Chapter 43 Aerin
AERIN
Waking the next morning, Aerin finds herself in a cocoon of blankets with Emrys’s arms around her. She scans the room, something inside of her settling when she sees Malice asleep in the chair next to the bed. The same one he sat in last night.
Having Emrys fuck her while Malice watched was the most erotic thing Aerin has ever experienced.
She flexes her muscles, finding herself delightfully sore.
At her rustling, Emrys shifts. Aerin admires him.
Last night he’d been carnal, like an animal in the best way.
But now he’s peaceful in his sleep, soft, with a kindness Aerin wants to protect fiercely.
She brushes hair back from his forehead and lets her fingers dance along his cheekbones.
“Good morning, Alpha,” he murmurs into her palm, kissing it gently.
After he thoroughly fucked her at Malice’s orders, the three of them showered.
They treated Aerin like porcelain, washing and caressing her.
Malice got her food and water to combat her inevitable hangover before tucking the two of them into bed.
Aerin remembers falling asleep in this exact position.
She looks over to the chair again, and Malice’s haunting blue eyes are trained on her. He stands, closing the space between them and briefly laying a kiss on the top of her head.
“Our meeting is in three hours,” he murmurs to her. Then he’s gone.
Two hours later Aerin meets Malice at the front gates of the Royal Village.
Images of their time together last night, how he looked like a king sitting on his throne, how he tasted her on Emrys’s fingers and moaned like it was the best thing he’s ever had, spur to the forefront of Aerin’s mind.
Other thoughts too, like how she begged for him to join them, more than once.
He denied her every time.
Aerin’s attempts to cast the thoughts out are futile, especially with the male right in front of her, looking as delicious as ever.
Right now, she needs to be the Aerin who ensures nothing goes wrong.
Who can manipulate information out of a fellow Alpha.
Someone who is both charming and threatening.
She works on swallowing everything else down, carefully placing it deep inside of her. Locked away. Forgotten.
Malice doesn’t offer Aerin any sort of greeting beyond pushing open the front gates. She steps through them as a Princess and steps out as just another ice Fae with a fellow Fae at her side.
Saying nothing at the new skin he wears, Malice moves with Aerin through the crowds in silence. Aerin does her best not to hyper focus on him. Instead, she threads her hand through his and gives it a tentative squeeze. He looks over at her, his normally blue eyes brown in this form.
“Yes, Princess?” he murmurs so lowly only Aerin can hear him.
“We’re okay?”
Malice nods. “We have a lot to discuss, but yes. We are okay.” He squeezes her hand back in reassurance, out of his usually rigid character. Aerin nods and lets her hand fall from his.
Unlike Valtara, the entrances and exits of Zeneith are hardly regulated.
Human workers flood in and out of the gates.
Shifters from the small mountainous towns come to trade and shop, to visit the healers or banks.
Even other Rogues like Wolves, Trolls, and Elves lumber through.
Guards loiter but rarely stop anyone for identification.
The Hale King is lax but feared. Where Aerin’s father keeps an iron grip, King Vitus Hale is more reclusive. Today, that works to Aerin’s benefit.
The walls still act as barriers, the magical protection pulling at her skin as she walks through the gates.
Once they are down the road and surrounded by tall dark forest, they veer off the main thoroughfare.
Instead, taking a small path with a sign that indicates the way towards the Hannan Mountains, towards Iron Spine. Aerin lets their disguises fall.
The trail is narrow, only wide enough for two normal sized bodies.
With Malice’s broad shoulders, and even broader wings, there is no walking next to him.
The ground is rocky, weaving through the towering trees.
It smells like pine and rain. It’s impossible to see the sky from their position, but small spots of sunlight bleed through the trees illuminating the forest floor in some places and casting others into shadow.
“Will we go all the way there?” Aerin questions. Malice has been sparse on details. He glances at her, his blue eyes unreadable.
“No,” he answers, continuing to march on. Aerin follows, using her magic to thicken their coats. He glances a look at her again, “You don’t need to waste your magic on me, Princess.”
“Don’t be stubborn, it’s cold out here.” Aerin internally curses her Southern blood as the wind bites at her skin. She thickens the lining of her gloves and boots as well.
“I have a Dragon living inside of me,” Malice reminds her.
“Yes, I am aware,” Aerin says, waving him off as he tries to guide her over a downed tree laying across the trail.
“So, I do not feel the cold,” he elaborates, tying half his hair back in a bun, uncovering his pointed ears.
“Oh,” Aerin remarks, remembering the times clothes had literally melted from his body.
“Malice?” Aerin asks tentatively. The Dragon-Fae looks over his shoulder.
For once, he is leading instead of following her.
Aerin doesn’t wait for his likely impatient response, examining his face.
He looks cut from a book of lore, brutal and handsome at the same time.
Massive, formidable, feared, and yet… last night he looked at her with reverence in his eyes.
“Did you mean what you said yesterday?”
“You’ll have to be more specific; I said many things yesterday.” He casts his gaze forward again.
"It was a long day,” Aerin agrees. This weekend is going to wear down Aerin’s bones. Age her fifty years.
“I’m afraid today will prove just as long, Princess. We should be focusing on what you are going to say to this Alpha,” he says grumpily, holding out a hand to help Aerin down a few large steps. She takes it despite not needing to. He releases her when she gets to the bottom.
“The part about it not being the blood-bond. The part about wanting me since we met,” Aerin elaborates. “Now seems as good a time as any to discuss your feelings,” she teases.
“You need to focus,” he argues.
“Malice,” Aerin says, exasperated. She stops walking, and hearing her tone, Malice halts, turning to face her.
“I didn’t think it was right of me, to have those feelings for you, at that time. I wasn’t even sure I liked you. In fact, I didn’t like you, and I was certain it was just your…” He gestures up and down her body with an annoyed look on his face. “There are rumors about the Tolvares, even here.”
Aerin swallows down the conflicting feelings she has about her family’s legacy. “And now?” she prompts.
“I thought last night made it pretty clear.” He avoids eye contact with her.
Irritation swirls inside of Aerin. She stomps ahead, taking the lead. Malice lets her walk in silence for a while, the only sounds the birds, trees rustling, and boots trekking rhythmically over hard dirt.
Finally, minutes later, he grabs her wrist.
“Enough!” he growls, spinning her to face him. “What about last night was upsetting to you? I thought I gave you exactly what you wanted!”
His annoyance is matched with Aerin’s own; she rips her wrist from his hand.
“No, you didn’t. And you know that, Malice.”
“What more could you possibly want?” he snarls, loud enough that birds take off from the trees.
Aerin’s frustration melts into sadness, into an ache where the blood-bond lies, into this thing she wants so badly that every day without it wears against her.
Her voice wavers in a way she hates when she says, “You hardly even touched me.”
Malice stills at her admission.
“I wanted Emrys, I did. I do. But I know Emrys’s love for me. It is as much a part of me as my own arm. It’s your desire I must constantly question!” Malice is silent and still as Aerin continues, “You don’t get to say the things you said to me, and then not touch me.”
Aerin’s outburst hangs in the air between them. She bites back tears as she watches him, internally cursing herself for being so weak. He holds himself tight like he always does around her, barely bracing onto a control she wishes would just snap.
Finally, Malice breaks the tense silence. “I meant what I said, Princess, every word of it. But there are things between us that shouldn’t be messed with. Can you not understand why I’m hesitant?”
Like a tide of defeat washing over her, Aerin turns away from him, continuing down the trail. “You were right; I need to focus on the meeting.”