Chapter 33 #2
I laugh, and the sound breaks some of the tension in the room. His hands find my hips, steadying me as I settle against him.
"I'm serious," he says, but there's a hint of humor in his voice now. "The first time Lysander looks at you like he wants to devour you, I'm turning him into gold, then smelting him to make a new door handle."
I smother a laugh. "Please don't. We need him for the battle."
"After the battle, then."
"After the battle, he's going to be bound to me. Which means you'll have to tolerate him."
Croesus groans. "This is going to be a disaster."
"Absolutely." I lean down, kiss him slowly. "But we'll figure it out."
His hands slide up my back, pulling me closer. "How are you so calm about this?"
"The calmness is the outside, a way to cope, survive, hide from the enemies. You know I am terrified, can feel it." I kiss his jaw, his neck, feel him shiver beneath me. "But I've learned that sometimes you have to just step into the terror and trust you'll survive it."
"And if you don't?"
"Then at least I'll have tonight." I sit back, look at him, this beautiful, damaged angel who's been alone for three thousand years. "At least I'll have this moment with you."
Something in his expression cracks. The careful control, the measured distance he tries to maintain.
"I love you," he says again, and this time it sounds like a vow. "I love you, and I'm terrified of losing you, and I'm going to spend every moment ensuring you survive all of this."
"I know."
"Even if it means letting six other angels touch you. Even if it means watching you bond with them. Even if it kills me."
"It won't kill you." I rock against him, feel him harden beneath me. "You're too stubborn to die from jealousy."
His smile slips across his face. Then his hands tighten on my hips, and the humor fades into something hotter.
"Raven," he warns.
"Yes?"
"If we do this now, if I have you tonight, I'm going to remember it tomorrow. While you're bonding with them. While they're touching you, binding themselves to you." His voice drops. "I'm going to remember what it feels like to have you like this. Just you and me. Before we had to share."
"Good." I lean down, whisper in his ear. "Remember it. Hold onto it. Because no matter how many bonds we create, no matter how many angels I'm tied to, this is ours. You and me. What we choose to be when no one's watching."
He groans, and then he's rolling us over, pinning me beneath him on the bed. His weight is solid, grounding, real.
"You're going to be the death of me," he mutters against my throat.
"Probably." I arch up against him. "But what a way to go."
He kisses me then, deep and consuming and filled with everything he can't say. All the fear and love and possessiveness and desperation bleeding through the binding and into the kiss.
I kiss him back just as fiercely, trying to pour all my own fear and love and certainty into the connection between us. Tomorrow we face an archangel. Tomorrow I become a weapon.
Tomorrow everything changes.
But tonight, we have this.
His hands are everywhere, learning, claiming, memorizing. He traces patterns on my skin, kisses every inch he can reach, like he's trying to map me entirely.
I let him. Let him worship me with touch and tongue and whispered words in an ancient language that makes my bones vibrate.
"Mine," he murmurs against my breast. "At least for tonight. Mine."
"Yours," I agree, gasping as his mouth closes over my nipple. "Always yours, even when, ah–"
He doesn't let me finish. Just moves to the other breast, lavishing the same attention, making me writhe beneath him.
"Croesus," I breathe. "Please."
"Patience." But his hand slides down my stomach, between my thighs, finding me already wet and ready. "Though you're making it difficult."
His fingers tease, stroke, circle but never quite give me what I need. It's maddening. Deliberate.
"I thought this wasn't supposed to be rushed," I gasp.
"It's not. I'm savoring." He slides one finger inside me, then another, watching my face even though he can't see the expressions I'm making. But he can feel them, through the binding, through the way my body responds to his touch.
"You're cruel."
"I'm thorough." His thumb finds my clit, circles slowly. "I want to remember exactly how you feel. How you sound. How you come apart under my hands."
"Then make me come apart."
He smiles against my skin. "As you wish."
He works me with expert focus, fingers curling inside me, thumb maintaining perfect pressure, mouth on my breasts.
It's almost clinical in its efficiency, except for the emotions bleeding through our bond.
His desperate need to please me. His fierce determination to make this perfect. His love, raw and overwhelming.
The pleasure builds, crests, and I come with his name on my lips, clenching around his fingers as waves of sensation crash over me.
He doesn't stop. Just keeps working me through the aftershocks, drawing it out, making it last.
When I finally collapse back against the bed, gasping, he withdraws his hand and brings his fingers to his mouth.
"Beautiful," he murmurs, tasting me. "You're so fucking beautiful when you come."
I should be embarrassed. Should feel exposed. But I just pull him down for a kiss, tasting myself on his tongue.
"Your turn," I whisper.
"No." He settles his weight more fully on top of me, and I can feel how hard he is, pressing against my thigh. "Tonight isn't about me. Tonight is about you. About making sure you remember this. Us. Before things change."
"Croesus," it’s not quite a whine, but it’s close.
"Let me love you," he says quietly. "Just let me love you. The way I want to. The way I need to."
How can I argue with that?
So I don't. I just pull him close and let him worship me.
He enters me slowly, carefully, like I might break. The stretch and fullness makes us both groan, and for a moment we just stay there, connected, breathing together, feeling everything through the binding.
"I love you," he says again.
"I love you, too."
Then he moves, and thought becomes impossible.
It's not rough. Not desperate. Just steady, deep strokes that hit perfectly every time. He sets a rhythm that's maddening in its consistency, building pleasure slowly, methodically, giving my body time to adjust and respond.
His mouth finds mine between thrusts. Kissing me like it's the first time, like it's the last time, like every kiss matters.
And it does. It all matters.
I feel everything he's feeling, the pleasure, yes, but also the love. The fear. The desperate need to make this moment last forever.
"I wish we could stay like this," he murmurs against my lips.
"We have now," I breathe back. "That's enough."
Is it? his emotions ask through the bond.
Yes, I answer the same way.
He shifts angle slightly, and suddenly he's hitting that perfect spot inside me with every thrust. I cry out, nails digging into his shoulders, and he keeps that exact angle, that exact rhythm, driving me higher.
"Come for me," he whispers. "One more time. Let me feel you."
Like I could resist.
The pleasure builds, builds, builds, his steady strokes, his weight on me, his love through the bond all combining into something overwhelming.
When I come, it's not explosive. It's a slow wave that crashes over me, through me, pulling me under and holding me there while every nerve ending lights up.
Croesus feels it all. And that, feeling my pleasure, knowing he caused it, pushes him over the edge.
He buries himself deep and comes with a sound that's half-groan, half-prayer.
I feel his release, his pleasure, his love all mixing together through our connection until I can't tell where I end and he begins.
For a perfect moment, we're one person. One soul. One heartbeat.
Then reality reasserts itself, and we're two people again. Sweaty, breathless, tangled together on the bed. Croesus doesn't pull out immediately, just stays there, buried inside me, holding me close.
"Midnight" he finally says, voice rough.
"Midnight," I agree.
"You're going to bond with six other angels."
"Yes."
"And I'm going to have to watch."
"Yes."
"And then we're going to kill an archangel."
"That's the plan."
He huffs a laugh against my neck. "We're insane."
"Probably."
"This is all going to go horribly wrong."
"Maybe." I run my fingers through his hair. "But at least we'll have tonight."
"At least we'll have tonight," he echoes.
We stay like that for a long time. Connected. Together. Storing up moments against what's coming.
Eventually, he slides out of me, rolls to the side. But he doesn't let me go. Just pulls me against his chest, wraps his arms around me, and holds on like I might disappear.
"I'm not going anywhere," I murmur.
"You can't promise that."
"No. But I can promise I'll fight like hell to come back to you."
His love wraps around me like a blanket.
"Sleep," he says. "We still have a few hours before midnight."
"Will you stay?"
"Yes."
"Promise?"
"I promise. I'll be here when you wake up. I'll be there during the ritual. I'll be there tomorrow when we fight." His arms tighten. "Wherever you are, I'll be there."
"Even when I'm bonded to the others?"
A pause, then, "Especially then. Because you're mine, Raven. Bond or no bond. The others can claim pieces of you, but this..." He presses his hand over my heart. "This is mine. And I'm not giving it up without a fight."
"Good," I whisper, sleep starting to pull at me. "Because it's yours. For as long as you want it."
"Forever, then."
"Forever."
I drift off like that, safe in his arms, his heartbeat steady against my back, his presence a constant warmth through our bond. Yes, everything is changing. But tonight, I’m just Raven.
And I'm loved.
I wake to Croesus shaking my shoulder gently.
"It's time," he says.
I sit up, disoriented. The room is dark except for the golden glow from the windows. Croesus is already dressed, hair pulled back, looking every inch the Lord of his House.
The warmth from earlier is gone. Now there's just tension. Purpose.
"The others are ready," he says. "The ritual chamber is prepared."
I nod, climbing out of bed. My legs are shaky, and I'm sore in a way that reminds me of what we did. What we have.
I dress quickly, simple black clothes, easy to move in. Pull my hair back. Try to look like someone who's about to bind herself to six fallen angels and not someone who's terrified she's about to die.
Croesus watches me prepare. I feel his love. His terror. His determination.
"Ready?" he asks when I'm done.
"No."
"Good answer." He offers his hand.
I take it.
“Let’s go anyway,” he says. And together, we walk toward midnight and magic and whatever comes after.