Chapter Sixteen
–Tavish–
WHERE I HAD seen to my needs with different women over the years, I could safely say I had no idea how intense lying with a lass could be until I lost myself in Ellie.
That’s how it felt, too. One moment, I knew my way and understood the world around me.
The next, I was gone, deep inside the woman I loved with every fiber of my being, and I realized there was so much more to pleasure.
So much more to life and love itself.
Everything about having her in my, our, bed felt beyond merely coming home.
It felt like I was where I was supposed to be in every life from this one to the Hereafter, and all to follow.
While it seemed strange at first to equate making love to a woman and slaking my desires to such profound emotions, there was no avoiding it because Ellie was my soulmate in every sense of the word.
My fated mate until the end.
And while I felt Elowyn inside her, forever a part of her, it was Ellie who spoke to my heart.
Who made me come alive in ways I didn’t know I could as I tasted her soft, supple flesh and drank of her sweet juices.
As we took each other in the most primal way possible, and she brought me more pleasure than I knew I was capable of feeling.
So much pleasure that when fire raced down my spine and tightened my ballocks almost painfully, I had no choice but to thrust deep and fill her with my liquid hot heat, only to realize something that made my emotions swell.
I might have claimed her flesh, but my dragon didn’t do the only thing that might have kept her in my arms.
It didn't impregnate her.
It broke my heart all over again, because in the end, no matter how much we loved her, and we did more than anything, it couldn’t risk our offspring ending up in Dugal’s hands.
Although I fully intended to do everything in my power to keep her here with us, in the end, my inner beast couldn't trust how easily she’d slipped away from us twice already. And how driven she was to sacrifice herself for the greater good.
Even so, there was a piece of me and my inner beast that, no matter how much we loathed it, also admired it. She was, without question, the strongest, most admirable woman I had ever met, and she not only made me immensely proud but deeply humbled me.
Yet still, when I stirred awake in the early hours of the morning after making love all night, I was terrified to find her gone. Panicked that she was gone for good this time, I shot to the door, only to find her sitting on a small wooden bench watching the sea.
Chanting on clothing, I grabbed a fur and joined her, wrapping it around her shoulders even though I knew the biting wind didn’t bother her any more than it did me.
“Good morn, lass,” I said, taking in the stormy sky, angry waves, and spitting snowflakes, as I sat beside her. “Such as it is.”
“I like it,” she murmured, offering me a soft smile, her skin aglow, speaking to how sensually satisfied she felt. “But I guess that’s normal for us dragons, seen clearly in the great hall’s tapestries I’ve always admired.”
“’Tis,” I admitted, just imagining what it might be like to fly with her in such a storm.
To fly with her, period, soaring among the clouds in the moonlight.
To know her beautiful dragon was all mine in every sense of the word, and no curse loomed over us anymore.
Fighting a fresh wave of emotion, I revealed what was in my heart despite her already knowing it.
“I cannae tell ye how happy I am to find ye still here with me.”
“Me too,” she confessed, her voice as thick with emotion as mine. “More than you know.”
The problem is, I did know because I knew she and her inner beast would do what was needed in the end, not just for her family and all of Scotland, but for me.
While it would be brutal for me for a long time after she left, she knew I would still live a full life with my kin.
Full of nieces and nephews who would thrive in Scotland as it should be going forward.
And eventually, or so she prayed, I would find love again and have offspring of my own. Find the happiness she felt I deserved.
While hers was a noble, loving hope, I knew it would never happen without her. It couldn’t because she would be forever burrowed in my heart and soul. In my very being.
“There are so many things I want to say,” she said softly. “So many things I want to share...”
I closed my eyes against the pain in her words as she trailed off. The emotions I felt, too, because we knew our time together was coming to an end all over again. We felt a crushing grief hovering over us as we struggled to accept something so heartbreaking.
Losing each other in not one life but two.
Had anyone told me hours ago that I would ever let her go again, especially to the likes of Dugal, I would have said it would never happen, and I still felt that way. Yet our inner beasts were slowly doing what anyone who knew dragons and their fated mates would have said was impossible.
They were putting those they loved and the future of so many before themselves. They were taking comfort in knowing they would find each other again in another life. Comfort in knowing that perhaps it would be the one in which they could finally be together as they should have always been.
Where they could finally marry and have children.
“’Tis alright, lass,” I said softly, wrapping my fingers with hers.
“Our dragons are bonded, so I feel everything now. All the years behind you and the life you’ve led.
The person you are.” I gazed at her with adoration and respect.
“Whether by my side or not, you are always in my heart.” I shook my head. “And ‘twill never be otherwise.”
“Yet it should be,” she said softly, squeezing my hand, her gaze tender and understanding when she referred to me finding love again someday. “For me...so I know you’re okay.”
“I will be okay,” I assured her, unable to imagine it, but I knew that’s what she needed to hear, so I said it.
Tried to mean it for her sake, even though I would never be okay again if she were with Dugal.
I would never be okay if she weren’t right here in my arms. “You have my word, Ellie.” I cupped her cheek and gazed into her eyes.
“But know this, ‘twill only ever be ye I truly love.
‘Twill only ever be ye I want life after life.”
Before she could respond with more words that tried to push me into another’s arms, someone I knew would never exist if it weren’t her, I closed my mouth over hers and kissed her with all the love I felt.
All the love I would forever feel, and I knew she did the same, as our passionate, loving kiss turned hungrier.
So hungry, I welcomed her when she straddled me, and our kisses grew desperate.
When she ground against me, needing more, I freed my rigid cock and groaned with approval as she sank onto it.
Her hot, tight sheath felt beyond good, as did the sight of her eyes drifting in pleasure and the sound of her breath catching at the way I made her feel.
Running my hands up her slender thighs beneath her nightrail, I cupped my hands around her nicely shaped backside and relished the feel of her riding me. Stroking me. Making me hers all over again in the best way possible. At first, it was slow and loving, full of kisses and soft groans.
Cherishing every moment for as long as we could.
Then she moved faster, grinding and rolling her hips in a way that felt so damn good I knew I wouldn’t last much longer.
Feeling the same, she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and buried her face in the crook of my neck, wanting to pull in my scent as she increased her pace even more.
Understanding she needed to be as close as possible, I kept one hand on her arse and wrapped my arm around her lower back, holding her flush against me when she sank onto me one last time, and released a ragged groan against my neck.
Her body trembled, and her sheath clenched so tightly that she took me with her.
Releasing the same rugged groan, I squeezed her backside, locking her in position, and let go, pouring my seed deep inside her.
Seed that sadly wouldn’t take root, but at least we had this memory.
This euphoric, intimate moment as she murmured how much she loved me. How much she would always love me.
Wrapping her up in my arms, I inhaled her sweet scent and murmured the same, never meaning anything so completely.
Never feeling anything so entirely. It was hard to believe that mere days ago, I didn’t even know she existed.
That my other half, in every sense of the word, was alive, silently loving me from afar.
Yet, as I held her and felt an overwhelming sense of love, I also sensed something shifting inside her that made me wary. As if she emotionally and physically pulled away, even though I still held her in my arms, and I loathed it.
More than anything, though, I didn't trust it, and with good reason.
“Bloody hell,” I exclaimed when one moment she was in my arms and the next, she was gone. “Nay, not like this, lass. Please not like this.”
Having no need to adjust my clothing as she’d clearly done it for me before slipping away, I leapt to my feet and looked around in alarm, but terrifyingly enough, there was no sign of her.
Nor was there any sign of my Viking blade.
“Why, though?” I wondered, daring not to hope because one of the roles the blade had played in this pact was to telepathically keep us in touch with our lass on Sutherland territory.
Yet in Ellie’s case, it made little sense given she could never be mine, so could it be we'd have our happy ending after all?
Unfortunately, as I soon found out, mayhap not.