Chapter 27
Lunara had no idea how long she sat on the cold ground. Only that her bones ached and her arse was numb.
Brand hadn’t so much as twitched, still in a deep sleep.
Draining a gift from his veins and blooding him in the same instant might have had something to do with that.
Or maybe it was the countless lacerations she’d discovered on his legs, his hands, some of them horrific—wounds Lunara knew he’d ignored entirely in favor of tending to her.
Unfortunately, cleaning the crusted filth of her own near-death from both of them, and putting his flesh back together had only distracted her for a few moments, the soft fabric of a new dress doing nothing to comfort her.
She’d ended up back on the ground, eyes locked on him. On one of his shoulders as it went up and down, up and down, her thoughts spinning and spinning and spinning.
There was no sorting through all the Voice had said. In fact, there were only four words that stuck out, mocking her.
Merge. Bonded. Love. Mated.
The only ones that were relevant to her right now, while she stared across a bleeding cave at her sleeping mate.
Fucking ridiculous. You should have blasted a hole in the wall and left, the rest of the world be damned.
Maybe. Then again, the only thing stopping her from rejoicing her unbelievable fortune was terror over something that may not be real. Brand might be able to protect her after all. Perhaps he could rage and level the entire Council with his greatsword.
Lunara snorted, enjoying the thought a little too much.
What if that’s what the Voice had meant? Not to fear herself for him. Not to deny what the Sisters had gifted them in favor of anxious assumptions and wretched memories.
Merge. Bonded. Love. Mated.
Love.
Did she love him? No. Not yet, at least. Not… quite.
Oh, but she could. Blessed moons, how easily she could.
The beginnings were there. The heat, the ease, the laughter and understanding—perfection resting just out of reach, waiting for her to stretch out and grasp it within steadfast fingers.
But there was at least one secret between them. One that was potentially more than enough to burn the rest to the ground.
‘Do not fear his light, Lunara.’
She was going to have to face him when he woke. To look him in the eye after she’d hopped on his massive body like she owned it and taken her pleasure without so much as a thought.
Groaning, Lunara let her lids droop, listening and waiting for him to rouse, forcing her breaths to be long and slow.
Eventually—it could have been minutes or hours, there was no way to know—the sounds changed when bare feet met stone floor.
Funny. The swift patter of his steps matched the frenzied beating of her heart exactly.
Stone floor… Stone…
There was something niggling at the back of her mind, trying to surface through the mire of everything sloshing within, but the sleepy gravel of Brand’s voice broke her concentration and swept the thought away.
“Lunara?” he said softly, urgently, a warm hand cupping her face. “What are you doing over here? Are you alright?”
Her heart stopped.
“Speak to me, my little moon.”
Just as the Voice said it would be. And if it had been right about that one, simple thing…
A flood of words and proclamations swept through her, the Voice imploring her to listen, to accept him.
It was true. Weeping Sisters, it was all true.
The smug laughter that echoed through her mind was so faint, she may have imagined it.
Heart lurching, she opened her eyes and met Brand’s. He visibly relaxed, but concern lingered in his gaze. He knelt and brought his other hand up to hold both sides of her face and just stared at her.
She was at a complete loss for words.
“Luna,” Brand whispered.
The first time he’d used that name in this form, and it managed to hit even harder.
Her mate was there, right in front of her.
How? How did this happen? Sisters, what must he think of you?
“I don’t know what to say,” she admitted finally. “Maybe if you told me just how embarrassed I should be, I could better decide where to begin apologizing.”
Brand chuckled, his face lighting up. She adored the way his eyes crinkled at the corners, evidence of his good nature painted there in lines that never fully disappeared.
They drifted down and his thumb brushed along her jaw to reach her bottom lip.
He rubbed back and forth, wholly focused on her mouth, and liquid heat flooded her veins.
“Perhaps you should be embarrassed about how damned careless you are, running off at every sodding opportunity with no thought for yourself. Or maybe you’d like to apologize for putting yourself in danger, for getting run through by a bloody Forgotten and scaring the ever-living shite out of me when you stopped fucking breathing.
Then again…” He looked into her eyes once more.
“If you hadn’t done all that, we may have danced around the subject for far too long, waiting to see what would happen and never quite sure of the other.
Perhaps it’s fitting I’m on my knees here before you, so I can thank you instead for being a reckless, wonderful fool. ”
Tears welled in Lunara’s eyes and spilled over her lashes. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean—“
“Shhh,” he whispered, gently cutting her off.
In one fluid motion, he pulled Lunara to her feet and into his arms, squeezing hard enough to push the air from her lungs. “I thought I’d lost you, and I’ve never been so terrified in my life.”
“I’m still here.”
Somehow. Against her better judgement. Though… it didn’t feel quite as daunting as before.
Weeping moons, you’re a hopeless bleeding eejit.
He let go only long enough to bend and grasp her around the thighs, lifting and wrapping her legs around him.
Lunara squealed, her hands landing on wide shoulders. “What are you doing?”
“Tell me to stop and I stop.”
Blessed moons, the gravel in his voice.
“Stop what, exactly?”
Brand used one hand to brush the tears and loose curls from her face, his eyes following the motion before he reached back and reverently coiled her hair around his arm, grasping her nape. “Walking you over to that slab and finishing what we started.”
She didn’t want to say it. Didn’t want to ruin it. “What about—” She cleared her throat, mustering her courage. “What about Faldir?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “You saw what it was like. With only the two of us, there’s no way. The risk…” He shook his head. “And for what? An unlikely possibility?”
“You think he’s gone.”
“You were gone,” he pushed through gritted teeth, the agony in his voice choking her. “And I have no idea what awaits us when we leave. I-I can’t… I want…”
Her fingers landed on his lips, silencing him. Lunara knew what he was trying to say. “A moment of joy before the Veil?”
“Yes. Sisters save me, that’s exactly it.”
Eye-to-eye, breath mingling between them, they froze like that, time standing still as they poised for a glorious drop into the unknown.
“Well, what are you waiting for?”
Her back was hitting the platform before she could blink, Brand rising on his knees above her.
He grabbed one ankle and brought her booted foot to his chest, eyes on hers as he undid the laces and tossed it aside.
Fingers skimming up her calf, behind her knee, to her thigh and the lace on top of the stocking there.
It was torture as he hooked his fingers in and dragged it away.
Worse, still, when he repeated the action on the other side.
He made slow work of hiking her skirts, pausing just before she was bared to him and settling back.
“Please, Brand,” she whispered, hardly knowing what she was asking for. She’d take anything, at this point, so long as he touched her.
“Mmm.” His fingers dug into the inside of one thigh, just shy of painful. “So different from the minx who took what she wanted.”
A hot blush crept over Lunara’s skin. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sor—”
“No.” He latched onto her hips and dragged her closer, light rippling up his arms. “Never apologize for your pleasure.”
“Oh… my…”
“Your fulfillment is my fulfillment. I crave it. Only, now I’d like to know how to please you myself.
” At last, Brand exposed her, and Lunara’s back arched under his gaze, her body seeking him out.
His breath left him on a ragged exhale as he stared, his tongue peeking out before he bit down on his bottom lip.
“I can’t decide whether to touch or taste you first.”
Honestly, she couldn’t decide either. All of it, probably.
Her hands moved of their own accord, tracing up her sides and heading for her breasts. For the peaked nipples she felt scraping against her dress. She couldn’t take it anymore, needed some kind of contact, even her own.
“Stop.”
Lunara froze just shy of her goal. The word had been softly spoken, but there was no denying the command in his tone.
Just as there was no denying the heady reaction of her body at seeing the approval written across his face. Stars above, what was he doing to her?
“Unbutton your dress, then put your hands above your head.”
As if he controlled them, those hands moved, fingers shaking and slipping as she worked the tiny shell buttons apart. Her dress gaped little by little, the cool air hitting each inch she exposed like a caress.
Brand watched her with a focus that might have been unsettling, if it wasn’t for the sawing of his breath and the obvious satisfaction it brought him to see her do as he bade.
When he rubbed a palm down the sizable bulge in his trousers, stroking his hard cock through the dark fabric, she understood.
She couldn’t tear her gaze away from the sight. He was huge above her. Primal. Power in every controlled inch of him.
And he was right—she craved it.
The last button popped free and the backs of her hands hit stone, arms stretched upwards.
“Yes.” He was on her in an instant, tongue dragging up her sternum as he parted her dress fully and cupped her breasts.