Chapter 31 #2
My mysterious, powerful, fucking sexy mate.
I felt my chest rise with all I’d felt.
I allowed all those feelings to fill me. “Mate-Intended, I declare my intention to you. To walk beside you in immortality, in smoke and scale. I declare my intention to be worthy of your protection and to shield you from those who seek to destroy you. My intention is to exist…”
I’d done so well, but the words dried up.
Pivot. “… in… your… fortress and power… during our mating.”
I winced at the weak finish, and the guests rustled and murmured for the first time.
Carmine’s jaw tightened as my power pulsed. Our other hands whipped up, and mine pressed against his heart, and his pressed against mine.
Fused together.
“Where did those words come from?” he asked quietly under the rush of our power.
I lifted a shoulder. “From a version of me long ago.”
His eyes closed briefly. “Of course.”
Then Carmine straightened and called in a strong voice, “Mate-Intended, I offer my intention to you, and join with you today forevermore.”
Tears balanced in my eyes. My sixteen-year-old self was close to the surface where I held her, and she was crushed. “Mate-Intended, I offer my intention to you, and join with you today.”
I couldn’t manage the forevermore.
Carmine growled, but it was lost as our bodies twisted, and he was suddenly behind me. My dress was pressed forward, but the bunched material made this oh-so-uncomfortable. Carmine gripped my hand behind my back, then lifted my other hand to settle it against my heart. He placed his hand over mine.
“I meant every word I just said, Syera,” he said in my ear.
I didn’t.
But I knew what happened next. “Don’t let this go too far.”
“I will do my best.
As I’d do mine. That was all either of us could do. I braced myself, focusing on my goals, and then I twisted to look back at Carmine.
His breaths were uneven, and though this was the obvious time to finally rip the veil off, he didn’t take it.
Understanding dawned. He was playing pretend too. We were both relying on this veil.
I shook off his hold on my hand and reached up to rip the veil off. I flung it off the cliff.
He could see the reality of what this was, and all the hundreds of ways he’d screwed this up.
Carmine looked at my hair, or lack thereof. Then his eyes started to smolder. “Syera—”
What the fuck. He liked it?
Damn the joke that was my existence.
His focus snapped to me. “I know what you really feel, and I have experienced somewhat of how immortality can alter our boundaries. I hold hope for what we can be.”
“You shouldn’t.”
I felt safe in uttering the truth. Our power was whipping up a storm.
Carmine tightened his grip. “I will have you, Syera.”
Then he kissed me, the final stage in the ritual. If I’d intended the kiss to be chaste and short-lived, then I was soon proved wrong. I’d drawn up sixteen-year-old me to make her pour her teen heart out. And now she was taking her cut.
Our power erupted, and I moaned into his mouth.
Or did he moan?
I twisted to grip his face in both hands, and he slashed the front of my skirt off, then pressed against me. More. We had the same thought. As I hooked my legs around his waist, Carmine gripped my ass to hold me there.
We returned to our kiss, deepening the firmness and exploration of our lips with every breath. I whimpered into his mouth, and he whispered my name fervently in return.
“I will give you everything,” he said.
Except my family back. The thought was a bucket of icy water over my head.
I drew back and stared at him. Carmine noticed my absence, but a haze was like a layer over his eyes.
And then the storm of our power changed.
I yelped as our power prickled against my skin. Carmine gripped my upper arms. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” I cried out, and then cried out again in pain, pushing away from him. He staggered back, and his hand clawed against an invisible force.
My head was snapped back by a punch of our power.
Our power was attacking us.
I screamed against a wave of searing agony. Then again and again.
Carmine’s arms were around me, and they did nothing. But I could do nothing to stop his embrace. And as the pain continued, his greater power steadily weakened me until I was limp against him.
This was happening because I’d lied. That information was as clear to me as it was useless. I was about to die, and probably not take Carmine with me, because I hadn’t really intended anything from him except his life. Which he was ironically about to take from me whether he intended to or not.
“Syera,” he roared, but the sound was lost over the anarchy of our mating unleashed. Our furious mating that would not allow for deception or revenge.
I’d pissed off the ancient-born magic that allowed demons and other supernaturals to mate, and now that magic was extinguishing me like a candle.
I was only a glowing ember now.
The ancient magic licked its thumb and finger and moved forward to end my glow with a sizzle of smoke.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Carmine shouted in my ear.
I could hear him, and his voice was like music in my near-death. The feel of his arms was a blanket and a reassurance against any evil that wished me ill.
“This doesn’t end here,” he was telling me. “You don’t get away that easy.”
I would’ve laughed if I could. This was easy? My power was almost gone, and I couldn’t feel pain any longer, but what I’d just experienced was worse than childbirth. And it didn’t even have the reward at the end.
I smiled at him. “What we might have been without evil in the way.”
Carmine’s face slackened, and I could tell that until those words, he hadn’t quite understood that this would kill me.
“No,” he said in a guttural tone.
My eyes closed.
And though I was aware of my jerking body and the crimson hurricane blasting through the realm around us, even that grew fainter and quieter, lighter and echoing.
Until I knew no more.
Thank you for reading Crave Arena. Syera and Carmine’s story continues in Wrath Curse!