Chapter 3 #3
I sat on the bed—soft, so soft I wanted to cry from the luxury of it—and waited.
"First, don't pass the singing stones. They mark the boundary between my territory and the mining tunnels. Cross them and I may not be able to protect you, and you’re not ready to protect yourself.
The wards won't recognize you yet, won't know you as mine.
" A pause on that last word, weight to it.
"Rovik is still out there. He'll have reported to Solmar by now. They'll be watching for you."
I nodded, hand going instinctively to where the package still pressed against my ribs under my torn shirt. In everything that had happened, I'd forgotten about the stolen documents.
"Second, complete honesty." His copper eyes fixed on mine with intensity that made me want to squirm.
"The bond makes lies painful anyway—you'll find that out if you try.
But I need truth if I'm to keep you safe.
Everything you've done, everyone who might come looking for you, every detail matters. "
"I understand." Though the thought of complete honesty terrified me. My whole life had been built on necessary lies, survival depending on being someone else, something else, whatever kept me safe for another day.
"Third, remain where assigned unless I escort you.
The Sanctum is vast and some areas are .
. ." he paused, choosing words carefully, "unstable.
Old magics that don't distinguish between friend and foe.
Passages that lead to places humans weren't meant to go.
You could get lost, hurt, or worse before I could find you. "
Through the bond, I felt what he wasn't saying—the real reason for the third rule.
How desperately he wanted to keep me close, to know where I was every moment, to assure himself I was safe and real and his.
But also the fear that proximity would break his control, that he'd do something that couldn't be undone, take something that should be given.
"What about food?" I asked, stomach choosing that moment to cramp with hunger.
"The elementals will bring it. Three times a day, more if you need." He shifted in the doorway, wanting to leave, wanting to stay. "There's clothing in the wardrobe. The elementals can alter anything that doesn't fit."
Wearing a dead woman's clothes. Sleeping in her guest room. Taking the place she'd refused. The wrongness of it sat heavy in my chest, but what choice did I have?
"Garruk?" I said as he turned to leave.
He paused but didn't look back. "Yes?"
"What would you want? If I asked what you wanted, not what you think is right or fair, but what you actually want?"
The silence stretched between us, heavy with words he wouldn't let himself say.
Through the bond I felt the truth anyway—mine, mine, mine, forever, safe, protected, cherished, never hungry, never cold, never alone, never afraid, calling me Daddy, letting me care for you, trusting me with everything, choosing me, choosing this, choosing us.
"Rest," he said instead, and left me alone with Pebble.
In the dream, his weight was perfect.
Not crushing but encompassing, his body above mine creating a shelter where nothing could reach me except him.
The bed beneath us wasn't stone but something soft that existed only in imagination, yielding to our shapes, cradling us in warmth that had nothing to do with thermal vents and everything to do with skin against skin.
His hands moved over me with geological patience, mapping every hollow and rise like he was charting new territory.
Each touch was deliberate, purposeful, learning which pressure made me gasp, which spots made my back arch off the bed.
His fingers traced the constellation of mica marks across my throat, and in the dream they were more than marks—they were points of connection, each one singing with pleasure when he touched them.
"So beautiful," he murmured against my collar bone, voice rumbling through my chest like distant thunder. "My little one, my precious girl."
The words undid something in me. My hands tangled in his hair—soft despite looking like it should be coarse, silver and black silk between my fingers.
I pulled him down for a kiss that tasted of deep earth and growing things, his tongue exploring my mouth with the same patient thoroughness as his hands on my body.
When his mouth moved lower, following the path of marks down my throat to my breasts, I forgot how to breathe.
His tongue circled one nipple, then the other, alternating until they were so sensitive that even the air felt like too much stimulation.
His teeth grazed the sensitive flesh, just enough pressure to make me cry out.
"Please," I whispered, then louder, "Please, Daddy."
The word came so naturally in the dream, falling from my lips like I'd been saying it forever.
Through the dream-bond I felt his response—a surge of possessive pleasure that made him growl against my skin.
His hand moved between my thighs, finding me wet and ready, so ready it should have been embarrassing but wasn't, couldn't be, not when he was looking at me like I was everything he'd waited centuries for.
His fingers were sure, knowing, finding that spot inside me that made me see stars. But it wasn't enough, I needed more, needed him, needed—
"Say it again," he commanded, voice rough with control about to snap.
"Daddy," I moaned, and he rewarded me with another finger, stretching me, preparing me. "Please, Daddy, I need—"
"I know what you need, little one."
When he entered me, it was with the same inevitable grace as mountains forming—slow, powerful, reshaping me from the inside. The stretch was perfect, just enough to border on too much without crossing over, filling the hollow ache that had lived in me since the moment I'd first seen him transform.
He moved in me like the tide, each thrust measured and deep, hitting places inside that made me keen with pleasure.
Through the dream-bond I felt everything doubled—my pleasure and his, the way my body gripped him, the way he fought for control with every stroke.
I was saying his name, calling him Daddy, begging for more, harder, everything, and he was giving it to me, giving me everything, his control finally, blessedly shattered.
"Mine," he growled, and the marks on both our bodies blazed with light. "My little one, my precious girl, mine forever, say it—"
"Yours," I gasped, so close to the edge I could taste it. "Yours, Daddy, always yours—"
But as I was about to climax, about to fall apart in his arms, the dream shifted like smoke dissolving. The warmth vanished, replaced by cold that bit into my bones. Garruk's face morphed, twisted, became—
"Found you, little thief."
Rovik stood over me, crossbow aimed at my heart.
The bolt was already flying, too fast to dodge, too late to scream.
I saw it coming in horrible clarity—the metal tip, the way it would punch through my chest, the blood that would follow.
Behind him, shadows moved, more guards, more weapons, and Garruk was gone, had never been there, I was alone—
I woke screaming, hands clawing at my chest where the dream-bolt had been about to hit.
My skin was soaked with sweat, nightgown clinging to my body, the marks on my throat pulsing with remembered pleasure and current panic.
For a moment I couldn't remember where I was—the soft bed, the warm room, none of it made sense.
My hand reached out instinctively, seeking comfort the way I had for years.
Mica would be beside me on the pillow, her button eyes catching whatever light existed, her cotton-stuffed body ready to absorb my tears or fears or the nightmares that came from sleeping in culverts where rats were bold and cold was constant.
My hand found empty space.
"Mica?" My voice came out small, confused. I patted around the bed, thinking maybe she'd fallen, gotten tangled in the blankets during my thrashing. Nothing. I leaned over the edge, checking the floor, under the bed. "Mica?"
The room was dark except for the faint pulse of crystal veins in the walls, just enough light to see shapes but not details.
I stumbled from the bed, knees still weak from the dream, from the phantom sensations that lingered.
My body was confused—still aroused from the erotic part of the dream, still terrified from the nightmare, aching for comfort that only a rag doll had ever provided.
She wasn't on the table. Wasn't on the chair. Wasn't anywhere.
Panic flooded through me, irrational and complete.
I knew it was stupid—she was just cloth and stuffing, just a toy I'd made from scraps.
But she was also the only constant in my life, the only thing that had been mine and only mine.
I'd told her everything, cried into her soft body, held her through nights when hunger made sleep impossible and cold made waking worse.
"Mica!" I was moving without thinking, following some instinct I didn't understand. The door opened at my touch and I stumbled into the hallway, the stone cold under my feet, sending shocks up through my legs.
The Sanctum's passages were different in the dark, the crystalline veins providing just enough light to navigate but not enough to banish the pressing shadows.
I should have stayed in my room—Garruk's third rule echoed in my memory—but I couldn't, not without Mica, not without the one piece of my old life that mattered.
Something pulled me forward. Not the bond exactly, but something similar, some awareness that what I sought was ahead, down this passage, turn here, follow the warmth that grew with each step. My feet found their way as if they'd walked these halls before, as if the mountain itself was guiding me.
Then I heard it.
The whisper of thread through fabric, soft and rhythmic. The specific sound of needle piercing cloth, thread following, knot securing.