Chapter 3
T he cavern reeks with the insecurities of men.
It’s not quite been a fortnight since Aeverie sent a ship to survey the coast, and the crew returned yesterday afternoon. The high priestess and the commander summoned an all-hands meeting in the cavern—all relevant personnel required to report to be briefed on next steps.
The air is thick with sulfur from the hot springs, the humidity causing strands of my hair to frizz out of its braid and moisture to bead across my nape. The earthy scent of sediment and quartz mingle with the sulfurous springs to bathe us all in the unpleasant odor, but nothing ever smells more rotten than the ramblings of men.
Cathal approaches the dais, waving both hands in front of himself as he argues with Vox about the commander’s plans to sail several ships to Blackreach immediately. There were no sightings of Baelliarah soldiers on the isle, but the Langstons have been busy indeed, having established blockades in the waterways around Aegidale, effectively cutting us off from existing trade routes with not only Torin’s nation, but those to our southern and eastern borders as well. This confirms Sin’s suspicions that his father was ignorant to the planned attack on the Vale, and was likely blindsided completely by Sterling Langston’s involvement.
It's an involvement none of us are certain what to make of. Why would the ambassadors of trade lead a revolt against their home kingdom? Affairs between the two must have gone awry after Dusaro’s public condemnation of Sin, the isle’s sovereign, but the Langstons hold more disdain for transcendents than anyone else. It doesn’t make sense for them to turn on Dusaro who openly betrayed his son the moment he supposedly learned of his shifter blood.
“It’s the wrong call, Commander,” Cathal grunts, stopping at the foot of the dais. “If the Langstons are choking out the supply chain, we need to take to the waterways first. Clear the blockades, then move inland.”
Vox has proposed, well ordered, for several ships to head directly for the capital city. With proper adjustments of the sails and experienced captains, they’ll be able to skirt through the blockades unnoticed, courtesy of their cloaking magic, which is now more potent than ever. The scouts that returned yesterday reported that the Langstons are dividing their fleet, half of them moving inland, and half of them holding ground in the Howling Sea.
Sterling is laying siege against the castle, and without their Black Art there to defend it, the kingdom is struggling to hold their territory against the Langston fleet which has been reinforced with unsurpassed vessels from Baelliarah.
Vox steps off the dais and slams a finger onto the thick parchment spanning the long-running table at the foot of the platform. He traces the indicated routes from the shipping docks to the planned paths around and through the keep. “There will be no one to move inland if we give away our position in the water. We have the advantage of being able to station ourselves around Scarwood undetected, gain surprise on them, and your suggestion to not exploit that is laughable.”
I steal a glance at Sin. He’s been mostly quiet since we’ve arrived, his arms folded across his chest with one hand touching the opposite side of his face as he listens intently. His lack of interjection has me thinking that despite his ire for Vox, for the commander’s complacency in Aeverie’s plans, he’s in agreement with the elf’s proposal.
Cathal snickers, a vein thickening around his temple as he jams his index finger into the part of the map that represents Castle Scarwood. “If you entangle us with the troops on land, even if we somehow take Blackreach, we just inherit their fucking problem. A kingdom to rule and no fucking supplies to do it with.”
That awakens something in the warlord at my side. “You misspoke, Cathal,” Sin drawls. “I have a kingdom to rule. You have a throne to polish.” Sin moves forward, his very stride exuding confidence, as he drops his hands and meets them both at the table while I hang back, mingled with the others that were summoned here.
Vox intends to send five ships—Blackreach being the destination for only two of them. With Source restored, the elves are confident in their ability to intercede the fighting that will have commenced between Scarwood and the Langstons with only two ships, the crews a strategic blend of carefully selected elves and transcendents.
Eldridge would have been chosen for this endeavor I’m sure, but given his current physical state, he will remain in the Vale. That will feel more like a wound to him than being ran through with the sharpest of swords. It is going to take time for his injury to heal, and then more still for him to learn how to properly fight with the ailment, in both human and shifter forms.
Cathal’s lips twist into a forced smirk, and he slowly rights himself from where he had been hunched over the map. “You always are at war with your own kind, aren’t you? You hated wolves when you paraded around your fancy castle like a fucking dandy, and now, even the kingdom pricks hate you. Poor, poor Kilbreth,” he tsks with an exaggerated shake of his head. “You can’t seem to fit in anywhere.”
Sin betrays no emotion as he leans forward and places both hands on the table, the fabric of his white shirt pulling tight across his back and shoulders and putting his taut muscles on display. I chew on my tongue at the sight. We haven’t been intimate much since the attack, and my entire body is feverish, yearning for him as if he was a pitcher of ice-chilled water. I needed time to recover from Aeverie’s healing, and despite my willingness to test my limits, Sin was not. As it turns out, the Black Art is quite the mother hen when I am recovering, and when he doesn’t have to pretend that he hates me.
Sin volunteered his private house in the Vale as additional healing quarters after the assault, so we’ve been staying in my family’s temporary house. It’s modest and entirely too small to fit nine bodies, including Blythe who hasn’t left Cosmina’s side as of recent, but none of them objected when I opened my cot to him. A cot that is barely large enough for myself, let alone the two of us, but despite Sin’s size, he is hardly his own person after dark. He crushes me to his chest every night, and night after night, I sink back against him, inhaling his scent and grinding into his hard length, yearning for the day this is all behind us—the day the Black Art and I have our own quarters.
The days have been long, each of us contributing additional hours into our duties to prepare the Vale for our departure. Cosmina and I have been harvesting from the gardens and preparing the soil for the fall crops that will be planted next week. Zorina and Blythe have been working with the kitchen team to preserve much of the yield into cans and jams, as well as drying and salting the meat the hunters bring in.
And Sin… despite the warlord’s fury with the elves, he hasn’t spent a single day away from the training camps. Preparing the elven army for what is sure to be a bloody war ahead as we take back Scarwood from the virus that has seeped into its very walls. Vox he can at least tolerate, put aside his wrath for the betterment of the whole, but Cathal… I’m mildly surprised he hasn’t killed him yet. I’m not convinced the elven commander would so much as blink if Sin suddenly snaps and guts Cathal in front of the entire army.
If only looks were capable of killing because Cathal would perish where he stands as Sin leans farther forward, his shirt pulling tighter still across his shoulders. “Perhaps we’d be more inclined to heed your guidance if it wasn’t the same one that led your entire Legion to slaughter, soldier .”
Vox was quick to strip Cathal of the commander title he arbitrarily gave himself when he led Legion to their demise, something that made Cathal’s traitorous blood boil, and Sin’s thrum with dark amusement.
Aeverie slams the butt of her staff into the dais, silencing the bickering. “Commander?” she calls, then continues when Vox directs his attention to her. “How soon until the ships are ready?”
“Three days.”
She nods, her dark hair pulled tight into a bun on top of her head. “Very well. Dismiss your officers, Vox. It seems they have soldiers to rally.”
Ironic, that the stars have always burned brightest on the nights I feared it may be the last time I gazed upon them. The five ships leave in the morning, and Sin and I will be on one of the two vessels with Blackreach as its target. The other three will head for the predetermined coordinates in the sea, carefully selected points to make retreat for the Langston’s difficult.
There will be no running in this war. There isn’t enough coin in the realm to construct a ship that can hide from us, that can race though the waterways faster than we can hunt them down, the scent of their panic heavy in our maws.
Sin gathers my hair and drapes it over my shoulder, his hands working the soap across my back and down my arms. His touch is gentle, but it does little to ease the nerves twisted taut in my belly. The algid river doesn’t help either. It’s still summer, but the trees don’t allow nearly enough sunlight through to heat the water more than a few degrees from its resting temperature. I startle as Sin’s lips suddenly graze my ear, his nose skimming through my hair. “You’re nervous, love.”
His arms wind around me next, pulling my back to his front. I dip my hands below the water and place them on his forearms, leaning my head to rest against his bare chest. “I just keep thinking… what if this is the last time we watch the stars together?”
He stiffens behind me, his lips pausing in their trail. I wait for him to reassure me, to tell me I’m being dramatic and that everything is going to be fine, but he merely holds me for a few moments, his arms and warmth comforting me while he gathers his thoughts. Unless…
“Are you frightened?” I whisper.
“There is one thing that scares me, love, and it lies in a possibility I refuse to allow.” Not quite an answer, and I am about to press him further when he continues. “You are safe,” he murmurs, dipping his head to skim his nose down the column of my neck. “I will protect you. Always, and with my dying breath. You need not worry.”
I let out an audible scoff. “It is not me I fear for.” I turn in his grip to face him, and I loop my arms around his neck. “It never has been.”
His stare is unforgiving. Intense and heated, and I fear he may very well scorch the flesh right off my bones if he looks at me for too long. I drop my hands to trace the lines of his neck, admiring where they connect with his broad shoulders, and continue over the peaks and valleys of his muscular arms. I haven’t been able to stop touching him. Not since that night—when I thought I lost him. When I thought I lost everything.
“And that… is the one thing that frightens me,” he says.
I arch an eyebrow, and he raises his hands to my hair, massaging the soap through the back of my tresses. I nearly moan from the pleasure his touch elicits in my scalp. “The only fear you harbor is for those around you, and the only self-preservation you have is… Actually, I withdraw that statement. I’m quite certain you wouldn’t know what self-preservation was if it kicked you in the teeth.”
I lower my hands to his stomach, his abdomen well-defined and hard beneath my fingertips, and trace the contours of his stomach muscles. “I don’t yearn to live in a world in which you do not exist. Hardly a crime, Your Grace, and even if it were, it wouldn’t stop me from doing what I must to keep your heart beating while all else withers.”
His light amusement vanishes, his face now sculpted from hard angles, and tiny lines split the skin between his eyebrows. Sin is a couple years shy from thirty still, but I fear I’m going to stress him to an early death. He untangles his hands from my hair. “Stop saying those things,” he says, his tone more serious now.
“I will not,” I retort, matching his infliction. “I protect what is mine, and if you are to be my Bonded, you will be mine in every sense of the word. You are not the only one allowed to jump between death and your Mate, Singard.”
Water splashes onto my cheeks as his arm snakes through the river, and he takes my jaw between his thumb and index finger. Stepping into me closer yet, he growls, “Never say that again.”
I don’t flinch from his proximity. There may have been a time when his grip on me felt threatening, was threatening, but not now. The Black Art would never hurt me, and I’m positive he would annihilate anyone that ever tried. Assuming I left any part of them for Sin to even get his hands on, as I’m coming to find I don’t leave many leftovers of the men that prefer to make decisions with their pride and their dicks.
I tilt my head back to look at him, and with a soft smile, trace my tongue across my bottom lip, wishing desperately that it was his mouth. “You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore. Unless you’d prefer to chain me up and make me your prisoner again.”
A low growl, and my smirk widens. I knew the effect my words would have on him. Because despite our recent confessions of love, there is still a twisted part of him that yearns to dominate me. And more depraved yet, there is still a part of me that wants him to.
He leans forward, and I arch into him, sighing as I press against his stiffening length. “The only chains you will ever wear now are the ones I bind you in,” he growls.
“My days of being your hunting hound are over, Your Grace.”
Slowly, he sweeps his thumb across my lips, and I restrain myself enough not to part them and suck him in like candy. “Pity. You’d look so lovely tethered to my throne, don’t you think? Only good girls are allowed off their leash. Tell me, little witch, are you going to be a good girl for me?”
His green eyes are bright against the night, especially with the gold ringing his pupils. Sin is at constant war with himself, the shifter instincts running rampant in his body and always leaving him with a mild caster’s high. Agitated, impulsive, and horny.
I rather like the caster’s high.
I purse my lips under his thumb, canting my head. “I suppose that depends. Are you going to put me in a pretty collar and sit me on your lap?”
“You will yearn for nothing,” he breathes, dropping his hand to slide down my neck. His fingertips are featherlight on my clavicle, and he dips his head to speak against my throat. “You will have your own throne designed custom, and you will sit upon it like the vicious grace you are.” Sin presses his lips to my neck, sending a shudder rippling down my spine as if lightning struck my back.
“And when your people do not accept me? When they do not accept you?”
It’s not that I intend to shift the tone of our conversation, but we’d be fools not to expect our arrival in the city to be met with brute opposition. Not since Dusaro outed Sin’s transcendence to the isle and deemed him a traitor, and not since the kingdom army witnessed my blood magic when we trapped Legion inside the city gates several months ago.
It isn’t my blood magic alone they find fault with—my power sure as hell saved their asses when they needed it—it’s that I’m a bloodwitch allied with the shifter king they now deem a heretic. First they were told that the vile white-haired witch swooped in and stole their precious Black Art away, only to later learn that the leader they once trusted has betrayed them by hiding his ancestry and allying with the elves. Betrayed by their perception anyway.
“They will not have a choice,” he murmurs against my throat, pressing a kiss there before his mouth meets his hand, and he kisses my collarbone too. His lips hover on the spot just above the bone there, the same place he lingered and licked at before. The part of me he wants to bear his Mark. The part of me that proudly will.
Heat swims in my veins, and my hands find their way to his long hair, tugging him closer still. “I can’t exactly fault them for their opposition. They think we betrayed the crown,” I say through labored breath.
I feel his lips curl against my neck.
The bastard loves the effect he has on me. And I hate him for it.
Sin pulls back enough to straighten to his full height, and I stare up at him, my dark god, the only one I ever wish to worship again. The heat that flickered in his forested eyes just moments ago snuffs out, his pupils slitting to something more feline and dilating his eyes to liquid black.
“Whether they like it at first or not, I am still their Black Art. They don’t know the elves stole the blessing, nor do they need to know. I took an oath as their leader, and it is one I intend to uphold.
“We have both betrayed the crown, little witch, in various ways, but it does not matter because from here on out, it is our crown. And when I tell them I have chosen to take you as my consort, that you have done this wretched king the honor of agreeing to Bond with him, they will have to make a choice again. They will either bow before you, accept you as Her Grace, or you will watch as they are gutted before you.”
It's those primal instincts that refuse to relent guiding his words right now. He knows I’d never allow others to be slaughtered in my name, not like this. Not when his people are simply reacting from the fears forced upon them, fears that Sin himself helped to exacerbate. Even so, need pounds through my aching center at his vow, his primal rage fanning the embers of my own.
I reach beneath the water and take his now hard cock in my grasp. His hand goes to the back of my head instantly, yanking me back by my hair and forcing me to look at him while I stroke his length in a slow, steady rhythm. “And when you so bravely off your entire court in my name, then what, Your Grace?” I whisper, my lips parted as I gaze upon his face, partially shadowed from the filtered moonlight.
“And then, little witch,” he groans as I pump faster, “I will kneel before you on your throne, spread your beautiful thighs, and make you come on my tongue until you are all I’m able to taste for a fortnight.”
Fuck. I lean onto my toes and capture his mouth with my own. I’m forced to let go of his cock, his length too large and rigid for me to hold with our chests now pressed together, and his velvety shaft props against my belly instead. He runs his tongue along the seam of my lips, demanding I open for him, which I eagerly oblige.
His kiss is as bestial as his instincts. Full of carnal need, his tongue twists with my own, claiming my mouth in the same moment he lowers himself and wraps his other arm under my legs. He carries me to the edge of the riverbank, rocks made smooth with water pressing into my back as he lays me down and kneels between my thighs. My breath is labored as I arch my hips forward, my pussy demanding and needy for his mouth.
He chuckles darkly, his lips skimming my thigh, and his now extended claws pinning me between the rocks and his grip. “Does my Mate want something?” he asks softly, his breath hot on my legs and so, so close to where I need to feel him.
“Sin—please.” I’m not above begging, not when my every nerve is zinging with unbridled want. Need. Like I might burst if the warlord doesn’t shut the fuck up and start lapping at my cunt.
He growls, the sound throaty and raw, as he looks up at me from between my thighs, his mouth inches from my pulsing center. I could come from that look in his eyes alone, at the desire pooling there like liquid green heat. A deep moan falls from my lips as his tongue slowly drags through my delicate flesh, and my bent knees drop farther apart.
One lick. One torturous lick is all I get before he grabs my waist and pulls me back down into the river. He ignores my cry of protest and shoves me behind him, his large physique blocking my view from the woods he’s now staring into.
I quiet, noting the slight tilt to his head that positions his left ear towards the forest. I hear nothing—not a snap of a branch, or a rustle of a single leaf. Nothing but the gentle burbling of the river as it flows over large rocks and tightly packed sediment. Sin’s head snaps to somewhere in the tree line, and my hand instinctually reaches for the dagger that’s usually strapped to my thigh, except now it lays with the rest of my clothing piled along the bank.
“Oh!” a female voice squeaks. “Apologies, Your Grace.”
I frown at his back, surprised by the use of his title. The elves don’t recognize Sin as their leader given the Black Art’s long reign of tyranny against them. Interesting for one of them to use it now. “I was just out for a run and thought I’d wash up. I didn’t hear anyone out here. I was singing to myself, trying to distract from the post-shift aches. Something I’m sure you experience quite often now.”
Not an elf. A transcendent.
My knuckles relax, having still been curled as if they were clutching my dagger, but I don’t step to the side and reveal myself. I don’t want to make her feel more embarrassed than she already does.
“No need to apologize—the woods belong to us all,” Sin answers. I drop my eyes, suddenly remembering our nudity, but find the water level above Sin’s groin. Not far above it though, and I imagine if the shifter were brave enough to allow herself a glance, she’d be able to see the beginnings of his dark curls.
“Thank you for your understanding, Your Grace. May I…” There’s a sharp scraping sound as if she kicked up loose rocks with her foot. She’s nervous. I can’t blame the girl. She’s just stumbled onto the isle’s most feared warlord, supposedly alone in the river, naked . The wind current is blowing towards the Vale’s heart; she likely can’t scent me back here. “Would you like some company?” she finishes her thought.
Now I blame her.
Sin angles his head when he responds, a habit I’ve noticed he favors when irritated. “The only company I desire these days is my Mate’s.”
“Oh,” she startles. “I—the bloodwitch, yes?”
“Wren,” I reply, stepping around Sin. The shallow water has my full breasts on display, and I don’t allow my face to betray so much as a shard of modesty. The smile I flash her is all teeth, and I call forth my collective in my palms that are still under the water, just enough that it’ll make my irises glint with that fiery, golden finish.
“I see I’ve interrupted something,” she says, her gaze lingering on mine a second longer before she diverts it to Sin and offers an apologetic smile. “Perhaps another time.”
And then she’s gone before he can respond.
Sin turns to me, and I want to punch him just to wipe that knowing smirk off his face. “She may be a shifter, but I’d wager you bite harder,” he says, the backs of his knuckles gliding across the curvature of my jaw. “My vicious, little Mate.”
“You continue to call me that, but I’ve yet to bind myself to you. What if I change my mind?” I ask, my tone flirty.
“You won’t,” he rasps. “As soon as we take back what is ours, we will arrange for the Bonding ceremony. I will pledge my devotion to you, and then I will hunt you, little witch. And when I do, there will not be a single inch of this isle where you will be safe from me.”
His threat sends another pang of need to the juncture of my thighs, the slickness there having nothing to do with the water. “When are you going to tell me what that even means? Why are you even hunting me at all if I’ve promised myself to you during the ceremony?”
Sin’s lips twist into a dark smile, one far more wicked than what talks of marriage should provoke. Well, marriage isn’t really a term recognized in transcendent culture. Husband, wife… those titles are too transient, Zorina had once explained to me. Anyone can nullify their wedding vows but taking one as your Mate… that Bond is permanent.
My family was less than thrilled when I told them that Sin had proposed Bonding to me.
They were downright furious when I told them I accepted.
He leans down and kisses the underside of my jaw. “I will tell you. In our chambers. Inside our castle,” he adds, ignoring my groan of protest. “Guess you’ll just have to muster up an ounce of self-preservation after all, if you wish to live long enough to know the answer.”
I cross my arms and fix him with a humpf of disapproval, though I’m not truly agitated. Sin is worried about me. Actually, I think he’s downright petrified that I’m going to do something reckless to protect others, and that my impulsiveness will finally catch up with me.
He masks his worry with a half-hearted grin, and just as I’m about to order him to lay me back on the riverbank and finish what he started, a shrill scream pierces the night.