59. The Awakening
59
THE AWAKENING
S omething yawned within her, stretching as if awakening from a deep sleep.
Luella felt her fingers first.
A tiny twitch of her pinky as she tried to lift her hand.
Then, the feeling came back slowly to her body. But as a sharp pain radiated from her arm and chest, she wished all feeling would stay far, far away.
Her brow scrunched as she tried to open her eyes, but her lids were so heavy that Luella gave up. For now.
Voices washed over her. Softly gruff. Warm and comforting. If she could have, she would’ve smiled from the overwhelming security she felt at the sound, but her lips did not even give the slightest of twitches.
Luella ached to move. To stretch her limbs and find the source of that strange pain deep in her gut. It was sore, like an unused muscle that had suddenly been strenuously worked.
Even her head pounded from the force of the hurt.
Something was pulling her, but she could not follow the call.
It was only when warm fingers gripped hers that she forced herself to work past the aching exhaustion weighing her down, and she slowly turned her head. Something soft was under her.
The hand gripping hers tightened.
"Open your eyes."
That voice. She knew that voice.
King Vale.
In her tired stupor, Luella could only think one thing: why did he sound so harrowed?
The anguish in the King’s voice. Was that for… her?
A hand pressed against her breastbone, traveling lower and lower to settle right over that pulsing ache in her gut.
Another touch on her cheek, and Luella turned her head toward it.
If only she could just open her eyes to see who touched her so sweetly. It had to be Az, right? The demon was the only one who treated her with such reverence.
It was that soft warmth on her cool skin that did it. As if the one caressing her cheek held the string that was tied to her soul and tugged, forcing her up out of the strange pit of hollow, hazy wakefulness she had found herself in.
Luella was pulled from the depths of her mind all at once, and slowly, she opened her eyes.
Faces peered down at her.
Luella let out a weak groan. Her vision was blurry, her head throbbed, and her arm hurt. But no ache was so fierce as the one in her soul.
Soft inhalations of surprise made her wince, her eyes squeezing shut.
The hand against her cheek did not move, and that was what made her blink her eyes open, the desperate urge to see who had pulled her from that strange state.
Golden blonde hair tousled as it fell over striking, green eyes. Blonde stubble shadowed a regal jawline. And a mouth that was parted with shock. Luella stared at that mouth, her thick tongue wetting her dry lips as the ache inside her flared.
It was the King who touched her. The King who held the other end of that invisible string.
"What—" Luella’s voice was weak, and her mouth was dry. It hurt to talk. Her lips were chapped as she, again, ran her tongue along them in a feeble attempt of wetting them.
She needed water. Craved it with a sudden desperation. Everything was too much. The fibers of the sheets scratched against her skin.
"What… happened?"
Her hand was lifted in a warm, strong grip. Sweet, wet kisses pressed against the back of it. With every brush of lips against her skin, the ache in her soul eased ever so slightly.
Scrunching up her brow, Luella turned her head lazily on the pillow, meeting the eyes of Az, who gripped her hands with a delicate passion.
"Lu," Az breathed.
She sighed at the sound of his voice. Even as her mind whirred from the memories inside her—the same demon, with bruises on his skin and blood welling from a split lip. The same hands that gripped hers had been cracked and bloody. The voice he used to say her name had been angrier, yet the gruff edges she knew now hadn’t been quite as mature.
Blinking the memory away, Luella relished in the feel of his skin against hers. Anything to quell the fiery ache in her gut. Bastian’s thumb brushed back and forth over her stomach, and she swallowed.
"Az? What happened?"
At the strange look on the demon’s face, Luella tore her gaze away from his—it was painful, but as she looked around, meeting the concerned faces of the others, she grew wary.
A pounding throb in her head made her wince, and she lifted a weak hand to her temple to rub it. The action made her hair fall into her eyes, and Luella brushed it away.
Tharen stared at her with heat in his gaze, and she gulped from the burning intensity. The ache inside her pulled her in many different directions, and her feet kicked out under silken sheets from the force, stretching as if to ward off the uncomfortable soreness. Graves stood quietly behind King Vale, and her mind was bombarded with the memory of how the pair had pulled Bastian away from the Fate.
They had worked together once and had been more friendly than they appeared now.
What had happened to them?
Bastian’s hand never failed in its soothing caress, and before she could think of the many ways it wasn’t a good idea, Luella pressed a shaking hand against his, trapping his palm against her. The vampire’s sensuous lips parted as he stared at her, and she felt her cheeks pinken.
She looked to Graves; the scar at the corner of his mouth tugged as he gave a half-smile. Luella halted in her perusal of the room, ensnared by the sight of him.
His smell. Cloves and honey. It was stronger than before, like he had doused himself in the most enticing of colognes.
Rolling her head to the side on the pillow, King Vale’s hand tightened on her cheek. His palm was so warm. She sighed as his unique scent of crackling embers sank into her skin. What she wouldn’t give to crawl inside him and never leave…
Even though he killed her family, slaughtered thousands, and stole her freedom… Even then. She was enticed by him. By all of them. And so sick of running away from the call.
She could be selfish, just this once.
Luella closed her eyes and rubbed her cheek into the King’s palm, her movements languid with exhaustion and waves of pain. A grimace tugged at her lips, and she shifted on the mattress from the gnawing feel of something pulling her in different directions, making her soul fracture from the forcible tugging.
What was it that pulled her so frantically from the other end of those threads?
The King stared deeply into her eyes, and Luella couldn’t bring herself to look away.
His mouth opened, unsaid words hovering in the air between them like he couldn’t believe his eyes. Fear of the unknown gripped her.
The silence broke, and King Vale spoke.
"You’re a Luna fae."