Page 28 of Alien Devil’s Crown

It built with nowhere to put it. His weight, the controlled drag of his claws along my thigh without breaking skin, his fangs at my throat, the heat of his saliva spreading wherever his mouth marked me, the ridges catching on every stroke.

I was saying things: “yes,” “there,” “harder,” his name, filth I hadn’t said out loud in years and didn’t stop now.

“Mine.” His voice at my ear, wrecked and sure. “Say it.”

“I want you.” Not the word he asked for.

And he broke on it worse than the word would have broken him. His rhythm gone, his mouth open against my throat, and I felt the exact second he stopped holding anything back.

I dragged him deeper with my heels and went over a second time on the feel of it. He followed me, my name in his teeth, his whole body shaking. I held on with everything I had and thought, from a long way off: finally.

After, the cot left nowhere else to go, so I lay on his chest.

“Status,” I said when breathing became possible.

“Compromised.”

“How badly?”

His arm tightened around me. “Permanent.”

“Good. I would hate to do all that work twice.”

“You will repeat it.”

The certainty in his voice sent one last aftershock through me. He felt it and gave me the smallest, most dangerous smile I’d seen on him yet.

His sigils ran under my fingers, the deep violet lines of them across gray skin, down the sternum, over the ribs. I traced one from collarbone to heart. The line stayed still as I followed it over his ribs. His heart worked slowly beneath my hand.

“They don’t do anything,” I said. “I half expected.”

“They’re not weather. They’re geology.” His hand moved idly through my hair. I had not expected him to be capable of something so unhurried. Then he caught my tracing hand, brought it to his mouth, and kissed the palm, once, deliberate, eyes open. Warmth spread through my chest and I let myself feel it.

“Ask it,” he said, into my hair. “You’ve been holding a question for a minute and a half.”

“You count everything.”

“I count you.” No apology in it. “Ask.”

“After.” The word came out smaller than I built it.

“When it’s done. When there’s no Conclave to burn and no case to carry. What does Lika do?” I traced the sigil again under my fingertip.

“Six years I’ve had exactly one plan. It ends tomorrow around 1400. Every time I try to see past it there’s just... white space. Unmapped. I’ve never told anyone that.”

His hand kept moving slowly through my hair. He did not rush to comfort me or pretend he had an answer.

“Six years I’ve had exactly one plan,” he said. “Mine ends there too.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only honest one I own.” A pause, and then, more quietly: “But it stopped looking empty on the Virelle. I’m not going to pretend I don’t know why.”

I lay very still against his chest and let the answer remain unfinished. We could decide what it meant after the war.

“If something happens tomorrow...” he started.

“Nothing is going to happen.” I put my hand over his heart. “We’re going to win. And then you’re going to do this again.”