Chapter 63
Chapter
Sixty-Three
I rouse with a groan and open my eyes to a dank limestone floor. Then I realize I’m hanging upside down, a shoulder in my midsection. I groan when a throbbing rips through the peace in my head.
“Awake, are you?” Shock grumbles. “That was a quick recovery. Your magic is strong. I’ll have to keep my eye on you. Now, on your feet.”
With a grunt, he sets me down somewhere shadowed, underground. Prison-like. Shit.
“You’re not locking me up!”
Shock shoves me back. “Don’t be difficult, whelp. You wanted to see your woman, so I’m taking you to her. I’ll wait for the rest of the company.”
With a slash of his wrist, Shock opens the rusty cell door with a squeak. Sydney appears, looking no worse for the wear. She runs for the opening, but Shock holds up a palm, creating an invisible wall. I focus on destroying that wall. But Shock’s magic doesn’t bend.
There’s always marine-style brute force.
I punch Shock in the stomach. He grunts, doubling over.
Then I turn to grab Sydney’s hand, determined to escape. When my fingers close around hers, a sense of home and thankfulness curls around me. Warmth, relief, need.
Until I feel a boot in my backside.
I tumble into the cell, stumbling into Sydney. We topple over, landing in a heap of arms and legs on the cold floor.
With a screech, the cell door closes.
Scowling, Shock uses his magic to seal it. “Wait here. If your friends don’t appear, Mathias will send you back to Bram and the others with a message. Your woman…” Shock shrugs. “You should know, it doesn’t look good.”
Scrambling upright and racing to the bars, I scream at Shock’s retreating back, “You fucking backstabbing traitor! You don’t give a shit that people are dying and that Mathias will wipe out entire families.”
Slowly, Shock turns to glare at me over his leather-clad shoulder. “You don’t know a damn thing about me.”
Then he’s gone.
Failure settles over me, heavy and oppressive. How bloody stupid, believing I could rescue Sydney from the most powerful wizard in a millennium by myself?
“How did you get here?” she asks me.
I turn to her, taking in the sight of her—loose joggers, baggy T-shirt, and hair blazing like a wildfire around her shoulders. Her impact slams into me.
She’s mine. She’s the past I should have grabbed with both hands the moment I met her. She’s the future I’ll seize—if we find a way out alive. I’m not going to give that—or her—up for another second.
“I love you, Sydney.” Refusing to waste a second, I cradle her face in my hands and do something I’ve wanted to do forever.
I kiss her.
My mouth crashes over hers, open, seeking, dying for a taste of her. Our lips join. Our tongues meet. Her taste booms across my senses: spicy, sweet, slightly tart—all woman. My senses—both magical and male—roar to life.
With my next sweeping kiss, I demand more—everything—from her. A chorus of now, now, now! chants in my head. My body tenses. My cock hardens. I grasp her tighter.
Under me, Sydney surges, throwing her fervor into the kiss. She grabs my hair, clutches my jumper, moaning, writhing, and accepting in every way.
Familiar words burst across my brain, and I tear my mouth from hers, panting to get them out. “Become a part of me as I become a part of you. And ever after, I promise myself to thee. Each day we share, I shall be honest, good, and true. If this you seek, heed my call. From this moment on, there is no other for me but you.”
She gasps, her eyes glistening with tears in the dark. “You’re certain?”
I take her mouth again, her flavor bursting across my senses. I know without a doubt she’s my one true mate. Always has been. Always will be. “Completely.”
“Mathias will kill me. You’ll be like Lucan?—”
“I’ll do everything possible to prevent that. But I would rather have you for a few moments than never at all, firecracker.” Lucan was right about that.
“Promise me, if you make it out alive, that you’ll continue fighting. Not for revenge, but for what’s right. For magickind.”
“I won’t let you go easily. You won’t be unavenged. I won’t let this scum take over my people.”
Tears roll down her cheeks. Then she smiles, lighting up the cell—and my world. “I’m so proud of you, and I love you so much.” She sniffs. “But there’s something you should know. I wrote about you in the Doomsday Diary. I wanted you so badly…”
I search my memories. “The night I crashed through the door to your flat and we made love against the wall?”
“Yes. And again before you took me against my living room sofa.”
“Vixen.” I caress her cheek lovingly. “You had no idea what you were in for.”
“I wouldn’t change it for the world. I tried. I wrote a reverse ‘fantasy’ in the Doomsday Diary to see if your feelings for me were all magically manufactured.”
“They’re not.”
She sends me an impish smile. “The diary told me.”
With a growl, I pull her against me. “Don’t you have an answer for my Call? Do you know the words?”
“Bram and Sabelle have a great library.” Happiness breaks across her face like the sun from behind storm clouds, illuminating everything in joy. “As I become a part of you, you become a part of me. I will be honest, good, and true. I heed your call. ‘Tis you I seek. From this moment on, there is no other for me but you.”
The moment our lips meet, a seismic shift rocks through me, as if the universe has realigned, placing Sydney at its very center. The connection that’s been simmering beneath the surface suddenly blazes to life, fusing her essence with mine. She’s no longer merely important; she’s now my foundation, my north star, my very reason for breathing.
A soft gasp escapes her lips as her eyes widen with wonder. In that instant, I know she feels this profound, unbreakable bond, too. After all our struggles and near misses, after fighting fate itself, we’ve finally emerged from the fire together. Sydney is my mate, my other half, the missing piece I never knew how badly I needed until this very moment.
As I gaze into her eyes, I see our shared future unfurling before us, infinite and brilliant. But with the sealing of our bond comes another crushing need—to test her, taste her, claim her—all of her.
Without a thought, I drag the baggy shirt off one shoulder to reveal a bare breast before I cup it.
“Caden! They’re going to come back. We should focus on?—”
I cut her speech off with a blistering kiss that sends sizzles clear through my body. She melts against me, so I ease back onto the room’s lone bed, lowering her down so she straddles my lap. Narrow and dank, the little bed isn’t the haven I want for the first time I make love to my mate, but we may not have tomorrow. She’s in my arms, and we’ll face the future together stronger if we join first.
“This might be our last chance,” I whisper against her mouth. “Our only chance.”
Sydney doesn’t hesitate. She grabs my jumper, tugging until she manages to yank it over my head. Feverishly, she caresses my chest and shoulders, and I’m grateful that my years of daily training with the Marines and beyond keep me in shape.
But I’m not content to simply have her hands on me; I want her open to me. Lifting her off my lap, I drag the soft pants down one thigh. Another adjustment, and my own pants rest south of my hips.
As I settle her on my lap, I capture her mouth again, brush my knuckles over her collarbone, then flick her nipple before delving into the red curls between her pale thighs.
Her pussy is slick and steamy. Ready.
Fuck, I’ve been a bloody fool. All this time, I’ve been running from her, from magic, from this connection—thinking I was avoiding danger. But in reality, I’ve been running from the very thing that makes life worth living. Every moment I spent trying to distance myself from Sydney was a moment squandered, a precious opportunity lost. The irony of it all threatens to choke me.
Now, with our bond freshly forged and danger looming, I see it all so clearly. If we make it out of this alive, I swear I'll cherish every heartbeat we share, every breath, every touch. And if fate has other plans… Well, at least I’ll go knowing I finally got something right. Our mating, this heartfelt connection—it’s the one thing in this mad, magical world that I’ll never regret. It’s taken me far too long to realize it, but Sydney isn’t my weakness. She’s my strength, my reason to fight, my reason to live. And by God, I’ll spend whatever time we have left making sure she knows it.
Circling her swollen clit, I bask in her sighs and moans. She melts, all delicious and sweet, around my hand as I plunge my fingers inside her and rub her sweet spot.
Her fingernails find their way into my shoulders, and I smile when she dusts my neck with urgent kisses. The smile turns to desperate hunger when she catches my mouth in a searing kiss, rises above my aching erection, and pushes herself down on it.
The tight clasp of her body is both a homecoming and a pleasure unlike anything I’ve ever felt. My mate. Mine. No matter what. Our time may be short, but our love is unlimited.
Grabbing her hips, I tutor her in long, rough strokes as I take her lips again, then settle deep, mating with her body, her mouth—her heart.
Gripping my biceps, she strokes up and down my cock, igniting me in an inferno-hot pleasure. She tightens around me, as if she means to hold onto me forever. Her cheeks grow pink, then flush a darker rose. Her nipples swell, her head tips back. She looks like the ultimate goddess of ecstasy. Smart, brave, loving.
Forever mine.
My heart swells with need, with love. My body does the same.
Grimacing, I try to stave off the barreling orgasm. But Sydney’s pace quickens. She digs her fingers deeper into me as she bounces on me, chanting my name as if she’s begging.
I can’t deny her.
“I love you.” I curl my arms around her and fuse my mouth to hers as her sex clamps around me, pulsing long and urgently, driving me mad. I swallow her scream and join her over the abyss, in an ecstasy that suffuses me with satisfaction.
But a jolt of power follows, so intense it nearly overpowers my system. And love. God, so much of it. That love gives me a new dimension of strength. I’m determined that, while that may have been our first time making love as mates, it damn well won’t be our last.
Quietly, we dress, pausing to steal kisses and reassure one another with our embrace. I touch her, wrap her in my arms, then cuddle her in my lap.
“Caden?” She turns worried brown eyes on me.
I know everything on her mind. It’s on mine too. But damn it, I haven’t come this far, been born with the sort of magic that my mother—as a good seer—praised, and found this amazing woman, only to have her ripped from me.
Time to fight.
“It’s not over.”
“Your time alone is.” A familiar voice intrudes on our intimate cocoon. Shock. Then he opens the cell and motions to Sydney. “Come with me.”