Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
MERI
H is eyes flare with his own deep emotions as he sweeps me into his arms and carries me across the room. “You were magnificent today. Fierce. Queenly.” He punctuates each word with a hard kiss on my lips.
Laying me across the bed, he skims his lips across my neck, then continues down to the rest of my body, but there’s a frantic urgency to his movements as if he’s barely restraining himself.
I throw my arms around his neck and pull him down to me, his weight a physical reminder that he’s here with me. “I don’t want to play. I need you. Inside me. Now.”
My heart stopped the second the blade plunged into him. Logically, I knew it wouldn’t kill him, but the idea of him dying was almost my undoing. Thankfully, the fiercest of anger rose, and I was able to stand my ground against our enemies. But now I need the kind of reassurance only he can give.
I wrap my legs tightly around him and brush my body up against his.
He shudders, and with a harsh exhalation, sinks into me. Our bodies fuse together, and he raises his head to stare down at me. “I don’t have much control,” he warns, his eyes tracing my blank forehead. “You’re my fucking queen, and I want to imprint myself until all you know is me. All you feel is me.”
He slides out and thrusts into me again. Harder. Deeper. “You’re mine.” His hips piston in and out as he proclaims his love in a hundred different ways, including the words he knows I need the most.
Life. Heat. Urgency. Him inside me, heart beating, I reach up to pull his face to mine. Capturing his firm lips, I pour everything into him. If our future were to end tomorrow, I want this to be my last memory. The depth and strength of us. I release his lips and gasp at the pleasure rolling over me.
My body trembles on the verge of coming, and he stops, holding still until it subsides.
“I’ll tell you when you can come,” he growls, the words barely coherent.
Blue eyes turn to black, bleeding out the white as his body grows bigger until he’s halfway between man and beast, his body surrounding mine while inside he stretches me completely. My senses see and smell only him. Dark and broody with the hint of The Underworld. My head thrashes from side to side as the heat rises again. I grip his hard muscles, scoring them with my nails and magic, needing to come but not wanting him to let me.
Sharp teeth clamp down on my shoulder, and he stops. My body moves restlessly, and he tightens his bite. I finally find some control, but it’s harder than I thought it would be. His cock throbs inside me, wall to wall, hard and pulsing, and it takes every ounce of my will to keep still even as my desire climbs to a peak.
He shifts. A micro movement. Out an inch. In an inch. My entire body shakes against his.
Lifting his mouth from my shoulder, he moves it to my ear. “Don’t come.”
Everything coalesces into a single moment. Balanced on the knife’s edge, close to falling, every stroke of his body connects me to him in a way that goes beyond the physical. Alive, still fighting, here by my side, this man is my forever.
A tear slips down my cheek, and he swipes it with his tongue.
“This. Us. I love you, Cormal.”
Breathing harshly, he rasps, “Nobody will ever take you away from me again. If I have to burn every kingdom to the ground to keep you safe, I will.” He pauses. “Love is such an insipid word for what I feel for you. It needs no structure or boundaries. It simply is. It exists because you and I exist.” He pulls out and thrusts into me. “We’re never-ending.”
“Never-ending,” I repeat, knowing he needs the words, too, even though he would never admit it. “You’re mine. Man, beast, and everything in between.”
The words spur him faster and faster, and my body flies higher and higher, until I’m again at the edge of the precipice.
“Cormal!” I cry out, unable to hold myself back any longer.
“Come,” he orders with a growl.
We fall together, our releases chasing each other, tremors cascading over us both, trapped in a whirlwind of rapture. Time passes slowly as the world around us creeps back into focus, intruding on the bubble we’ve created. Large hands gently stroke my hair and down my back as he holds me to him, unwilling to let me go even now.
I lean back to stare up at him as his body adjusts to his usual size. “Does it hurt?”
Blue eyes appear, making the black recede. “Sometimes.” He shifts his body into a more comfortable position but remains inside me.
With a shaky exhale, I move my leg, intertwining it with his. “Was it like this before? Between us?” The pieces of the past are still hidden somewhere in my mind, but I can’t help but wonder if it always been this intense.
“It was sweeter. More innocent,” he reluctantly tells me. His hands still, and he grips me tighter. “I was cocky. Thought we would live happily ever after.” A derisive chuckle fills the air. “Losing it for so long changed both of us and the very essence of what’s between us. It’s sharper, and the innocence is gone, but strangely, there’s more depth. And for me, there’s an almost feral need to protect it at all costs. To hell with everyone and everything else. Maybe one day, the memories of the days without you will ease, along with the fury, but it will take several lifetimes to soften those edges.”
“Pieces are coming back to me,” I tell him. “While I don’t remember everything, I don’t like the thought of you making a pact with her to save me. Although, I know I would do the same for you.”
He opens his mouth to say something, but then closes it again.
With a lift of my chin, I claim his lips, trying to reassure him that I’m here and not going anywhere. Rolling him onto his back, I shift until I’m on top. With him still inside me, I rock back and forth, staring into his darkening blue eyes.
“For me, love is a powerful word. Full of possibilities and hope. I love you, Cormal. More importantly, I’ll fight for you and us. Against all odds,” I promise him.
His mind slides into mine, full of fierce images and emotions I hadn’t thought him capable of until recently.
I stare down at this man I’ve admired and hated, fought against and with, and secretly yearned for all these years. While curious about the past, I can’t help but wonder if we could have achieved this equality between us. I remember my younger self being in awe of Cormal, hanging on his every word, but his refusal to save me from Leandra made me resentful, turning all my emotions to anger and ash.
The past wasn’t a good place for me. Even if I don’t remember us, I remember me. Until recently, I was scared and unsure of myself. Confidence wasn’t a word I understood. The only time I stood up for myself was when I was fighting with Cormal. In a way, my anger at him helped me forget the rest of my life. But it was a crutch.
Where would the balance have been between us? It’s different now. At some point in the last few months, I came into myself, and strength and confidence are no longer just words to me. Cormal and I match like we were created for each other.
Silence reigns between us. There are no words, only gasps and tiny moans as the pleasure intensifies. His cheeks flush as his fingers tighten on my hips.
My hands slide over his well-defined chest, keeping a consistent pace, pushing him to the edge. I want to see the moment he surrenders to me. Muscles cord in his neck as he thrusts his hips up, driving his cock deeper inside me. He’s close. I link our hands and lean over him, picking up the pace until I’m riding him hard. The second he begins to pulse inside me, I take us both over the edge until we’re lost to everything else.
Boneless, I fall into his arms, letting the waves crash over me until they get smaller and smaller. Finally, my breathing eases, and a contented sigh escapes.
Magic slides over us, cooling and drying the sweat from our bodies.
He turns and maneuvers us until we’re each on our side and facing the other. “I never thought about it from that point of view. You endured so much. To me, you were strong. Fearless. Maybe a little young and na?ve, but I cherished those traits because I felt old and jaded.”
Startled, I stare at him. “A moment ago, I felt your mind slide into mine, but I didn’t realize how much you could see.” A blush heats my cheeks. “We fit now. Not just because of the power, although that certainly helps, but I’m confident and capable of accomplishing many things I would never have dreamed possible. Even fighting a Kraken.” I grin.
He chuckles and brushes the hair from my face. “I know. It took everything I had to stand on the sidelines.” His grin fades. “You’re the woman I always knew you to be, but you had to believe it, too.”
“I do, but I’m also a starving woman,” I say dramatically with my hand on my forehead. “Feed me or lose me forever.”
He chuckles and waves his hand, transporting a now dressed me to the couch.
Various food appears on plates, their smells making my stomach rumble, along with a carafe of ice water, and I dive in the second he sits beside me.
“Thank you. I felt like I was going to waste away any minute. Dramatic, I know, but I hate being hungry. It sucks.”
His brows crash together. “You’ll never go hungry again. I promise you.”
Wanting to lighten the mood, I grin. “Mmm, you’re right. One little wave of my finger and poof, food appears.”
He turns to me with speculation on his face. “How much of your power did you retain?”
Closing my eyes, I dive deep inside. The threads to the Light Fae Kingdom and the black hole inside me are gone, given up with the crown. Some bare bones knowledge remains—the races, land borders, and resources. But the overwhelming buzz of power from the proximity of light Fae and the ability to tap into it has disappeared.
Surprisingly, there’s a significant amount of magic left, though. More than I felt before I took the crown, which is odd. Did it leave a residue of power inside me?
“Quite a bit. The power I inherited as Nyssa’s daughter and… more. I’m just not sure where the extra is from,” I divulge with a shrug. “What do you think?”
Magic is still a new world for me. As someone who picked up powers right and left, Cormal might have more of an idea.
He’s silent for a minute. “You regained the ability to mimic when the bond with Leandra broke, which means you might have acquired a few new powers. That could account for the additional magic.”
I frown. “I thought those powers would eventually fade or become inaccessible. They did before.”
Cormal takes my hand in his. “The original magic allowed the wielder to acquire permanent powers.” His stare is intense, as if he’s trying to tell me something.
I wait for him to continue, and he slowly raises an eyebrow and tilts his head. Does this mean he can’t? Is this part of his pact with Leandra? Original wielder. The ability to acquire powers.
“Were you there when I received this power?” I ask him, wondering if he knows how I got it.
“Are you remembering?” he asks with a hopeful expression on his face.
Taken aback, I stare at him. “You can only tell me if I remember it myself? Unbelievable. Who cares? She can’t hurt me now, right? The bond is broken.”
When he doesn’t say anything, I can only conclude I’m right and wrong. I must remember the past; he can’t tell me the details. And Leandra is still a threat to me. Inhaling sharply, I wait for the crippling fear to wash over me, but there isn’t any, and I can’t hold back the smile that stretches across my face. Since the night of my coronation, I haven’t felt that overwhelmingly destructive emotion, and it seems losing the crown doesn’t change that for me.
Another thought occurs. “You know because you can wield this power. Did you give it to me?”