Chapter 4 – Neve
NEVE
Iperched on the bed, my nape still damp from my quick bath.
Vale had been speaking with Saga for longer than I’d expected, and despite having braided my long tresses to avoid them dripping everywhere, a chill was setting in. I was debating pulling a fur over me when the door opened.
My mate appeared, and though just seconds before I’d had every intention of losing myself in his body, my shoulders stiffened. His face was pale. Bloodless.
“What did Saga say?” I crossed the room and took his roughened hands in my own.
“The reason she’s here.”
Which I thought we’d already covered. Apparently not. “Which was?”
“Rhistel threatened her life, so she fled.”
My chest stilled. I despised Vale’s twin, and yet, when I looked up at my mate’s face, pain cut through me.
Vale and Rhistel were brothers. Twins. I knew as well as anyone who had a twin how unique that relationship could be, how intensely you felt towards one another, and I hadn’t grown up with Thyra.
Stars, she hadn’t even liked me just a few weeks back.
Still, from the moment I’d learned who she was, how we’d come into this world together and survived when the rest of our family did not, I’d had the urge to win her over. To be true sisters.
Vale, on the other hand, had grown up with Rhistel, but the passing turns had only torn them apart.
“I’m sorry, my love.” I hugged him, and my hands began to rub his back comfortingly. He returned the gesture, embracing me as if I was the only thing holding him together at that moment. “That must have been difficult to hear.”
“I don’t deny that Rhistel has murder in his heart, but Saga . . .”
“I know.”
We stayed that way until Vale heaved a long sigh and pulled back.
“I thought you might already be sleeping when I came in.”
Heat filled my cheeks. “Not quite.”
Vale arched his eyebrows as his thumb absentmindedly rubbed the top of my hand, right below the snowflakes lining my index finger. “What did I say?”
“Well, I was planning to seduce you, so I was waiting up.”
The sadness left his face to be taken over by surprise. Then he chuckled. “Seduce me? We’ve been awake for two days, Force.”
“I nearly lost you.” I savored the pet name he’d given me, one that showed respect and love for my power, and pressed my right hand to his chest. A soft exhale parted my lips. He was still so solid, his breath coming and going, steady, just like my mate so often was.
The image of Vale inside a cocoon of spider silk, lined up against a craggy cavern wall with my friends, would never cease to haunt me.
Had the dwarves and the other rebels not discovered where we were in time, Vale could have become spider food.
Or worse, he might have suffocated inside the silks like poor Ulfiel.
If our journey to the village of Eygin had taught me anything, it was that time was not a given.
Vale and I might live many centuries together.
Or one of us might die tomorrow. The latter thought sent a visceral stab of pain through me, and my fingers pressed harder against the fabric covering his heart.
“Impending death brings out the most primal of urges.” He lifted my other palm, kissed my hand. “And I won’t say no to loving my mate, but first I should wash. I’m covered in filth and can still feel that silk on my skin.”
“I already drew you a bath.”
He left for the bathing chamber. I wrapped a fur around my shoulders, crossed to the window, and pulled back the thick curtain keeping the sunlight at bay. If I laid down, I might pass out.
Outside, the day was bright. Rebels moved in and out of view. Many were talking to others animatedly. Most of the rebels had been present during our assembly, but those few who had been absent were likely now learning what had transpired.
I wondered if Astril, Freyia, and Livia were already on the King’s Road.
Racing for Myrr to meet us there in time.
Thank the dead gods, they had retained their fae wings after their transition to becoming vampires.
Wings meant the sisters would alternate between flying and running.
And according to Livia, their wings were less sensitive than they had been when they were fae, so they also could fly for longer than I would be able to.
I wasn’t sure how long I stayed at the window, mulling things over, but it seemed like no time at all before the door opened again. Vale slipped inside, a towel wrapped around him, showing off his powerful Vs and plethora of tattoos.
My heart rate kicked up. No matter how many times I had him in our bed, no matter how long we were together, I doubted the sight of Vale would ever cease to affect me.
“Force, why are you not snuggled beneath the furs and quilts?”
When he reached me, I tilted my chin up, sighing as his dark brown eyes met mine. “Didn’t want to fall asleep after all that talk of seducing.”
“Ah.” Hands gripped my hips. “There’ll be no more worrying about that.” He lifted me easily, and I smiled, relishing that he could do so as I wrapped my legs around his middle. “Are you ready to make me forget?”
Forget what his brother, the fae he’d shared a womb with, had done. Forget that cavern filled with spiders and an ancient king who wanted to command me. Forget all the bad that had befallen us in our short time together. If only for a little while.
“Give me a night to remember.”
“As you wish.” Vale settled me on the edge of the mattress, and his hands found the hem of my nightgown, teasing the fabric up until my thighs saw the light. His hands ran along the soft skin of my thighs, and heat seared at the apex of my legs.
Stars, I needed him more than I’d allowed myself to believe. Needed his pulse pounding against mine. His body finding pleasure in me. In us.
My mate eased my legs apart. The motion effectively tugged the nightgown up the rest of the way, exposing me. A low, masculine sound left his throat as he stared down, then dragged his gaze up to meet mine.
“Sometimes, I still find it difficult to believe that you’re mine.” His left hand, the hand that bore our soulmate mark, caught my chin as he dipped so that our lips hovered just above each other’s.
“Every piece of me is yours,” I replied, recognizing that while I’d been the one to initiate tonight, my mate wanted something different. Tonight, he desired control, and I was happy to oblige. “Now take your pleasure, love.”
His lips crashed into mine, and a sense of home, of him being that place for a fae like me who had not had a true home in so very long, skittered through me, like frost forming across a window covering each surface and crevice.
I whimpered as one of his hands climbed up my dress and caressed my nipple.
My hands settled on his hips and eased him closer before I tore his towel clean off.
He smiled into a kiss. “In a hurry?”
“I need to feel more.” To prove my point, I slid one hand between us and grasped his malehood, already hard and proud.
“By all means, I’m your plaything.”
I laughed, and he caught the sound on his lips again, swallowing it as though it were the most decadent dessert. Or perhaps that was just how he tasted to me. Like something I could never get enough of.
I almost lost him. At the reminder, my heart seemed to seize.
But no, I did not lose the person most precious to me.
He was before me. His tongue dancing with mine.
His hands dropping lower, tickling me as he went, his scent of sandalwood and fallen snow assuring me.
He was here. Alive. We were alive. As if to drive the point home, Vale’s fingers found their way to my center, and he rubbed the sensitive spot that both sent shivers up my spine and curled my toes.
“Wet for me already,” he murmured.
I shuddered as he varied the pressure and speed. All the while, his lips trailed down my neck. My fantasy of seducing him had been turned on its head, but I didn’t mind in the slightest. Not when he seemed to relish in my pleasure as much as his own.
Vale’s lips explored my own, my face, my neck, as his clever fingers continued to rub and tease and ratchet the tension in my hips ever higher. My legs tightened around his waist.
“Ah, my queen is nearly there.”
His queen. By the dead gods, this male. The topic of queenhood had been testy between Thyra and me, but to my mate, I’d always be his.
And he would always be my king. The male who, when I needed a protector most, stepped up.
The person who helped me grow into the force I’d become.
He’d never been hesitant or jealous as I grew.
As my power strengthened and changed. As I stepped into the shoes of a leader.
A princess of the realm. And yes, a potential queen.
“Come for me,” he whispered, his tone raspy, wanting, just as two fingers slipped inside me and the heel of his palm pressed into my core, I did just that.
My eyelids fell and stars exploded behind them as Vale wrung pleasure from my body.
When I opened my eyes again, it was to find him watching me, smug as could be.
I smiled, my body feeling wrung out, even if I wanted more.
Vale and I were here together, but I wished to feel him within me. To carry him within me.
Perhaps to start something new this night?
The thought startled me. As a slave, I’d always known that I’d one day bear younglings.
My master would have forced me to procreate, most likely with another tragically caged fae.
After I’d escaped, I thought only of freedom for so long.
When I began falling for Vale, it was difficult to imagine that my reality was true.
But it was. We were in love. Mated. And hopefully, we’d both survive the war to come and begin a new life. Perhaps it would involve younglings.
Not now though. No matter how much sharing that journey with Vale appealed, that day would have to wait.
There was too much danger. I would never forgive myself if I became pregnant and something happened to the child.
So after we slept a few hours, I’d seek the healers and get what I needed to prevent pregnancy.
Later though, I’d dare to hope for a stunning future filled with younglings with dark wings and silver hair and my mate’s smile.
Oblivious to the debate going on inside my head, Vale kissed me. I kissed him back, one hand on his face as the other guided his malehood to my entrance.
“I want you inside me.” I shifted to pepper kisses on his strong jaw.
He eased himself inside, slowly, achingly slowly. When he was fully sheathed, Vale lifted both my legs high.
Stars! The sensation multiplied tenfold as he found a new, deeper way to connect. My head tipped back as pleasure coursed through me again and Vale thrust deeper.
He pulled my arse to the very edge of the bed and lifted my legs higher, adjusting the angle to his preference. A low moan escaped my lips, and my mate’s searing gaze went feral.
“Fates. You’re perfect,” he said in the same moment that his soulmate mark glowed.
My heart fluttered. We’d had sex many times since the occurrence when snow and magic swirled around us, but that hadn’t happened again. We didn’t know how it had happened or what made it occur, but I savored the moment that our magics found as special as I did.
Vale’s hands dropped from my legs to my arse, and he lifted me more, shifting his angle yet again, and intensifying the pressure building inside me once more. He was close too, his breathing shallower, his face deliciously flushed.
“I’m there. Neve, are you?”
“Yes.” My voice came out husky, wanting, and I wriggled closer to Vale, not wanting even a hairsbreadth between us.
That slight movement tipped the scales. Light blasted from our soulmate marks, turning the room an icy blue.
No, not just turning it blue, covering the walls, the floors, the door with a glittering film of ice!
The temperature plummeted, but we barely noticed as our shared climaxes pummeled through us with the strength of a winter storm.
Vale swallowed the cry of passion with a kiss as he came.
Our bodies shuddered together, our hearts raced, but the magic coursing through the room vanished.
“That was something new.” Vale pulled me close into his warmth.
Clinging to him, I trailed a hand over the top of his wings. He shuddered with pleasure, making me smile. “At least the bed isn’t covered in ice. Would be hard to sleep that way.”
He laughed and retrieved the towel I had tossed to the floor, and cleaned me first, then himself. Finally, once we were done, we lay in our bed, my back tucked into his chest, as we stared at our room.
The magic we’d expelled was gone, but much of the ice remained, a strange glimmering blue color. Not at all natural.
“I wonder why that happens?” I mused.
“Me too, though I’m not inclined to ask around.”
Awkward indeed. “Few would know anyway.”
Only mates, and those were precious and rare.
“I’m so glad you’re still here, Vale. That we both are.”
He squeezed me closer. “When I go, I feel that it will be with you. That we’ll enter the starry halls of the afterworld holding hands.”
My throat tightened, and the words he’d said once rang through my mind, truer than ever. “And our souls will stay that way until the stars fall from the sky.”
“Until the stars fall,” he echoed.