Rayne tilted his head toward him, eyes squinting as he likely tried to bring Eno into focus. The smile on his lips was infinitely tender. “I love you.”
Eno froze. The washcloth in his hand fell, making a soft splat on the floor, but he barely noticed it. He couldn’t breathe. Had he really heard that? Rayne had said it as easily as he said “thank you” or inquired about the weather.
“What?” Eno exhaled when he could get his body functioning.
Rayne’s smile grew a little wider, but the words were just as easy and freeing as the first time. “I love you.”
Never.
He thought he’d never hear Rayne say those words to him. Definitely not so smoothly. They sounded as though Rayne had been whispering those three words to him his entire life. Not just for the first time, but for the millionth time. As if he’d loved Eno for years.
Eno stepped over the forgotten cloth and fell onto Rayne, wrapping him up tight, tangling their legs together until they could no longer tell where one of them ended and the other began. He kissed Rayne over and over, getting lost in the feel and taste of him.
When he pulled back, Rayne was still smiling. His jade eyes brightly shining, clear and focused. “I love you, too,” Eno choked out in a hoarse voice. “So very much.”
“I know.” His body shook with a laugh. “It’s why you’re able to drive me so crazy.”
“You’re my everything, Rayne. I may have sworn my life to Caelan, but my heart and soul belong to you.”
Rayne’s expression sobered, and he closed his eyes as he pressed his forehead to Eno’s. “Same,” he whispered. Their lives weren’t their own, and they had no regrets about that existence. Serving the king of Erya was their calling and honor. But their hearts were set on something else entirely.
“Can I ask what brought that on now?” Eno murmured.
Rayne dropped his head back and laughed. Eno stared at him. This was not the response he’d been expecting.
“Shey proposed to me.”
And neither was that.
“What?” Eno roared. He pushed up off the bed, not sure exactly where he was going, but he certainly couldn’t just lie there after that bombshell. He’d known that Shey was a potential threat, but he’d never guessed his feelings for Rayne were that serious.
Fuck that. Rayne should have let the assassin stab the prince a few times.
With a growl, Rayne wrestled Eno to the bed and stretched out on top of him. The quick cleanup was definitely turning into a shower now, but Eno was in no hurry to move. Rayne was lying on top of him, his head resting on his shoulder as a little sigh left his lips. He had no defense against this. He’d never encountered a lazy, relaxed Rayne in his entire life. He was afraid to move and spoil it, but he needed to know more about this proposal, even if it did seem to somehow sway things in his favor.
“Rayne,” he started in what was supposed to be a firm voice but ended up more pleading. “What the hell happened? He proposed?”
His lover propped his chin up on his hand and he smiled a bit wistfully. “Before the assassin made his attempt, Shey said he wanted me to return to Caspagir after this godstone nonsense was complete and he’d marry me. It wasn’t a question so much as a statement of fact. But then, princes aren’t much for asking questions.”
Eno could only stare dumbfounded at him. His brain was completely locked up. What? How?
He shook his head a couple of times, trying to get the brain cells working again. “I’m sorry. I…he proposed…”
“And now I’m lying here naked, sweaty, and filthy with you, telling you I love you,” Rayne replied, his smile back in full force.
“Yes, and how…he’s a prince.”
Rayne turned his head and pressed a kiss to Eno’s jawline, helping to settle some of the anxious butterflies panicking in his chest. “Yes, and for maybe a heartbeat, I was tempted. The good I could do. The easy peace between Shey and me. Things between us were always easy.” Rayne paused and shook his head. When he looked at Eno, his eyes glistened with unshed tears. “But things between us will never be easy, except for one thing. Loving you. Shey’s proposal helped me realize that being able to love you for one day would bring me greater joy than a lifetime with anyone else.”
“Really?” Eno choked out around the lump of emotion lodged in his throat.
“I understand what you meant about it being enough. Even if you never loved me, what we have right now is enough. Being able to see you, hear your voice, it’s enough for me for as long as I can have it.”
Eno tightened his arms around Rayne and kissed him deeply. “I love you. Love you so much. And I am never letting you go.”
Rayne sighed, settling his head on Eno’s shoulder. It was as though the very last of the tension flowed out of his body. He could feel Rayne falling asleep on him, finding peace at last.
Closing his eyes, Eno rested his cheek against the top of Rayne’s head. In this second, trapped in the belly of a ship as it sped toward a foreign country that would launch them on a dangerous journey, Eno clung to Rayne.
This was enough, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to do everything within his power to protect Rayne, to fight for a tomorrow for them.
He just prayed the gods were in a generous mood.
FOUR
Drayce Ladon
Fuck.
Zastrad was some scary shit.
Maybe not quite Ordas-level scary, but man, it was freaking close.
The drive from Sirelis to the Zastrad border took only three days, and on the first day everything began comfortably with wide, smooth roads and frequent towns. But by the first hour on the second day, the road narrowed, and they started steadily climbing to a higher altitude. At night, summer became a distant memory with the air taking on a bitter bite.
They were forced to stop early that second day as they waited for word from their contact on where to meet and when. Not the best omen for the trip, but then it wasn’t as though he’d gone into this with high hopes for things to run smoothly, considering the shit that had already occurred in the past couple of months.
When the message was relayed at last through Prince Shey in Sirelis, they continued to the border. While there might not have been any signs or border guards, it was easy to see where Caspagir stopped and Zastrad started. The worn, paved road immediately ended, changing to a packed and rutted dirt road.
They bumped and bounced along what felt like little more than a path through dirt and scrub grass for several hours, seeing no signs of human life other than bits of trash rotting on the side of the road. The very last bar on their cell phones vanished and didn’t return. They were cut off from the world they knew. Caelan had no way of sending a message to Caspagir or Erya if there was an emergency. If the Empire chose to attack Stormbreak or even Sirelis again, it was unlikely they’d discover it until they left Zastrad.
The feeling of being so cut off from home was unnerving. They all checked their phones at random times, as if hoping to see a flicker of a bar for only a second. Something that would stretch the tiniest thread to them from home. Drayce had grown accustomed to being away from home long ago, but after seeing the destruction of Stormbreak, his skin crawled to be so far from it now. New Rosanthe was still out there, plotting their schemes. Fuck the gods and their timing. They shouldn’t have left already.