Chapter 41
Elorie
Wilder’s heartbeat is steady.
Strong.
But it’s too fast for a Fae. Too mortal.
As I’ve started to tap into my magic, my senses have strengthened. I’ve tried to ignore it under the delusion of thinking I can distance myself from my Fae blood, but there’s no denying it in the light of morning.
Wilder’s heart thrums in his chest as loudly as a drum in the room. Haunting me with every beat.
My fingers splay on his stomach. It’s etched in small scars, but these are fainter than the one on his face. Faint whisps of white light web from my fingers, weaving across Wilder’s bronze skin. It sparkles as it flows out across the room, climbing the walls.
“You found your magic.”
It vanishes, caving back in the second he says it. Maybe Lady Reah was right, and fear is what’s been holding me back. The surge of power is terrifying as it brims to the surface. The power to resurrect is also going to be the power to destroy all of Wilder’s people.
To destroy him.
I look up to find him watching me. He’s propped against a pillow with one arm behind his head. His other hand grazes my bare back. The silk sheets are on the floor, leaving us completely exposed if anyone were to walk in.
“No one can walk in.” He smirks, and I glance to see a faint shimmer on the door. “And no one can hear us.”
He says the second part out loud like he’s trying to prove a point.
I fold my arms beneath my chin on his chest. “If no one can hear us, then why do you still spend so much time talking to me inside my head?”
“Why do you?” He throws my question back at me, tucking my hair behind my ear.
“It’s comforting, I guess.” There’s no point lying when I’m as vulnerable as I can get right now. “It reminds me of simpler times.”
He hums, brushing his thumb over my freckles. “Maybe that’s true for me too.”
“Simpler times, being you locked in that labyrinth of a prison?” My eyebrow hitches.
“At least there you know what’s messing with your head. There are far more dangerous places than the prison.”
“Like the Ley Court?”
He smiles. “It’s safe for you there.”
But not him.
The smile falls from my cheeks as I consider that. Wilder, walking around the enemy court—the enemy kingdom—when any day King Malachi could turn on him.
“What is your court like back home?” I ask.
“In Quietus?”
I nod. “I’m assuming you have at least one friend.”
He laughs—a beautifully haunting sound. “At least one.”
“Tell me about them.” I trace my finger over one of the runes on his chest, and it glows with the path of my finger.
Wilder rests his hand over mine, flattening my palm on his heart.
“The court there isn’t much different from here.
Those who circle have their own interests in mind.
It’s difficult to have real relationships—romantic or not—when everyone is there simply because they want something from you.
That’s why I spent time in Andare every chance I got.
Warriors don’t care about royal blood. Respect has to be earned.
Lord Darvel didn’t take it easy on me just because I was the heir to the crown.
If anything, he made me work twice as hard for it. It was humbling.”
“And here I thought that was impossible.” I smile. “The great aether wielder humbled in training. I’d have liked to see that.”
“I’m sure you would have.” He laughs, brushing his thumb over my freckles. “Perame teased me endlessly about every slipup from the side of the ring. If I started making it look easy or got too cocky, she’d throw daggers at my head.”
“Were you close with her?” I have no right to be jealous when I didn’t know him then, but my chest tightens regardless as I wait for his answer.
“Yes, but not however you’re thinking. Perame has no interest in the males in the court. She and her twin brother, Atlas, are just close friends.”
“Oh.” My cheeks burn with embarrassment, and thankfully, Wilder doesn’t say anything about my jealousy.
“Lord Darvel is Atlas and Perame’s father. We grew close when I stayed with them in Andare. When I was summoned back to the Quietus Court, they came with me. Along with Rior.”
“Another warrior?”
“One of the best in Vaelier.”
“And you trust them?”
“With my life and my realm.” He nods. “Although, Atlas is a gossip. He’s the last one you want to let in on any secrets, or the whole group is going to know about them.”
That makes me laugh. “He sounds like Letia.”
“Your friend in the village?”
I nod, my throat tightening. “What about Aurora? The king thinks she’s your mate. He must have his reasons. Is she a friend too?”
“Aurora knows how to play the politics of the court, so with her, you never know where you really stand. But she cares about Vaelier. I trust her that much.”
It’s strange to think of Wilder in his world, with his friends. Here, I only see glimpses of him. But he has a whole life back home.
“Why have you stayed, Wilder? I know your sister is here and you’ve entered the Rite. But you have friends back home who must miss you, and you know that I—” I can’t choose you.
I’ve said that to him a hundred times, and yet, I can’t finish that thought this morning. I can’t say it out loud. The simple idea of those words makes my chest ache. Like the thought of losing him will tear out my heart.
He threads his fingers in my hair, wandering around those thoughts. I’m not even bothering to close them off, and if I did, they’d no doubt be written all over my face. But he doesn’t say anything—doesn’t force me to face them because we both know that no matter what, nothing changes.
“Do you remember the first time we spoke on Alyssium?” he asks, toying with the blue ends of my hair.
Sun streams over us through the windows, drawing out the gold in his eyes like they’re pieces of the sun itself.
My throat tightens as I nod. I clearly remember the moment I first heard Wilder’s voice. Although, at the time, I thought it was the island, or my mind was playing tricks on me.
When I was eighteen, I was taken by three new members of the Guard.
I’d never seen them before. Not until that night at the tavern, when Letia left early. I had one too many drinks and wasn’t as careful as I should have been. My blue hair loosened from the braid as I was leaving, and they followed me, asking questions.
When I refused to stop or answer them, they grabbed me. They said they’d figure out what I was.
It didn’t matter how many times I said I was human. Or how many days I begged for them to let me go. They cut into me—treated me like an experiment in that cave. Did things I still can’t think about.
They promised to turn me over to the king once they figured me out. And as much as the obsidian belt hurt, it wasn’t anywhere close to the worst of it. The belt reminded me I was still alive. I was still breathing.
After days of being shackled, I was desperate. I was alone, and I couldn’t stand it. So I prayed or begged or both. I asked the stars for help, and they sent me this thread in the darkness.
A spark of hope in my mind telling me to hold on. To listen.
To see through the stars.
I felt the thread in my mind, and I wrapped my fingers around it so tightly that everything burst. The cave collapsed, and the Fae who kidnapped me were nothing more than blood dusting the stone.
It was after that, Callum found me running on the beach. And only then did I realize how long I’d been gone, because he was supposed to be in Ruse Village another week when I was taken.
Wilder brushes his hand over the scars on my ribs. He hasn’t asked me about them, but he knows. I was too scared to tell Father and Callum the extent of what happened, but Wilder was in my thoughts.
He was my comfort for the long year after, when I barely slept. He soothed me through nightmares; his voice rocked me to sleep. He reminded me I was strong enough to get through it.
“You were. You’ve always been strong, Elorie. That’s how you got yourself out.”
“I don’t remember how I did it.” At the time, I told myself a greater power collapsed the walls of the cave, but now, thinking back, I realize where that burst started. It was inside me. “I shouldn’t have been able to wield magic on Alyssium. No one can.”
“Yet you did. Twice.” Wilder drags his thumb over my lower lip. “When you needed your magic, you found it to save yourself.”
“I also found it to save you.” My hand rests over his heart, and the dark runes swirl on his skin like they’re reaching for me. “I didn’t even know you, but I couldn’t let you die. I just… couldn’t.”
Wilder watches me, but I can’t read what he’s thinking.
“How am I supposed to let you die now—your people?”
He tips my chin up. “Elorie, I will gladly die a thousand deaths before I let you die once, do you understand?”
“But why?” My chest is too tight for my heart. “Because you owe me?”
“Because I can’t let you die either.” He rolls until I’m on my back, and he’s hovering over me, brushing his lips over my mouth—my jaw. “You asked why I stayed in the Ley Court after escaping the prison, and it’s the same reason you brought me back from the dead.”
“I don’t know why I brought you back. It just happened.”
He kisses the spot where my pulse meets my throat. “You’ll figure it out.”
Wilder moves down, erasing all thoughts but those of him. He kisses between my breasts, nipping at my ribs. His hands hold my hips, and his magic draws a warm web over my skin, playing with my senses.
It feels unlike anything. It washes the pain from my body—my mind.
“I guess they were right.” I tip my head back as Wilder kisses just above where I need him. “All those centuries do something for your skills in bed.”
Wilder chuckles, looking up at me. “Are you using me for my body, Elorie?”
“Maybe.” I grin, grazing my finger over his ear, pausing at the point. “I didn’t know that it could be like this with Fae.”
“You’ve never been with a Fae before?”
I bite my lower lip, shaking my head.
The dark grin that crosses his lips lights his eyes. “Well then, let me tell you a secret.”
In one swift move, faster than I can think, and with no trouble at all, Wilder flips us around so that he’s beneath me, and I’m at his shoulders, hovering so close I feel his lips grazing me where I need him most.
“Wilder.” My hands dig into his thick brown hair, but he wraps them in aether and tugs them overhead, exposing the front of my body as I dangle above him.
He turns his head to kiss the inside of one thigh, slowly working his way in. “The fact that it feels like this between us has nothing to do with me being Fae or you being human.”
Wilder skips where I need him, turning to kiss the inside of my other thigh, and it’s pure torture. My hips rock, but he denies me.
I glare down at him, and he smiles. “Then what is it?”
“This.” He tilts his chin, finally dragging his tongue over me and making the entire room fuzzy. “This is just us. And you are the best thing I’ve ever felt”—he drags his tongue over me again—“and ever tasted. You were made for me, Starfire.”
At that, Wilder shoves my hips down onto his face, and he steals any argument from my lips. His fingers grip my backside as he times my hips with his movements. Like the lapping of waves against the shore, he drags his tongue in and out, drawing delicious circles.
His golden eyes don’t leave me as he wraps me with his aura. And while his hands stay at my hips, something else nips its way up my skin, toying with my nipples. He’s everywhere, and it makes me need more of him.
His flesh.
His body.
A bind in my chest bursts, and my magic fights back against his restraints, tearing the aether from around my wrists so I can grip the headboard. He grins, seeing what I’ve done.
“I need more.” My mind is racing, and my heart is quicker than a hummingbird as he lifts me up and throws me back down on the bed, not wasting a moment before driving deep between my legs.
His kiss tastes like me.
Like us.
Like magic.
I wrap my arms around him, and his runes warm at my touch.
Until we’re brighter than the sun streaming through the window, bursting into a thousand pieces.
It’s only Wilder’s hands—his touch—that keeps me here.
He clasps the side of my face while we catch our breaths, sunlight glinting against his golden eyes.
I’m going to have to let this go.
Let him go.
He plants a kiss on my lips. “Not yet.”