Chapter 40
Elorie
Every time I think I’ve figured out Wilder, I’m faced with another side to him. He’s the current, dragging me deeper into the unforgiving sea.
He towers over me, and there’s no denying he’s going to destroy this realm, but deep inside, there’s a part of me that understands. There are no winners in this war. There is no hope. Death will come to both sides eventually; it’s simply which side will face it sooner.
“I don’t need sympathy, Elorie,” Wilder says, leaning against the ledge.
“This isn’t sympathy. I’m just surprised you told me what happened.”
“You asked.”
“You never answer me honestly.”
“Not true. I always answer you honestly. You just don’t always hear what I’m saying.”
Fae and their riddles.
I roll my shoulders back, glancing into the gathering. Greer and Callum are nowhere to be seen, and the smoke of haelmarrow is a thick fog hanging in the air. My cheeks warm and my skin prickles as I brush my hands over my bare arms.
“It’s the drugs. Haelmarrow heightens your senses. It can confuse how you feel.” Wilder’s throat bobs as I breathe deeply, and my hard nipples peak against the thin fabric of my dress.
“Is it confusing you?” I ask when his gold eyes meet mine.
We’re standing so close I could lift on my toes and kiss him.
He could wrap me in his arms like he did in my vision in the mirror of Echme.
We could sink into the heat brewing and watch this realm fall to pieces.
It shouldn’t sound so enticing, but as I breathe in his rain-kissed scent, all I want is to be reckless for a moment.
My responsibilities are too heavy to bear lately. I have no choice—not really.
I will pick Lyrichia because I have to. Because I want to save my people. When it comes to the Rite, I will do what needs to be done.
But tonight—just for tonight, could I choose him?
Could I dive down this thread and figure out why I’m drawn to Wilder, regardless of what he’s done?
“You should go to bed, Elorie. Tomorrow, you have a long day of training with the others.” He tucks my hair behind my ear, and with the haelmarrow shredding my restraint, I wonder how much of what I just thought he heard.
“What if I don’t want to go to bed?” I’m tiptoeing over a thin line. So close to shattering it entirely.
“The haelmarrow is affecting you. By the time you get to your room, your head will be clear again.” Wilder takes a step back, and that small shift is visceral. His rejection is a lance to the chest.
My cheeks burn as I stare up at him, then I quickly turn, refusing to let him see my embarrassment, even if he might sense it.
I cut through the room, slipping between people, feeling Wilder on my heels the entire time.
Even when we reach the hallway, he continues to follow me.
Not because he wants me, but because he needs me safe if he’s going to act out his evil plan.
My fingers ball into a fist as he walks me to my room, and I fight hard to steady my breathing.
“I’m safe now,” I snap when we reach my room.
He’s at my side, but I refuse to look up at him.
“Elorie—”
“Goodnight.” I slip inside and close the door, pressing my back to it.
I scratch at my dress until the tie at my neck loosens so I can slip it off.
Suddenly, even the light weight of the fabric is too much.
I can barely handle these thoughts, creeping around inside me.
Wilder was right, by the time I reached my room, the haelmarrow cleared and so did my head.
But the problem is, it didn’t change this fire in my belly that’s burning for him.
I dig around the room for a sleep dress and slide into the first one I find.
Wilder is the one with the quips and the suggestive comments.
He’s the one who won’t stop following me around.
And yet, he’s so disgusted by me being a human that he so quickly turned me down.
I storm to the mirror, and my freckles are glowing bright. Three flecks of starlight shine against my skin. It matches the shimmers in the sheer white fabric of my nightdress.
My hair glows in the moonlight, and I brush it back, accidentally tangling my fingers in one of the braids. But nothing stops this ache. This pure, fiery tide ripping through my belly.
Storming across my bedroom, I decide to give Wilder a piece of my mind. Maybe I’m simply in the mood to pick a fight. At least this is something I can win when every other battle feels too great lately.
The hallway is silent as I pad across it. The polished stone floor is cool on my feet. Lifting my fist to Wilder’s door, I pause, letting my knuckles hover. Anger bubbles inside, but I hold myself back from knocking.
What am I doing?
Lowering my hand, I spin toward my door. But before I reach it, I feel him behind me. My eyes close as Wilder presses his bare chest to my back. I didn’t even hear his door open, but of course, he sensed me out here. Like he said, he always knows where I am.
Wilder’s knuckles graze the side of my arm, and my skin prickles. “What are you doing out here, Starfire?”
“I don’t know.” It’s the truth when I can’t act on this blizzard of emotion.
I want to hate him. I want to fight with him. I want to wish I never resurrected him. But when he turns me around, and I look up into his golden eyes, I just want him.
The one thing I can never have, even if he doesn’t feel the same.
“I do.” Wilder reaches up, cupping my cheek in his palm. His thumb grazes my freckles.
“Then why did you reject me on the balcony?”
“You weren’t in your right mind.”
“And that matters?”
“Yes.” His eyes glow. “You matter, Elorie. What you want matters.”
“It doesn’t.” My swallow is thick. “What I want is irrelevant now. I have to choose him. I have to choose my people. And even if I want to save them, that’s not a choice. Not really. If I could choose, I’d do more. I’d choose—”
I stop myself short of saying I’d choose him because that won’t happen. No matter the guilt I’m carrying around.
Wilder’s thumb brushes over the freckles on my cheek. “You don’t have to choose me, Elorie Vale. But I will always choose you.”
He could be saying that because I’m the key to his plan to destroy the realm. Or it could be lust making our decisions murky tonight.
Wilder’s lips lower to mine, and it doesn’t matter. For this moment, we choose each other.
My arms wrap around his shoulders, and I surrender to his touch. To his lips—softly caressing mine until I open for him. The gentle welcome turns ravenous as his hands find my hips, and he lifts me into his arms.
Wrapping my legs at his hips, he carries me backward into my room, kicking the door closed and slamming my back against it. His tongue tangles with mine, and I taste haelmarrow and mint.
Emotional decimation that I’ll never survive.
His fingers dig into my sides as he rocks his hips between my legs.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers through the thread, not breaking the kiss.
I sink my teeth into his lower lip, and his groan vibrates through my mind. A buzzing sensation skitters through me, nearly breaking me apart.
“Wilder.” I tilt my head back against the door as he kisses the path down the center of my throat, nipping at my collarbone. “Oh gods.”
He chuckles. “If the gods are watching, they’d better look away now. What I plan to do to you is anything but holy.”
Wilder lifts me in his arms, and my fingers dig into his thick hair. With his lips on my neck, he carries me across the room, tossing me onto the bed. His body presses over mine, and I’m breathless. His steely length grinds against my core.
But it’s his eyes I’m watching. As alive as a thunderstorm. As equally unpredictable. I reach up, tracing the scar on his cheek, lost in the chasm of darkness and gold.
“I feel like I know everything about you and nothing at all,” I say, dragging my finger over his scar and then dropping my hand to the bed.
“You know more than anyone else.”
Wilder lowers, kissing my throat. His hands find the ties of my nightdress, and he peels it down my body as he moves with it. His tongue drags a slow circle over my nipple, and my nails find his shoulders, digging in as he tugs it between his teeth.
“Do you like that, Elorie?” Something about how he hums my name makes my insides melt.
His fingers wander up my nightgown before dragging them along my core. One finger pushes inside me as he worships my other breast.
“Wilder.” I gasp.
I’ve lost the thread. Unable to focus on anything but his touch as he explores me. He lifts onto his knees and angles my hips to tug my nightdress the rest of the way off until I’m bare beneath him.
“So gods damn stunning.” He stares down at me.
I’m sure that’s not true when I’m a human, and every Fae I’ve laid eyes on is more beautiful. But staring into his eyes makes me want to believe him.
His shoulders flex, and I take in his hard chest. The planes of muscle that are inked in his regrets. My fingers trace over the markings, moving down the ripples of his stomach. It’s sinful. When I reach the laces on his pants, I wait for him to stop me, but he doesn’t.
Wilder stares into my eyes as I undo them.
But before I can pull them down, he lowers for another kiss, claiming my lips with more fervor than before.
He kisses my jaw, my neck, my chest, moving until he settles his mouth between my legs, and my vision sparkles.
Or is that my hands, wrapped in moonlight as he draws a love letter between my legs.
I thread my fingers in his hair, and I can’t think about anything but those golden eyes.
My skin hums.
It sparkles.
It glows until I reach a peak that is so high there’s only darkness. Except this time, I’m not alone. And when I burst, Wilder holds my legs open with his palms and guides me through the waves of pleasure. He continues to kiss me until I’m a shaking mess in his arms.
Wilder plants a kiss on my inner thigh. “My Starfire.”
He strips off his pants and tosses them aside. Stroking his thick cock in his hand. He tugs from the base, all the way to the tip, leaking a bead of his excitement onto my stomach.
“I’m on a tonic to prevent conception,” I tell him when he strokes again, just so he knows not to worry since I’m half-Fae and the risks are unknown. “The king put me on it.”
Time stills in his gaze.
Everything but his eyes darkens around us.
His jaw turns rigid. “I don’t want to think about why he did that, but I can promise you it’s not going to benefit him.”
I bite my lower lip and nod in agreement, not knowing if I’ll have a choice soon, but right now, I do. And I’ve made it.
Wilder rubs his cock over me, and I’m still so sensitive that I squirm. But when pleasure peaks again and I try to wiggle away, aether snags around my wrists, binding them and tugging them overhead.
“Are you trying to run from me, Elorie?” Wilder smirks, dragging his cock to my entrance and pressing forward just enough for me to feel the pressure. “It’s too late for that now.”
“I—” My words choke as he does it again, a little farther this time. “I don’t think I can come again. It’s too much.”
His touch.
His magic.
His gaze.
The sensations are overwhelming.
“Starfire, we’ve only just gotten started. I plan to have you coming on my cock all night long.” He rocks his hips forward, and I’m at his mercy with my hands pinned overhead. “I want to see it, Elorie. Show me.”
“Show you what?” My head tips back as he inches in a little more, already stretching me wide.
“I want to see how bright you burn.” Wilder thrusts his hips until they meet mine, driving deep in one brutal thrust.
Air chokes my lungs, silencing my scream. His fingers dig into my hips as he watches where we connect. And when his eyes meet mine, I feel it.
I’m glowing.
Not my skin or my hair, but my soul. Somewhere deep, I’m burning up. I’m whole. Wilder lies over me, rocking his hips and releasing my wrists. He doesn’t need to hold them because I surrender.
There’s no running.
No escape.
There is just this night between the two of us, and I’m certain I’ll never recover.
My nails dig into his back as he takes me. Hard thrusts drive me up the bed. My heels dig into the backs of his thighs, and there’s no denying that he’ll make good on his promise. His touch is the end of me, and yet, it feels like the creation of something else.
Wilder’s lips brush mine, and I’m a raw nerve ready to erupt again. “Gods, you’re perfect. I could have imagined your face a thousand more years and never come close.”
Those words. His eyes. They send me stumbling over the edge, and I pull him with me. We tumble like the stars fall from the sky. Like realms colliding.
Like the beginning and end of everything.