The Opal Witch: Prophecy (Book Two)

Chapter Twenty-One

Declan

The next morning, Declan's consciousness came in waves of smell—vanilla and citrus—sound—soft breathing—and finally sight—the top of a dark head snuggled against his chest. Every morning since returning home, he'd questioned whether he was dreaming each time Lux came down the stairs, but now he had the fleeting thought he'd died and gone to heaven. Surely, it was the only way she would be in his arms, her heart beating steadily next to his own.

How many times at the Institute had he believed he would really never see her again? Surely, fate would not be so unkind to him? It was bad enough he'd spent one hundred years sleeping while the world moved on, and while he would never complain because it brought him Lux, he also thought he'd paid his dues as far as bad luck went.

Sliding his hand across her face, he rubbed his thumb along her cheekbone and smiled ruefully. Of course, he couldn't call their current circumstances lucky by any means—not while they were trying to solve a cold case and keep the Fat Queen from breaking open the Underworld. If Lux was by his side, he didn't care if he was in the trenches of a war or in a cabana on the beach—all was right with the world.

"Good morning," she said sleepily, blinking up at him through sable lashes before snuggling into his chest as if embarrassed to find him watching her. When she spoke again, her lips moved against his shirt, and he screwed his eyelids shut as he concentrated on all the reasons he was a gentleman.

"What was that?" he asked.

"I said I'm surprised you didn't sneak off in the middle of the night." She rolled a bit and folded her arms over his chest, propping her chin on top of her hands. "I'm very happy you didn't."

"I had planned on it." She smirked. "But I fell asleep almost immediately. I don't remember the last time I slept so well."

"Me either." Lux moved her pointer finger in small circles as she thought, the little movements driving him crazy. "I think that's the longest uninterrupted stretch I've had since the Dreams began."

Tension seeped into his body. The best course of action would be to ward against Dreams, but if it was Morgan le Fay sending the Dreams, it would take the entire Circle to create a ward strong enough, and even then, he couldn't be sure it would work.

"Now that I've had some rest, I'm able to think a little more clearly," Lux continued. "Pieces of the Dream are coming back to me. Morgause had a stone around her neck that Morgan gave her, and somehow it was going to give Morgause access to magic."

"Do you think it was a Channeling stone?" It would make little sense unless... "Had she become a Bloodborn?"

Lux shrugged. "I don't think so, though I guess it is an option, but I didn't really get the feeling Morgause wanted to go to that extreme. Sh-she's not like Morgan, not entirely."

She sat up and threw her legs over the side of the bed, her auburn hair touching her hips as she arched her back, lifting her arms above her head in a deep stretch. Looking over her shoulder, she caught him watching and blushed.

"God, you're beautiful," he said. They should keep talking about the Dream, but he needed to say what he was thinking in case he never had the chance again. Instead of standing, she crawled back on the bed and straddled him. He groaned. "Lux."

Her gray eyes crackled with magic and heat, and the stone around his neck grew warm. It wasn't an unusual occurrence. Before he left, whenever they lost themselves in one another, their stones would heat, the connection between them both physical and magical, twining together so it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began.