Chapter Thirty-Two
SETH
We leave the cave just before daybreak, but the sun is beginning to set now, and we’re only about halfway to the cabin if I had to guess.
I don’t know these mountains as well as Zeke and the others, so for the first couple of hours we go around in circles trying to find our way.
Wanting more time with Aurelia and wanting to see her home safe myself, I’m too stubborn to wake Zeke, and Aurelia doesn’t seem to care about making it easier on herself either.
“Oh, fuck, Seth. Right there,” Aurelia moans. “I’m gonna come.”
The biggest delay comes from this though. The constant fucking. Aurelia and I haven’t been able to keep our hands off each other, stopping every other hour to fold to a need that can never be sated.
We’d found the river she and Bane fell into two days ago and we’d been following it for a while before we stopped for water, which led to this—Aurelia with her shirt shoved over her tits, shorts around her ankles, and her ass bent over a tree stump while I fuck her pussy like we’re the only two people in the world.
“Come for me, Sunshine. I want to fucking feel it.”
Aurelia obeys my command and comes with a cry so sharp and loud it sends the birds in the canopy above us into flight.
I empty myself inside of her and then I pull out and fix my pants before leaving her spent and boneless over the tree stump.
I walk toward the river, pulling the scrap of her shirt that we’d torn from the bottom to use from my pocket as I go.
After dipping it in the river, I return to Aurelia, where I clean my cum and her juices from her pussy before re-pocketing the cloth and pulling her up to kiss her forehead. “I love you,” I whisper with a rumble as I pull her against my chest.
“Ditto, Seth. Have I told you lately that you’re my favorite?”
I chuckle, knowing it’s the orgasm talking. Her favorite is always changing, which only serves to make us dote on her more. “Only the last three or four times I made you come.”
“You’re so good at it. For a virgin.”
Aurelia yelps when I pinch her ass. “Keep talking,” I growl as I sink my teeth into her bottom lip. “I’ll bend you back over that stump and prove to you again just how not a virgin I am, Sunshine.”
“Really? Because I was thinking that sturdy-looking tree over there was feeling pretty left out.”
“We can’t,” I regretfully groan as I rest my forehead against hers. “We have to get going, and I know you’re getting sore, Aurelia. You’ve been walking funny for the last few miles.”
“Fine.”
We leave the river, and two hours later, Aurelia gets her wish when we stop for dinner and I somehow end up fucking her against a tree.
“I’m serious this time,” I say with a glare as I yank my jeans back over my hips. “No more. We’re losing light, and I don’t even know where the hell we’re at,” I growl.
My frustration is with myself because I can’t say no to her, and what’s more, I don’t want to. I could really use Thorin right about now. He’s good at putting his foot down when Khalil’s gentle steering doesn’t work.
Aurelia rolls her eyes at me as she ties up her hair. “Actually, I think we should make camp,” she suggests once we’re both dressed again.
“Oh, you do, do you?”
She shrugs. “It’s getting late. Neither of us know where we’re going, and I’d rather not stumble around in the dark. I have a bow and no arrows, and you have no weapon at all. It’s safer if we stay.”
I scrub a hand down my face. “Fine, but no sex. I mean it.”
Aurelia builds a fire while I hunt for food. After I manage to catch a snake, we cook and eat it over the fire as darkness falls.
“How did you do it?” she asks later while we rest against the tree we had sex against earlier.
“Do what?”
“In the cave, you woke Zeke instead of Bane, and then you took over again while we were…you know. How did you do it? Zeke wasn’t in pain or in trouble.” And then she pauses as horror enters her gaze. “Was he?”
“No, baby. He wasn’t. Things have changed. We’ve changed. The rules from before don’t apply anymore, and I think you’re largely the reason why.”
She winces while still looking unsure. “Is that…good?”
“Yes and no. I can wake up without Zeke being in pain, but it also means Bane can too. Zeke doesn’t have control over him anymore. Neither of us do.”
“But Bane doesn’t want to hurt me?”
“Not you, no.”
As in, he’s still a danger to Khalil and Thorin and anyone else within reach when he wakes up.
“Shit,” Aurelia swears as she sits up. “This is worse. So much worse.” And then she turns on me with new hope alight in her eyes. “Can the trigger work both ways? If it wakes him up, can it put him back to sleep?”
I feel dread seeping into my veins as I slowly shake my head. “I don’t know, Sunshine. It’s never worked before. We’ve tried it.”
“But it’s like you said. The rules have changed.”
“The only way to know for sure is to try it, and I seriously doubt that’s wise. By keeping Bane away from you, I gave the trigger new purpose. I gave Bane a new purpose. As long as it’s you pressing the trigger, we can open any door we like, but that’s it.”
“Khalil and Thorin think I’m affecting Bane. Zeke wasn’t in any danger when Bane woke up, nor was he any of the other times. He was reacting to me and something I did. What if this thing between Zeke and me is putting them in danger?”
“Sunshine, I think that ship has sailed. What’s done is done.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means Zeke won’t be so easy to shake now that he’s been inside you.
Sex is no small thing for him. He would have warned you before he went that far with you.
Trying to stay away from him might do the very thing you’re trying to prevent.
Bane and I are his alters. We give Zeke what he needs…
what he wants. And what he’s decided he wants…
is you. Denying him won’t end pretty. For anyone. ”
“Maybe we should have stayed at the cave.”
“Yeah, but—” A twig snaps in the distance.
Aurelia gasps and looks in the direction the sound came from.
We aren’t armed, so her fear is palpable.
I can feel it seeping into my bones and infecting my blood as if it were my own—until I’m filled with a single-minded purpose, and that’s to keep her safe.
It’s the last thing I remember before it all goes black.