Chapter 2 #3
I crane my neck back toward Vale and shout, “Tell them to fucking go!”
The other fae flinch at my tone, but Vale remains stoney-faced. However, he unclenches his arms and slowly raises one hand toward the gate.
“Leave us, everyone,” he commands.
His voice is deep enough to shake the earth itself. Shrieking, people in the amphitheater scramble up the stairs toward the exits, flowing like water from the Garden of Ten Gods until the only thing remaining is someone’s still-bleating goat.
Sabine lunges at my shirt, ripping off the buttons like it’s the last barrier between her and salvation, and tugs it free of my arms.
Bare-chested, I throw a glare toward the five gods. “You, too, fuckers.”
Vale growls with that earth-shaking voice, “She needs guidance.”
“From who?” I snap. “You? You tried to kill her.”
Vale nods toward the others. “Any of us is capable of giving her the instruction she needs.”
Iyre picks her nails, uninterested. The three Blades speak low amongst themselves, slapping each other on the shoulder, cruel smirks on their faces. I can only imagine what kind of “instruction” those assholes would like to give her.
“I’ll guide her,” I’m quick to answer, as Sabine shimmies out of my arms and starts to tear at my belt. A gust of hot wind suddenly blasts from the east, blowing my shirt a few feet away. “This path? It’s mine to take her down, not yours.”
Artain lets out a rip of laughter. “You might amuse her for the time being, human, but if you’re speaking of fate, then you should know that she’s mine. She’s always been mine.”
“Maybe that was true once,” Vale answers Artain, “but you fucked up this time, didn’t you?” Vale grabs the prissy god by his vest’s leather ties and sends him toward the exit with a hard shove. “The rest of you, too. Leave them. Let Lord Basten realize for himself that he isn’t up to the task.”
Iyre gives me a smirking wave with red-tipped fingers as she saunters away.
Once I hear their footsteps return to Drahallen Hall, every ounce of my attention whips back to Sabine.
We’re truly alone now.
On her knees, she jerks my belt free, the leather snapping clean as a bone break.
Overhead, a shower of acorns suddenly rains down everywhere but directly on us, like the trees can’t control themselves.
“Easy,” I coax her, but she doesn’t seem to hear. Her lips are all over my bare navel, teeth sliding over the hard cut of muscle at my waist. “Sabine. Eyes on me.”
I capture her small, pointed jaw in one palm and force her head up. But her eyes dart between the scattered offerings, my bare chest, and the falling acorns.
I chit to get her attention. “Only on me.”
The command manages to cut through her haze. She lifts pleading eyes to me that waver with confusion.
“I need—” Her voice shakes too much to finish. The hot wind shifts direction, this time turning so icy cold it might as well come from the frosted North. “I need…”
My voice softens. “I know, little violet.”
I lightly grip her wrists, tugging her to her feet, and press my lips to hers before she can utter another word.
Look—sex with Sabine is always transcendent. But this moment? It isn’t about my pleasure. I don’t even think it’s about hers.
It’s about steadiness.
She doesn’t need a lover—she needs grounding.
“Sabine.” I call her name as clear as a ringing bell, cupping her chin so our gazes connect. Echoing her trembles, the stones rumble underfoot. I can feel even deeper tremors far below, ready to burst forth if I don’t find a way to tether her to reality.
I claim her lips again.
She opens her mouth willingly to me, so eager that her incisors clatter against my bottom teeth.
When she realizes she nearly bit me, she jerks as if to pull away, but I press a firm hand around the small of her back, rooting our bodies together.
Her shaking hands twist in my open shirt, barely holding on. Thunder cracks overhead, followed by a rash of icy frozen rain pelting us. A crack opens in the amphitheater floor in front of her statue, snaking its way between our feet, shifting the earth.
By the gods, I think, pulling back for a breath. She could tear open the world.
“Basten, don’t stop!” She clings to my bare shoulders, fingernails digging into my skin, sending pain rocketing down my back muscles
A vine tears out of the ground with enough force—moving like a snake, possessed—to slam into my chest, knocking the breath out of me.
I stumble back, letting go of Sabine. Before I can recover my balance, the vine wraps around my ankle and yanks my foot out from under me.
I tumble backward, tailbone jarring painfully against the ground.
Sabine growls and throws herself on top of me like this was the plan all along. Her lithe body writhes against mine as she shucks my pants down my hips.
There’s no tenderness here. Not this time.
Only hunger.
A drip of crimson blood runs down her chin and patters against my bare chest.
“Easy, little violet,” I coax. Once, I’d have met her bite for bite. I’ve always loved the violent clash of our want. Hell, the thought of my palm cracking across her bare ass is enough to stir me even now.
But this time?
This time, I keep still. She’s the waves and I’m the rock to break herself against.
“Basten, I can’t stop myself,” she pants.
“So don’t.” I trap her hands on my chest, holding them there. “Let it out. Let it come. I can take it. You’re not going to break me.”
Another vine rips out of the ground, sliding around my left ankle and pulling tight enough to nearly pull the bone out of the socket.
Sabine grips the vine as an anchor, rocking back and forth while straddling me, her hair loose and tangled in the wind that blows at her command. Her thighs tremble around my hips.
She’s trying to hold herself back.
But the vines don’t listen to the last whisper of her human restraint. They’re commanded by something ancient in her, driven by pure, wicked desire. Another vine loops around my chest and pins me down, chaining me at her will.
She grips this one even harder.
I grimace at the pressure but don’t let her see a bit of my pain.
With my free hand, I grab her chin and drag my thumb against her bottom lip.
“Don’t fight it, Sabine. You think I can’t handle you in this form?
I’ve seen you bare. I’ve seen you in a crown.
I fell in love with each person you’ve shown me.
I want every version of you. Each terrible and beautiful part.
You won’t scare me away. You could break the world in half, and I’d still be at your side. ”
The storm clouds clear in her eyes, leaving them wide and open as the sea.
“That’s it,” I offer gently.
Unsure at first, she rocks her hips against mine, still clinging for dear life to the vines. She moves slower this time. More in control. With her vines holding me down, there isn’t a place I could go to escape her—but I don’t want to.
Her head lolls backward, her windblown hair cascading down her shoulders. She’s so wet between her legs that she’s soaking through her dress. The sharp scent of her need is like a drug to my groin.
I want to stay in control, to lead us—but gods, she makes it hard.
“Take what you need from me,” I groan.
I drive my hips upward as far as the vines allow, and she gasps and arches her back. Her beautiful breasts strain at her dress’s fabric, her nipples so hard I can feel their ache.
“Take that dress off,” I command.
She runs her hands down her curves, and more vines snake over to peel her out of her dress, pulling it down her hips like a moth emerging from a cocoon, darkly beautiful and new.
And then she’s bare to me. No holding back. It’s different this time—I see the goddess and the girl, wrapped up in that perfect body I’d go to hell and back for.
Her hands on my bare chest are feverish, uncontrolled. She grinds mindlessly against me, purely driven by adrenaline. I shift my position to give her the friction she’s seeking. As my cock lines up with her swollen heat, a gasp tears from her lips.
“Yes, Basten!”
My free hand holds firm to her waist as I rock my hips up, sinking my cock in deep. Finally giving her the sustenance she needs. This isn’t sex; it’s desperation. It’s her way of surviving the enormity inside her. Each roll of her hips is a demand as she works through the need gushing through her.
I hold fast, guiding her so that she can find her way back to me.
“Do you feel that?” I pant between thrusts. “How connected we are?”
Her muscles tremble. Her eyes roll back in her head.
I keep my eyes on her. Reading her face as she rocks up and down to meet my thrusts. Gauging her need as I angle my hips to slide even deeper inside her.
The moment before she comes, a flock of blackbirds alight. Mist pours into the amphitheater basin. The trees groan and bend, their roots writhing underground. Lightning forks across the sky to illuminate roiling black clouds.
Every shudder of her body is echoed by the land and weather and creatures around us.
Her pulse shallows, and it’s all I can do to hold myself back, to let her ride out her release instead of letting my own need loose.
I clamp my molars, grimacing to hold back.
The sky opens, and snow falls around us, gentle and silent, but heavy as a goose-down blanket. It lands on her brow, her hair, her eyelashes. She might be oblivious to the way she’s tearing apart the land with fistfuls of emotion, but I’m not. Everywhere snow touches, my nerves spark.
The snow thickens, falling faster, harder.
She’s so damn close. I rock my hips with her, guiding her toward the release she needs to survive—to transform into whatever she’s supposed to be.
Vines squeeze tighter around my chest until I see stars. Her fingernails dig against my scalp. The earth shakes, and another crack opens near my head. Steam hisses out from the fissure, soaking my brow.
The snow turns to hail.
It falls so damn hard against my face, it’ll leave bruises.
That’s when Sabine comes.
She comes harder than ever before. Her breath is as quick as butterfly wings. Her fingers twisted painfully in my hair, holding on hard. Shivers of adrenaline course through me as I find my own release.
Gradually, the fight pours out of her.
The earthquake that shattered half the amphitheater subsides into nothing more than slight tremors. The snow stops, the last flake catching on her cheek. The wind fades to a whisper. And at last, those damn vines let go of their death grip on me.
And she lets go of her death-grip on my hair.
But her eyes are glassy.
“Breathe with me,” I murmur, not wanting to lose her now. “Focus on me.”
I guide her lips back to mine. As I lead the kiss, melding my lips to hers, tracing my tongue over the seam of her mouth, her heartbeat slows to normal.
I look up at her straddling me, her statue looming over her. Like that, I see the two souls in her at once. Human and fae. Goddess and girl.
For a brief flicker, I mourn the mortal life I thought we’d have. A future together, growing old and gray, living a simple life.
But that’s not her anymore—and I make a vow to fight to the ends of the known world to defend both sides.
As though an invisible cord has been cut, she slumps over my body, my cock still buried deep inside her, and with a final sharp exhale, she passes out.
Satiated.
Spent.
At long last, nature itself shudders to rest, and one final snowflake settles at my feet.