A War of Three Kings (Dying Lands #2)

42. Keira

Chapter 42

Keira

I stagger out of the portal, pulled along by Aldrin. Lightning seems to zap from the touch of his fingers around my wrist, all the way through me, curling around my very soul. It caresses every inch of my flesh in the most sensual way.

A haze sits over my brain.

I am lost in the nearness of him after so long apart. My eyes snag on the beautiful sharp angles of his face and the hard planes of his body. I need more. For him to be closer, with fewer clothes and barriers between us. I need him inside me.

Aldrin freezes and turns back to me, his amber eyes hooded and heated as they roam over my face, then dip to my ample cleavage on display. Lust rolls through me in hot waves that I cannot control, building and spiraling just from the way he looks at me.

I hook my fingers around the top of his breastplate, their tips brushing against the bare skin of his chest, ready to tear the thing from him. Aldrin’s hands wrap around my waist, and I gasp. The fabric of my dress is so thin, it is like it is not there at all—or maybe my flesh is over-sensitive.

I reach up on the tips of my toes as he leans down to me, yearning to taste his lips with a desperation I have never known before. My heart swells and swells until it is at risk of bursting.

“Keira.” Diarmuid’s voice penetrates the fog of my mind. “Have you even noticed where we are?”

Right. We are not alone.

There is a whole warband of fae and my family with us. But I can’t seem to drag myself away from Aldrin, half poised to kiss him. We teeter on that edge, staring at each other with an unknown force pulling our bodies together, urging us to become one.

“How many months has it been?” Diarmuid continues, unaware of the battle within me. “Gods, it feels like a lifetime.”

Aldrin finds strength first, turning me on the spot. He groans so softly only I can hear as he presses my back against his chest. “Look,” he says, and I writhe against him, his breath on my neck sending shivers down my spine. “Look.” He growls the word this time, tilting my chin. “How long have you dreamed of returning here?”

I finally open my eyes to the scenery around us and almost weep at what greets me.

An ancient, unkempt garden. Winding paths with missing cobblestones, brimming with weeds. Bare, thorny rose bushes that tumble out of the garden beds and fall across the path. A weeping willow tree whose colors are all wrong, the branches cascading curtains of fiery red.A castle of golden towers encircled by a great wall in the near distance, looming over spans of bare orchards and greenhouses.

He has brought me home, to Appleshield.

The crisp winter air is the sweetest thing I have ever tasted, heavy with moisture from the mists and scented with the pines that surround the castle.

The others talk in rapid succession around us, but I hardly register them. Aldrin’s arms snake around me, his fingers drawing small circles across my belly that dip gradually lower. I rest my head back on his chest. This closeness to him is everything.

I can feel the signature of his life force humming through me, and mine responding. They curl around each other in a loving embrace, until there is no me or him, no separate entities, only us. Something deep and primal within me calls for more.

A deeper bonding of flesh and soul.

I try to drag myself back to the present. The vibrations emitted by the portal disappear at the edge of my awareness, and that is significant, for some reason. I glance back toward it, but become lost in the depths of Aldrin’s amber eyes instead as he peers down at me.

His thumb runs over my cheek, drags down my lower lip and draws the line of my jaw. I turn in his embrace, pressing my body hard against his and threading my hands through his hair as I soak in every detail of his face.

I can’t pull my eyes away.

My whole body feels like it is on fire, in the best possible way. It tingles as an all-consuming warmth flushes through me in hard bursts, making me gasp. Every inch of my skin is incredibly sensitive, and Aldrin’s light touches shoot more heat across its surface.

Powerful bouts of love radiate through me for the man before me, who risked life and limb time and again to save me. Who traveled to another realm because I called for him. Fought a war because I was threatened. Conquered a kingdom to make me happy. There is an invisible tether reaching out of me, entwining with the threads of Aldrin’s soul, growing, pulsing, but it needs more.

It demands to be fed.

His hands curl under my ass and lift me from the ground, and I wrap my legs around his waist, straddling him. I want those hands all over me. I need them on my bare skin. When his lips crash down on mine, it finally feels like I can breathe again. Like he is my only source of air.

The entire world condenses down to the slide of those lips on mine and the taste of his tongue slipping into my mouth. Every hard line of his body is pressed into my soft curves, and it is as though we were made for each other. As though this union is the only natural state for us.

Voices continue to chatter around us, but only a few penetrate the fog of my mind.

“Aldrin, should we be returning to the fight?” Silvan barks.

Drake laughs. “What fight? I’m pretty sure we won.”

“Aldrin? Aldrin! For gods’ sake, man, what is wrong with you?” Cyprien snaps.

Then he is pulling away from me, his whole body shaking with the effort of it. I can’t exist without him wrapped around me, tasting me, inside me . Surely, I will wither up and die. There is a single stride of space between our bodies, but it feels like an abyss that stretches out to the end of the world.

Aldrin’s eyes simmer with a hot intensity, never leaving me while his people continue to make demands of him. That invisible tether drags our bodies back together, and we wrap around each other again, lips clashing with ferocity.

The buzz in my brain is sated for a mere moment before it ramps up and begs for his bare flesh on mine. I tug on his tunic, wanting it off, but it is trapped beneath all the armor buckled to him.

I need more.

“What is wrong with them?” Diarmuid’s call drifts to me, but I can’t pull myself away from Aldrin. I practically climb him instead, with no control at all over my urges. “Gods. There are certain things you don’t want to see your little sister doing.”

“Then stop looking!” Caitlin snaps. “Cyprien. Have they been drugged?”

“By the Soul Ripper! Are they—is this…?” Drake’s incredulous voice cuts over the others. I really should be embarrassed, but I can’t focus on anything other than Aldrin.

“Yes. Yes, it is,” Cyprien growls, shoving at us, but we don’t move. “Damn it, Aldrin, at least get some privacy.”

Cyprien grabs Aldrin’s arm and drags him multiple paces away from me. An almost animalistic snarl tears from my lips. The next thing I know, Aldrin is tossing me over his shoulder and carrying me up the hill like a spoil of war, while Cyprien continues to force him away from the crowd.

I pound at Aldrin’s back with my fists, because I want to get lost in his lips again. A deep part of me revels in being treated like a claimed prize. Aldrin slaps my rump and laughs.

From my precarious position, my gaze falls on Caitlin arguing with Drake. Diarmuid has a hand on his head.

“What is happening to them?” Caitlin demands.

Drake looks everywhere but at her. “Ah…well…they need to solidify a bond.”

“Solidify what ? How? Make sense, man!”

Drake’s eyes dart to his wife. “Ah…this is awkward. Klara? You’re the healer. Care to explain?”

I lose focus on them as Aldrin rounds a bend. Cyprien gives him one last shove, then jogs away toward the others. I am placed back on my feet in front of a greenhouse surrounded by a skeleton of a rose garden. The walls are white marble columns interspersed with large, cloudy windows in need of cleaning. They mostly obscure the view of the interior.

I grab Aldrin’s arm and drag him toward it.

It is warm and mostly bare inside, with two rows of potted plants hugging the walls and moss growing in the grout between the stone pavers.

Aldrin immediately pushes me up against one of the marble pillars and unlaces the front of my silk dress. My breasts spill out and he cups one, running his thumb across the hardened nipple as he trails kisses down my neck. The most sensual kind of bliss radiates out from each little touch, shooting straight down to the heat pooling between my legs.

“Aldrin,” I gasp out. “Mirror ward the windows.”

“Already on it.” His voice is hoarse.

I can’t help moaning as he presses his long, hard cock against my stomach. He lifts me up so my feet hang above the ground and holds me in place as he lines his hardness over my core, then he grinds against me through the layers of our clothing.

I almost lose my mind.

The extreme pleasure cascading through me is devastating, making my entire body shake as he rolls his hips and drags his erection over my most sensitive parts. His rhythmic, throaty groans fill my ears, driving me higher.

My hands roam over him hungrily, undoing the buckles of his armor and tossing his breastplate and shoulder guards to the ground. I drag his tunic over his head and gasp as the bare flesh of our chests collides, the hard planes of his dragging over my tender nipples.

As my hands trail across his leather pants, from his hips to the laces at his crotch, Aldrin freezes in his tormenting thrusts. At first, I think he does it to allow me space to release him from his clothing. The gods know I ache for him to fill me up.

Then he catches my wrist and holds it a hair’s breadth from his cock. I writhe to get more of that maddening friction against him, but he pins my body to still me.

Aldrin lets out a shuddering breath through clenched teeth. “I need to make sure you understand what is happening before we go any further. What this means.” He trembles with the effort to stop. Aldrin presses his forehead to mine, our noses touching, his eyes closed from the strain.

“I—I don’t—I have never felt this way before, Aldrin.” My hips, my hands—they try to move again, to take more from him, but his grip on me tightens almost painfully. “I am going to combust if you don’t take me soon?—”

“You are my mate, Keira,” he grinds out.

Those words ricochet through me. My mate .

“You are the other half of my soul. It is why I can find you anywhere. Why we can hear and feel each other in our heads.”

My heart races so hard against my ribs it hurts. It swells and swells with love for him.

There is nothing else.

No one else.

Aldrin is my everything.

“Oh…” That simple syllable is all I can manage.

“Tell me you want to accept it. Tell me you want to claim it.” His voice is a low rumble. “That you understand it will make you mine . My mate. My queen. More than a wife. My equal.”

“I accept all of you, Aldrin. I want our mate bond solidified.” Shivers dance through me and I nuzzle into the crook of his neck. “How? How do we…”

“Our bodies will do it for us.”

His lips crash down on mine, and it is like stars are exploding within my mind. I run my hands across his face and through his hair as he peels my dress from me, allowing it to pool on the floor.

With shaky hands, I run my fingers down the masterpiece of his chest, over defined pectorals and stomach muscles that steal my breath away. Then I reach for the lacing of his britches, making quick work of releasing the full glory of his manhood.

The sight of it intensifies the deep pangs of need within.

Aldrin places me back on my feet, kicking away his pants. He takes his time kissing and licking his way down my chest, his tongue flicking over my nipples while I shudder. His hands slide down my waist as he presses kisses to my belly, then he falls to his knees. His hands wrap around my ass and his fingers dig deep into the flesh there as he pulls my already swollen core to his face.

I watch him kneel before me, sliding his tongue up and down my slit, his face pressed between my spread thighs. That sight does something wicked to me. The surges of pleasure crest to an almost unbearable point, making sweat break out across my skin. The sensations tear me apart with each caress of his tongue on my clit.

It is too much, this tantalizing friction, and not enough all at once. I get lost in that rhythmic onslaught. The tension builds within me until I can handle it no more. He brings me right to the edge—but he doesn’t let me climax.

Aldrin lifts me and places me on a thick bed of spongy moss that coats the floor. It wasn’t here moments ago. The air is filled with the sweet scent of pollen, and I open my eyes to find delicate blooms springing up all around us as Aldrin climbs up my body.

His hungry eyes soak in every inch of my pale skin, such a contrast to his olive complexion. “Beautiful. Fucking beautiful.”

I wrap my legs around his hips as he positions the head of his cock at my entrance, entering just the tip inside, then pauses. I let out a groan as my inner muscles clamp around him in anticipation.

“Are you sure? There’s no going back after this.” He bites each word out.

I grab his hips and try to pull him deeper into me, but he holds tight, muscles rippling with restraint.

“Yes, Aldrin. Please. I have never wanted anything more in my life.”

He drives his hard length into me with such force my breath escapes all at once.

I arch my back with the intensity of the pleasure that consumes me. He pulls out almost completely, then slams back in to the hilt.

“Harder. Faster,” I moan. He obliges.

His large body covers mine, and I relish the weight of him on top of me as he pounds into me again and again. I jolt with the impact of each thrust, pushing me backward. He reaches so deep within me, to that spot that makes me lose all coherent thought each time it is struck. I grip his shoulders so tightly that my fingernails will surely leave crescents in his flesh.

With each stroke, he makes a satisfied sound that is half grunt, half growl, and utterly delicious. Tension builds within me until I struggle to suck in air. Each roll of his hips and the answering thrust of mine pushes me closer to the precipice.

The friction of his cock grinding against my inner muscles could be enough to set me on fire. They spasm and clamp down around him. I moan as all that pleasure spirals through in the most intense climax I have ever known, lasting an eternity.

Aldrin guides me through my orgasm as he continues to drive his massive cock in and out of me, stretching out the waves of ecstasy that crash down upon me. He cries out as his own climax shudders through him.

But this is more than an orgasm.

Our very souls reach out and grasp each other, blending into one. I feel his body wrapped around mine, and his mind embracing my own. A warmth, an endless sensation of love, bleeds through my entire existence.

Where there had been a string connecting our hearts together, there is now an entire bridge. His admiration flows into me like thick honey as he strokes away the wet strands of hair plastered to my face.

It is paired with a need stronger than lust. Not just a desire for companionship, but for a life partner.

For a soulmate.

Keira, dear heart. My mate. My queen, he rumbles loud and clear in my head, and I know no one will ever take his voice away from me again.

I am his queen.

That title never sounded right to me until now.

We sit in the glasshouse, side by side on that carpet of moss, watching the sun set over the horizon. It stains the sky pink and orange. The warm glow falls over the golden turrets and blocky form of Appleshield Castle in the distance. The intense light reflects off the many glass panes of the greenhouses and illuminates the new flower buds on the skeletal trees that surround them.

Aldin drapes his arm over my shoulders, and I lean my head against his chest. He pulls the blanket of flowers and moss he created tighter around us, and I let out a sigh of contentment. This peace is all I have wanted for so long. This quiet time together.

“Aldrin.” I move in his arms to look up at him.

“Hmmm?” he rumbles.

“Thank you.”

He raises an eyebrow at me. “For the mind-blowing sex?”

I slap his arm playfully. “For always showing up when I need you. You fought a war for me, and infiltrated the palace with only a handful of people to get me out.”

A tear runs down my face from the overflow of emotion, and he wipes it away with his thumb.

“You never need to thank me, Keira. I will always give you everything and ask for nothing in return. I am in love with you, and I will go to any lengths to ensure you are happy. Don’t you understand that by now?”

My heart hurts with the love it holds for him. I will spend every day of our life together attempting to treat him as well as he treats me. To put him on a pedestal and worship him.

I caress my hand down the light stubble of his cheek. “I love you, Aldrin, more than I ever thought possible.” A thought comes to me, and I frown. “Why did our mate bond lock into place now? We have been through other trials together. Why was this the one that broke it free?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes the traumas pile up until they reach a critical point, and something breaks deep inside us.”

We fall into a comfortable silence, enjoying the warmth of our bare bodies pressed together.

“What’s next for us?” I ask dreamily.

Aldrin kisses the top of my head. “Whatever you want, Keira. Whatever you want.”

“I want a year where we do absolutely nothing. Hide out at Appleshield and spend time together. Walk in the forest. Hunt deer. Maybe throw a ball or two.”

He wraps both his arms around my waist and squeezes me tight from behind. “My kingdom is not going anywhere, and a human year won’t make a difference. I would still give it all up to have a quiet life here, if that is what you ask of me. Cyprien might hate me for dumping him on the throne, but he’ll do it.”

I glance up into those eyes that shine down at me with such tenderness. “We’ll go back to claim your birthright, to save both our realms. Just not yet.”

Aldrin leans down and kisses me. All thoughts fly from my mind as his hands stroke my naked body, dipping between my thighs.