Chapter 25 - Jael #2
Cliff slapped me on the back on his way to the entrance. “Don’t worry about it, fae. I’ve got dinner covered. You lot may as well come with me and make yourselves useful since you can see.”
Hethyr let out a whoop of excitement and headed out after him. “I’ll get the herbs.”
“Not without me, you won’t,” Pimmin said, catching up to her. “You know how to combine them, my love, but I can’t have you mixing up your greenroot with your ashvine again.”
Ria sighed. “I guess that means I’m going too. The rest of you stay out of trouble.”
With Birch already asleep and Corban immediately turning away from us, Kalla and I were left alone. We didn’t speak, which was more than okay. I didn’t need to hear her voice, but by the sky, I needed to be close to her.
I was still trembling with residual terror when Cliff returned carting a coyote over his shoulder.
He dropped it in front of Kalla with a cheerful “Enjoy,” and her expression grew heavy with longing.
Moving faster than I could follow, she pounced.
Her fangs tore into the coyote’s throat, and her throat bobbed with every hard swallow.
Her eyes rolled back in her head before they closed, and I hated how jealous I was of a dead animal.
How frustrated that anything other than me should bring her this much pleasure.
I balled my hands into fists, buried my rising desire, and left her to feed and recover. I was in no place to be with other people tonight, and staying here was self-inflicted torture.
When I stepped outside, I passed Ria and the others, and at Hethyr’s questioning glance, I shook my head. I didn’t want to explain. There was nothing to explain. I was a fool who needed to get my head on straight.
I didn’t go far, not wanting to betray the vampires’ trust in leaving the blindfold off, but I wanted space.
Choosing a direction at random, I strode through the trees, keeping the cave in view, until I was finally alone enough to take a deep breath.
Punch a tree. Tear at my hair. Pace back and forth among the wide trunks and vent out the energy coiling through my blood that would have made sleep impossible.
What I really needed was another fight. Just me versus the guards. It didn’t matter if I survived as long as I was able to shed some blood and eviscerate something. What I wouldn’t give for a single person to beat to the brink of death.
Or my lyre.
The sudden yearning for my old instrument hit me harder than any of the strikes the guards had landed tonight, and I staggered backwards until my spine met a tree trunk. My fingers crawled over my chest, clutching at my armour, desperate to loosen the tightness around my lungs.
Music had always been my refuge. Not the violence that had been my life lately. The lulling notes of a simple song had never failed to calm me, and the pure act of strumming a set of strings could lure me into an almost hypnotic state.
But not in so long.
So. Fucking. Long.
I tilted my head back against the bark to stare into the branches, feeling scattered and cramped all at once. I’d gone years without suffering this nagging draw, but playing that flute for Kalla had unleashed the old pain.
“Are you okay?”
Kalla’s soft tones nearly made me jump out of my skin, and I whipped towards her, my dagger in my palm in an instinctive reaction. That tingle in my chest—the one I hadn’t believed possible—surged with my need to defend myself, but when I reached for it, it flitted away.
Kalla stepped back, hands raised in a show of peace.
She hadn’t put her armour back on after the attack, leaving her in a sleeveless black shirt that showed off the mounds of her breasts and the sharp peaks of her nipples.
I devoured the sight of her curves—remembering, wanting—before jerking my gaze back to hers.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said. “Again.”
I sheathed my dagger. “No, it’s fine. I was just...” Thinking of you. Trying not to think of you. Lost in my craving for everything you are. I cleared my throat. “Shouldn’t you be inside?”
When I gestured vaguely to the sky and the approaching sun, Kalla shrugged. “We’ve got about an hour before it rises. I needed some air.”
My shoulders dropped. “Me too.” I looked her over. “How are you?”
“Alive because of you.” She stepped closer. “The blood helped. What about you? You looked like you were going through something just now.”
My fingers flexed with the desire to stroke the string of my lyre. Or her hair. This close, her rich, earthy scent—mixed with the tiniest hint of copper—made my mouth water. Her cheeks were flushed after her dinner, and her eyes were bright—and still hungry.
I licked my lips to work some moisture into my suddenly dry mouth. “Just a long day. Trying to unwind.”
There was so much more I didn’t say. That I was trying to forget those few brief heartbeats when I thought she’d left me and how, in another night, that’s exactly what would happen.
The squeeze in my chest was too much to bear if I let my thoughts travel down that road.
So I hauled them back, desperate to find the void that had sustained and protected me for the past many years.
Any grip I had on the nothingness slipped when a noise of understanding rumbled in Kalla’s throat and she closed the distance between us by another step. “Unwinding sounds good.”
My cock twitched at the roughness in her voice, the raw want that echoed the arousal burning in my veins. “It does.” I cleared my throat again. “But we should probably...”
Probably what? I was sure there were reasons for me to walk away, but as I stood next to her, eyeing the span of her neck when she tilted her head to look up at me, they didn’t present themselves.
My hand moved without my permission, my fingers stroking the softness of her bare arm, up to her elbow, her almost-healed shoulder, to the base of her jaw until they slid to the back of her neck.
And with every part of her body I claimed, the space between us disappeared until her chest pressed against mine.
Against my will, my gaze dropped, drawn to the swell of her breasts beneath the thin black cotton. My other hand itched to cup her, to stroke my thumb over her hardened nipple, but I maintained enough control to keep it clenched at my side.
“This isn’t a good idea,” I whispered, needing it to be said. I was about to sacrifice myself on the altar of my revenge, a mission so far beyond me that there was no way I’d succeed. Kalla had her life to get back to. Indulging in this pleasure would only complicate everything.
If I tasted her again, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to let her go. My desire for her had grown so strong that one more night wouldn’t be enough. I would need an eternity to slake my need.
Something I could never admit out loud. If I said it, I wouldn’t be able to tuck the truth back into the recesses of my mind, and then how was I supposed to keep walking? All of this was a bad idea. Silence and distance were my best safeguards.
But her lips came closer, and her hand curled around my closed fist, loosening my grip on myself, sabotaging my self-restraint.
“It’s not,” she agreed. “But I want it. I tried to keep my distance, but fuck, Jael. That was too close. Death almost dragged me under, and the thought of—of—I need you.”
I might have gulped, my tongue suddenly too thick and unwieldy.
My hand at the back of her neck pulled her closer, acting of its own volition.
Her heart raced against mine, igniting a fire in my stomach that spread everywhere.
My other hand finally broke through my self-control and brushed a loose lock of hair behind her rounded ear.
“Can I kiss you?” she whispered.
At that echo of our first kiss, my resistance cracked.
I caught her lips with mine, starving for her.
The coyote’s blood lingered on her tongue, and the primal nature of her meal woke matching primal urges within me.
I ground my hips against her, needing her to feel the effect she had on me.
My rigid cock pressed into her belly, and she pressed back as she curled her fingers around the top of my armour.
Too much armour. The leather was too thick. I needed to feel her.
“More,” I growled, and when she whimpered, I swallowed the sound, drowning in arousal. “I need more, Kalia. I need all of you. After tonight—after I thought I—”
She kissed me again, ravenous, and without pulling away from her, I undid the buckles and unlaced the straps.
Another growl escaped me when I was forced to break our kiss long enough to pull the breastplate over my head.
As soon as it hit the ground, my arms were back around her, and she was tearing at my shirt.
The laces at my collar snapped, and I didn’t care that this was my only shirt.
She could rip the entire thing to shreds, and I would go to my death without it.
A surge of desperation swept through me. Tomorrow night, I’d be walking towards my end, but if I carried the memory of her, I would hold on to my courage.
It made no sense that this vampire should have dominated my senses. Fae were immune to vampiric compulsion. It was fact. Yet somehow, over the past few nights, I’d become hers, and if this was my last chance to show her, then I would make sure she never forgot it.
I slid my hands under her shirt and moaned into her mouth as I cupped her breasts. She arched her back into my palms, and a squeak left her when I pinched her nipples, twirling them gently before rubbing them with the pads of my thumbs.
When my eyes grew jealous of my hands, I pulled off her shirt and tossed it onto the ground, then bent my head to take one of her pebbled peaks into my mouth. I nipped and laved in equal measure until Kalla squirmed against me, her fingers in my hair, her hips thrusting at nothing.
“Please, Jael—fuck. I want—”
“What do you want, lutrena me? Anything you want, I’ll give you.”
Through her panting breaths, a knowing smile curled the corner of her mouth, her blue eyes fully black. “You. All of you. Inside me. Now.”
With a lustful groan, I tore myself away from her breasts to reclaim her mouth. That was a debt I would gladly accept. How could I deny her when she was so fucking perfect? How could I reject the gift of the sky when this would be my last chance to experience the full beauty the world offered?