“Both.” Liam’s fingers moved slowly, sending shivers across Ryder’s arms and down his legs.
“You feel like a storm.” Ryder lifted his hips off the forest floor, chasing sensation. “It’s like drowning, but not. Like I’m being held under water until it hurts.” He shifted his hips until his jeans slid lower, and he kicked them off, followed by his briefs. If it were any other night, with any other person, being bare in the woods would be unthinkable. But it wasn’t any night, and Liam wasn’t any person. “C’mon,” Ryder rasped. He fumbled with the button on Liam’s pants. “Like our ancestors used to.”
Liam laughed against Ryder’s mouth. “Witch jokes?”
“Yeah, Princess, might as well laugh about it while I can.”
“You’re coming back,” Liam said and tossed the rest of his clothes away. Ryder shoved him onto his back. The trees whispered through the rain. Wildfire. Death dealer. He slid his thighs over Liam’s hips and watched the rain bounce off Liam’s chest. It streamed over his shoulders and gathered on his cupid’s bow. Liam’s lips quirked at the edges. “And stop calling me that.”
Ryder leaned down to kiss him. Moonlight bent through the mist and sharpened the dark hollows of Liam’s collarbones, the faint dip of muscle on Ryder’s stomach. He sucked in a sharp breath when Liam sat up, hands steady on Ryder’s hips.
It was a halted, tilting moment—Ryder looking at Liam and Liam looking back. The forest went quiet, listening, and the rain slowed, waiting. Liam nodded, hooked his teeth over Ryder’s clavicle and bit, pulling a gasp from deep in his throat.
Ryder gripped Liam’s jaw until he let go, and sliced the edge of his collarbone open with the reaver. Liam surged forward. He bit down again, and wrapped his arms tight around Ryder’s back.
The rain froze in place. Ryder clutched the back of Liam’s head with one hand and dug his nails into Liam’s shoulder with the other. Emotions rushed between them. Every stint of eye contact, every day spent practicing his spell work with Liam in his apartment. Liam’s head resting on his stomach last summer, out there, in the same woods—the dread and anger and hopelessness that spiked through Liam when Ryder said he’d chosen to die. The elation and excitement of their first kiss, bloody and messy and overdue. Liam’s unyielding, absolute fear that Ryder might not come back.
It was quiet and still. Ryder stayed present in the shared emotions for as long as he could, enduring the whiplash of their energies and magic. Liam’s lips hovered over the wound and he dipped his hand between Ryder’s legs, two fingers sliding into him without pause.
“You sure?” Liam’s mouth was bloodied and warm on Ryder’s jaw.
Ryder tried to say yes, but Liam’s thumb circled his clit, and the word skidded out of him in the shape of something else, wounded and steep.
Liam replaced his fingers with his cock, and Ryder couldn’t breathe. He tilted his head until their lips met. It was kissing and moving, and then it was Ryder’s lungs catching up with their actions, breathing into Liam’s mouth, eyes open, watching Liam from under his lashes. It was Ryder’s hips rolling, and Liam pressing up into him, the tender sound of their bodies meeting, chased breath and fluttering, shaky moans. Ryder’s magic flared; the Fire in him rushed to the surface. The rain fell again. The trees around them chattered and howled.
It was unlike any dream or daydream or nightmare, because when Ryder dreamed, he dreamed of his brutality, of blood and sacrifice—and when he dreamed of light, of Liam, it was never as good as this.
The grass cushioned his shins and knees. His reaver curved delicately over Liam’s cheek, the bite of Liam’s evening stubble harsh on his palm. Ryder’s eyes returned to their Lewellyn green. His body trembled, hips grinding down again and again. Liam’s fingers dug into him, the storm ceased, and his gray eyes turned golden brown.
Ryder’s name slipped from Liam, and Ryder swore he felt both syllables slither between his ribs.
Their energy hovered around them. Something wicked watched with a thousand eyes—the same something from their reading. The air parted. Everything sped away and came back, compressing around them. Ryder felt it like a free fall. Autumn wind cut through the trees, rustling copper leaves and ivy vines.
Liam swiped his thumb over the fire rune etched into Ryder’s hip. The hazy moon looked down on them, highlighting Ryder’s pale skin and making Liam appear otherworldly against the darkness. The whisper of the forest died down. Heat thrashed in Ryder, pleasure building and building. He kissed Liam hard, his mouth opening wide for deeper, longer, fiercer kisses.
Time turned over.
Ryder felt like a king or a god or a magician.
Liam made the darkness in him feel like a gift.
Ryder trembled when he came. He gasped, body tightening in spasms and jerks and tremors. Liam moaned prettily into Ryder’s mouth, stilling inside him and digging his thumb into Ryder’s hip hard enough that Ryder pawed at him, telling him to let go.
The trees rambled again. This time Ryder understood them.
The Magician. The Tower. The Devil. The Lovers.
Liam’s eyes were half-lidded. He hummed when Ryder leaned into him, their chests pressed together, bodies spent and shaking.
“To ravage,” Ryder whispered, resting his cheek on Liam’s shoulder.
Liam ran his fingers along Ryder’s spine. “A dark partnership.”
The fog lifted and moonlight dripped across their bare skin.
Chapter Seven
RYDER DIDN’T SLEEP.
His lips dusted Liam’s shoulder, and he stared at the altar where Percy was perched atop a pile of books, lit by waning candles.
After the meadow, they’d climbed into the backseat of Liam’s car, and after an hour spent in the car, they’d finally made it to Ryder’s apartment. Ryder remembered the sounds Liam made, every heaved breath and shaken cry, his back arching off the bed with Ryder’s fingers inside him. He remembered Liam’s bruising grip on his thighs, Liam’s relentless mouth between them, and Ryder coming apart at the seams as he clutched the sheets.
The night was over, though. Sunlight peeked through the slots in the blinds. Ryder listened to Liam wake, the draw of his breath coming faster.
Liam lifted his head off the pillow and glanced over his shoulder. His eyes softened and he sighed. “I thought you’d left.”
“No, not yet,” Ryder rasped.
Liam rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. Ryder’s gaze followed the staircase of bruises from his hips to his shoulders, mouth-shaped, shadowed by teeth marks. The small cut from the reaver shone dark against his olive complexion.
“Have you checked your phone?” Liam asked.
Ryder shook his head.
“I bet they’ve been trying to get a hold of us.”
“Probably.”
“I want to be there.”
“Liam—”
“Please,” Liam whispered. He closed his eyes and tilted his head against the pillow, reopening them to meet Ryder’s gaze. “I don’t want to fight with you about this, but I will.”