day, marry quite happily. But I am not averse to adventure. And I would like to have the memory to revisit.”
“So you shall.” Her eyes narrowed. “You have had your moon night?”
His blush flared again. “I have.”
From the floor, Kelir grunted his approval. “Good, or we would have to fuck you now, and this is neither the time nor the place for it. First you must get us out of this maze.”
Preter grinned. “As I’ll be certain to, now that I have even more to live for.”
As they all did. With a sigh, Lizzan looked up at Aerax. “Should we begin a search for that passageway?”
He nodded, helping push her to her feet when the movement pulled at aching muscles and she groaned. A few paces away, Ardyl did the same for Kelir, grasping his hand and hauling him up from the floor.
“If you will go in that direction,” Aerax told them, “we will take the other. Keep eyes on your torch at each passageway. A draft from the sun chamber might be most easily detected that way.”
Kelir nodded and looked to Preter. “You will be all right looking after him?”
He gestured to the man on the ground, who had stirred a little each time they’d given him water, but had not yet awakened . . . if he ever did.
“I will be well,” Preter said. “If the wraith is nearer to breaking through than we think, I’ll flare the torch so bright you cannot mistake it.”
And Preter’s torch would also serve as their guide back, Lizzan realized after she and Aerax had moved past a few dozen passageways. In the other direction, Kelir and Ardyl’s torch already looked no bigger than a candle flame, but in all the dark was still easy to find. Soon they would be as stars in a moonless sky.
“This is not the night I envisioned,” said Aerax quietly.
“It seems to me near what we planned. We are exhausted, sore, and my brocs are ripped to shreds.”
She meant to make him smile but his face darkened, reminded of how the wraith had slashed at her. Stopping, he cupped her nape in his big hand to draw her close and bend his forehead to hers.
“I cannot lose you,” he said hoarsely. “Never can I lose you.”
Throat tight, she rose up for a kiss and so sweetly he complied. With a sigh, she drew back.
“How long do you suppose until dawn?” By the soreness that had settled into her muscles, she must have slept for a while.
“Not long.”
Eyes squeezing tight, she nodded. “And this is neither the time nor place for a fucking.”
“It is not.”
“I have been well pleasured these past nights. We do not truly need a moon night.”
“We do not,” he said gruffly.
Her heart ached. “But if we only have until the first snowfall—”
“We will have longer.”
“Even if that is true . . . no more time do I wish to waste, Aerax. We do not even have to fuck in full. You only need to breach me, and tomorrow will be the night we envisioned.”
Lifting his forehead from hers, he cupped her jaw, tilting back her head to meet his dark eyes. “If you believe you must persuade me into fucking you, Lizzan, know that I care nothing for proper time and place. If you wish my cock inside you, whether a shallow thrust to breach your virgin cunt or to ride me full deep for years, you only need say so.”
She breathed a shaky laugh. “I think here and now . . . only enough that we do not have to wait another full turn.”
“So we will.” Linking his fingers with hers, Aerax strode to the next passageway and set the handle of the torch into the wall sconce before drawing her back into the wheel chamber. He continued only a small distance beyond the torch’s glow before they came to one of the massive stone columns, and there he backed her against it.
In the far distance was the tiny spot of flame from Preter’s torch.
“Watch for a flare,” Aerax rasped softly into her ear, unlacing her brocs and letting them fall around her ankles, where she kicked them away.
She nodded, breath shuddering when he lifted her against the column, wrapping her legs around his hips as she watched the pinprick of light over his shoulder.
He bent his head, teeth pinching her earlobe before he murmured, “You are not yet wet enough to take my cock into your sheath.”