guard was still standing at the archway, that they needed to go further–all the way–in order to be convincing.

A peek through her lashes revealed that the guard was gone, though, so Cypress relaxed her thighs where they’d clenched around his waist and smoothed his hair back in place. “He’s gone,” she whispered, though her chest still heaved, and her center ached for him.

Torren lifted his face from her neck, lips red and puffy. But, he merely lowered her gently back to her feet, storm grey eyes locked onto hers. Without a word, Torren straightened her mask, which had gone askew in the frenzy.

“Shall we?” she asked and smoothed his shirt where she’d wrinkled it.

“After you, Duchess,” Torren said in that low rasp.

She had half a mind to press him back against the wall and ravish him herself.

Instead, she spun on her heel and quietly marched through another adjoining arch. Cypress counted the golden candelabras set on the wall until they reached the fourth. Then, she grabbed the smallest of the arched candle holders and rotated it counterclockwise.

Slowly, the stone wall shifted, the sound of stone grinding against itself filling the space. Cypress felt as if her heart was in her throat while they waited for the stone to move enough in order to reveal a dim passage. Once it was fully opened, she grabbed a small candle lamp from a ledge and lit it using the flames of those in the corridor.

Wordlessly, Torren did the same, and then they slipped into the passage, the door grinding closed after them.

38

Belly of the Beast

Theinteriorofthepassageways was dark, though thankfully, they were relatively clear of spiderwebs.

Cypress wasn’t even sure if Cade knew of the existence of the tunnels. Someone within Caelith’s cabinet would, though, so she and Torren would still need to take care that they weren’t discovered.

The wall separating them from the castle proper was stone, but it would only dampen their noise, not erase it completely.

Cypress held out hope that they didn’t meet anyone in this passage on their way to the tower. If they did, she and Torren would need to handle the situation quickly and quietly.

With only a small dagger strapped to her thighs and no visible weapons on Torren, though, that could prove to be a challenge.

When Cypress mentioned as much to Torren behind her, he said, “Don’t worry, Lass. I came prepared to do what I must.”

“I don’t know what thatmeans,” Cypress hissed and began climbing the long, winding stairs.

Torren didn’t deign to respond.

While Cypress was Captain, she hadn’t given much thought to the servants who had to traverse these passageways, hauling food and drink and who knows what else up to the royal rooms. Most of them had been orphans like her, merely dealt a less fortunate card than she when it came to where they’d landed in the Keep.

Now, though, all that Cypress could picture were the faces of those orphans, as they’d been as children carrying countless things up and down these stairs, day after day.

That feeling of foolishness, of naivety crept up Cypress’s spine. She’d been so blind to the mistreatment of those around her. Cypress didn’t know if she would ever be able to bring herself to forgive that blindness- that willful ignorance.

But, she made a vow to be better. To do better.

Starting with righting this wrong. Once the Hunt was sleeping once more, Faerie would no longer bend the knee to Grethnah. She would make sure of it.

She kept waiting for guards to come out of a darkened connecting hall as they climbed the stairs, to ambush them where there was nowhere to run but back down the stairs.