Vassal Sterling D'Este (top 10 books of all time .TXT) 📖

her heart against Alphonse’s cheek lost its frantic beat.

Finally, she tilted the smaller woman’s face up for a kiss, tender and slow. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about your cooking.”

Despite telling herself it was about the journey, Alphonse sighed in relief as Delyth kissed her and proclaimed her skills agreeable. She tilted her head to rest against Delyth’s shoulder, reaching behind the warrior to slip her fingers across her wings.

“I—I feel…” It was difficult to describe. She felt elated to have given Delyth pleasure, and uncomfortably close to the priestess, almost reliant on her, and relieved to have someone to lean on. Someone to hold her. And afraid of what that meant for the future. However limited it was.

“I feel safe. With you.”

Delyth swallowed. “I feel safe with you too.” The words echoed deep in the warrior’s chest, vibrating into Alphonse’s ear where she lay against the other woman.

“Do you want to sleep?” Alphonse blushed, but her eyes were alight. “Just you and me…” She meant without their clothes on. Skin to skin… The way it should have been last night.

Delyth furrowed her brows, and she looked down at Alphonse. “Are you ready to sleep?”

She wasn’t ready to sleep, but she did like the idea of their bodies tangled up together and Delyth’s warm breath on her skin and her hands holding Alphonse close. Sharing a bedroll. It seemed profoundly personal and…

“I don’t want to sleep, but I do want to wake up in your arms.” The healer smiled and kissed Delyth’s lips softly. The priestess was smiling when she pulled away.

“I’d like that too.”

⥣          ⥣           ⥣

Alphonse had slept so deeply, Delyth’s arm her pillow, and her wings their blanket, that it was well past dawn when she finally woke. Her eyes were gummy and difficult to open, and her body groaned in complaint when she tried to sit up. She never wanted to leave that warm shell, cocooned with Delyth.

For a while, Alphonse just lay there, admiring the way her tawny locks melded with Delyth’s black, their hair spilling out in an arc above their heads, like a colorful aura, even their curls intertwined.

Eventually, she managed to roll over but couldn’t be bothered to sit up, to get dressed. She just enjoyed the feeling of their combined breaths, rising and falling as one.

Some part of Enyo whispered that these quiet mornings were coming to an end soon, and Alphonse pushed the thought away hastily. How had she lived without this contact, so desperately needed? How had she lived so barren and cold and isolated?

She buried her face against Delyth’s chest and wished the sun would stop rising, even if it meant the end of the world. To just stay there with Delyth.

But her wish didn’t come true, and the sun continued its progress across the sky.

After a few moments, Delyth started to stir. “Morning.” Her voice was thick with sleep, and she breathed in deeply.

Alphonse shook her head minutely, not ready to admit it was indeed morning. She could hear Delyth’s voice vibrating through her chest, into the healer’s ear pressed there. Lazily she brushed a kiss to the base of the warrior’s throat and tightened her hold.

Just a few more minutes.

Or a few more hours…

Because this was the last day in the cave; they would resume their trek to the temple and her fate.

Enyo’s destiny.

Alphonse swallowed a trickle of fear. Camping would mean less privacy, waking with the sun no matter what, and enduring whatever challenges Enyo threw at them. This quite possibly could be her last peaceful day on Illygad.

“I don’t want to greet the day,” she mumbled, voice muffled from her position nuzzled into her paramour. “I don’t want to leave you.”

Coward.

It was true.

༄

Delyth tilted her head to place a kiss on Alphonse’s temple. She didn’t particularly want to leave either. The tent was safe, just the two of them, free of the press of the others and the trek to the temple. The cave beyond seemed impossibly cold by comparison.

And they would leave today, leave to continue farther in the mountains.

Delyth didn’t think she had ever felt such dread regarding a task for her temple. Before, she had attacked her duties with fervor, if not for the Goddess, then at least for the other priests. Now, she was beginningto feel pulled in opposite directions, tearing down the middle and uncertain which part of her would give.

She took a shaky breath.

“Let’s put it off a few more minutes,” she said. “We’ll leave before the others start to wonder.”

❀

Alphonse sighed and nodded in agreement. Of course, they couldn’t stay forever.

But they could buy a minute more…

Or two.

Alphonse brushed kisses against Delyth’s throat and jaw, and finally her mouth. It felt as if this was the end of something. Lips wobbling in uncertainty, Alphonse finally sat up. Her hair was a wild mess of curls and whorls, voluminous as it haloed around her head and shoulders. Who knew a veil had kept such things hidden and in place?

She dressed and rolled up their pallets before tugging on her stockings and boots.

Pausing before the tent flap, Alphonse glanced over her shoulder once more, trying to memorize Delyth’s body and face, this moment in time.

But she blinked, and the moment was gone…

Amber melted into glowing embers, and she left without a goodbye.

And Enyo marched to Tristan’s tent without a beat of hesitation. She ducked and crawled into find him, her lips parting in a vicious smile.

“Do you want to hear a secret?”

Tristan sat up, bare-chested and messy-haired. He looked as though he had just woke. Still, he grinned lopsidedly at Enyo looking down at him.

“You know I do.” His voice was practically a purr.

She crawled across the top of Tristan’s blankets, coming to crouch above of him. It was less sexual and more… the way a cat looked while perched above an injured bird. Playful and divinely cruel as its prey suffered.

Even if Tristan wasn’t her prey.

“The