Skies.
Heat sears through me, unstoppable. It is the same as it always is between us—sweet combustion, delicious torture. I feel like crying as our lips dance together, a violent clash of tongues and teeth that blazes me down to my bones.
But how can I be crying?
This is everything I have wanted, everything I have wished for in my most far-flung fantasies. The formidable Pendefyre of Dyved, submitting to me. Relinquishing his precious control, pulling me into his arms, and never letting me go again. Mine to hold—not just for a few stolen seconds in the darkness, not just for a momentary lapse of judgment.
Mine.
Is he mine?
Am I his?
My body is alight with such pleasure, it takes my mind a moment to catch up. For reason to crash back in, a wave of pain to douse the passion. Tearing my mouth from his, I push at his shoulders until he rolls off of me.
“Wait!Wait.”
His breaths are as ragged as mine. “What? What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Penn…” I shake my head as I sit up, feeling a million contradictory emotions at once. “This…We…We cannot do this.”
“Why the hell not?”
“We cannot just dive back into each other. Not after everything that’s happened.”
He stares at me, face stricken, hair messy from my hands. “Rhya—”
“There are things we must talk about,” I insist softly, trying to get my spinning senses under control. Praying he will nottouch me again, for when he does, my thoughts go up in flames. “I need a moment to process.”
“To process what? I’ve just told you—”
“That you want me back in Caeldera. Back by your side,” I echo thickly, scooting back a few feet so I can breathe properly. “Yes. I got that part.”
“Then why are you confused?”
“What, exactly, does that mean?”
“I do not know how to make it any clearer.”
“Then…” I shake my head, trying desperately to slow my pulse from a thudding tattoo to a more measured tempo. “What has changed these past three weeks?”
“Changed? Changed how?” He studies me, brow furrowed, eyes dark with displeasure. “It seems you are the one who has changed most during this separation.”
My chin jerks. “That may be true. But that was not my question, as you well know—even if you are attempting to deflect it.”
“Gods, you’ve spent too much bloody time among people who speak in circles,” he mutters. “Not everything requires endless discussion.”
“I think I have earned a conversation. An explanation, at the very least.”
Scowling, he gestures at me to continue.
“What will be different between us if I return with you?”
“If?”He bites out the word. “Do you intend to stay here, then? Withhim?”
“Do not drag Soren into this.”
“I am not dragging him anywhere. He has inserted himself between us gleefully.” He wipes a hand down his face, as if that might clear the hurt from his expression. “It pains me you cannot see how he is toying with your emotions.”