20. Chapter 20
Chapter 20
T he tunnels were a blur as Ven led them through the dark passageways. Aurelia caught sight of the familiar surroundings, the dark chambers as Ven's blood-speckled face loomed above hers.
Caging her against the wall, his eyes were dark as a raging sea, breath ragged as he uttered, “I never should have—” He slowly shook his head, the fire behind his eyes banking to embers as they focused on her. “But the thought of another male’s hands on you . . .”
There is no future for us.
The words still rang clearly in her mind as she replied flatly, “You presume they’d live long enough to touch me.” She placed a palm on his heaving chest, and he stumbled back as if she’d struck him.
As soon as the other males stepped forward to challenge him, she’d already made the decision. She would never be someone’s prize again—no matter the cost.
He took another step toward her, slow and halting. As if she might flinch from him. As if she might fear him. But even with what she’d just witnessed, that could never be possible. The kind of power he’d unleashed . . . terrifying, yes. But beautiful, too.
And a part of her hated that she still felt that, because whatever he felt in turn—whatever had driven him to claim her in this place, whether it was a desire to protect her as a member of his court, or simply male ego—it didn’t matter. He didn’t feel the same.
Heavy silence fell between them as the door shut.
My claimed.
Ven turned to face her, raking fingers through the strands of his dark hair, as if trying to fight for control after what he’d just done.
Was it fear that flashed across the sharp planes of his face? Uncertainty that darkened his expression? From the moment that he’d claimed her until now had been such a rush that she was still trying to make sense of it.
Ven took a step closer, palms raised as his eyes darted to her face, then back to his hands—still stained with blood. Clenching them into fists, he dropped them at his sides once more.
He’d shed blood to claim her—to keep her safe. He’d killed for her.
“What happens now?” she uttered. She knew little of their customs, less of what any of this meant.
“Normally . . . a ceremony would be performed. A blood oath sworn in front of witnesses.” His eyes dropped to his fists as he unclenched them, knuckles cracking as he flexed his bloodied palms. "But it only needs to be an exchanging of blood—enough to shift our scents," he uttered, something like remorse darkening his words.
He’d already offered her his blood more times than she could count, and she’d offered hers as well. Heat rose to her cheeks at the distant memory of that night in his darkened chambers when they'd returned from Eisenea.
“It does not need to mean anything beyond these walls.” The words were uttered like an apology. As if it were a punishment to be attached to him.
“And what does it mean here? Now?” She tried to control the rapid rise and fall of her chest, but her heart was pounding out of her ribs waiting for him to say it. She was tired of guessing. Tired of wanting to know what was going on in that thick skull of his.
“It means that I am yours, and you are mine,” he said softly, reverently.
Mine.
A shaky exhale escaped her parted lips at the raw emotion in his voice. It was rare that she observed anything other than his tightly coiled control. After the death she had witnessed in that cavern, she understood why. Because when he chose to release his full power—his true power—it was devastating. But right now, he seemed so utterly . . . exposed.
Following his gaze as it dropped to his hands, both of them regained some small amount of clarity at the scarlet that still stained them. It was enough to move her feet from where they were rooted into the floor.
Crossing the room to the bathing chamber, she found a basin and filled it with steaming water while searching the shelves for a clean cloth. When she emerged, Ven was exactly where she'd left him, staring down at his bloodied hands.
“Sit,” she softly commanded, his eyes finally lifting to her.
He obeyed, sitting down in the chair next to the bed. His spine was still rigid, but it put him closer to eye level with her as she placed the basin on the floor between them and wrung out the cloth. He moved to take it from her.
“No,” she murmured, “it’s the least I can do.”
After a long moment, he acquiesced, shrugging off the ruined jacket. He grasped the heavy silver chain from beneath the collar of his shirt, winding it around his knuckles and tucking it into his discarded clothing with a reverence that made her chest tighten. Unbuttoning his shirt, the elegant whorls of black across his lightly bronzed skin were exposed.
He seemed to be holding his breath as she knelt before him, on the precipice of something and threatening to tumble into the abyss. She tried to ignore the way his muscles bunched in his abdomen. How his hard chest rose and fell with every breath, as if he was struggling to slow his heart like she was.
The cloth was poised in her fingertips, the only sound in the room the small drip, drip, drip of the warm water running down her wrist and back into the basin. Her gaze trailed the ink spanning the width of his broad chest, an intricately drawn sun rising over the horizon, bold runes surrounding it.
Searching for anything to break the silence strung tightly between them, she asked, “And what does that marking mean?”
Blood speckled his face from the straight blade of his nose to the proud, high cheekbones under his dark brows as he eased back into the chair. “It is our symbol for the Goddess of Death,” he murmured. “Fate is not so much a deity as an inevitability. Just as the sun rises and falls, each of us must meet Fate.” He smiled faintly. “The Green Folk think our Goddess a greedy, vengeful creature—but in truth she is peace. Respite. A reprieve from the darkness of this world.”
She lifted his hand in her own as he spoke, scrubbing away the caked blood beneath his fingernails, washing away the splatters along his palm, his wrist. And she could have sworn he hissed out a soft breath as she worked her way up the corded muscles of his forearm, across the spirals of black ink that wound up his biceps to his shoulder.
The action took her back to that first night in Ravenstone—how he’d gently washed her cuts and scrapes, rebinding the injury she’d taken from the demon. She hadn’t deserved any of it, but he’d held out a hand to her anyway.
Standing again, she stepped between his long legs, moving to wipe away the constellation of blood across his brow. He tilted his head back, his thick black lashes fluttering shut, the strong column of his neck exposed to her as she washed away the evidence of what he had done.
For her.
The scent of him enveloped her, intoxicating, hypnotizing as the rise and fall of his chest as she wiped the cloth across his golden skin. He claimed that this did not need to mean anything beyond these walls—but for her at least, that was a lie.
“Venohan,” she said his name aloud, tasting it. A strong, beautiful name—fitting for the male in front of her.
“It means Retribution in the old tongue.”
Fitting indeed.
His eyes opened, dropping to her lips, the crimson darkening to nearly black as he whispered, “Why did you come back?”
A plea. Not the accusation it had been before, the words stained with such anguish that her breath hitched.
He captured her wrist between his fingers, eyes ablaze as they searched for the truth. “Because I know why I stayed,” he rasped.
She knew he would release her in an instant if she uttered a single word of dissent, but the heat that licked across her body at his touch was something she didn’t want to give up.
The truth clawed at her throat.
It hadn’t been a choice to leave her old life. Because when she’d walked back through that mirror—there hadn’t been any thinking, any planning. Only a deep, gut-wrenching need to get back to Ravenstone . . . Back to him .
It was as much a choice for her to find her way back to him as it was a choice for dawn to chase the deepest night.
It was inevitable.
The air was thick between them. She was desperate to tell him—all of it—but the words wouldn’t come.
He pulled her closer, their breath mingling in the small space between them as he whispered, “I couldn’t leave even when—even when I didn’t think I would see you again."
He’d felt it, too. That inexplicable draw. The invisible tether that seemed to bind them to each other.
“ Why , Ari,” he pushed, desperation tingeing his voice.
She owed him a truth in return for the one he’d just given her. A truth that still felt too raw, too exposed to say aloud in a place like this—but to deny it was an agony she couldn’t bear any longer.
Ven reached out his hand, brushing a thumb across her cheek. Hesitant. As if he might be scorched just from touching her.
There were a million reasons why she came back. But none of them mattered except for one.
She leaned into his touch as she whispered, “I couldn’t live in a world without you.”
And his guarded expression shattered.
Closing the space between them, his mouth was on hers, the careful distance they’d kept from each other since leaving Ravenstone dissolving in an instant. The feel of his lips just as she remembered, gentle and unyielding all at once.
Tonight, he’d offered her some small semblance of safety, and maybe that was all that it meant to him—maybe it was only a sliver of light in this dark place for both of them to grasp onto. But she wanted this, even if it wouldn’t mean anything beyond this place. She wanted to belong to him, if only for a moment.
His hand wrapped around her wrist, pulling her into his lap. The thin gown she wore did little to hide her body’s reaction to him as he found the curve of her waist, scorching a path across her exposed skin, his palm grazing the underside of her breast as he pulled her closer.
It was as if his hands had been made for her—the feeling of them so familiar and utterly perfect that she couldn’t imagine having felt anything else.
He guided her fingertips to the throbbing pulse at his neck. An invitation. A silent question burning in his eyes. And her teeth seemed to sharpen in answer, every instinct in her body demanding that she sink them into his smooth skin. She traced his throat with her lips, drinking in the heady scent of him. Fresh, clean sweat, and beneath it . . . blood.
Her fangs pierced his neck. And the instant his blood hit her tongue it was dizzying ecstasy.
A sharp sting at her wrist drew her attention to where Ven held her arm against his mouth. But the pain quickly gave way to pleasure as his other hand traced the curve of her hip, exposed where her dress had ridden up. An ache pounded through her as his mouth pulled against her wrist and she drank down the rich flavor of him.
His fingertips swept along her inner thigh, and her heartbeat raced at the thought of what he might find if his fingers brushed any closer . . .
Tearing herself away, she wiped at her mouth, catching ragged breaths, embarrassment heating her skin. Ven had told her sharing blood was a window into someone’s power, but what passed between them seemed much deeper than that.
“Does it always feel like this?” she asked, willing her heartbeat to slow.
Ven’s eyes had taken on a glazed quality, his skin flushing scarlet at the question. “No,” he answered, his gaze dropping to her lips. “Emotions are transferred through taking blood from someone. If there is pain, fear . . .”
She recalled what she’d endured during her stasis. Pain wasn’t enough to describe the way she thought her body would combust entirely . . . but Ven had endured all of it with her.
Desire thrummed through her, but a small amount of clarity returned as she shifted to move from where she'd crawled into his lap—and she felt the hard ridge of him beneath her.
Heat spread as understanding sunk in. The pleasure, the desire . . . it hadn’t only belonged to her. And she could feel his blood coursing through her veins, his power igniting something in her that she didn’t understand.
“Tell me what you want, Aurelia,” he rasped as his lips traced her neck, fangs grazing the swells of her breasts.
An unwelcome thought pushed into her mind of her last encounter with Bastien. And the bitter taste of self-loathing flooded her mouth even as she tried to swallow it back. Partly because she’d made love to him trying to hold onto something that never was—partly because she’d been thinking of Ven the entire time.
“I want to forget,” she finally admitted. Forget this place. Forget who hunted her. Forget the feel of another male’s hands . . . if only for a moment.
His palm traveled across the plane of her stomach, wrapping around the curve of her hip as his eyes met hers, a flicker of sadness flashing there and disappearing just as quickly. “I still think about that night in the Crystal City—and how I did not keep my promise," he whispered, "and I have regretted it every day since."
Her fingers sunk into the silky strands of his hair, pulling him down to her as he greedily took her mouth once more. Possessive this time. A claiming. His fingertips pressed into her skin, bruising her thigh where he still held her tight against his body, as if he was clinging onto the last shred of his soul.
His caress bordered on devotion as he stroked his thumb across the smooth skin of her thigh, every circle bringing him closer to where she wanted him to be, until at last his hand found the molten heat of her.
He growled his approval in her ear at finding her already slick and wanting, his thumb making torturous circles at the apex of her thighs. She silenced a gasp as he slipped a finger inside of her, faintly aware of the fact that just outside of the door, guards were standing watch. But Ven was undeterred as he stroked her, his lips at her neck, fangs scraping against the sensitive skin just below her ear.
There was nothing hurried about his movements as he slipped another finger inside, coiling her tighter and tighter, until she was completely at his mercy. She could feel the evidence of his desire beneath her, the hard length of him against her ass making her blood heat even more. Tangling her fingers in the onyx strands of his hair, she shifted to touch him, but he gripped her waist firmly, holding her in place—commanding her with his touch.
“The first time I take you will not be here. Not in this place.” His voice was gravelly with the words, and she knew what it cost him to say them aloud. His mouth was unyielding as it dropped down to her neck.
A demand. A plea.
Baring her throat to him, warm breath caressed her skin just a moment before she felt the graze of his fangs. As the sting of his bite gave way to exquisite pain, she finally shattered into oblivion around his fingers.
Ven’s arms were still wrapped around her, the steady beat of his heart thudding against her ear as she shifted in his lap. He lifted her wrist to his lips and pressed a whisper soft kiss against her skin. But something about his expression stole the warmth from her chest.
“I found a way for you to leave.” Sadness laced his words, glittering in the depths of his eyes.
You. Not us.
"At what cost?" she asked.
He swallowed, eyes dropping to her lips, her throat. "A blood oath—to my father."
" No —" She had little understanding of the ancient magick enacted in blood oaths, but she knew they were binding. Powerful. His father was cunning, ruthless, and if Ven offered an oath to him, it could very well mean he would never leave this place.
His voice was ragged as he gripped her hands in his own. “It’s only a matter of time before Maloch tracks us here or my father discovers the power you possess—that the King of the Void is searching for you," he pressed. "And then there will be no escaping this place. Not for you. Not for Karro." Anguish flickered across his face. "And I will not damn you to this existence."
If it had only been herself—she would have accepted her damnation beside him. But Karro . . .
"I won't leave you," she uttered. "We'll find another way."
And something bitter as the winter wind froze over Ven's eyes as he replied, "Even if I escape this place, you—and I." His gaze hardened as he held her stare. "We will never be together."
She pulled away from him, sliding from his lap as he released her. "I don't believe you—"
"I have nothing to offer you, Aurelia," Ven said coldly. "This—this is all we will ever have."
The male sitting in front of her was a stranger. His face devoid of any emotion, composed into a mask of indifference. It was as if none of what they'd just shared meant anything to him.
The words hung in the air, stealing the breath from her lungs as a fist pounded at the door.