Ascension

by Sadie Moss

  His hips shift beneath me, and suddenly, his grip on me changes. He lets go of the strands of hair he was fisting and palms the back of my head instead, crushing his lips to mine in a bruising, ravenous kiss.

  Yes.

  This.

  This is what I needed, what I’ve been needing for so long. It’s a release of everything that’s built up between us, an expression of the purest kind of feeling—one there isn’t even a word for.

  I slide my hands into his hair too, gripping the sides of his head as my tongue moves with his, our teeth knocking together as we both try to take more of the other person and give more of ourselves.

  Moving my hips more urgently against him, I chase the pleasure building in my core. My clit aches as it presses against his hardness, and just when I think I’m only driving myself mad, Callum wraps his arms around me, stilling my movements.

  “I have to be inside you, Sage,” he murmurs, his lips still brushing mine as he speaks. “Now.”

  I nod fervently, unable to come up with the words to respond. One of his arms stays banded around me, but his other large hand steals beneath the fabric of my skirt. My heart pounds as I sit up a little, lifting my weight off his lap to allow him to undo his pants. He shoves the fabric down just enough to free his cock, and the velvety skin of his thick member brushes against my inner thigh, making my breath catch.

  My gaze locks with him as he releases his cock, moving his hand to my plain cotton panties and pulling the fabric aside, giving him access to the place where I need him most.

  He drags one thick finger through my folds, shuddering when he feels how wet I am for him already. We’re both grimy and bloody from our time in captivity, but in this moment, I don’t give one farsing care about that.

  I need him.

  The world could be ending, death could be bearing down on us, but it wouldn’t change this one simple fact.

  “Are you ready for me, little soul?” His voice is gruff, strained with desire.

  “Yes.” Mine is just as ragged, and my inner walls clench as I say the word, as if they’re already trying to clamp around him, to bring him deeper inside me.

  He uses the arm wrapped around me to lift me a little higher, and when I feel the broad head of his cock meet my slick entrance, I make an involuntary sound deep in my throat.

  He’s big. I can tell that already. Thicker than Paris or Echo, which makes sense, because everything about this man is large and powerful.

  Slowly, he brings me down on his shaft, filling me up inch by inch. His gaze stays locked on my face as he impales me, as if he’s drinking up my expression—devouring it.

  My walls stretch around him, and my mouth drops open as I lose myself in his intense stare. His body shudders again, and like aftershocks from an earthquake, it spreads to my body.

  I don’t understand it.

  We’re both still fully clothed. We’re not even kissing anymore. But in this moment, I feel more deeply, intimately connected to Callum than I ever have. I feel lost in him, one with him.

  “Oh, gods.”

  It’s a breathless gasp, and I don’t even know what gods I’m calling out to. Certainly none that I can think of deserve credit for the incredible sensations spreading through my body. Callum is the only one responsible for that.

  “Farse, Sage.” The muscles in his neck tighten as he swallows. He’s got my panties hooked to one side, his hand still buried beneath my skirt. “You feel better than I ever imagined.”

  The way he says it makes me think he’s imagined this more than once, and I have a sudden vivid memory of his hand wrapped around his cock, stroking desperately as he gazed at an image of me. My walls tighten around him, making my clit throb even harder. I nod, the movement jerky as I try to process the fresh wave of sensations tearing through me.

  He must see it—how close to the edge his words have pushed me—because he reaches up with his free hand to clutch my hair again, his eyes flashing with something like determination.

  “Come, little soul. Come for me right now.”

  It’s a command. Pure and simple.

  And I obey.

  My breath hitches, my body shaking as I grind hard against his pelvis, bringing his thick length impossibly deeper. I stop trying to fight the pleasure burning through my nerve endings and give into it instead, letting the orgasm sweep me away like a rushing river.

  He doesn’t let me duck my head, and I refuse to close my eyes, so we watch each other as I whimper and moan through my release, all my muscles tensing then relaxing.

  When the orgasm finally passes, we’re both breathing hard, and my heart thuds like a hammer against my breast bone.

  “You’re beautiful. So farsing perfect.” Callum leans forward to kiss me again, sliding his tongue between my lips and sweeping my mouth. He’s still as hard as steel inside me, and the feel of his need sends my own need spiraling again, building up inside me once more.

  I recall the day I coupled with Paris outside the makeshift cabin the men built in the mountains near Sierian’s realm. He rolled us over at one point so that I was straddling him like this, then he showed me how to move my hips up and down, how to roll them so that his shaft slid in and out of me.

  Letting that little bit of experience and powerful instinct guide me, I begin to move in Callum’s lap, clenching my walls to create even more friction as I ride him.

  His cheeks are flushed, his shoulder-length brown hair tangled and tousled. There’s a wildness to him in this moment, an almost overwhelming maleness, and he uses his hold on me to help me rock harder and faster against him.

  He adjusts his grip on my panties, keeping them out of the way while his thumb moves over to find my clit. When he begins circling with the pad of his thumb, I let out a low cry. It’s almost too much, the torrent of sensations nearly too overwhelming to handle.

  But he doesn’t stop.

  He doesn’t seem to have any interest in letting my body recuperate. Instead, he drags another orgasm out of me, leaving me panting and breathless.

  “Look at me, Sage,” he says roughly, and I fight through the last vestiges of my pleasure to force my drooping eyes open, focusing on him. His jaw is tense, his nostrils flared. “It’s always been you. Since that first day, when you fought so hard against us.”

  A sound that starts as a laugh and ends as a sob of pleasure bursts from my throat, and our movements grow faster, more desperate. He’s thrusting up into me from below, meeting every rock of my hips.

  And then he drives into me one more time, pinning me to him as his cock pulses. The feel of him emptying himself inside me makes me whimper as little echoes of my orgasm work their way through my body.

  My arms hold him tight, and he finally withdraws his hand from my skirt, wrapping me in a bear hug as we rest against each other. He buries his face in the crook of my neck, kissing the bare skin there like he can never get enough. Warm breath caresses my shoulder as he murmurs, “I may hold a piece of your soul, but you have my whole heart.”

  The tears that threatened before finally slip past my eyelids, two small droplets sliding down my cheeks. I smile, breathing in the scent of him. It’s marred slightly by the coppery tang of blood and dirt, but beneath that, I can smell leather and musk and… Callum.

  I don’t want to move. The desperate need that drove me earlier has been eased slightly, but now I want nothing more than to exist in this peaceful, sated bubble forever. I never want to let him go.

  But of course, we have to. We’re still on the run from Kaius, and although the god’s connection to his one-time messengers may have been completely severed, that doesn’t mean he’s not hunting us even now. We need to move before we lose whatever lead we have.

  I pull back a little, finding Callum’s lips with my own. He kisses me back without hesitation, and I let myself revel in that for a moment. For weeks, this man was hot and cold with me, stoic and impossible to read despite the heat that seemed to pulse between us.

  Now, h
e kisses me as if I’m the only thing he’s certain of in the entire world.

  When we break apart, he clears his throat lightly.

  As if they’ve been waiting for the signal from him, Paris and Echo leave their lookout posts and turn back toward us. We never even got undressed, so for all an outside observer might see, all I’m doing is sitting on the man’s lap.

  But his two brothers know better. Neither Callum nor I made any effort to stay quiet, and from the heat that burns in the other men’s eyes, I know they didn’t make any effort to block their ears.

  Strangely, I’m not embarrassed by that in the least. Not even when Echo adjusts the obvious bulge in his pants, shaking his head ruefully.

  “Someday,” he promises, his gaze flicking down to catch mine. “Someday, we’re going to stop running. Stop fighting. We’re going to have a nice house with a nice bedroom—with a bed big enough for us all to fit.”

  7

  We travel the Unclaimed Expanse for the next several days.

  For so many shifting, changing miles, we walk through the most barren parts of the Expanse. Here in this godforsaken place, we don’t have the assistance of the weave to make our journey faster. The men have to adjust to my speed, and I walk as fast as possible, my legs burning and my body giving out every night when I fall onto whatever makeshift pallet we’ve constructed to rest on.

  Sleeping with my men all around me, a pile of tangled limbs and deep affection, is rejuvenating, giving me the strength I need to start over again the next day. On and on it goes like this, each day stretching into dark, empty night so many times I lose track. The landscape shifts from rocky to forested and back, and I know that out here, we’ll be even more difficult for Kaius to reach. It’s a small mercy I cling to.

  Then, finally, when I think I cannot go on any longer without being driven to the point of madness, we reach the portal to earth.

  From there, the rest of the trip passes in a matter of moments. The portal transports us to the mortal realm, and the weave sends us racing across the planet until we reach my home.

  Cold weather has begun to set in, and the fires lit within the village’s cabins send white plumes of steam and smoke into the crisp air. I notice with dread that many of the cabins don’t have active chimneys—a lot of them, and that can only mean one thing.

  More death.

  As we enter at the northern edge, I gaze around at what appears to be a ghost town. Anybody who remains is holed up inside the relative warmth of their cabins, and not even a mouse stirs on the street. We pass the Noonans’ place, and a sharp pang goes through me when I realize their chimney is cold, and their pasture is overgrown.

  Little by little, this village is dying.

  My messengers stay silent behind me, as if they understand that I need to process this. For every one step forward, the village takes ten steps back, and this is no way to survive.

  As we approach my mother’s cabin, the flimsy door swings open with a crash, and she appears in the doorway, gazing out into the road as if she’s somehow sensed us coming. And maybe she has. Being a healer, she’s so in tune to the natural energies of the world that weave magic probably upsets the balance she’s used to.

  Or maybe it’s just because she’s my mother, and some connections can never be fully severed, not even by death.

  With a cry, she runs from the house, clinging to the shawl wrapped around her too-thin shoulders. I open my arms and catch her as she throws herself at me, stepping backward from the force of our bodies colliding. Comfort suffuses me as I draw in her familiar scent—wood smoke and herbs—but when I feel the sharp angles of her bones against my torso, anger fills my empty spaces.

  She’s thinner than she was when we were here last.

  “Mother, when was the last time you ate?” I ask softly, taking hold of her shoulders to push her away. She looks so aged now. Her hair, once golden like mine, has turned completely gray, and the skin around her eyes has sagged and darkened, exhaustion and malnutrition making her look older than she is.

  She looks away, grimacing. “We’ve been chewing roots for three days.”

  “You haven’t had a meal in three days?” I sink beneath the horror of it. Even in the Unclaimed Expanse, my men and I hunted and ate, finding water in streams when the landscape shifted to a more lush terrain. “Were the stores raided again?”

  Mother shakes her head. “No. No new raiders have come, thank Zelus. But we’re at war now, my love. All of our resources are being directed to the soldiers fighting for us.”

  Guilt is a vicious thing, rising up in my heart with a scream that tells me this is my fault. My death took me to Kaius’s lands, where I unintentionally sparked a war, and now, the very thing I didn’t want to happen is happening anyway. My people are failing. Dying.

  “Where is everyone?” I ask, looking around at the silent cabins. No faces peek through open doorways as usual. “I assumed most of the village would come out on our arrival. Though I noticed so many cold chimneys...”

  Mother winces, tugging her shawl tighter. “We’ve lost many to sickness recently. Then a few days ago, a regiment of soldiers came through. Most of our men have been drafted into battle to serve Zelus.”

  “Where is Nolan?” I whip my head back toward her, horror blooming in my chest.

  “He’s fine, love. He’s inside, napping. The soldiers decided he was too young and small to fight. But when they came...” Her blue eyes fill with tears. “I was so frightened.”

  I hug her again. It’s the only thing I know to do, the only way I know to comfort her.

  My mother is the one to break the embrace this time. Her gaze drifts over my shoulder, to where my men are giving us the illusion of privacy by staring off toward the mountains. When her attention shifts back to me, worry darkens her eyes. “Not that I’m not elated to see you, sweet Sage, but what are you doing here?”

  “I came for an object I need. We have a… a task in the afterworld that needs to be done. But I’m unable to fulfill my role without a possession that means something important to me.”

  My mother blinks at me, and I know my words must sound like nonsense to her—barely more coherent than the madman’s ravings sounded to me. There’s so much of my existence that she can’t quite understand now, and I don’t know how to explain it to her. Or even whether I should.

  Life is for the living, isn’t it? And no matter how thin she has grown, my mother is still alive.

  One day, she will learn all the secrets of the afterworld. But I hope that day is a very long way off.

  But Mother doesn’t press for more explanation than that. She shakes her head as if to clear it, then nods. “Of course. Come inside from the cold. All of you,” she adds, projecting the latter over my shoulder at the men.

  The cabin is warm from the fire in the hearth, chasing away the chill that hangs in the air outdoors. My mother closes the door behind us and indicates the kitchen table. “Please, sit.”

  Callum exchanges glances with Echo as if he’s unsure of the proper etiquette. “We will stand. Thank you.”

  “Suit yourself.” Mother shrugs and bustles off toward the table, sinking into a chair with a weary sigh.

  “I’ll be right back,” I tell her, then leave them all hovering strangely in the kitchen to walk into the bedroom.

  Nolan sits up on his bed as I enter, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. I pause just inside the door, pained at the sight of his jutting bones. He’s never been thick. He’s always been a gangly teenager, limbs too long for his body, joints poking out as if they aren’t done growing. But now…

  He looks almost more like a skeleton than a human being.

  A creeping, insidious threat still exists among my people. We saved them from the raiders, and my men brought Nolan back from death’s door, but if something doesn’t change, everyone in town will starve to death. Or die in Zelus’s war.

  “Sage. Is it really you?” Nolan asks, his voice groggy with sleep and tinged with something a
lmost like suspicion.

  I laugh at the absurdity of his question. “Of course it’s me. Who else would it be?”

  He blinks, the fog of sleep fading from his eyes. “I could be dreaming.”

  “You’re not,” I assure him, taking another step into the room.

  He launches from the bed and races to hug me with the same look of elation on his face that my mother had out in the yard. I hold him for a long while, listening to the mumble of my mother and the messengers making awkward small talk in the kitchen.

  He steps away, and I realize my chin—wet with tears—has made his hair wild. I reach out and smooth the soft cap of downy gold. “How do you feel?” I ask, thinking of his nearly severed leg. He stepped into a bear trap on a hunt not long before I died.

  “You mean my injury?” Nolan leans over and tugs up the leg of his trousers. His pale, skinny leg is unblemished—not even a scar. “It’s better. Whatever your friends did, it worked.”

  “I’m glad,” I tell him with a grin.

  “Are you staying for a while?” Hope colors his voice.

  My face falls. “No. I wish I could, but… something is happening in the afterworld that I have to fix. I’m here for that carving you made me.”

  Nolan tilts his head, a look crossing his boyish face that suggests I’ve lost my mind. “The horse I carved? That old crooked thing I made you when I was nine?”

  “One and the same.” I cross to my dresser and open the middle drawer where I’ve always kept the things that mean the most to me beneath a pile of underclothes.

  The drawer is empty.

  I gasp. “Where are my things?”

  “Mother boxed them up after you died,” Nolan replies, crossing to his bed. He reaches beneath the bedframe and tugs out a small wooden box. “She couldn’t stand to see them.”

  I bite my lip. I forgot that after my sacrifice, my mother had to bury my body. That for a time, she believed me gone from this world for good.