Chapter 36 Raine
Raine
“Ichoose you too.”
The words hung in the air between them, but they didn’t make it heavy.
No. Raine didn’t think he’d ever felt so light.
Despite the situation they were in, despite the ship now a distant shadow, despite that they were sitting on a fucking rock in the middle of the Eiatis Sea with only dark water surrounding them, despite that he had no damned idea how they’d get to the others… he smiled.
Weaving his hands into Frelina’s wet hair, Raine tilted her head back so he could press soft kisses on her neck, trailing them up until he placed a kiss on her chin. On her lips. On each of her cheeks. Kissing every inch of her he could until he reached her ear.
“I thought I’d lost you,” Raine whispered, sensing it was important for him to speak out loud right now.
Thoughts and minds were beautiful, but they also could be hiding places, spaces for unspoken wishes and longing and words that were too precious—too frightening—to share in the open.
He didn’t have that luxury anymore. Nor did he want it.
It hadn’t just been on the ship, when her chair had tilted backward. He’d been afraid this whole time he’d known her. First he’d been afraid to feel something. Then he’d been afraid not to feel enough. Then… he’d been fucking terrified to lose her. When he’d never even had her in the first place.
“I want you to be mine.” He’d never heard himself sound so certain, and his hands locked in her hair when he felt her shift in his lap, as if they couldn’t even fathom he’d once thought it better to let her go. “I want you to be mine, whatever comes with that.”
His grip loosened when Frelina pulled back to look at him.
“Raine,” Frelina said softly, and his heart stopped at the look in her eyes.
It was as if she could tell, because Frelina’s eyes dipped for a second before she continued. “I’ve always been yours. Like I think you’ve been mine since I met you. I was just waiting for you to realize it.”
His heart started beating so hard that he had to let out a breath not to get dizzy.
“How?” Raine’s hands moved to her back, settling her legs around his body when she shivered at the breeze whistling around the wet cliffs. “How did you know?”
Frelina’s smile was instant. “You understood me when you just met me. You saw me, Raine. How could I be anyone’s but yours when you tried to give me everything you had, even when it broke you?
You gave me you, Raine. You fought and came back to life and faced your fears, and while most of that was for you…
I think maybe, just a little bit, it was also for me. ”
He just stared at her.
How was she fucking twenty-four years old and she understood him so completely? How did she know he’d stopped reaching for that flask because he wanted to be able to see her clearly—hear her properly—know her entirely?
“You know I am a mind reader, too, right?” she teased when Raine flipped through their memories of their first kiss, of the teasing, of the unspoken conversations, of her yelling at him when he lost track of what she already knew he needed, realizing at every moment Frelina had pushed him when he needed it and stepped back when they depended on it.
Because Raine and Frelina were a they.
It was so clear to him now.
He might have saved her that day on the plateau, but she… she had saved him every moment before and after. Not from an enemy or from danger… but from himself.
She’d loved him when he wasn’t worthy of it, and that… that had allowed him to dare love her back. She’d shown him that love didn’t have to be perfect or pure. It could be messy and painful and filled with guilt. But it was still love.
“I love you, Raine. I love every messy and painful and guilty part of your soul.”
The words settled in the Mind Capturer’s heart, and something dangerously close to tears dimmed his vision as Raine let out a shuddering breath.
The love he felt from her… it healed that last little broken piece within him, and Raine couldn’t describe it, but it was as if the world around him blew out a deep sigh, one word echoing within it.
Finally.
Another breeze blew Frelina’s hair around her face, but this one—it was warm.
Gentle. Familiar. Loving. So loving.
Raine smiled toward the darkening sky, and he knew Solana approved.
The strange feeling faded until only Frelina and Raine remained in the moment, the air so filled with tension and the words they’d ultimately said that he didn’t dare speak, as if any other word might ruin this moment.
It wasn’t until Frelina sent him an image of her own, a vision of her sliding up and down his cock on this stone, longing racing from her core out to her limbs, that he snapped out of it.
Raine threw his head back and laughed, his chuckles darkening when the perfect female in his lap actually pouted.
“You know exactly what you’re doing to me,” Raine rasped as he finally calmed, his hands sliding lower down her back.
She just sent him another vision.
Raine groaned as his hands found her ass. And thank fuck for that.
Frelina yelped as he yanked up her tunic, sucking one of her pebbled nipples into his mouth as he thanked whatever force had brought her to him.
It didn’t matter that they were stranded out here.
It didn’t matter that war loomed ahead.
It didn’t matter that night would fall soon and they’d be freezing out here.
The only thing that mattered was Frelina whining in his lap, pressing her chest against his mouth until he bit down on the nipple, and thrashing around in his lap until he almost ripped their clothing to shreds.
Thankfully he had half a thought to save their trousers, but Raine didn’t bother removing them entirely—truth be told, with the need now surging through them, it was too challenging to get the wet clothes fully off.
Instead he wrangled Frelina out of one leg of her trousers—the one that had ripped when she fell into the sea—her boot landing a few feet away as he threw it in his haste. He pulled down his own only until his cock was free, then pulled Frelina right back where she belonged. On top of him.
Her perfect pussy slid against his cock where it lay against his stomach, and Raine growled when he realized how wet she was—and not from the fucking sea.
“I need you right now,” he groaned.
There would be a time for going slow. For love. For him to worship her entire body.
But right now? He needed to feel them become one—needed to feel that she was his as he was hers.
Then what are you waiting for? Frelina raised her brows.
“Fuck,” Raine swore, angling his hips at the same time as he lifted her so swiftly a surprised noise escaped her.
He thrust into her with a roar that must have echoed over the sea, filling her until her ass met his legs. The slapping sound and her pussy contracting around him, welcoming him home, nearly sent him over the edge already.
And when she started moving, her strong legs wrapped around him, somehow pulling his cock in deeper, Raine could only hold on to her, letting her lead—letting her lead the way. Letting her take charge, like he was starting to realize she’d done all along, just waiting for him to catch up.
Frelina’s lips met his as she slid up and down his hard length, driving him insane with how her pussy pulled him in, and while her movements were fast, determined—needy—her kiss was anything but. Her mouth, and their tongues tangling, said the rest of the things that needed to be spoken.
How they’d protect each other.
How there was no other.
How it was their time now.
She moaned into his mouth when his hands found her hair again, and when he pulled her head back, exposing her perfect fucking neck—the one he couldn’t stop thinking about—she whispered again, “What are you waiting for?”
Nothing. He was waiting for nothing.
Raine made his lips draw back, exposing his sharp teeth, and there was no hesitation as he leaned forward.
He bit down on the skin between her shoulder and neck at the same time as she lifted her hips, almost letting his cock slide fully out, and as Raine drew blood, she sank down, swallowing him entirely with her warm pussy.
I choose you was the last thought Raine had before he exploded inside her, holding her as she also cried out, her mind a warm mess of love and satisfaction as she fell apart.
Or as they fell apart and came back together. Because that’s what it felt like when they caught their breaths and Frelina lifted a hand, trailing her fingers over the mating mark, and a near-feral possessiveness took hold within Raine.
She was his. It was so clear.
Maybe she wasn’t fated for him, but she was his soulmate all the same. Frelina smiled at him as they pulled on their clothing, and Raine halted with his trousers still around his knees at the sight of it.
He couldn’t stop staring at her as she fixed her hair and righted her tunic.
He was so fucking lucky she chose to keep her hair short. Everyone would see she belonged to him. Everyone would see the mating mark and know to stay the fuck away.
Snake, Frelina thought.
“What?” Raine asked as he continued staring at the already healing mark—mesmerized by how damned right everything felt, and so fucking high from love it bested even the most potent liquor.
“I said snake!”
Something high-pitched worked its way into Frelina’s voice, but Raine didn’t fully register it as he responded, “I mean… we can choose a nickname for my cock if you want to, but I thought you hated snakes.”
“No!” Frelina snapped her fingers before his eyes, forcing them to her amber ones. “Snake. As in there are so many fucking snakes beneath us.”
Oh. Raine blinked a few times before the shadows of black coiling serpents materialized into real snakes, slithering their way out of the water and onto the cliffs beneath them.
“Raine.” Frelina’s voice shook. “What do we do?”
The disgust and hatred burned so bright in her mind, Raine thought it was his own feelings at first. He almost couldn’t stop himself from laughing when Frelina held a dagger so tightly her knuckles were nearly translucent, sidestepping from foot to foot, raw panic in her gaze.
The snakes stopped at the sight, and something… a memory from his time with Rioner tickled Raine’s mind.
These snakes had been bred to protect Rantzier blood. They had followed both Rioner and Alarin around like pups whenever Raine visited the castle and the brothers were there, barely letting their own guards get close.
“What are you doing so far from Vastala?” Raine asked, and he pursed his lips when Frelina gave him a hard look, her eyes so round he worried they might pop out of their sockets.
A hiss sounded as the dozen or so large serpents lifted their heads in unison, snapping their long tails in Frelina’s direction, then back to Vastala.
“I see.” Raine’s eyes softened as he followed their glittering eyes south, where Merrick and Elessia should just be leaving the lands Raine had grown up in.
“What do you see? What is happening?” Frelina had started to try to climb up higher, her voice so tainted by fear it quelled Raine’s final wish to chuckle.
“I think your sister sent them,” Raine said gently, watching as Frelina stiffened, her head turning his way again.
“Why?”
Raine studied the snakes for a moment, and somehow he knew he was right. “Because if she can’t be there to protect you, she wants someone else to be.”
Gratefulness tugged at Raine’s heart in that moment. He wasn’t surprised Lessia had thought to send whatever help she could, and now? Here? The snakes would be able to get them to the ships.
Realization dawned on Frelina’s face at the same time as the two largest of the snakes moved toward them, the wet, creeping sound sending shocks of disgust through her that made Raine turn away to hide his smile.
“No,” Frelina declared. “Absolutely not. I would rather die here.”
“Well, darling,” Raine responded, “I can’t allow my future wife to do that, so you better suck it up, put that knife away, and get on the back of one of these lovely snakes.”
There was heat in Frelina’s eyes when she bore them into his—and not the good kind. “Says the male with his trousers still down, showing his own snake. Maybe I have another use for this dagger.”
He couldn’t stop the laugh from bursting free then.
Raine laughed the entire time he pulled up his breeches, as he managed to convince Frelina “to get the fuck on,” and as the snakes started their slithering through the water, moving slower than the wyverns but so much faster than the ships—and more quietly, which was equally important.