Chapter 13
Forever
Aion & Medea
Medea’s lips tasted like tears. I’d never been able to experience taste like one of the woven, and even now, I still couldn’t. But Medea’s relief, the echoes of her grief… That was unmistakable.
As she pressed her mouth against mine, the shuddering exhales of her breath ghosted across my skin.
For decades, I had registered the world purely through the hum of ambient death energy.
Now, resting on the cold stone slab in the center of the Weavers’ Hall, I felt the sharp, jagged edges of Medea’s exhaustion.
I wrapped my arms around her waist, drawing her closer. The grey dust from the destroyed garden clung to her shoulders, mingling with the dark, sticky smears of blood. The gore pressed directly against me, but neither of us pulled away to clean the mess.
Beneath that blood, deep behind the sealed plates of my ribs, a heavy, wet muscle beat a stubborn rhythm.
It was an entirely foreign sensation. Every solid thud sent a wave of steadying warmth through the etched pathways of my body.
I’d have deemed it impossible for a living organ to connect to the pure death energy that fueled me, but somehow it worked.
And there was only one way it could have happened.
I broke the kiss gently, pulling away just enough to look at her. “This heart,” I said, pressing my hand over my chest. “You’re the one. You gave it to me.”
Medea lifted her head. Her dark eyes met mine, and she gave a small, exhausted nod.
Of course she had. My father was a forgemaster.
He could shape Stygian iron with unmatched precision, but he could not command tissue.
The Moirae spun threads for the woven citizens of Asphodelia, but I had been a threadless construct.
They could not touch me, could not weave me into their Loom.
Not until a mortal anchor was already seated inside the housing, at least.
Medea possessed the gifts to bridge that impossible gap. My mate could take a human organ, strip away its decay, and transmute it to survive inside a bronze shell. But only if she was free of her past.
I brushed my thumb across her delicate jaw, wondering how so much strength could fit in such a tiny frame. “Jason held a binding over you. He controlled your magic. How did you get past his leash?”
Medea didn’t flinch. She kept her gaze perfectly steady. “I broke the vessel holding the spell.”
“How?”
“The spell was anchored in my womb,” she explained, her voice flat and matter-of-fact. “So I turned my death-touch inward. I destroyed the flesh holding the tether. I made myself barren. Once the anchor was gone, his control shattered. Then I took his heart.”
A sharp ache erupted through me, and I rested my broad palm gently over her stomach. The torn silk of her robes felt stiff with dried blood, but the skin beneath it was warm and unbroken.
“You hurt yourself,” I whispered, hating the violence she had been forced to inflict on herself. “You sacrificed a piece of your own flesh to give me this.”
I should have done better. I should have been able to protect her.
Medea covered the back of my hand with her small fingers. She squeezed hard, forcing me to look up into her eyes. “It wasn’t a sacrifice, Aion.”
“You crushed your own insides—”
“Listen to me.” She shifted her weight, pressing her chest flush against mine. “You are made of living bronze. We live in Asphodelia, and nothing is ever born here. We weren't going to have children anyway.”
The blunt, practical truth of her words hung in the quiet air of the hall. She wasn’t mourning a lost potential. She was stating a biological fact.
“I didn’t lose a future,” Medea continued, her voice softening as her fingers traced the harsh line of my jaw. “I chose the only future I actually wanted. I chose you.”
I stared down at the fierce light in her eyes. She had carved out pieces of her own body and traded them for my life. The sheer weight of her devotion threatened to crack me open.
I slid my palm from her stomach to cradle her jaw. “You went back to him alone, didn’t you?”
“I had to,” she whispered, leaning against me. “He built me to be a weapon. He wanted me to rot everything I touched.”
“You were never a weapon to me.”
“I know,” she replied. “But… I still… I need you to remind me.”
I didn’t hesitate. I hooked my fingers into the torn collar of her robes.
The ruined silk gave way effortlessly, parting down the middle.
I pushed the fabric off her shoulders, dragging it down her arms and over her hips.
It pooled on the cold stone, leaving her bare before me.
She was the most beautiful, terrifying thing I had ever seen.
A fierce, aching need pooled low inside me. The living bronze of my loins shifted, thickening and hardening with desperate urgency.
I’d felt it before, back in the sphinx’s den. But it had been different then. I’d been uncertain, new to this, a part of me still unsure of our true path. Now, I knew the truth. This woman owned the heart beating in my chest, and always would. I’d happily worship the altar of her body.
Medea’s breath caught. Her gaze dropped to the metal straining between us. She reached out, her small fingers grazing my thigh.
“You are so warm,” she whispered, tracing the heated bronze.
“Because of you,” I answered.
I knelt between her parted knees and caressed her thighs, savoring the yielding heat of her skin. Moving over her, I captured her mouth in a hungry, desperate kiss. The rush of her desire roared in my ears, through my veins, mingling with the bitter currents of death energy.
“Aion,” she breathed out against my lips, burying her fingers in my hair.
Unable to resist her, I cupped the soft weight of her breast. I squeezed gently, feeling her breath hitch as her peak beaded against my palm. Sliding my hand away, I used my mouth to draw the sensitive flesh in.
As I swirled my tongue over her, Medea let out a soft moan. She arched her back, pressing herself eagerly into my face. “I have you,” I murmured against her skin.
I moved my other hand lower, tracing her stomach until I found the damp curls between her legs. She was already slick, the wetness coating her thighs and welcoming my touch.
I slid a single finger inside her.
Medea cried out sharply. Her legs fell wider apart, her hips tilting upward, demanding more. I moved slowly, feeling the tight, wet grip of her muscles clenching around the metal.
“Please,” she sobbed, her head falling back against the stone slab. Her eyes squeezed shut as she breathed my name in a frantic chant. “I need you.”
I pulled my hand away. Medea shivered and a frustrated whine escaped her throat as she protested my absence.
I shifted my weight, moving my massive frame over her. The sound of our harsh breathing filled the quiet hall, echoing in the vast space.
“I am yours,” I whispered, the words vibrating against her lips. “Every beat of this heart.”
I adjusted my stance and dropped my hips. The blunt, living metal of my body met the tight, scalding heat of her entrance. Medea let out a ragged, trembling gasp, clutching my shoulders in a desperate hold.
Magic was already buzzing at her fingertips. It was the same death-touch that had almost killed me. But I didn’t fear it. My mind, like my body, belonged to her.
Holding her tear-filled gaze, I slowly and deliberately pushed forward. The tight grip of her muscles gave way, taking me in completely. I buried myself deep inside the woman who had just conquered death, determined to overwrite every nightmare she had ever lived.
After today, she would never again be alone. She’d never again have to fight her battles without me. She was my mate, and nothing would stop me from proving that.
Aion rested motionless above me, giving me the precious seconds I needed to accommodate his immense size.
The freezing marble of the slab faded from my mind, swallowed by the furnace heat radiating from his broad chest. He felt impossibly solid, a massive titan anchored by the pulse hammering against my own breastbone.
I wrapped my legs tighter around his waist, looking up into the clear, blue-white glow of his eyes.
When he slowly began to move, the deep friction sent a rush of breathless pleasure straight into my blood. I arched into his downward thrusts, my nails dragging across his back.
But right on the edge of that pleasure, a suffocating knot of terror closed my throat.
As the physical connection deepened, the lethal magic I had carried my whole life began to pool low in my belly.
It was boiling up, preparing to release.
I remembered his sickening, dead weight collapsing lifelessly on the bed in the sphinx’s den.
I remembered his eyes going blank because my climax had overloaded his core, forcing his soul to retreat into the dark.
Panic seized my lungs. I locked my hips, desperately trying to pull away. “Stop,” I gasped out.“Aion, wait. Stop.”
He froze instantly. Hovering just an inch above me, he tensed. “Medea?”
“I can’t,” I choked out. I tried to yank my powers backward, but once again, I found myself losing control. “The magic is pooling. If I let go, it’s going to flood you again. I killed you last time. I watched you die.”
He saw the raw, frantic terror in my face. He didn’t pull out. Instead, a soft warmth underneath his skin, the death energy flaring through his forged veins. He reached up and cupped my jaw, his thumb brushing over my lower lip.
“That was before,” he rumbled, his voice vibrating deep into my skin.
“It’s too hungry,” I sobbed, rigid with the agonizing effort of containing the death surge. “If the anchor isn’t strong enough—if it breaks your mind again—I won’t survive losing you a second time.”
He caught my wrist. He pressed my bare palm flat against his chest, right over the sealed plates hiding the mortal tissue. He held my hand there, forcing me to feel the relentless, heavy thud driving against the metal.