Chapter 33 #2
“And then Hallam told us of the inscription,” he went on. “I knew what everyone would want and expect. But I never wanted to hurt you, to use you. I thought a quick rejection was better than a regret that might keep you from me forever. Because I want you, Aimee.”
The admission, the vulnerability in his eyes, steals my senses. I can’t even feel the ground under my boots.
“I think…” he says. “I want you at any cost. Any risk. I have wanted you more than any king should ever want something for himself. I no longer care if it hurts me later. If I have to send you back, to lose you. I would rather have been yours for a short time than not at all.”
Blood be damned. I dive for him, throwing my arms around his neck and pressing my lips to his. He makes a sound low in his throat before wrapping his arms around me and pulling me tight against him. His lips press back, hungry, demanding, and so damn perfect.
More than any king should ever want.
God, does he not understand how good a man he truly is? He takes nothing for himself. But this? This I am giving him. And I’m giving it to myself too.
He kisses like a dying man. Like this is our last moment and he’ll take the taste of my lips to the grave.
I might even die happy if it is. He wants me.
It took him too damn long to find the words, but now he’s making sure I feel it, every press, every breath, every inch where our bodies press against one another.
I let out a little whimper as he pulls back ever so slightly.
“Aimee.” My name is a hoarse groan.
“Elias?” I open my eyes and am greeted with that violet light—a sign of strong, uncontained emotion.
“My hands.” His arms loosen.
“Oh!” I immediately step back. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
He grabs a fistful of his shirt and jerks it over his head, revealing the smooth, sculpted expanse of his chest. My mouth goes dry, all the moisture flooding to a different part of my body. It should be criminal to look that good.
A ripping sound fills the air as he tears off a section of the shirt and starts wrapping it around one hand like a makeshift bandage. Another quickly follows for the other hand before he tosses the ruined garment away. Elias secures the end of the cloth before glancing up at me.
The smoldering look in his eyes nearly brings me to my knees.
He saunters the few steps to me. “I couldn’t kiss you the way I wanted with my hands bleeding like that.”
“No?” The question is a breathy whisper.
“No.” His standoffish shyness from minutes ago has burned away completely, and the effect is mesmerizing. Elias cups my cheek, his other hand settles on my lower back before tugging me flush against him. If there were any question about him wanting me, there is zero now.
And then he’s kissing me again. Consuming me.
Unmaking me and forming me into something new.
His long fingers slide through my hair before tangling at the nape of my neck and tilting my head back just so.
Distantly, I realize I shouldn’t like that, not after the way any tug on my hair set me on edge only days ago.
But with Elias, I feel cherished, protected. He saved me then, and he’d do it again.
I cling to him, one palm against the warm, firm planes of his chest, the other caressing his face. The silken fall of his hair tickles my skin, sliding over my arm, the sensation delightfully strange since I’ve never been with anyone with long hair.
My core is a taut mess of need by the time he pulls away. His forehead leans against mine, our heated breaths mingling.
The reprieve is short. Elias gently nips at my ear, eliciting a little gasp.
Then his lips find my neck, kissing over my pulse before he whispers against my skin, “If you’re still sure you want me, I would make you mine.”
“Yes.”
Another low groan rumbles up through his chest and across my skin, sending a shiver racing up my spine.
He adjusts his hold on me. “Then we go to Altana. I will not take you on the ground like an animal.”
Please do.
But the words don’t make it out before the air around us constricts, only to rush away as quickly. But he hasn’t shifted us to Altana. Instead, we’re back in the middle of camp.
Several fae jump to attention, wide-eyed and gaping. I bury my face in Elias’s chest, not quite ready to see the knowing looks that are sure to follow. He’s shirtless. We’re both a flushed mess. It’s not hard to paint that picture.
Elias doesn’t give them time to recover from the shock of our appearance. “We’re returning to Altana. Now. All of us.”
Murmurs of surprise ripple through the air.
He stares down at me as he says, “We have what we need.”
My soul tries to leave my body as I glance up at him. Yep. Melting. About to make a human-shaped puddle of goo right here.
“Finally,” Katiya groans loudly somewhere behind us. “Go. I’ll shift the others back.”
He doesn’t need to be told twice. Her voice is still ringing in the air when we vanish, only to appear a heartbeat later at the honing point near a short distance from the ruins.
“Hold tight to me,” he says, strengthening his grip on me for emphasis.
The shift here was long and disorienting, and the return one doesn’t disappoint on that score. But the anticipation thrumming through me drowns out my nerves as he moves us magically from one place to the other.
Finally, the circular room that houses the honing point in Altana appears around us. I stare down at the intricate, swirling spell work engraved at the floor to steady my spinning head. The world around me has yet to stop moving when Elias scoops me up into his arms in a bridal carry.
“Hey.” I shove at his chest. “I can walk.”
He smirks. “But I’m faster.”
Fair. Especially moving with his long-legged stride at a near jog. We pass a fae who lets out an exclamation of surprise, calling out after us as we move past them.
But Elias ignores them as if they don’t even exist.
“Fuck.” His body shudders. “I can smell you.”
Pretty sure he doesn’t mean sweat or dust. We pass another wide-eyed fae who undoubtedly just heard that, and I duck my face against Elias’s chest to hide.
“Shifting would be even faster,” I mumble. Though he’s probably tired from the shift here, the work before that, he may not—
“You’re right.”
And then we vanish again, only to reappear in darkness.
I tense in fear that something has gone terribly wrong, but then a fae light illuminates in front of us before drifting up to the ceiling, and a familiar sight takes shape around me. We’re back in his room. Bedroom. Room with a bed. A very large, luscious bed that I cannot stop staring at.
A bed that he’s carrying me toward.