Chapter 39
I ’m running through a graveyard of a forest filled with the dead husks of trees. The sky is gray and gloomy. It smells of rot and mold. Yet I’m giggling, laughing, rushing ahead without a care.
My bare toes touch soft grasses with every step, not a rock or stick cutting at my skin, despite the terrain ahead of me.
More laughter fills the air, deep and masculine. I look back over my bare shoulder. Elias, dressed in his full black armor, save the helm, chases me. There’s a grin on his face, joy in his eyes. His white hair trails behind him, flicking in the air like his fuzzy tail.
That on its own is a beautiful sight, but the land behind me is even more striking.
A trail of verdant green grass stretches out like a road behind me.
Trees and flowers sprout from the edges.
A butterfly appears from nowhere to drift past. I catch a whiff of floral notes mixed with Elias’s scent of leather and oak.
I laugh again, turning to look straight ahead as I continue to run headlong between the dead trees. My heart is light, my steps too. My whole body hums with joy and pleasure.
Chase me. Follow me. Catch me.
I awake to a tingling jolt of need straight to my core, my pleasant dreams fading away to an even more pleasurable awakening.
“Good morning.” Elias’s warm breath ghosts across the shell of my ear, sending a delicious shiver through my body.
There’s the soft press of his lips against my neck then a slow swipe of his tongue. But it’s his hand between my legs that has me letting out a little moan and leaning back into the hard planes of his bare chest.
After three days spent mostly in bed, I shouldn’t still be so wanton for him. But rather than sate my desires, being with him only makes them grow. And it’s the same for him, if the past few days and the hard length of his erection against my backside are any indication.
Elias slides his fingers, nails still neatly trimmed, over my clit in lazy yet maddening strokes.
I’m embarrassingly wet already, maybe from the dream that’s already fading from my memory like the last grains of sand in an hourglass.
Or maybe he’s been waking me up like this for a little bit, and my mind is just now catching up with my body.
Either way, I don’t mind. I want him. Not just right now, but always.
It’s a terrifying thought, one I try not to think about for the sharp slicing pain it tends to elicit in my chest. The potion may be ready soon. I may have to leave to take it to Matt. I may not be able to get back.
And Elias refuses to talk about it.
But right now, I’m not about to complain, especially as he lifts my leg over his and shifts behind me until it’s no longer his fingers slipping through my wetness but his cock. He enters me in one sure, slow thrust.
“Elias,” I gasp.
Nothing and no one in my life has ever made me feel like him—complete, filled, and not just physically.
He bands an arm under me, his palm settling over my breast and cupping it tight. “My beautiful mate. You take me so well.”
Our bodies rock together, his length sliding most of the way out before delving in again. The slow, almost casual pace of his movement has me feeling every inch of his cock, especially since his angle has it stroking right over that most sensitive spot within me.
It’s only moments before I’m a mewling, needy mess in his arms. I can’t help but wiggle in pleasure, despite him having one hand gripping my thigh and the other on my breast, holding me tight to him.
I glance down the plane of my body, watching his cock as it sinks into me.
His mark on my body—the mark of the Unseelie King—shimmers.
Light and magic move subtly under my skin, almost like it’s alive, and I suppose in a way it is.
His did the same last night. When I asked about it, Elias said that continuing to join reinforces the magic of the mark, that it would fade in time if we were no longer together, a confession that caused his voice to grow thick and words to hitch.
I don’t ever want his mark to fade.
I am his. He is mine.
For however long I can have him.
His next thrust has me coming apart. I cry out. Stars dot my vision. My legs try to clamp closed in throws of pleasure, but Elias still grips my thigh, holding me open, continuing to fill me through the throws of my orgasm.
“Fuck!” He groans. “So tight!” He jerks his hips, jolting us both across the sheets. His grip tightens just before his body shudders with release.
I’m still panting, still coming back to myself, as his shallow thrusts still.
“Aimee.” He nuzzles the back of my neck before trailing soft kisses down the top of my spine.
We’re both breathing heavy, chests rising and falling, but a soft rumble starts in his chest, vibrating into mine.
My brows knit at the sensation before I let out a little laugh. “Elias, are you purring?”
“Mmhmm.” He releases my leg. His softened cock slips from me as he shifts, wrapping me in his arms and somehow pulling me even closer, despite the fact that our bodies were already pressed together. Voice husky, he asks, “Does that bother you?”
“No.” I twist a bit in his embrace so that I can see his face. “It’s oddly adorable. I just haven’t heard you do it before now.”
He rubs my face affectionately with his. “I wasn’t sure I could. But my body wanted to.” His nose twitches in contemplation. “So I just…let it.”
“I like it.”
Something glitters in his eyes, and damn if he doesn’t start purring louder.
His long white tail flicks out, thumping over our tangled legs.
Yet another thing I would have found terrifyingly strange weeks ago but have come to savor.
But the sensation does trigger a memory from before I ever knew he had a tail, much less who he was.
“That first night you fell asleep holding me, when we were out in the wilderness, I felt something when I woke up. A soft pressure on my legs. At the time, I thought maybe it was the Nageth, and I panicked. But it was your tail, wasn’t it?” I ask.
He nods slowly.
“But you were disguised?” I say, somewhere between a question and a statement.
“I used magic to shift my appearance,” he says. “A rare skill and one that required a lot of magic and focus. When I was asleep, the spell unraveled.”
Wow. “So, if I’d seen you while you were asleep, I would have seen who you really were. Yet you stayed with me at night anyway?”
Elias strokes my face, moving a strand of hair behind my ears.
“I covered myself in my cloak, but my tail sometimes has a life of its own.” His lips twist up in one corner.
“It was a risk, but I sleep lightly most of the time. Holding you like that, not only were you closer to me, but I would feel you waking and be able to conceal my true self before you saw me. Or so I planned.”
“Very bold of your tail to try to thwart your plans so quickly.” I gently grab the wild thing, running my hand down its length and savoring the soft feel of his fur.
His body shudders, his hip rocking into mine. “Careful there, little mate.”
“Seduced by tail touches?” I giggle.
He leans in, forehead nearly touching mine. “Any touch of yours is enough to drive me to distraction. But to answer more of your question, I also stayed because I didn’t want to leave you. Not just because being near you was such a boon to my magic, but I was…afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Of what might happen to you out there.” His expression darkens, and he looks away. “Of what did happen when I had to leave for a time.”
It’s something I’ve thought about too. I can’t forget the sounds of the canyena that I heard that first night in Faery now that I know how deadly they are.
If I’d been on my own, would they have found me?
Killed me that first night before I could accomplish anything?
Elias saved me from that. And so much else.
I cup his cheek, bringing his face back to mine. “That’s not your fault. It’s mine. I left the safety circle you made for me.”
“I shouldn’t have left you.”
“You didn’t trust me yet.”
His lips purse, and I know it’s true. He’d said as much. “Still, risking you was unwise.”
I let my hand trail down to rest against his chest. His heart beats rapidly. “Because of what happened to your mother?” He flinches, and I immediately regret the question. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“Don’t be,” he says with a sigh. “It hurts to speak of her, even after all these years, but she should be spoken of and remembered. I am not doing her any favors by avoiding her memory.”
“What was her name?” For all that I have been told about her, I’ve never gotten that.
He softens. “Esme. Her name was Esme.”
“It’s a beautiful name.”
“It is.”
“Her parents must have really liked names that start with E.”
He chuckles, a deep throaty sound that echoes through my body. “I suppose they did.”
“I think she would be really proud of you.” I splay my fingers across his chest. “Of the man you have become and all that you are trying to do.”
The smile on his lips fades into a frown. He turns his head to stare at the ceiling. “I wonder about that.”
“You’re a good man. A good king.”
He looks at me from the corner of his eye. “I’m not sure it’s possible to be both.”
Elias sits up, slipping his arms out from around me, and leaving me suddenly cold and lonely in his bed.
“It’s been three days.” The sorrowful look in his eyes breaks my heart. “We should go check on that potion for your brother.”