Fae Champion (Royals of Embermere #2)

32. Uncommon Rightness

When his tongue parted my lips and plunged into the heat of my mouth, I tasted lunacy. Rational reason dove away as swiftly as a flock of startled birds.

My heart and breathing immediately leapt at the feel of him—at the uncommon rightness of our connection.

This must be what he meant when he insisted we were bonded.

In that moment, I could imagine no one better suited to me than he, no one who could possibly feel— be —this exceptional.

My previous fear evaporated. All distrust fled as if it could not have any possible place between us. Fearing him was wrong, and I would no longer allow it.

My body instantly softened and warmed, wanting nothing more than to yield to him, to open wide for him, to be physically joined with him—the man whom I’d once believed to be my enemy .

But he couldn’t be. Not when he kissed me as if his life depended on it as much as mine did. As if the power of our combined kiss could as easily create worlds as it could destroy them in a single blast of our passion.

A hungry moan slipped from between our lips, and I wasn’t sure if it was his or mine or both of ours. I closed my eyes. A clatter sounded ever so far away, suggesting he’d dropped his dagger.

His hands, rough and callused, big and strong, possessive and everywhere all at once, roamed my body—claiming every inch of it, of me. When his fingers bumped against my many scrapes and cuts, against the few shards of crystal still embedded in my skin, I experienced only elation.

I was flying, and Rush’s wings were the ones to prop me up.

I squeezed his shoulders, ran my hands over his neck, back, waist, chest, and thighs. Every layer of clothing between us was one too many.

I scooted awkwardly around my chains to be nearer to him, though I already knew then there was only one way I’d feel we were close enough.

We have an audience , I forced myself to remember, shocked I’d already forgotten given whom our audience was comprised of.

But his touch was both passionate and tender, fingertips barely a whisper along my cheek and brow as he kissed me and kissed me and kissed…

Thoughts that felt both my own and foreign at the same time assured me, Everything’s going to be okay. I can trust Rush. He promised to protect me and he’d never hurt me, no matter what things look like now .

My fingers tangled in his long hair, tugging him closer still, pressing my mouth to his as if his were the breath I needed to survive.

I wasn’t going to die today.

No, there was too much to live for. I wanted to live for this, for our bond, for him.

I’d find another way to save … whomever it was I was concerned about saving.

Panting, I wrapped a hand around his neck, the other splaying into his hair some more, and greedily drank up the ecstasy he was offering me in a package as simple as a kiss.

Then, before I was ready to part—I’d never be ready to separate from him, I knew—he pulled back.

I tugged him toward me by his neck, but, with our noses touching, he stopped me.

“No,” he whispered. “You have to listen to me.”

He pulled away far enough that I could focus on his face. His eyes, those stunning moonlight eyes, were so conflicted and stormy that I wouldn’t have been surprised to see lightning arc across them.

As if we’d been lovers for an age instead of mere days, he leaned his head into my touch, his breathing as heavy and excited as mine.

“No matter what happens, no matter what anyone tells you, I need you to trust me. To trust this ,” he uttered, softly enough that our observers, whom I scarcely recalled, wouldn’t easily overhear.

He squeezed my hand where it rested against him, his tattoos flaring in combined emphasis. “This.” He released my hand to press his against the exposed skin above my bodice, sending tingles racing down my spine to pool in my core as if his very touch were electric.

My attention dropped to his lips—plump, swollen, glistening, and intensely pink amid the shadow of stubble. I inched forward, desperate to taste them again.

He shook his head, one of the many slim braids in his hair sliding forward. He didn’t tuck it back, all his attention on me.

“I love you, El.”

Blinking away my arousal, heavy lidded, I stared at him.

“Did you register that? I love you .”

I just looked at him.

“I get that it might be hard to believe given how long we’ve known each other, but time doesn’t matter. When you’ve lived as long as I have, you just know. And I know . You remember everything I told you earlier?”

I shrugged and gazed once more at his lips.

“Everything I’ve ever told you is true. If you find yourself doubting this … us … me … trust your heart, not your mind. Trust my heart. Okay?”

I stared at him, hearing what he said, but his words slid across my heated skin like a cooling breeze. I was here, but also not here. I was with him, and yet not .

Did Braque cast a spell on me? I was in the middle of wondering when Rush pressed the most tender of kisses against my mouth, so soft and light it was already a specter, a fleeting memory.

“Always remember that I love you, El. I’m so fucking sorry it has to be this way, so incredibly sorry,” he mumbled against my lips, his voice breaking, and I felt the vibration of his words against the sensitive swell of my mouth—before I felt the pain.

The searing agony.

The unbearable burning that stole my breath before it abandoned me entirely.

My heart thudded, wobbled, and then … went quiet, completely still, unable even to shatter.

Disbelieving, I peered downward?—

And found Rush’s dagger plunged into my chest all the way to its shiny, ornate hilt.

I hadn’t even noticed he’d picked it up again…

A crimson so bright it could only be blood that gave—and stole—life bloomed in a rapidly spreading circle around the hilt, transforming the periwinkle blue of my dress into something both hauntingly horrific and mesmerizingly beautiful.

The whooshing pulse in my head silenced into an eerie, surreal vacuum.

While I stared down at the hole in my chest and tried to breathe, Rush’s fingers fluttered around the wound, shaking like a frightened dragonling, like Saffron, whom I remembered I was supposed to be protecting.

“Oh my … oh my … oh my Etherlands,” Rush stuttered. “What … what have I done?”

His fingers wrapped around the handle of his dagger as if considering withdrawing it.

But it was too late.

I knew it.

Surely he did too.

Slowly, with more effort than seemed possible, I dragged my stare up, up, up his sculpted body, until it landed on his eyes.

They glowed a cloudy white so bright it was all I could see. My vision narrowed onto those two celestial globes, which contained more sorrow than I’d ever felt—even now.

Every pulse of those moonlit eyes sang of his heart—broken, shattered … dying.

My sight tapered until even those eyes of his, more moving than anything else I’d ever seen in my entire life, blurred, overcome by the brightness that was carrying me away.

My eyelids slowly fluttered shut.

The strong, courageous warrior who was leader of an entire clan of fae roared as furiously and ferociously as the Dragon Mother … before keening like little Saffron.

Then I knew no more.