Chapter 6
Chapter
Six
THE RITUAL
Elias froze beneath her, nary a breath shaking his chest. Had he ever imagined a kiss? Had he wondered if he would ever have the chance?
Had he ever wondered what it would be like to kiss her?
When Elias didn’t move, disappointment sank deep, like an anchor attempting to pull her to the ground. Inadequacy mounted inside her chest like the insidious disease it was—had always been—and Sylvi slowly lowered herself to the grass, breaking away.
“I’m…I apologize.” She kept her gaze low, unable to meet his eyes. Perhaps if her shame swallowed her whole, she could pretend her foolishness never happened. “I just thought…well, it doesn’t matter, I suppose. I truly hope you can forgive—”
Elias pressed a finger under her chin, and he gently guided her attention to his face. His eyes, wide and intently focused on her own, sent a bolt of heat low in her belly. Stop. After a moment of contemplation, a frustrated grumble shook his throat. I am uncertain what to do.
“I just do what feels beautiful.” Her voice sounded weak and far away. “I wanted to kiss you. I have since we were thirteen. I thought you wanted…”
The chance that she had done to Elias what Viggo had done to her…her eyes burned in remorse at the thought. Elias had already had so much taken from him. What if she had taken more—
What if what feels beautiful to me is not human? The question, one with considerable consequences if she weren’t careful, cut through her worries. Worries he would have undoubtedly heard roaring through her mind. What if what I feel truly belongs to the demon? I do not wish to harm you.
“Oh.” The relief billowing throughout her body allowed her to fully relax against Elias’s hand. She had not interpreted him incorrectly. She had not taken things too far. “Well, what is it that you feel, Elias?”
With eyes wide and shining, Elias stroked her chin with his thumb.
I am unsure. What does one call an incessant need to be near you?
To be drawn to you like a rose to the sun?
What do I call unceasing gratitude? A willingness to surrender to you, even though I have never been allowed to surrender anything in my entire life?
Sylvi fought the searing heat of tears behind her eyes. The first time she’d met Elias, all she had wanted was for someone to enjoy her. To hear her voice and rejoice in it. Never asking for silence, never pleading for space.
And now, despite the obstacles that dotted the seven years since they separated, they were in the courtyard garden surrounded by plants she grew from death and Elias tended in life.
They truly were opposite sides of the same pewter coin, forever a cycle, chasing each other head over heels through the years.
A kiss? Elias continued, voice rough. I have wished for you to return since the day you left. I regretted never trying to kiss you the last time I saw you. I wished things were different, that you would return to me. But I always asked myself, why would you ever want a half of a man?
Heart pounding, she blinked away the blur smeared across her vision. “Elias, if you wish to kiss me, then I implore you to do so. Immediately.”
He moved quickly, as if the invitation was all he needed to shift from his place of noticeable discomfort in the grass. In a swift moment, he cradled her face between his hands, the sharp nails of his left gently grazing her temples.
His lips, as she suspected for years, were quite soft when they met hers again.
The world slowed and stilled. Warmth, like the crackling of a fire in a hearth, spread from beneath her ribs, wrapping her body in a cocoon of comfort, a safety she’d never before experienced but frequently dreamed of.
The longing she’d held for years, the fear of never knowing this, of knowing him, leaving her in a sudden rush, like the tide receding from shore.
Desire filled that space, demanding she deepen the kiss.
She leaned into him, clinging to his tunic with white-knuckled hands, and coaxed his mouth open.
Elias did nothing at first, likely unsure what she was attempting to do, but when she slipped her tongue inside, meeting his with a moan, he responded eagerly.
And then, like that had been all the approval he needed, he moved.
His hands dropped from her face and felt along the curve of her hips and the slope of her neck.
She stood higher on her knees, granting him more space to caress, subconsciously asking for more of his fevered hands as she slipped her own into his mussed hair.
When he grazed the side of her breast with his thumb, the thin fabric of her nightgown no match for the warmth and friction of his enthusiastic exploration, she gasped, wishing he’d have taken things a step further.
A deep moan echoed from him and into her mouth, and he did as she wished.
It occurred to her suddenly that Elias could hear her thoughts, so when she unbuttoned the top of her gown, allowing him access to her breasts, he did as she wanted, running his rough fingers over her nipples as he lowered her to the grass.
His lips found her neck, searching for her pulse, and he kissed beneath her jaw.
She ran her hands up his muscled chest, suddenly hating his tunic and everything it was hiding. When he didn’t respond with immediacy, she decided to be direct, voice breathy. “Elias, I need you to do something about this.”
Elias pulled back, eyes burning intensely. I’d rather not.
“I wish you would.” Sylvi smiled up at him, pleased to see him haloed by stars and moonlight. “But if you’d rather not, I will not question it.”
They stared at each other, the thrum of what if growing to a fever pitch. A moment of vulnerability, an extension of trust, hung there too—a cruel reminder that Elias had known nothing but shame and revulsion his whole life. Why would he be eager to potentially relive it?
A willingness to surrender to you, Elias said in answer before he rose to his knees and unfastened the leather belt at his waist. He tossed it aside, face somewhat drawn as he reached for the back of his tunic.
He maneuvered out of it with a single tug, revealing a chest both demon and man.
He leaned back to her and pressed a soft kiss to her lips.
How the mighty Demon of Espa Brus has fallen.
Sylvi giggled against him and ran her hands over his chest, palms meeting flesh and scales in equal measure. “You’re still quite fearsome. You murdered someone and stuck their head outside the gate naught but an hour ago.”
Elias kissed her harder, parting her lips with his tongue. And I would do it again if you asked it of me.
His fingers moved expertly over the remaining buttons of her gown, and anticipation held her captive as pleasurable aching grew at the apex of her thighs. When the backs of his fingers grazed the sensitive skin there, she groaned into his mouth, arching into him, searching for sweet friction.
Despite a lack of experience in pleasing women, Elias followed her lead, seemingly eager to please.
When she lifted her hips, desperately seeking him to release her from the pleasurable torture wracking her body, he answered.
An overwhelmed feeling, a sensation of simultaneously falling and melting, brought a sigh of relief as he slipped his fingers along the soft, wet flesh.
Sylvi wasn’t sure what guided him: her thoughts or her body.
In her every wish, he complied. His fingers moved deftly, as if he’d touched her like this a thousand times.
They would slip in and out of her, slowly bringing her closer with every careful, intentional stroke.
Closer to what? She did not yet know. But she wanted to. She was about to.
When her breathing increased, and her heart soared, he increased his tempo, curving his fingers on the very place the made her gasp and tremble. His lips found hers again, swallowing her desperate pleas as she became overwhelmed with the heat building in her body, threatening to spill over.
The moment it happened, where she felt both detached from her body and immeasurably whole, a breathy cry split the air, the only thing she could do to control the uncontrollable urge to do it all again. The control slipped almost immediately. It wasn’t enough. She needed more of him.
Sylvi turned, shucking her gown from her arms, and gently pushed Elias to roll onto his back.
He caved to her silent demand, growing almost desperate in his own movements.
The two of them made quick work of his trousers, their mouths inseparable in the knowing of what waited for them.
Days ago, her fate had been tied to Viggo, who’d sworn to take her the night of their forced marriage even if she begged him not to.
Now she was being lovingly worshipped by her first love, and the reality of it set her afire.
His cock, as it turned out, had already been claimed by his shift. Unlike his chest and arm, however, his skin was still soft to the touch, albeit hard and ready beneath her palm. Just large. Fit for a demon hoping to conquer a willing woman.
Sylvi broke their kiss as she lowered herself onto him. While she’d never lain with a man, she knew her body was made for this. For him. Thanks to Elias’s diligence, she was ready, and she took him inch by inch.
Something full and warm burned behind her eyes in that moment as a completeness she had never experienced consumed her utterly. He swept his hand along her cheek, and she trembled, both eager for more and desperate to memorize his face as he took her in.
A pleased hiss left his mouth, and their lips met again, a collision of passion the likes of which the castle had never witnessed.
Tonight, in that place, upon the land of King Iverr’s forever damned legacy, surrounded by the labor of love born from their childhood hopes, Sylvi defied her fate, lived despite it, and brought her cursed lover back from the edge of loneliness and despair.
The demons of the forest—seers and prophets all—had known this moment would come. Planned for it, and set the stage.
It was a role she accepted wholeheartedly.
Elias wrapped a hand around her back and thigh, claws lightly pressing into her skin. He rolled her back onto the grass, and she hooked her legs around him. His thrusts started slow, painfully slow, before speeding up, matching her drive as she edged closer and closer to sweet release once more.
He grabbed her wrists, holding them above her head, and pressed them into the grass. She welcomed his kiss, whimpering as the ever-growing warmth swelled between them.
And when they reached the height of their mutual ecstasy, they fell apart together in the garden they made.
Elias held her close and swallowed her cry with his mouth, possessing her, owning every inch of her pleasure.
He followed her swiftly, quickening his pace, only stopping once he reached his own release, filling her in both body and soul.
Sylvi wrenched her wrists free from his hands and drew him close, pressing a soft kiss to his lips.
Elias was no demon, and she no savior. They were simply man and woman, Elias and Sylvi, who found love in a place and time no one expected.
In the haze of the after, surrounded by the fruits of their labor in a cursed land, Sylvi basked. Elias collapsed, cradling her against chest as it heaved with deep, rasping breaths.
Thank you for returning to me. Elias pressed a soft kiss to her brow. For breaking my curse.
“Thank you for waiting for me.” Sylvi smiled, warm. “I apologize for the delay.”
His eyes, so full of warmth, of love, were a far cry from the sneering boy in the cage. I will give you whatever you wish. Whatever you wish, whenever you wish it.
Her eyes watered, and despite her joy, tears broke through her lashes.
The ground beneath them called, itching against their joined hands. Sylvi’s magic, full and brimming, poured from her and into the ground. The vibrant grass expanded beneath them, creating a thick, verdant blanket from trellis to trellis.
“I work in life, and you in death. I work in seed, and you in bone,” she said, repeating the words she had said to the boy in the cage after she’d brought the crushed sprout back to life. “I simply wish to be together until we are both old and gray and the earth reclaims us both.”
With something like a smile, soft and lovely, touching his lips, Elias pressed his brow to hers. As you wish, my dear.