28. The Darkness of My Secrets
28. THE DARKNESS OF MY SECRETS
~ RUSH ~
With Elowyn back at the palace and the queen’s sights on her, it was more important than ever that I remain sharp. Even so, I barely slept during the night. In our frenzied lovemaking, we’d left open the curtains to either side of the windows that lined one wall of her bedchamber. The moonlight was enough for me to luxuriate in studying her while she slept.
The way her lips were full and swollen from our kisses, parted slightly, an intense pink with a marked dip at their top, the bottom lip plumper. Her lashes a dark whisper that rimmed her eyelids. The lines of her cheeks softer than when she was awake. Her dark hair fanned out along her pillow, beneath her face, keeping it out of mine. The strength of her shoulders and arms, the muscles marked but still long and feminine.
The way her ears were now pointed at the crest suggesting indeed that her magic had been bound before, keeping the extent of her fae nature beyond her reach.
And from the reaches of the queen, I expected. Whoever had spelled her magic must have anticipated the dangers Elowyn would face one day.
Somehow, she was even more beautiful than I’d remembered. All those weeks apart ... when her face, body, taunting voice, husky laughter, and intoxicating scent, how she moved—everything about her—had consumed my every waking moment before also weaving into my dreams, I’d imagined I’d cataloged each of her details with precision.
I’d been wrong. No memory could touch her actual perfection.
She lay cocooned in my embrace, her body relaxed, open toward me. She’d learned to defend herself in a world where other females didn’t, and yet the warrior in her trusted me.
My attention drifted to the scar she’d now always have, the evidence of what I’d done to her.
Would I ever stop feeling a spearing pain through my own heart when I noticed it? Probably not. I didn’t deserve her forgiveness, nor was I certain I deserved her love. But when she gave it so freely, so insistently, even, I couldn’t find the strength to resist it. Her .
I couldn’t resist her .
I tried to hold back and let her rest, I really had. But after torturing myself with desire for as long as I could resist, I caved and woke her to make love again.
One of the times, it had been with my tongue between her legs, where I could taste our commingled passion, another sucking her breast into my mouth—hard—in that way I’d already learned drove her crazy. And the final time, with my dick already notched at her entrance, so welcoming, pulling me in like it was the most natural act in the world, as if us being apart were the real unnatural state.
I intended to explore her body until I understood it as well as my own, to know every one of her likes and dislikes, and to give her every imaginable pleasure.
She’d only just returned to me, and already I knew I couldn’t be without her. More so than when I’d sent her out into the Sorumbra with little more than a desperate hope she’d survive. My heart had broken. Surely it had. It was still bruised and battered, a mangled mess. But I’d found the way to keep going then, at least for a while. One step in front of the other, one day then the next, all to free the kingdom and secure her safety.
As dawn loomed, the sky already lightening but not yet colored with the pinks that would soon arrive, my heart grew heavy. And as night gave way more fully to day, my every inhale was dragged down by the weight of my worry.
There was nothing more precious in all the realms than this woman. As much as I loved Larissa, and as seriously as I took my duty to protect her, here, where no one could be witness to my silent thoughts I could admit to myself the darkness of my secrets.
I’d allow even Larissa to die if it meant saving Elowyn.
I didn’t know whether it was the mate bond or just plain love, but somewhere along the way Elowyn had morphed into an obsession. It was as if she were a magnet and I its polarized pair. Every piece of me was drawn to her, longed for her, needed her. The mere thought of being in a separate room from her in this blasted place where danger lurked around every corner made my skin prickle.
I had no idea how I’d survive this love for her. It was more intense and consuming than anything I’d ever come close to experiencing before. I empathized with those addicts who huddled in dark corners in the poorest parts of Embermere and the clan territories. They were addicted to olvidian , the juice of the pale violet flower, which when distilled into a resin and then heated was said to deliver a bliss so mighty that anyone who tried it just once would forever chase it again.
Elowyn was my olvidian.
With a cute sigh, she began to stir and, as if it were instinct, she pressed her perfect ass and long, lean legs farther into my body as it curled around hers. I’d rested my head in my hand, up on my elbow, better to study her, but now I laid it next to hers and pulled her flush against me, draping one of my legs across hers, my hand finding its way to the flat of her stomach as if we’d been doing this every day of our adult lives.
Mmmmmm , she hummed before groggily adding, “I could get used to waking up like this.”
Unabashedly, I sniffed the curve where her shoulder and neck met, then groaned, dropping a kiss to the same spot. “Too late now, you’ve already spoiled me,” I mumbled as my lips tasted her skin. “I’ll no longer settle for anything less. You’re mine now.”
Again she hummed contentedly, but my body clenched with the irrational need to hear her say it back to me. Whether she realized it yet or not, she was mine .
But I’d sworn to myself I’d be patient. I’d wait as long as it took for her to come around and openly embrace everything it meant to be mates. What a gift it was to find my mate in this cursed world. The chances were about one in eleven. Before her, I’d never dared allow myself to hope for it. As hard as this life was, it was easier to bear without the added disappointment.
She wiggled her ass cheeks against me as she burrowed even farther into my hold. Any ruminating I’d been doing stuttered to a stop as my entire focus pinned itself to all the spots where our bodies met.
“How long do we have?” she asked with a crane of her neck that confirmed Saffron still slept soundly.
“Long enough. And also not nearly long enough. Never enough,” I rumbled into her hair. It smelled like rose petals.
“Good. It would’ve been just like the queen to summon us first thing and interrupt our fun.”
That unwelcome—yet necessary—reminder made me pause. I had to be responsible. As capable as she was of defending herself as a warrior, Elowyn was still unaccustomed to the ways of court. Within these walls, every single move had to be thought out, its ramifications considered.
Within the palace, we waged war.
And I’d be damned if anything else happened to her on my watch.
Yeah right, Rush. What are you going to do when the queen comes at you both? She’s more powerful than she’s ever been. Practically the entire kingdom would be happy to see her dead, and still no one’s been able to take her down.
I growled at the threat the queen posed to Elowyn, to us, so long as she lived.
“No need to get all worked up,” Elowyn said with a quick glance at me over her shoulder. “Or should I say, get worked up all you want? I’ve cleared my schedule. You, me, and that stunning bejeweled wand you’ve got going on are all I need for the rest of the day. I don’t even care if I eat so long as?—”
“We need to talk,” I cut in abruptly.
She chuckled, a husky, slow roll that tingled through my thighs and urged me to sink inside her.
She hummed again. “That hard cock of yours says differently.”
“Yeah, well, I can’t let him do the talking, not this time.”
“Why not?” She spun to face me, and I instantly missed the way her body nested so perfectly within mine.
“Because we really don’t have that long before we’ll be summoned, and we need to talk while we still have the chance.”
She pouted, drawing my stare to her tempting lips. I couldn’t seem to look away as I told her, “We’ll have our entire lives to make love. We need to find the way to survive to make sure we get that.”
She huffed, her pout deepening. I had to press my lips together to keep from kissing her. When her hand circled my dick, I sucked in a hiss. And when she squeezed and began stroking the length of me, I swallowed and fought to keep hold of my thoughts.
“We can have some fun while we talk, then,” she purred.
I was shaking my head before she even finished speaking. “Maybe you can. But I’m having trouble resisting the urge to roll you onto your back and fuck you till neither of us can walk straight.”
She slid down the covers to better expose my throbbing erection, staring at it as her hand glided up and down. “Again, that sounds like a fine plan.” When she licked her lips, my balls tightened.
I closed my eyes, groaned, tried to speak, failed, swallowed, and tried again. “El, I need you to stop. We need to?—”
She ran her tongue from base to tip, then swirled it around the head of my dick. I forgot what I was saying and why it mattered in the first place.
“Come on, Rush. We haven’t seen each other in weeks. Plus, not that I’m all that eager to remind you of it, but unlike you, you’re my first, and now that I’ve had a taste, I want to feast. Besides, who knows how long we have, with her high and mighty cuntness out to get us...”
After an inhale so deep and steeling, like I was preparing to head into the battle that would define the end times, I pressed my hand to hers, stilling it gently. When she released her grip, I wove my fingers through hers and scooted closer so our chests met. I hooked a leg across her hips and brought our joined hands to my chest above my heart. “I promise you there is absolutely nothing, and I do mean nothing, that I want more than what you’re offering. But we’ve gotta talk. It’s too important.”
She groaned and slid her head back atop the pillow for a moment, then again met my stare. “I know, I know. It’s just ... it sucks. All I want is to forget everything else and just be with you.”
A soft, quick kiss that wouldn’t be too great a temptation. “So let’s talk fast and see where that leaves us.” I grinned.
She waggled her brows. “You’d better start talking, or I’m coming after my prize.”
A tingle swept up and down my spine at being referred to that way. Never had I imagined I’d desire to feel like her possession.
I dragged my free fingers down her side; she shivered. “First of all, are you sore?”
“Why would I be sore?”
“Well, for one, you’ve got cuts all over you.”
“Yeah, but they’re mostly healed up.”
“And also, as you mentioned, you’re new to all this lovemaking. And I didn’t exactly take it easy on you last night.” Regret was already swelling in my gut when she shook her head.
“No, Rush, no. I loved every second of it, I swear. I don’t hurt at all. I haven’t since the first time. You’re free to give it to me as often and hard as you’d like. Or as I’d like.” She shrugged slyly. “Hopefully they’re one and the same.”
I blinked slowly as for a moment I lost myself to that endless gray stare of hers, like a storming ocean.
“What’s next?” she prompted, licking her lips while her gaze trailed across mine.
It was looking like we might have to get fully dressed and sit across the room from each other to get through this. “Do we have privacy?”
She snorted but glanced over her shoulder to check. “For now.”
“What happened in the Wilds?”
“We almost got killed a whole lot. I connected to the magic of the land ... some. It was strange, and I really didn’t know what I was doing, but I glowed, and when I did it kept the monsters away. And then the dragon appeared out of nowhere. When I bowed to it, it bowed back. The next thing I knew, I was standing in the throne room. The others must be really freaking out that I disappeared.”
“I’m sure they are, but there’s nothing we can do to help that now.”
She cast her gaze to the ceiling. “I really hope they’re all right. The monsters out there are no joke.”
“No, they aren’t. And yet it’s the only place I thought you’d be safe. That says a lot.”
“Yeah, about the queen.”
“Yeah,” I whispered, the one word leaden with my regret. “And what about ... Xeno?”
Her stare returned to mine. “What about him?”
I shrugged, feigning a nonchalance I doubted I was pulling off. Still, I had to know. “Did ... anything happen between you two?”
She shrugged. “Sure, lots of things did.”
My heart spasmed. “I mean, did anything ... romantic … happen between you two?” Was I awful for asking when I’d been the one to put her in the danger of that forest? I could demand no claim to her when I’d just stabbed her through the heart...
She laughed. “I know that, you doofus. I’m not that dense, you know. I was just egging you on.”
But then she quieted. My heart thumped a full ten torturous times before she eventually said, “No, nothing happened between us. Stupid me, I was all into the man who’d fucking done his best to kill me.”
I gasped as if struck before forcing myself to silence. She was allowed to blame me as much as she wanted. In fact, she should be blaming me all the damn time.
She leaned her forehead against mine, her breath hot on my lips. “That’s not fair, Rush. I’m sorry. I understand why you did it.”
“No, that’s where you’re wrong, El. It is fair. It’s incredibly fair. Hit me with whatever you want. I’ll take it.”
“But you shouldn’t have to. And you sure as shit shouldn’t have to disrespect yourself by fucking the queen. That’s about as wrong as it gets.”
I didn’t say anything, resigned already to the likelihood that I’d have no better choice.
“Rush, I mean it. You can’t do it.”
I felt the acceptance and sadness in my eyes, knew they’d be swirling with the emotions, my tattoos likely not far behind them.
“You can’t,” she begged.
To avoid looking into her eyes, I pulled her chest against mine and rested my chin against her crown. “I hope I never will—more than you’ll ever know—but even if I do have to, please always remember, it’s just my body. It’s not me. I belong to you. You’re the only one who’ll ever have my heart. And I’ll do anything, absolutely anything, to protect you.”
She tried to wiggle out of my arms but I held her there, kissed the top of her head. “Let it go for now. Please. We need to talk about how to keep you safe.”
She disengaged from my embrace anyway. Her face dropped as she no doubt registered all the pain evident across mine.
“It’s just as important to keep you safe,” she insisted.
“Not for me it isn’t.”
“Well too bad, Drake , ’cause it is for me.”
To change the subject, I said, “As much as we’d like to prioritize freeing the dragons right now, we won’t be able to. For one, we can’t risk Saffron.”
“We?”
“Damn right. He’s important to you. That means he’s important to me.”
Slowly, she nodded. “But we can’t leave the other dragons to whatever she’s doing to them. Where did she send the ones in the throne room? Where’d they even come from?”
“Not sure, though obviously magic’s involved. She might’ve sent the ones from the throne room down into the dungeons with the others.”
“We can’t abandon them there.”
“No, we certainly can’t. But we also can’t get them out now. That rescue will involve a lot of steps and skills we don’t have.”
She pushed up onto her elbow, gazing down at me. “Whatever it takes, we’ll do it.”
Gently, I guided her back down. “Yes, my love, we will. But we have to tackle the Nuptialis Probatio first. Now that the magic of the trials has locked us in, we can’t go anywhere, or the consequences will be ... dire.”
Her brows rose. “What’s that mean?”
“Just that the magic itself might kill us if it deems we’ve abandoned the trials without completing them.”
She scowled. “ Of course . Why wouldn’t it fucking kill us? Everything in this horrible place wants to murder us.”
“Not everything. We do have allies.”
Her brows arched again. “Any strong enough to take her out?”
I let my eyes close.
“That’s what I thought,” she said, and I couldn’t help but feel like the greatest of all failures. After a lifetime of fighting and constantly trying to do right by the mirror world, how was it that I was still letting everyone down?
So she wouldn’t recognize my defeat, to the ceiling I said, “With her apparently drinking blood now, it’s even worse. I don’t know all that much about blood magic, just that it’s the darkest of the dark. But she has speed she didn’t have before. She’s faster than any of us now, and that might be just the beginning.”
She slumped onto her back. “As if we needed her to get worse.”
“I know.”
“And it’s not like the king’s gonna do a thing to stop her.”
“Nope.”
“Coward.”
He likely was a coward, but he was also a broken man. Decades spent with that woman would probably break anyone. “He wasn’t always that way.”
“He is when it matters most.”
“I think it’s always mattered.”
We lay side by side now in a silence that stretched out, until Elowyn interrupted it.
“So, the Nuptialis Probatio. What’s that gonna be like?”
“It’ll be the queen’s usual fanfare, no doubt, though it will be held at the palace, not the arena, so that’s good. A smaller audience. I’m sure she’s had the goblins and humans slaving through the night to have everything ready for today, especially with the level of disrepair. Other than that, though, I don’t know all that much. The last trials were held in the Golden Forest before King Spiro even created the mirror world.”
“But it’s some kind of pairing competition?”
“Yeah. Though given that she’s involved, I’m sure it won’t be that simple ... or that safe. But yeah, it’s to match up the champion of the Gladius Probatio with his female counterpart.”
I rolled to my side and smiled, though I wasn’t fully feeling it yet. “Of course, you, my ferocious love, upended those quaint plans of hers.”
She laughed as she too faced me, but it was still a somewhat hollow sound. “I aim to disrupt—at least where she’s concerned, I do.”
“One of the very many things I love about you.”
“Oh?” Her eyes lit up with a spark of mischief that I experienced like a breath of fresh air after being stuck in the prison that was this palace. “Tell me what else you love about me.”
Grumbling, I tugged her to me, and when I dragged kisses up and down the crook of her neck, she squealed and giggled. “That tickles.”
I only did it more. Her squeal was the best sound in all of Embermere.
With her neck pinched to her shoulder to play at keeping my lips away, she said, “If you’re doing this to avoid answering my question and you just don’t have all that much you love about me to share, then I caught you.”
I sneaked a final smack of a kiss to her neck then withdrew as she laughed, tugging her flush against me. “I could go all day long with a list of the things I already love about you. And I can’t even imagine how many bits of you I’ll fall in love with over our lifetimes.”
She stiffened.
I examined her face. “What? Too much too soon?”
She took a moment, but finally, “No, it’s not that. Or, well, maybe it is, I guess. I just... Until I got here, I thought only dragon shifters had mates. Maybe dragons too, I’m not sure about them since I’ve never talked to one before today.”
It was my turn to stiffen. “Wait, what? You spoke to a dragon today?” I could feel my brows climbing my forehead.
“Well ... whaddya think I was doing when I was connecting with the blue she-dragon in the throne room?”
“I didn’t know. And we haven’t exactly been talking much till now. Better things to do and all.” I winked.
Our minutes till a goblin came to fetch us to prepare for the Nuptialis Probatio were probably numbered.
With increasing interest, I scanned her naked body. Oh yeah, we’ve definitely talked enough .
I was lowering my lips to her breast when her scar once again caught my eye. I groaned. “Dammit, I’m supposed to be focusing. My priorities are all skewed with you lying here all beautiful and sexy and naked.”
“Hey, if we’re stuck here for now, and queenie can’t kill us, then, well, fuck it. No use fighting that part of it since we can hardly fight the rest of it, let alone some crazy fae land magic. So I say, let’s make the most of our time here, yeah?”
“Yes. Definitely. No. Wait. Don’t you have more questions before we’re separated and the Nuptialis Probatio starts?”
Just the thought of having her out of my sight made panic flare in my veins. If Azariah hadn’t assured me the magic of the Fae Heir Trials was now unbreakable, even by the queen, then I didn’t think I’d leave Elowyn’s side, no matter what anyone demanded of me.
“Separated?” Elowyn asked.
“Yes. Goblins will arrive soon to groom us. You more than me, of course, since you’re the competitor. With Pru gone, you’ll get someone to replace her.”
“You’re not seriously telling me I actually have to compete to be your mate. That’s already decided, isn’t it? By…” I waved my top hand. “…fate, destiny, whatever?”
“Yes, definitely. But…”
“But. I hate but s.”
“Me too. Especially this one. The Fae Heir Trials magic is old, really old. No one can break it once it’s been initiated.”
“You said that already.”
“What I’m getting at is ... you’ll actually have to win the Nuptialis Probatio for us to be able to marry. Mates or not, the magic will force me to marry the winner. Assuming she then passes the last two stages of the trials, of course.”
“ Assuming , my ass. There’s no she here, just me.”
“Obviously. But me knowing that and the magic knowing that are two different things.”
“Whom do I have to compete against?”
“All the princesses and contenders you saw at the parties, and some others in from clan territories.”
She just stared at me, so I added, “Like Natania, Coretta, Eliana, Malina, you know, that group.”
“And by that group you mean the conniving, catty, wheedling, manipulative, serpent-like bitches who can’t keep their hands off you?”
If our roles had been reversed, I’d probably murder every last contender who so much as thought about laying a single hand on her.
My mouth was a grim line. “Them.”
She growled, sitting upright; the cover fluttered and slid down her waist. “I’d rather hang out with umbracs.”
I frowned. “Me too.” I absolutely meant it.
She glared at empty space for so long I thought she was going to get up.
But then she yanked the sheet the rest of the way off us and let it fall to the floor.
My eyes were wide as I waited to see what she’d do next.
Openly, blatantly, she ogled my body. She stared at my cock, then trailed her gaze over my skin like fingertips. Up and down she went, always slowing at my dick.
Still, I waited, my erection tightening with every passing sweep of her stare. My tattoos were glowing so intently they rivaled the rising sun beyond the windows.
She straddled my hips, dangled her tits in my face, and just as my lips leapt for a nipple, she swayed away alluringly.
Her grin was wolfish. “If that kinda shit’s what awaits us, then we’d better stockpile some imagery to keep us occupied while we listen to them drone on about whatever nonsense.”
Before I could wholeheartedly agree, she cupped her tits, heavy in her palms, flicked both nipples with a finger, threw her head back, and lowered herself onto me in one smooth stroke.
I couldn’t tell whose groan was louder, mine or hers. Probably mine. Holy fuck, this woman is going to make life one wild ride . Literally.
One thing was certain, whatever aristos lived on the other side of these walls, they heard us.
She rocked her hips, gliding up and down my erection, slicking it. She pressed her chest forward, at last placing her breasts within reach.
When I tweaked her nipples, she grunted her approval, and slicked more.
“That’s it,” she encouraged, rolling her body along mine as if she’d been making love to me for decades.
Elowyn was obviously a woman who understood her body. And she went after her pleasure.
Just seeing that made my dick harden further, till I felt the head pulse within her tight walls. She squeezed them around me. Another loud groan from each of us.
I sat up, holding her ass steady on top of me, and told her, “I’ll wait however long you need. However long you want. You’re my mate now , you’ll be it then . You can take all the time you need to come to terms with that. You don’t need to say?—”
“Oh, please,” she snorted. “As if you and I don’t both already know you’re my mate.” Her hips rocked across mine.
I held her in place. “What’d you just say?”
She rolled her eyes. “You heard me fine, you just want to hear me say it again.”
“You’re right. I absolutely fucking do.”
“Rush Vega, arrogant sonofabitch with apparently every reason to be.” She pushed through my hold to rock on me, punctuating her point. “You’re my mate. My mate . There, happy?”
“Blissfully so.”
I spun her onto her back and thrust into her over and over again, then growled into her waiting kiss, “You’re my mate.”
I let all of myself loose then. I thrust and thrust and thrust inside her, wanting to give her everything I had.
When I could feel both our ethercrests rising, when my balls were tight to my body, and her moans were growing louder and longer and more indulgent, she suddenly stilled entirely.
Automatically, I reached for my dagger, tucked between the mattress and the bedframe. I flicked a look behind us.
Her moaning transformed into shrieks.
I whirled around to face her again so fast my vision blurred.
“What is it? By dragonfire, what is it?” I moved to get off her.
But even as she thrashed around me, pinching her lips closed as her moans became those of agony, she slapped her hands to my ass and kept me right where I was.
I didn’t dare move.
Instead I waited, studying every movement, searching for any hint of what might be going on. Any way to help, to ease her inexplicable pain.
Finally, her head slumped back onto the pillow, and she wheezed a ragged, relieved exhale.
“Tell me you’re all right,” I whisper-shouted.
Before she could assure me of any such thing, from the center of her chest, in the precise location where I’d stabbed her, a crimson glow bloomed.
Slowly, like blood seeping across dry cloth, it unfurled across her chest, igniting my handprint before continuing?—
Across her stomach and down her legs. Along her collarbones and arms. Weaving up her neck.
Illuminating dozens of winding rivers along her body.
They all shone the color of blood.
“By the Ethers,” I breathed.
Eyes closed as if it still pained her to open them, she rasped, “What is it?”
“I think ... fuck, I think it might be a map.”
Her eyes popped open. “A map to fucking what?” Her eyeballs were as red as the lines that etched across her skin.
“Maybe it’s a fool’s hope, but it might be a way to take down the queen.”