10. Zakkai
I’d chosenthe bedroom closest to the living area, preferring to be the first line of defense. It’d seemed to work well for Kolstov and Zephyrus, who had decided to take the largest room at the end of the hall together. Shade had picked the room beside mine. And Aflora… had bypassed the remaining room to join Kolstov and Zephyrus.
However, I felt her awake now.
Restless.
Pacing.
I sat up to find Zimney curled up at the foot of my bed, his eyelids lifting briefly before closing once more. Not moving, he was saying.
I snorted and slipped from the covers to pull on a pair of pajama pants. Shade’s grandmother had fully stocked our closets and rooms with everything we needed. Whether she’d done it herself or hired someone, I wasn’t sure. But I thanked her silently for it nonetheless. It made life easier.
That she knew which rooms we would pick—evidenced by the correct sizing of our wardrobe—served as a show of power. She’d foreseen our choices. Or perhaps she just knew us all well enough to know where we would want to sleep.
I stepped out into the hallway, listening for signs of life, and heard the soft slide of paper against paper. Following it into the living room, I found Shade reading on the smaller of the two couches, his upper body exposed as he wore a pair of pajama pants similar to mine.
His icy eyes remained on his book as he said, “She’s outside.”
“You should be sleeping,” I told him.
He lifted a shoulder. “I wanted to be nearby in case she needed something.”
It seemed I wasn’t the only one with the protective gene engaged. “I’ll keep an eye on her,” I said, my voice soft. “Go rest, Shadow. You’ve done enough these last few days, and we all need your reserves fully restored.”
Aflora’s training would officially begin tomorrow. I’d developed an intense curriculum—one Zephyrus had fortified and Kolstov and Shade had perfected. It would require all of us to be at our best, not exhausted.
Shade set his book on the table. “She needs rest, too.” He stood and stretched his arms over his head. “Perhaps you’ll be better suited to convince her.”
“I’ll do my best.”
His lips twitched as he stepped up to my side. “You’ll have to do better than that. She’s stubborn.”
“I know how to handle her stubborn side,” I promised.
He huffed out a dry laugh before heading down the hallway toward his room. When the door snicked closed, I wandered over to the table, curious to see what he’d chosen to read. I smirked at the title, familiar with the fictional trilogy from the Human Realm about hobbits.
It seemed just like Shade to indulge in such an epic tale.
Leaving the book alone, I redirected myself outside to the beauty lying on the ground. It seemed she’d ceased her pacing and had chosen to admire the sky instead. “It isn’t real,” she said to me as I approached. “But it certainly looks real.”
“It’s real to an extent,” I replied, sitting down beside her on the soft bed of green grass.
The firm texture and vibrant life told me she’d bolstered it with her power, ensuring its strength beneath our bodies. I leaned back to join her in the prone position, my knuckles brushing hers as I aligned our arms alongside one another. Her fingers flexed toward mine, curling around the tips to hold me in her own way.
“Does the Hell Fae realm have stars?” she asked.
“I imagine it does in certain areas, but I’ve not explored it to know for sure.” My paradigm was in the Human Realm, in Antarctica, which definitely had stars at night. Not that one could actually venture outside to admire them.
She tilted her head toward me, her blue eyes full of questions. But she didn’t voice any of them. Instead, she just studied my features, content to coexist for a moment in silence.
Seconds turned into minutes as we watched each other, thousands of unspoken words and memories floating between us.
Then she leaned in closer to brush her lips against mine.
A token of trust.
A gift of gratitude.
We had been best friends once upon a time, our lives filled with a childish innocence that neither of us had ever fully understood. We’d bonded and loved each other in a way meant for children. And now we were very much adults, our connection shifting and growing into something very different.
It was a tentative link founded in confusion.
Aflora hadn’t understood my motives or my purpose, just as I hadn’t fully grasped her desires in life. But a few weeks together had opened our eyes to a whole new world of existence, one where our goals learned how to intertwine and grow as a unit rather than as separate strands.
My sweet little star had fused us together, tied our roots in a love-knot at the source of our beings, and ensured we were forever bound.
In essence, she’d captured my heart. I wasn’t sure how or when it had happened. Perhaps in our childhood. Perhaps during that first dream when she’d demanded I please her without even asking my name. Perhaps when she’d fought me in my bedroom shortly after waking up.
Perhaps she’d always owned me.
I rolled onto my side to more properly face her, preferring to admire her over the starry night. Tucking my arm beneath my head, I placed my other hand on her abdomen, my pinky sliding beneath the fabric of her tank top to stroke the warm skin below it.
She didn’t move, her eyes holding mine while we continued to stare at each other.
No words.
Just the sound of the perpetual night and the slight rustle of leaves and flowers, responding to the queen among them.
Her eyelashes fanned over her cheekbones as she blinked, her gorgeous features captivating my full attention.
I could gaze upon her for hours and never tire of it.
She possessed so much power and strength, the source’s mark properly branding her as royalty. Cerulean ribbons glowed in her dark hair, lighting up her features and proclaiming her as my mate. I lifted my hand away from her stomach to draw my fingers through her soft strands, smiling as her energy kissed my skin.
“You’re so beautiful that it almost hurts,” I marveled, completely consumed by her and the vitality pouring off of her. I drew my thumb along her jaw, my touch instinctively reverent. “I know you’re worried about the trials and marrying your power sources, but you were born for this, little star.”
Her confidence continued to waver through our bonds.
It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in herself so much as she questioned whether or not this was the right path.
“You grew up being told that abominations are evil,” I continued softly. “I grew up knowing that abominations can do good, too. Look at the Academy around us. This is here because of Zenaida, who, by all rights, is an abomination herself, and she worked with Lucifer, the unequivocal king of abominations, to create it. Does it feel wrong here? Evil? Dark? Nefarious? Or do you sense the life and love in this paradigm like I do?”
Similar sensations existed in my own paradigm, the one I’d created for those who favored retribution. But beneath that life had been a sense of anger and resentment toward other fae.
What I felt here was an underlying promise, a true sense of purpose for the future.
No violence or desire for bloodshed.
Just a desire to learn and work together.
A show of unity—something I hoped would be useful to Aflora later on.
“Peace,” she whispered. “They feel at peace here. Protected. Safe. Like they can be themselves without worrying about punishment for doing so.”
I nodded. “Because they’re allowed to be themselves here. Abominations who just want to live, not fight. And it’s not just within this paradigm, Aflora. You’re picking up on it from the Hell Fae, too. They’re a race of beings who have been shunned for so long that they built their own society to escape the others.”
“Some of them are angry,” she said softly. “I feel their ire like a weight against my soul. But others are just tired. They want to be accepted.”
“And you can help them in that quest,” I told her, my thumb tracing her cheekbone on my way to fondling her hair once more. “Being an abomination doesn’t make one evil, little star. The soul is corrupt with or without power. Constantine is proof of that. He’s a Midnight Fae who will destroy anyone and everything that stands up to his methodology for order. Hell, he took an inclusive council that worked positively together and turned them against their own hearts—the women who are the true figureheads.”
It was despicable and wrong and so expertly crafted that I couldn’t help developing a smidgen of respect for the bastard.
My father used to tell me that admiring one’s enemies was to understand and never underestimate them.
I understood that now.
And I would never underestimate Constantine again.
“Constantine succeeded because he knew what weakness to exploit,” I continued. “Emotion. What we need to do is show him how powerful emotion can be, by demonstrating how powerful our bonds are together.”
I pressed my palm to the ground on the other side of her head, using it to balance myself as I leaned over to graze my lips across hers.
“We’re going to train you, little star. We’re going to help you through each trial. We’re going to ensure you become the most powerful queen the fae have ever seen.” I pressed my mouth to hers once more, my voice lowering to a whisper. “And when you fully ascend, we’re going to kneel at your feet and show those Elders what a real council looks like.”
She stared up at me for a beat. “Kiss me.”
I brushed my mouth against hers, lingering for half a second before pulling back to study her features.
“Again,” she whispered.
A variety of comments populated my thoughts, several of them taunts regarding her other mates leaving her needy for more. But rather than voice them, I adhered to her sensual command, this time parting her lips with my tongue to properly taste her.
We’d engaged in dreams, all of which resulted in me wearing something very similar to this while I pleased her with my hands and mouth.
But I wanted to experience the real her. The physical being. My mate.
Feeling her beneath me, her hands roaming up my back, was so much better than a fantasy. She knew me now. She accepted me. She trusted me. She could feel me, not just on top of her, but inside her.
And she wanted me.
I sensed her yearning, her innate recognition of what we meant to each other, and her subsequent happiness with our connection.
No dread. No doubts. No refusal.
Just pure, unadulterated acceptance.
It was the most amazing realization to learn that my mate desired me as I desired her, to know she considered me hers just as I considered her mine.
“Aflora,” I whispered, deepening our kiss with my palms pressed to her cheeks to angle her appropriately.
Her nails drew down my back, her touch impatient yet adoring.
She wanted more.
She wanted me.
She wanted this.
I’d been with a few other women but had never felt connected to any of them. They weren’t mine. They weren’t Aflora. It was something I hadn’t understood at the time, my intent always having been to only bond with Aflora for her protection and as a debt to be repaid to her parents.
Then I saw her again.
Felt her.
Worshipped her with my tongue.
And I’d never experienced such completion as I had in that moment.
Until now.
Until settling between her thighs and feeling her legs wrap around me in warm welcome.
Until tasting the craving on her tongue and feeling her dampening center against my growing arousal. Even through my pants and her shorts, I knew she was ready for me, that she wanted me—her mate—her Kai.
I never knew sex could feel like this, so much passion and heat and desire.
I’d watched her with her other mates, had seen how they’d pleased her, how she’d come undone with them with such devotion and grace.
I wanted to do that to her now, to be the one she cried out for, to finally claim my mate in the most traditional of manners.
“Yes,” she whispered against my lips. “Yes.”
I hadn’t asked her. Hadn’t voiced the desire. But she felt it in my mind, our bond, her heart responding to mine on instinct alone.
However, I didn’t want to do it here. I wanted to be alone, to cherish her behind closed doors, to make it just us.
I stood and pulled her up into my arms, carrying her inside and to the room I now called my own. Zimney was nowhere to be seen, the wolf probably sensing my intentions and running off to frolic somewhere else.
The door shut quietly behind me, my steps silent against the white carpet.
I set Aflora on the bed, her legs hanging off the edge as she sat up with her hands on my hips. I stood between her thighs, staring down at her in wonder. Then I bent to capture her mouth once more.
Her fingers drifted across my lower abdomen, her quest clear as she unfastened the tie at my waist to push the soft fabric down over my groin to my thighs.
I righted my spine, allowing her to finish the task of removing my pants.
Then I stepped out of them and back between her splayed legs.
Her pretty eyes ran over me in deep appreciation, her pupils dilating as she took in my thick arousal.
She licked her lips and pulled her tank top over her head, presenting me with her beautiful breasts. Then she leaned forward to take my cock into her addictive mouth, her tongue running along the bottom of my shaft in clear and obvious invitation.
I threaded my fingers through her hair, a curse slipping from my mouth as I pushed myself deeper, loving the way she eagerly accepted me into her. Almost as though I’d always belonged. And I likely had.
But this wasn’t the claiming I’d had in mind.
I needed to be inside her in another way.
To complete our coupling by fucking her to oblivion.
A very masculine, competitive part of me needed the others to hear it, too. To know she was mine just as much as she belonged to them.
Her blue eyes sparkled knowingly as she released me from her mouth.
She scooted back onto the bed, hooked her thumbs into the fabric of her shorts, and pulled them off her long, athletic legs.
I stood beside the mattress, watching the show.
All of this was done without words, our bodies speaking for us.
An erotic dance of knowledge and passion and intensity.
And just pure need.
I braced one knee on the bed, watching as she found a place in the middle of the comforter. Her dark strands decorated the pillow in a welcoming gesture, her thighs parting to allow me to see her beautiful, sweet, wet pussy, the heart of her aching for me to take her.
My mouth watered, my desire to taste her almost overcoming my need to be inside her.
But the latter won out.
I could taste her later, indulge in her sweet flavor for hours, and ensure everyone heard her screaming my name.
Tonight, I needed to complete us.
I prowled forward, crawling over her and caging her beneath me. “This is about our union,” I told her softly, lowering to press my groin to hers as I balanced myself on my forearms on either side of her head. “I’m not usually this gentle, Aflora. But something about the moment requires it.”
She reached up to draw her fingers through my hair, the white strands loose around my face and falling around her like a curtain of false purity. “I’m not fragile.”
“I know,” I whispered, pressing my arousal into hers to feel her welcoming heat. I slipped through her folds, my head nudging her clit before drawing downward to the heart of her. “But I want to make sure you remember this,” I told her, lining up with her entrance. “And I want to hear you scream my name.”
She began to speak, but her words cut off on a cry as I drove into her, giving her a brief introduction to the power in my hips and my ability to dominate her entirely. Then I slowly withdrew and entered her again, gradually now, softer, ensuring she felt every inch.
Her mind rolled with comments, comparing sizes and strengths and girths, and my lips curled when she admitted I was the largest of her mates.
I already knew that.
However, she hadn’t. Because she hadn’t properly felt me yet.
Zephyrus certainly rivaled me in some ways, his propensity for being in charge equal to mine, but unlike him, I knew how to be gentle.
Which I showed Aflora now as I set a sensual pace meant for this moment, the one where our bodies declared themselves to one another.
She grabbed my shoulders, a soft moan leaving her lips as I tortured her with my unhurried pace.
Her little growl made me smile.
She responded by digging her nails into my skin, demanding with her body that I do more.
“You can’t have it hard every time,” I whispered, taking her mouth in a kiss meant to silence. She started to argue in my mind, only to cut off on a groan as my tongue engaged hers in the battle she craved.
All the way in, I said to her. And almost all the way out.
I repeated the action over and over, drawing out each thrust and ensuring I nudged that spot deep inside her with every downward stroke.
She scratched a path down my back, her legs wrapping around my hips as she tried futilely to press up into me and dictate a faster pace.
But this wasn’t about a quick fuck. This was about unleashing an experience for our souls.
I rolled onto my back, bringing her on top, and allowed her to drive. She sat up, eager to comply, her thighs straddling my hips as she began to ride me. Her breasts swayed enticingly with each hurried shift of her hips, her lips parting on a moan of excitement. However, after a few more urgent swivels, she caught her lip between her teeth and stared down at me, her dark hair framing her beautiful face.
Understanding seemed to light her up from within.
I sat up to join her, my lips ghosting over hers as I braced myself on one hand behind me and wrapped my opposite palm around her nape. “Tender can be just as good,” I told her, my tongue licking the seam of her mouth before sliding inside.
She shifted, her legs moving to wrap around my back as she more firmly sat astride my thighs. A little mewl caught in the back of her throat as she realized how deeply I penetrated her in this position.
And then we both began to move.
Not hurriedly, but languidly, indulging in the sensations and bringing ourselves closer and closer to the precipice with long, thorough movements.
“Oh, Kai,” she breathed, her nipples hard against my chest.
Sweat covered us both, the effort with which we fucked driving us both to a point of near madness. It was just so fierce, so utterly exhaustive in each glide and calculative stroke, that we were overwhelmed and fatigued by the sheer intensity of it all.
I felt her starting to come undone, our magic dancing together as one as cerulean sparks graced the air.
This was the culmination of a mating years in the making. Our paths finally intersecting after wandering off course. Our souls rejoicing in returning home, together, in a beautiful moment of bliss and harmony and absolute perfection.
I kissed her, confiding my deepest, darkest histories in the blink of a second, unlocking my mind to her and throwing away the key.
She responded in kind, her faith in me resolute.
And together we fell over the edge into a rapturous beginning that went on for what felt like hours, our bodies locked together in harmonious bliss and refusing to stop.
She cried out, my name a beacon that caused my heart to soar.
I followed her in kind, chanting Flora on repeat, my little star finally lighting up the dark, cruel night of my spirit.
Her lips whispered against mine, her body moving, taking, repeating, writhing some more.
And eventually we collapsed onto the bed, only to continue our sensual dance, our groins locked together in a kiss meant to last a lifetime.
She destroyed me.
She completed me.
She ensured we would remain forever together.
I sank my teeth into her neck, desiring that promise in blood.
She responded in kind, taking my essence deep into her mouth and swallowing before slamming her mouth over mine once more.
My Kai, she breathed.
My Flora, I returned. My gorgeous, bright star.
Our sensuality followed us into our dreams, the riddles fracturing between us and creating new, complex locks—ones no one would ever be able to break.
When night finally came, the sunset of our new life, I woke her in the same way we’d fallen asleep. Then I finally tasted her, and I confirmed that our dreams had nothing on our reality.
This is the real dream, I told her. My life with you. That’s the dream, Aflora. And I hope I never wake up.
She smiled, her heart in her eyes. Neither do I, Kai. Neither do I.