CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE #3
“You feel so fucking good,” he growls, and my head falls back against the wall as I clench my legs tighter around his hips, spurring him on. “You never should have come here. And I’m a selfish bastard because I’m so fucking glad you did.”
He picks up the pace, sliding deeper, and every muscle in my body begins to tighten.
“More,” I demand breathlessly, and he laughs, his mouth finding mine again in a carnal kiss.
I writhe, my fingernails digging into his back, and his hands slide to my ass, shifting me so he can get even deeper. He drives into me, again, and again, and again. I’ll be bruised tomorrow, but I don’t care. I revel in it, demanding more.
Nothing else exists except this moment. These sensations. Us.
My breath catches, and pleasure washes over every inch of my body, spiraling through me in all-consuming waves. Tiernon plunges into me, stretching my climax as I shiver and arch and moan. With a rough curse, he slumps against me, following me over the edge.
My whole body is trembling, my limbs shaky. Tiernon holds me tight, stumbling toward the bed, and I curl up against him, both of us still panting.
“That was …”
“Yeah.” I’m still breathless, and he reaches out an arm, pulling me even closer. He presses a kiss to the birthmark on my shoulder, nuzzling at it. He used to tease me about that birthmark, insisting it looked like a skull.
We lay quietly, and I stroke his chest. My hands find a particularly vicious scar near his ribs. It must have been made with silver to scar like this, but Tiernon tenses when I caress it, so I leave the subject alone.
“Bodyguarding, huh?” He pokes at one of my ribs, and I laugh.
That sets us off, and we talk about anything and everything. It’s this I missed the most—talking and laughing with Tiernon. Getting his thoughts on my problems and giving him mine.
He tells me about the imperius, and how most of them hated him when he first arrived. Lucius had expected the promotion, and my mouth drops open when Tiernon tells me he was the one who took the longest to warm up to him.
Now, each and every imperium would give their lives for him without hesitation. Just as Lucius did today.
Tiernon’s expression turns flat, and I know he’s thinking the same thing.
“You were just a few years older than me when we met …”
Tiernon laughs, his bicep tensing beneath my head. “Is that a question?”
I poke him in the ribs. “I just wanted to check. I don’t understand how vampires age.”
“I never lied to you about that. Turned vampires are like insects in amber—frozen at the exact age of their turning. Born vampires age similarly to humans until around a decade after we’re fully turned. It’s only then that we’re … paused.”
Paused in a way that ensures they can live for centuries. I’ll be dust, and Tiernon will still look like a man in his early thirties.
“And your … brother? When we were young, it seemed like you were growing up together, but he’s a vampire too.”
“Rorrik is six years older than I am.”
“It’s … difficult to understand how you could be related to him,” I murmur. It’s even more difficult to understand how he could be related to the emperor, who is almost nine hundred years old.
Tiernon sighs. “Despite our father’s cruelty, Rorrik was once the best person I knew. He suffered loss after loss as a child and hung on to the scraps of his humanity. I was the one who pushed him over that final edge. I did this to him.”
I suck in a sharp breath. “How?”
Shaking his head, he drops a kiss to my forehead.
“More secrets.” I scowl, and his lips twitch.
“I need time, Arvelle.” He strokes my hair back from my face. “Tell me about your brothers.”
Gods, they’d adored Tiernon. Whenever he’d come watch me train, they’d come, too, eagerly following his instructions when he gave them drills. Evren, in particular, held a special kind of hero worship for Tiernon. For two boys without a father, he was everything to them.
When he left, they missed him almost as much as I did.
Swallowing down old bitterness—this time at the emperor, and not Tiernon himself—I attempt a smile.
“Ev is still so quick-witted. And Ger … he’ll do anything for his brother, even when he’s annoyed with him. They’re growing into good people. The kind of people who make me proud to know them. To have—”
“Raised them,” Tiernon finishes as he nods. “If they’re good people, it’s because you showed them how to be good, despite how hard your life was. You should be proud, Velle.”
“It’s just … Not being able to speak to them …”
“That reminds me.” Tiernon peels me off him like I’m a kitten, rolling off the bed and leaning down to rummage in a drawer. The aether lamps reflect light off the mirror in his hand.
“The original couldn’t be fixed, but the mage was able to use its power signature. This mirror will be a match for your brothers’. So you can talk to them again.”
My eyes burn, and I suck in an unsteady breath. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”
“Yes, I do.” He smiles that wide, beautiful smile I once adored.
I smile back. “Yes, I suppose you do.”