Chapter 51 OMENS AND HẸARTBEATS
The sky is unusually dark tonight. I stand before the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room as the pale moonlight spills through the clouds. A lone crow settles on the nearest branch, its beady eyes fixed on me.
An omen draped in feathers.
Unease settles in my gut.
My fingers fiddle with my pendant, grazing over the imperfections.
The girls left half an hour ago. Scarlett said she was only a phone call away. Aria had a graveyard shift at the hospital but promised to check in later.
Elias’s entourage had departed earlier too.
Even Sebastian, the strategic, perpetually apathetic lawyer, gave me a small smile and told me everything would be handled.
Ren called it a miracle to see him act remotely human.
Aleksei, the usually unhinged and talkative computer genius, was silent. He slipped away after saying he’d be in touch.
It’s well past midnight now. Sleep won’t come. My mind swirls, but mostly I’m worried about him.
My breath fogs the glass as I wait for Elias to come home. Perhaps the story of Hades and Persephone has infected me, because one thought keeps circling. Will I ever pull him into the light, or will the Shadow King always remain in the dark?
The air suddenly changes.
A charged stillness.
A heated presence.
He’s home.
I turn.
Elias stands near the doorway, tall in a dark coat, half-hidden by shadows.
His green eyes catch the dim light. The scar twisting down his face looks sharper tonight, but it doesn’t frighten me.
It never really did. It’s a mark of his strength—proof of the will it took to climb out of the flames and survive.
“Elias,” I whisper.
My feet move automatically, my dress fluttering around my ankles.
He pushes off the wall and prowls toward me, his steps measured, the gravity between us electric. But there’s a softness too, a smile laced with sorrow that tells me one thing.
Something is horribly wrong.
“My Lana Elise,” he murmurs, cupping my face. His thumb traces circles that make me shiver. “I was put on this earth to love you, and I’m the luckiest man to have done so.”
Beautiful words—too beautiful. They should fill me with joy, but pain seeps through every vein instead.
“What are you saying?” I grip his shoulders. “What aren’t you telling me? Did you get answers?”
He shakes his head, the sad smile still haunting his face. “All the answers I’ve ever needed are standing right in front of me.”
He’s lying. I feel it in my bones.
“Let me love you, Lana,” he says quietly. “Let me worship you.”
He doesn’t wait for a reply. Instead, he curls his arm around my waist, pulling me against his heated flesh.
His mouth finds mine—ravenous and desperate. Yet, every second feels borrowed.
“My wife,” he rasps. “You’ve made all my dreams come true. For the longest time, I thought I was the walking dead. But you…”
Elias pulls back, his eyes intense. “You resurrected me, made me feel human again. Even if it wasn’t forever.”
“Elias, what’s—”
He kisses me, refusing to let me question him, even if my heart was shattering from the pain in his words.
In one swift movement, he lifts me into his arms and carries me upstairs to our bedroom.
After dropping me on the bed, he pins me with his stare, like he’s mapping every inch of my body.
My heart throttles, my skin blooming before him. I reach to undo my dress.
He stops me. “Let me do it.”
Wetting his lips, Elias makes a quick work of his clothes. Buttons slip free under his fingers. Fabric slithers to the floor.
Soon he’s naked in his full glory, all strength and rippling muscles, his hard shaft curled against his stomach, a vein pulsing on the side. The sight steals the breath from my lungs.
My mouth waters. My core pulses. I knot my hands in the bedsheets to stop myself from climbing him.
I need him now, always and forever.
Elias stalks toward me, stopping when his legs touch mine. I widen my stance and draw him in. With reverence, he pushes me flat on the mattress. Then he tugs down the straps of my dress with his teeth, baring my heated skin to the cold air.
“You’re my goddess,” he breathes.
Gentle hands skim from my throat to my tits. He thumbs my nipples, and a moan slips out of me.
I arch my back, needing more. “Elias, please.”
“Please what?”
“Kiss me. Touch me. Make love to me.”
He groans and seals his lips over mine again, tongue sliding deep, licking, sampling, tasting like he’s dying of thirst.
I whimper when he yanks off my underwear.
“You’re so wet,” he murmurs, his finger sweeping from my clit to my entrance.
Sparks alight. I clench his wrist, urging him on.
Low and gravelly chuckles reach my ears. “Impatient, my zemer.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“Your asshole.” He laughs, sliding a finger inside my entrance, curling it precisely the right way, and grazes a tender spot.
Pleasure builds sharply. My legs shake. An orgasm barrels in from nowhere.
But just as it’s about to crest, he stops.
“No,” I whimper.
“Not yet. This,” his breath catches, “will never be enough.”
The earlier ache flares behind my sternum again. He makes it sound like this is the last time, and he doesn’t want it to end.
But before I can ask, he bites my nipple and gives it a hard suck.
The sensations shoot straight to my clit, drawing out a half moan, half sob.
I tremble beneath him, clutching his backside.
“Fuck. You undo me.” His eyes close, features taut like he’s in pain.
I flip him so he’s flat on his back, needing to drag him out of whatever dark hole he’s in.
With a moan, I crawl down his body until I reach his hard cock.
Wetting my lips, I cradle his length with both hands. He rumbles a guttural groan and watches me, his emerald irises nowhere to be seen.
A bead of pre-cum gathers at the tip.
His nostrils flare when I take him inside my mouth, inch by inch, tasting his addictive saltiness.
I swirl my tongue around the tip, then pull him deeper. Firm suctions. Desperate pulls.
“Shit. So good. So damn good.” His eyes roll back. His cock lengthens and throbs.
With hands fondling his balls, I hum around his length, the vibrations wrenching another curse out of him.
I keep pushing until his tip hits the back of my throat.
“Fuck me,” he rasps. “Look at you swallowing my cock like you were born to do this.”
My eyes water as I relax my gag reflex and pump his dick deeper down my throat. I gyrate my ass against the air, my core aching to have him inside me.
Another roar. A sharp twitch. A stream of salty cum bathes my taste buds.
Before I can finish, he drags me up and tosses me back on the bed.
Elias looms before me, teeth bared, lips peeled, like he wants to devour me and leave no scraps.
And I’ll let him.
“I’m going to come inside you,” he growls, “but I’m dying to have a taste.”
Spreading my legs apart, he groans his pleasure into my core. His tongue sweeps from my clit to my tight rosebud, licking the wetness spilling out of me.
“Oh God, please.” I writhe. I grab my tits and twist my nipples.
“Look at you, Lana. You’re my goddess. Elegant on the outside, filthy on the inside for me, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I moan, delirious with lust and love. “Yes.”
“Who’s going to make you come? Stuff this pink little pussy full of his cock? Mark you with his cum?”
His dirty words pound inside my skull. I quiver as his motions quicken, two fingers stuffed tight inside my core, his pinky breaching the tight rosebud, while his tongue works hard on my clit.
The sensations become too much, too intense, too obliterating.
“Answer me, Lana. Who do you love?” He nips my neck.
I shake like I’m shocked with a live wire.
“You, Elias. I love you.”
“Yes,” he roars and slams inside me in one hard thrust. “Because you’re my wife and I’m your husband.”
My cries echo as his hips snap against mine in a harsh rhythm.
Ragged breaths wrench out of my lungs. His drives roughen, like he’s branding me to his soul.
“Hold on, princess. Feel me fucking you. Remember us. Remember this.”
I moan out unintelligible words, a hurricane forming in my core, swelling to the rest of me.
My lips part, a silent cry perched at the back of my throat.
I thrash as he powers his hips—sharper, harder—like he can’t get enough, like we aren’t close enough.
His cock reaches a spot deeper than before. Spasms rack my body, the blistering storm reaching a breaking point.
“Elias, I’m going to come!” My teeth chatter.
“Yes, grip my cock. Give me your cum. Let me just feel you.” He reaches between us and pinches my clit.
The world fractures. Wetness spurts out, and I shatter, my mind blanking, vision whitening, a roar bellowing in my ears.
Ecstasy has me tight in its grasp when his rhythm falters. Hot lashes of cum bathe my core.
“Lana, I love you so, so much,” he whispers, forehead kissing mine.
We clutch each other, fingers intertwined, hips still meeting thrust for thrust even as shockwaves ebb and flow. Even as my body becomes too sensitive for anything more.
I can’t let him go. I’m afraid of letting him go.
When it’s over, we cling to each other, bodies trembling, breaths uneven. I rest against his chest, listening to the strong, steady beats of his heart—a heart that’s endured too much and still keeps going.
Seconds become minutes, which become hours.
Eventually, he reaches to the nightstand, picks up my favorite book, and begins reading, his voice deep and resonant.
“Despite the darkness swallowing him whole, he felt his heart giving, each second in her presence a borrowed heartbeat, a fragment in time.”
His finger glides over the lines, and my chest aches, thinking back to all the times I’ve seen him read, all the books in his library.
When we strolled in Hollow Gardens as kids, he laughed at me for loving this book but promised he’d learn to read it to me one day.
“You did it,” I whisper.
“I promised you,” he murmurs.
“Why did you buy Hollow Gardens?” I graze the scar on his cheek.
“It’s our place.” Elias takes my hand and kisses it. “I want a place where Elise and Kian can live…forever.”
“Elias,” my eyes mist, “can you take me back to the gardens? Visit our elm tree?”
His breath hitches. A vein pulses on his forehead.
“Someday,” he murmurs, “when this is all over.”
He presses a tender kiss on my forehead. Then another. Like he’s bestowing upon me his wishes I don’t yet understand.
The fear in my heart returns with a vengeance.
This moment feels like goodbye.
His mouth finds mine again. The world narrows to heartbeats and sensations.
“Will you tell me what’s wrong, Elias?” My voice trembles when we break for air. I’m afraid to ask, but I need to know. “Don’t lie to me. Honesty, right?”
He doesn’t answer. His arms tighten in response, his lips brushing my neck.
“Just let me love you,” he whispers into my skin. “Just let me love you.”