CHAPTER 57 The Last Unicorn
CHAPTER 57
The Last Unicorn
Day 9
I n the dream, I floated on a lake of milk with the heavy liquid cradling my limbs.
Above, the trees glimmered with shimmering purple fur that rustled in the wind. I knew this lake—I’d seen it the first time I met James in the Gate, and then later, Sahn and I had swam together before making love on the sparkling shore.
Soon, these memories would be all we had of Ruhaven. Would Bryn make the Fall without me? If he didn’t, would he wake up every morning and wish he’d Fallen when he’d had the chance?
Then a crisp breeze swept under my nose, something caught in the night’s tide. I smiled in the water, recognizing the scent immediately.
O’Sahnazekiel .
I’d forget him soon, forget all of this once it really was no more than a memory.
I searched for him on the overgrown beach, where a rainforest of color spilled onto lavender sand, the foliage curling into tentacles that dipped into the water like a hundred octopuses gathered at the shore. Toothy butterflies the size of shoeboxes fluttered in the breeze. And all around us, the grinding of the gears could be heard.
But there he was. On the edge of the beach, Sahn lounged in a perfect imitation of the Gate’s memories—dappled-gray wings with the color and softness of a stallion’s coat, hair like golden smoke, velvet tail nestled in the sand, eyes glinting like metallic paint. A milky bubble burst on the side of his marbled torso, dripped.
He was naked. Gloriously, superbly naked.
I lifted my gaze and found his golden eyes rapt on me. A heated smile played across his face as bright and sweet as the indigo morning cresting behind us, the leaves glowing bright purple with the brilliance of it.
Feeling boneless and relaxed, I splashed lazily from the ivory water and into Ruhaven’s hot winds. If this was the last time I saw him, I wouldn’t waste it.
His gaze raked my naked form, roving over the milk that slid off my breasts, lingering at the heat already building between my legs.
For the first time when he spoke, it was in English and not Ruhaven.
His tail twitched in the sand. “I have been looking for you, my Rowan.”
His voice, his smoldering gaze, my name on his tongue—it was a direct gut punch, even in the dream.
I took my time walking to him, not wanting anything to prompt the lucid dream from suddenly ending and ruining the mirror image of Sahn—the male who was so beautiful, it seemed ludicrous I’d ever been afraid.
He leaned forward, draped his arms over his knees, hiding nothing.
Please don’t let me forget you .
The corner of Sahn’s mouth lifted in a lopsided grin, exposing a single fang. The gesture was all Bryn. “My Rowan, I certainly hope you do not,” he said dryly, my mind having perfectly captured his light teasing.
Steps away from Sahn, he snagged my ankle and tumbled me into his arms, laughing as he rolled on top, smothering me against hard flesh. Yes, this was what I wanted. All I wanted.
I looped my arms around his neck as he slanted his mouth over mine. The kiss was hard and wild and thrilling, with his fangs nipping my tongue, my lips, his hands diving in my hair as he consumed me.
“Rowan,” he murmured, sending a thrill buzzing under my skin, like my body delighted in his voice alone. His wings arched off the ground, feathers flexing and spraying and flicking hot sand over the legs I wrapped around his waist.
I brought my mouth to his sun-kissed neck, licking drops of the lake I’d dripped on him, whispering to his thundering pulse. I trailed my claws down his chest, my heart beating a wild rhythm that matched his own.
Then he drew back, stretched my arms over my head. “Rowan,” Sahn repeated, his mouth quirking up. “It is me .”
I tightened my legs, pulling him down. Sahn’s tail whipped the ground, sending another wave of sand over us.
“Rowan, I—” He huffed a laugh as I nipped at his neck. “No. I mean to say, I have been looking for you.”
Looking for me? I pulled away, frowned at the burning god who, for some reason, had decided to have a discussion now, of all times.
Rowan, this is not a dream. I am here.
I spluttered, a sound—I was sure—Nereida had never made before. “I…Bryn?” I choked out.
He grinned. “Yes, my Rowan.” My name rolled in a slow, deep avalanche.
“You— You’re here? I mean, where even is here? Am I dreaming?”
He smiled at me. “Somewhat. You are asleep, yes. I have created this bridge between us while you were unconscious.”
“But… how ?”
“Magic,” Bryn teased, his long braid tickling the tops of my breasts. “Us. Me. You. Our thread.” He punctuated each with a kiss while bubbles rose around us, the sand blinking in and out in the wild fog. “Instead of showing you a memory, I was able to create this space for us to speak.”
“Even if I’m in L’Ardoise, and you’re—”
“Rowan, if a million stars did not keep us apart, I do not think Tye will either.”
Emotion swelled in my throat—regret, love, worry, but there was no time for any of that. “Are you safe? Is James? Is Naruka—”
“You are the only one in danger.” He stroked a thumb down my cheek. “Do not worry of James or myself.”
But that wasn’t true, because I was the only one Tye had bothered to spare from the Inquitate.
“And this,” I said quietly as a bubble burst on the shoreline. “Is this real?”
“As much as us.”
I closed my eyes, not wanting to acknowledge the reality we’d left in his room. “How much do you know?” I asked softly.
The playful humor left his face as he pushed up to one elbow. “I heard nearly all before I was too weak to maintain the thread,” Bryn answered, sliding his hands over my buzzing skin. “It exhausted my abilities to speak to you so far away. But I know of the Drachaut, of Tye, of Carmen, of what Levi did to Willow.”
Yes, that’d been the last time I’d heard Bryn.
I tilted my cheek heavily against his palm. As his thumb moved over my lips, I said, I’m sorry for leaving you.
He sighed and drew me against him, resting his chin on my soft, jelly hair. His chest was a warm map of tattoos I knew as well as my own skin.
I closed my eyes, breathed in just him, a scent that was still Bryn, even when he wore the Azekiel’s body. His arms tightened around me until the hold was so perfect, so complete, it seemed impossible to believe in things like the Drachaut or the Inquitate.
This must have been how Nereida felt, why she mated with Sahn so many years ago.
I rubbed my nose up and down the column of his neck, listening to every trip in his breathing. “Did you tell James about the Drachaut? About Carmen?”
Smoky wings circled around us, blocking out the light of the lavender sky. “Yes, I told him before I left,” he replied, hand stroking so leisurely up my spine, I nearly purred.
Then his words registered. Left.
“Bryn,” I said, stiffening. “Where are you? You’re not—not here , are you?”
He huffed in my ear, tightened his arms before I could pull away. “I most certainly am. How else could I make such a bridge with you?”
“But the Inquitate, they’re—”
He smothered my complaints with a sharp kiss. “I know. It is why I am not inside with you now. I cannot get past the Inquitate, not without them threatening you directly.”
“Where exactly are you?”
“Outside Tye’s farmhouse in what I believe must be an abandoned children’s fort. I can see your window.”
“You need to go, now .”
His hands curled gently around my wrists when I shoved at him. “My Rowan, I am not going anywhere.” He skimmed his nose along my neck, back and forth.
“You shouldn’t have come,” I said, even as I leaned into him. “I’m fine, and now James is alone.”
“In this, James and I were of one mind. You may rest assured that should you somehow force me away, he will only send me back.”
James. I owed him so much— too much.
“Did you hear the call?” I asked Bryn, and thumbed a tattooed gear over his shoulder. It was the first time I could move and touch, not as Nereida but as me. I lifted my eyes to his, let my fingers explore the curve of his cheeks, the slash of jaw, the fangs slipping ever so slowly over his bottom lip.
“It was as Kazie described to me.” He nipped the hand I mapped his face with before his eyes turned serious. “Rowan, I know how we ended things, how this may appear to you. Please do not think that I wished for this to happen, for Tye to keep you from the Fall.”
I’d never think that of him, and yet he’d known—hadn’t he? That the Fall was coming, because somehow in the memories, Sahn was involved. But it wasn’t the time to ask him now.
“I thought you’d given up. On this, us, me.”
He touched his nose to mine. “I could no sooner part with you than my own soul.”
He might have meant it romantically, but it was true, wasn’t it? Our souls were so bound up that we’d traveled from Ruhaven together, had pulled each other.
I’m sorry I hurt you. With Tye, when I chose Willow, when I left.
His lips quirked, exposing a single fang. “Ah, does this mean my mate has at last forgiven me for hiding I was Sahn?” he teased quietly.
“Yes, which is why you need to return to Naruka before—” I broke off when his tongue circled under my ear, the texture like soft sandpaper.
And groaned when he lashed my pulse, cool as snow against the hollow of my throat. His hands slid from my shoulders to my breasts, as Sahn had a thousand times before, but this was Bryn and not a replay we had no control over.
He thumbed my nipples, moving in languid circles that somehow felt different than in Ruhaven. His heartbeat was as wild as mine, faster than the slow pulse of O’Sahnazekiel.
Fog crept into the jungle around us, spilling onto the sand as every nerve in my body focused on the palm pressing below my belly.
“Is it tomorrow?” I murmured.
“Yes, but Rowan,” Bryn said, voice husky. “I do not know that I can hold this world together while we are like this.”
I bit his lip. Sucked it into my mouth between Nereida’s tiny fangs. “ Try .”
His quick laugh died when I ground against him and found him hard, ready. Lightning sparked in his star-dropped eyes before his right eye flamed to melted gold. The left stayed an Irish Sea blue.
This was Bryn. And he was mine. In any life, like he’d said. That was the truth.
I curled my fingers around the solid length of him, stroked silky flesh. He inhaled sharply as if this touch were different than Nereida’s, than all the memories.
I would miss the Fall, and the Gate would close forever. This would be the last time I could touch, taste, or hear Sahn, the male who had been my mate a thousand years before, and the truth behind Bryn.
He spread his wings wide, feathers nestling in the hot lavender sand as I stroked the blade of each wing, then he flipped us in one smooth motion, stretching over me.
Above us, the lavender trees dissolved into the sky. The world was disappearing already.
“I need you,” I whispered, and locked my arms around him, anchoring Bryn, anchoring Sahn.
Breath rattled in his chest, echoing the breaking world around us. His back muscles rippled, wings sprouting from skin bunched under his shoulders. Sweat curled on his taut body. The tattooed gears marring his left bicep began to spin.
Gray angel wings arced wide, scattering any remaining sand, their beauty as staggering as him.
Burning stars, one blue, one gold, captured my gaze as he levered above. Fog scattered to gold dust, and the forest fell away, the sand melting into rivers. The dragons quieted, the phosphorescent trees dimmed, the wind froze, and music stopped.
Panting, I writhed against his hardness.
I do not think we shall have long, he warned roughly. I am already losing control of this bridge.
I gripped his hair. Then make it count.
Rowan . It was a curse, an oath.
My body lit with a pleasure that tingled from my toes to my head, a thousand memories spinning between us when he rocked his hips.
And the world exploded.