Chapter 16 Maize
MAIZE
I woke to find myself standing in a sea of black, shadows rippling beneath my feet like churning waves. On the horizon, a massive silhouette began to form, its edges visible only where the dim light gathered like a flickering candle flame.
For a moment, I wondered if it was Oberon—if we had failed to destroy him.
But it wasn’t. It was Balor, and rather than lying frail upon his bed, the ancient being was walking toward me, each step causing the space to tremble with power. His burning eyes glowed brighter as he drew closer, his expression filled with knowing and something that looked almost like pride.
“You’re up.” My voice came out rough, laced with curiosity and exhaustion.
“You unmade Oberon. You released me from my sickness,” Balor said. “You faced what I could only trap and conquered it. The world will find balance in your wake.”
I blinked at him, mustering the energy I had left and let out a long sigh. “I didn’t die…right?” I didn’t think I had. Honestly, this felt like a dream, but the way he said it made me wonder about the possibility.
“No.” His mouth curved into a grin. “You ascended into godhood. True godhood.”
Oh.
I looked down at myself, feeling strangely normal for someone who’d undergone such an intense change, but I couldn’t doubt him. After all, it had felt like I was being ripped apart and remade, so I supposed that tracked.
Balor’s massive hand lifted, hovering just above my shoulder. “You carry both my wrath and your mother’s magic wrapped in prophecy. That balance kept you from failing as I did.”
Before I could say another word, his form began to fade, the world around him rippling like torn fabric as the darkness folded in once more.
The dreamscape around me transformed.
I saw a vision of Cethlenn, her hands trembling as she held a crying infant swaddled in silver cloth.
Her eyes were wild, desperate, filled with both fear and love.
She pressed her lips to the baby’s forehead—my forehead—and whispered to the Dark Fae woman waiting in the shadows.
“Go to him and tell him this is his child. She needs protection from those who would see her removed.”
The scene warped, the privacy of shadows dissolving into the chill of cold marble halls.
I heard Mario’s familiar smooth yet cruel tone cutting through the dark. “I’m unsurprised she’s not mine, and to hear she’s more…well, I only see that as value.”
“You don’t worry she’s a spy?” someone asked.
Mario barked out a laugh. “No. The girl doesn’t realize her parentage. She’s a simple mistake—and even gods abandon their mistakes.”
But the words didn’t sting the way they once would have.
I understood now. I wasn’t a mistake, not truly.
For all their faults, my parents had been fighting forces far older and far crueler than I’d ever realized.
It didn’t erase what I’d endured, but it finally made sense, and that alone felt like healing.
My breath caught as the dream fractured into soft light.
I gasped awake, lungs burning, heart pounding, and the echo of the memories still bleeding into the waking world.
My body ached in a thousand small ways, but beneath the soreness and exhaustion, I felt alive.
My veins hummed faintly with leftover magic, the remnant of power from Oberon still lingering like static under my skin.
It took me a long moment to realize I wasn’t alone.
Zed’s arms were around me, and his bare chest was cool against my cheek. His heartbeat thrummed beneath my ear, and I stayed there for a moment, breathing him in, tears pricking at my eyes in relief. They were okay—I could feel it through our bond.
My mates, my familiars…they were all safe.
“And you’re safe,” Zed murmured, his fingers sliding through my hair.
“Where are we?” My voice cracked in the darkness of the room, barely more than a whisper. “Did we make it back? How is everyone—”
He brushed his hand down my back in a soothing touch. “We’re home,” he said quietly. “Queen Gray’s forces felt the shock of Oberon’s fall across the entire realm. They portalled in before the mountain collapsed and brought us all home safely.”
Home. The word barely made sense at first, but as I blinked, I saw the faint morning light filtering through familiar curtains. My chest ached as the realization hit me and grew into true hope. We were safe. The others were downstairs. I’d probably been asleep for…
“How long have I been sleeping?”
Zed shifted beside me, his voice quieter now. “You’ve been out for three days.” His hand tightened where it rested against my waist. “I worried you’d never open your eyes again.”
I looked up at him—really looked at him. His jaw was tight, his violet eyes rimmed with exhaustion. “Zed…”
“When he had you,” he said, his voice trembling, “when Oberon had you in his grasp…I have never felt true fear like that.”
“Hey,” I whispered. “You didn’t lose me. I’m right here. I’m alive.”
“I love you, angel,” he said.
I swallowed hard, tears stinging my eyes. “Zed…I love you so much.”
He nodded once, a faint, broken smile tugging at his lips. “I’ll always love you. I don’t think you realize what you are to me.”
I lifted a trembling hand to his face, my fingers brushing along his cheek. “Then show me.”
His eyes flashed, the candlelight in the room flickering in their violet depths as he leaned closer, his breath mingling with mine. “You sure you’re ready for that?”
“I am.”
Zed hesitated, his hand tightening at my hip as his gaze flicked over me with equal parts desire and worry. “You’re still recovering. Too delicate for that right now. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I don’t want distance, Zed. I want to feel connected. And not only that,” I whispered, heart hammering at the thought of what I was about to say, “I want you to drink from me.”
His expression shattered with pure need, but he quickly tried to hide the roll of desire that filled his darkening gaze. He shook his head, throat working almost nervously.
“Maize…” His voice broke on my name. “You don’t understand what you’re asking. I’ve barely held myself together since we’ve met, let alone now. If I taste you—”
“I don’t want you to hold back,” I repeated, sliding my thumb over his bottom lip. “I need you, Zed.”
For a long moment he didn’t move, the silence between us heightening in intensity.
Then his resolve cracked. A low sound left him, half-growl, half-sigh, as his hand slipped to the back of my neck, his thumb tracing my pulse.
His large frame rolled us so that I was trapped underneath him, the oversized shirt I wore doing very little to hide how much his touch affected me.
When his lips brushed my throat and his fangs sank into my pulse, the world shifted.
I gasped as warmth flooded through me, the pull between us deepening until molten need surged through my core, leaving me trembling on the edge of euphoria. My power reached for his; our bond snapped taut and alive, stronger than it had ever been.
Zed groaned against my neck, the sound caught between pain and pleasure. His hand tightened in my hair as if he was fighting the urge to take more. I slid my fingers through his hair and tugged gently, wanting exactly that and so much more from him.
His bite didn’t drain me—it healed me. Every ache disappeared, melting into nothing under the current of energy that flowed between us. My breath hitched as the magic built higher, sizzling in the air, wrapping us both in its glow.
When Zed finally pulled back, blood glistened on his lips as he pressed his forehead to mine, breathing hard. Then his mouth found mine in a slow, silent kiss that tasted of my blood.
The metallic tang should have been a shock, but instead it was an aphrodisiac, a potent flavor that shot straight to my core.
My blood, on his tongue. Inside him. The thought made me dizzy, my head falling back against the silk pillows as he lowered his frame so that I was completely trapped beneath him.
Zed’s eyes burned with a fire that had nothing to do with hunger and everything to do with possession.
“You liked that, angel?” His voice was a gravelly rasp, vibrating through the small space between our bodies. I could only nod, my fingers digging into the hard muscle of his shoulders. A raw, aching need spread like a wildfire through my veins as he kissed me again, this time more demanding.
His mouth left mine, trailing a line of hot kisses down my jaw, my throat, pausing over his bite mark that tingled with a strange but pleasant energy. He didn’t bite again—not yet. He soothed the spot with a slow, open-mouthed kiss that made my back arch off the bed.
“The problem…is that I now need far more than blood from you,” he murmured against my skin, his hands finally moving.
One slid down my side, rolling over my waist, my hip, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake.
The other hooked under my knee, pulling my leg up to wrap around his hip.
The shirt I wore fell to my hips, revealing that I was wearing only panties underneath.
“I need all of you, angel.”
It was part command, part confession—and I was lost to him completely.
“Yes,” I breathed. “Please.”
An easy flick and slide of his wrist, and my oversized shirt was gone.
Another, and he had pulled down my boy shorts and tossed them aside so that I was laid bare underneath him.
The warm air danced across my skin, and I let out an eager sound as he pushed down his own sweatpants, my eyes completely on his hard length and the way his hand wrapped around it, stroking himself. I wanted to do that.
“Zed,” I whispered, reaching for him as his signature devastating grin made an appearance.
“Patience, angel,” he whispered, holding himself above me, his chiseled, muscular frame making him look like a damn statue.
I couldn’t look away from this man; I was completely captivated.
One large hand came between us, his fingers finding my core, stroking through my wetness with a touch so light it was agony.
“You’re so damn wet,” he growled with a dark, satisfied wonder. His thumb circled my clit with a slow, maddening pressure that had me bucking against his hand. “All this heat, this sweetness…it’s all for me.”
“Zed,” I choked out, my hips moving of their own volition, seeking more friction.
He gave it to me. He slid one long finger inside, then a second, crooking them perfectly so that stars exploded behind my eyes. My mouth fell open in a moan as he worked me, his palm grinding against me with every thrust of his fingers.
It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. I needed him closer—always and forever.
I was hurtling toward the edge, my entire world narrowing to the skilled movements of his hand.
Just as I was about to shatter, he stopped.
Zed withdrew his hand, and before I could even cry out in protest, my body trembling with frustration, he was positioning himself at my entrance. The broad head of his cock pressed against me, a searing promise of what was to come.
He began to fill me in one slow stroke.
Oh, Maker.
I could feel every inch of his impressive length as he sank deeper, deeper, until our bodies were locked together. He made it so I could feel every millimeter of his descent, allowing the exquisite friction to build until I was panting, my nails scoring his back.
Zed held himself there, buried to the hilt, and dropped his head to my neck, his breath cool against my feverish skin.
“You are perfection,” he growled. Then he began to move.
It was a slow, relentless pace that stole the air from my lungs. Each withdrawal was a loss, but each thrust was a jolt of pure, undiluted pleasure. In…and out…a perfect dance between us.
Zed’s hips pistoled with a supernatural control, each movement calculated to wring the maximum sensation from us both.
I could feel the tension in his body, the rigid control he was fighting to maintain.
My release began to build again, a hot, tightening spiral in my belly, far more intense now that we were one.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his voice strained.
My eyes, which had squeezed shut, fluttered open. His violet gaze was blazing, swirling with emotion—lust, reverence, and something so profound it stole my breath. Love. Through our bond, I could feel his pleasure echoing mine, a feedback loop of sensation that was pushing us higher and higher.
“I’m so close,” I whimpered, my body beginning to tremble uncontrollably.
“I know,” he rasped. His pace was unreal, each thrust becoming more powerful, more claiming. “Let go. I have you, angel.”
His words were the final permission I needed. The spiral tightened, and my orgasm rippled through me—intoxicating and absolute—a moan of his name on my lips as my body clenched around him, milking his length in rhythmic pulses.
My climax was his undoing.
With a guttural roar that was pure need, Zed drove into me one final, deep time, burying himself as deep as he could possibly go. As his own hot release poured into me, marking and claiming, his control shattered. His lips brushed over the bite mark on my neck once, a tender caress.
And then his fangs sank in.
The sharp, blissful pain was the final catalyst. It didn’t hurt; it shattered me.
It was a key turning in a lock, and every nerve ending I possessed fired at once.
The pleasure of his climax, the ecstasy of my own, and the dizzying, soul-deep intimacy of the mate bond and bite fused into one overwhelming wave of pure love.
The last words I managed to whisper were “I love you” before everything went dark again.