“Esrom is happy tonight,” said Niya, still not looking at him as she changed the subject.
“They will be celebrating for many days,” agreed Alōs. “My brother has decreed today a new holiday.”
She smiled at that. “I’m glad the king has found happiness. The lost gods know he has had a hard start in life. You both have.”
Niya could feel Alōs studying her from where he had remained by the window, could feel the desire in his energy to move toward her, reach out and touch her. Again.
And by the Fade, how badly she wanted that, too, which was exactly why she was fighting it. She was terrified of this passion she felt for him. Passion greater than anything she had known before. It surpassed her old anger, her need for revenge. It soared higher and gripped her harder than any performance she had danced. Her sisters always said she burned hot, and it appeared it was true even in love.
Love.
Was that what she was feeling? A surge of panic overtook her.
“My brother wants to meet you,” said Alōs, his words bringing her back with a jolt. “Officially this time.”
“Me?” Niya spun to regard him. “Why?”
“Perhaps to apologize for throwing you into our dungeons.”
“As I recall,” she said, “that happened because you called me a spy.”
He lifted a brow. “And are you not?”
“Not always.”
“Were you not spying on me that night?” Alōs approached her carefully, as though trying not to scare away a wild thing.
“I was following you, not spying on you.”
“Ah, I see. Thank you for clearing that up.”
“You know”—Niya frowned, watching him draw nearer—“you can be quite annoying.”
Alōs grinned as though the insult were a compliment as he stood before her once more. Tentatively he lifted a hand to brush loose strands of her hair behind her ear. Niya remained perfectly still, the gentle caress sending shivers all the way to her toes. “Niya,” he began softly, “my brother wants to meet you because I told him how you helped me find the pieces of the Prism Stone. He wants to meet you because I told him how important you are. To me.”
His words penetrated through her, restarting her heart so it would no longer beat the same.
Niya stood breathless.
When she had first been brought aboard the Crying Queen, she had been so clear in her task: survive however long it took to be free once more.
But then she had warmed to the pirates, even found friendships among them. Her eyes had been opened to a new kind of adventure, and that included this man.
Alōs was Niya’s ultimate foolishness. She had given him another chance to stand in the center of her life. And he’d proved worthy by choosing instead to stand at her side. Alōs had filled Niya’s mind with words of their strength together, not animosity. Even shown her that he believed her life more important than his.
What was Niya to do with all that?
She no longer recognized her next move.
Especially when her only path was paved for her to return home.
“Stay,” said Alōs. “As part of the Crying Queen.”
Niya blinked, his words rocking her back a step.
“What?”
“Stay with me, Niya. We do not have to sail you back to Jabari tomorrow.”
She shook her head, brows drawn together. “You know that’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Well, for starters, your crew would not take kindly to you suddenly playing favorites. For if I were to stay, I can assure you, I would not be sleeping in the hold smashed between those flatulent pirates.”
“Of course not.” His gaze darkened. “You’d be warming my bed.”
“Alōs—”
“My crew would take kindly to whatever makes their captain happy, Niya.”
“I”—Niya faltered—“I make you happy?”
“You make me many things, fire dancer. Happy is merely one.”
Niya’s breathing felt ragged along with her racing pulse. “You know why I cannot stay, Alōs. It’s for the same reason you must always go. Different lives and responsibilities call for us to return. You have the sea, the Crying Queen, and your pirates. I have my duties to the Thief King and my family. Our paths may move around one another but can never be long beside each other.”
A crease pinched between Alōs’s brows, shadows falling across his features.
“And I am not saying this to be cruel,” she went on, even as the pain wedged itself deeper into her chest. “We both know I speak true.”
“Yes,” he said after a moment. “But I still had to ask.”
Her throat felt tight.
There, laid out before them, the finality of what had needed to be spoken. The reality of tomorrow.
“I need to get dressed.” She tried to turn from him, but Alōs stopped her.
“Or you do not.”
A flutter of nerves as she watched his eyes drop to her lips. “I don’t?”
Alōs shook his head. “You’re free now, remember? You can do whatever you want.”
“You are also free,” said Niya. “Free of the burden of me bound to you.”
“No,” said Alōs, his gaze consuming her, “even when you’re gone, fire dancer, I will never be free of you.” Alōs was her eclipse as he pulled her into his shadows and kissed her then. Niya fell into the darkness willingly, a whimper escaping her as his hands gathered her close, kneading along her back, over her hips.
Alōs claimed her mouth with a desperation Niya returned. She ran fingers through his hair as he lifted her and settled them atop her bed. His weight was delicious, rocking where she ached for him most. Her gown spread beneath them was forgotten as Alōs ran powerful hands up her thigh, over her waist, before parting her robe. He took one of her nipples into his mouth, and Niya groaned, arching her back.
Niya had been a fool to think she could have ever denied herself this man tonight. She couldn’t, when she knew how perfectly they fit pressed against one another, their magic a swirling of opposite sensations, ones they each were ravenous to pull inside like their next breaths.
The hostile valley that had once existed between them had been blown apart and rebuilt. The foundation new, powerful. As powerful as each of them, which made it close to impenetrable.
“Niya,” Alōs rumbled as he kissed his way up her neck, “I will never have enough of you.”
“Tonight,” said Niya, “we must each find our fills tonight.”
“An impossible task,” said Alōs. “My hunger for you is bottomless.”
“Then you must do your best to fill me.”
Alōs’s grin was wicked. “With pleasure.” He gathered her into his arms and took her mouth so no other words could be spoken.
They told each other what they needed with tugs and pulls, with fingers digging into skin and groans between thrusts.
Niya took Alōs into her world of movement, of vibrating sensations that racked each of their bodies with euphoria, only to be whipped back into another impossible hunger of desire. She rode him, staring deeply into the burning gaze of the pirate lord, once a prince and now a man she loved, and told him the words she could not speak out loud, could not share, for fear that her duty would then shift and she would find it impossible to leave him.
Yet even though she trapped the words inside, she could tell Alōs understood what she held back, for he pulled her down toward him and kissed her with a new sense of urgency. “Yes, fire dancer.” His voice rumbled in a husky whisper against her lips. “Me too.” He flipped her beneath him, spreading her wide before reentering her. “Me too,” he repeated before he filled her again, completely, endlessly.
Niya’s reality slipped away as Alōs moved to taste every curve of her body, lick his way over every hill. He poured out his magic to braid with her own, until Niya did not know which sensation was hers or his. There was only them, stretching and pulling everywhere.
That night, Niya knew Alōs would stay with her as long as he could.
Because come morning, both would be leaving.