Chapter 33
Aimee
With jittery fingers, I fasten tight the last buckle on my deep crimson leather vest. It’s a new piece that Killian gifted me, with golden embossing swirling all over the chest and sides and shimmering trimmings at the waist where it flares into a half skirt, covering only my backside.
Its plunging neckline reveals my Ouroboros mark and the swell of my breasts, rising and falling with every breath I drag into my lungs.
It’s supposed to make me look like a fierce warrior Queen, worthy of my Foretold One title and the fate bestowed upon me two thousand years ago.
Yet, as I glance into the full-wall mirror in Killian’s chamber—our chamber—all I see is the fear marring my features.
The deep-set of my eyebrows, the slight quiver of my lower lip, the tears I’m doing my damnedest to blink away.
Courage is not the absence of fear.
I can almost hear K’haram’s deep rumble lengthening the syllables, although my mental palace still remains closed off to him after our earlier, almost argument. I know that’s what he would say if he were in my head right now.
No, as I’ve come to understand, courage is the foolish ability to face head-on what terrifies you because it’s the right thing to do. Even the greatest heroes drown in dread, maybe even more so because they carry the weight of their heroism like a gilded noose around their necks.
I wonder in passing what my grandmother would think of me now. The only family member who ever showed me kindness. She would be proud to know the female I’ve become, yet wilt with sorrow that it’s my twin, the villain I must slay.
No point in dwelling on fates we cannot change, I guess.
I grab my leather pants, determined to finish dressing for battle, just as Killian emerges from the en-suite bathroom, a towel draped low on his narrow waist. He comes up behind me, a finger caressing the exposed skin of my arms, as he offers me his other hand.
“There’s a place I never got the chance to show you, umbra,” he says in that rasping voice of his that has heated the blood in my veins since the first words he’s spoken to me.
“There’s no time, Killian,” I answer with a frown.
“We make our own time, love. Just as we made our own story.”
Reluctantly, I place my hand in his, and our surroundings melt in a swirl of crimson-black shadows, the reality taking shape around us lush green and sweet-scented.
We’re in a glass house.
All around, framed windows curl in a domed ceiling, exposing the harshness of the elements outside.
The never-ending white plains, the blackened branches of dead trees spreading to the sky like bony fingers.
Yet here inside, verdure covers every inch in rich leafy greens and an explosion of colorful flowers.
The air is thick with fragrance: peonies, lilacs, and honeysuckle, the strongest ones.
Steam rises lazily from a pond in the middle of the conservatory, like ephemeral tendrils vanishing into thin air.
“Where are we?” I ask, turning into Killian’s cold embrace, a stark but welcome contrast to the warmth permeating the air.
“Inside the castle grounds. My greenhouse,” he answers with a sheepish smile.
I never would have imagined the ruthless Vampire King liked such a mundane pursuit as gardening.
“An ode to my mother. She loved the luxuriating nature she was deprived of in her forced exile to the North. She used to describe flowers to me. Their shades, their aromas.”
I squeeze his fingers in understanding. A place to remember her by. An anchor against the corrosive passage of time.
“I wanted one last moment of tranquility for us before we face the inevitable. To bask in each other in a place that’s dear to my heart.”
I rise on my tiptoes and place a gentle kiss on his cheek.
“And I love you for that, Killian. That and a million other reasons that not even eternity would be enough for me to list them all.”
“I fear I love you more, my umbra,” he says, gathering me in his arms effortlessly and carrying me to the edge of the pond.
With a flick of his fingers, his towel falls to the ground, revealing him in all his glorious nudity.
My vest is next, removed carefully by his adept hands, and we sink into the warm waters.
Pristine white water lilies float all around us, and as I wrap my legs around his waist, any remaining tension from my muscles evanesces like morning mist.
The slow caress of Killian’s fingers against my spine leaves tingles in its wake.
He’s unhurried, mapping every inch of me with his calloused thumbs in silent reverence.
I can’t move my gaze away from his; those onyx depths are an abyss in which I fall, again and again.
His sage irises burn with more than just desire.
It’s a raw, open flame that reflects in his dark gaze, like black embers of hunger.
Hunger for my body, sure, but more so, hunger for me as a whole.
The silence between us is unsettling, peaceful yet heavy with all the things we don’t want to leave unsaid.
The water sloshing at our backs as he glides toward the edge, seating himself on the mossy bank, is lulling me into a serenity I wouldn’t have thought possible mere moments ago in the castle.
I chuckle as a thought crosses my mind. “Who knew my most blissful moments in life would be at your side. The demonized Vampire King that made an entire realm tremble for centuries on end.” I press my feverish lips against his stone-hard jaw.
“My kidnapper.” Another peck on his brow as his breath tickles my chin.
“My captor, my jailer.” My teeth catch his earlobe gently, tugging the flesh as a shiver courses through his body underneath me.
His erection is jutting against my core, and it takes all my waning restraint not to grind against it. “My sweet tormentor.”
“You were never in any real danger with me, umbra,” he answers, kissing just above my collarbone. “I would have never…” he trails off, incapable of uttering the words.
“Oh, I know. My soul knew it long before my mind understood it. The real dangers have always been much closer to home.” I slide my hands up his chest, feeling every ridge and hard line along the way, then up the column of his throat until I let them rest against his stubbled jaw.
“I tried so hard to hate you, to see nothing past your cruel reputation, but all along the echoes of our past lives were chipping away the deceit. Our shadows recognized each other even when I had none.”
As if summoned, my ebony shadows curl around my fingers, blackening them completely before they seep into his skin.
My lips part in silent awe as his crimson mist travels up his neck, pulsing with need as it breaches the barrier of his flesh, leaping from his body to mine.
We are mirrors of each other, mere vessels that carry our ancient souls.
Killian moves, pressing a rough palm just above my breast. My heart thuds loudly in my chest, fluttering like a dove that’s been caged too long, yearning for freedom.
“You will forever be my truest one, Aimee. My only one. No matter what name you’d go by, what flesh would house your essence.
Male, female, it does not matter. If you’d be a flower, I would be the bee resting on your petals, begging permission to drink your nectar.
If you’d be a tide, I would be the shore you break upon, only to help you find yourself again.
I would be the night to your day, the curse to your blessing.
You’ll forever be the blinding star to my unwavering void. ”
He slips inside me gradually, letting me revel in his fullness, inch by delicious inch.
This is not our usual clash of passion, all teeth and fevered thrusts.
His movements are slow, devout, like a worshipper praying at the shrine of his one true God.
He interlaces our fingers, placing open-mouthed kisses on my knuckles, one by one.
I follow his sensual rhythm, rolling my hips to meet his push and pull.
Pleasure is unfurling in my body steadily, not like a tidal wave, but a perilous, slow burn that conquers every nerve ending until I feel like an eternal flame.
“Umbra,” he breathes against my neck, fangs grazing the sensitive skin.
“Killian,” I moan in return, closing my eyes for a heartbeat, letting the sensations wash over me languidly.
“I did not believe I was capable of such love, my umbra.” His voice is quiet, yet it reverberates through my muscles, my bones, finding its way to the farthest corners of my being.
“It was an abstract concept reserved for others, never for me. One thousand years of existing, but I had never truly lived. I know now my soul was lying dormant, awaiting your reawakening. To say I love you would not be enough. It’s much more than that.
You consume me, Aimee. You own me. I exist only for you. ”
With my eyes tightly shut, focused only on his words and the erotic motion of our conjoined bodies, I fixate on the strange inflections of his voice. A feminine layer surfacing, a shadow of a second voice echoing his confession.
Akaori’s voice.
When he says my name, her echo chants Aeon instead. And when his name falls from my lips like a strangled plea, a hoarse masculine lilt chorales Akaori instead.
We’re both ourselves and them, forever intertwined.
Memories unlock like a cage shattering its hold on me. Image after image, they spill from their vaulted prison, filling me like an amphora that’s always been two inches short of being whole.
The most beautiful female I’ve ever come across, with wild dark curls and eyes the color of a storm unleashed, bleeding into effervescent crimson.
A male with chestnut hair streaked by auburn, cropped on the sides and gathered in a bun, fierce hazel eyes, and a scar slashing from the top of his left eyebrow to the middle of his chiseled cheekbone.
My eyes snap open to the soft glow of our shadows pulsing on our skin, lighting up the surrounding air in hues of incandescent black and scarlet.
“Dragoste,” I whisper Aeon’s moniker for Akaori, “before you, I was so adamant to steer clear of emotions, fleeing at the first sign of anything more than casual sex. My trauma was my shield and my confinement, keeping me from ever connecting truly to anyone. But it wasn’t just that, was it?”
I trace his cheekbones with my fingers, committing every little detail to memory. The cool touch of his skin against my own, the prickle of his stubble, the way his nostrils tremble with each exhale.
“They were not you, Killian. You’ve always been the only one capable of shattering me and putting me back together.”
I kiss the corner of his lips, inhaling his dangerous scent—blood, leather, and my total undoing.
“We are two sides of the same coin. The only two parts that could make a whole. With you by my side, I will face whatever is thrown at us. For you, it’s all worth it.”
Killian captures my mouth in a fiery kiss, lust, love, and frenetic desperation pouring out of him as he bites my bottom lip until blood fills my mouth. His tongue sweeps in, devouring me, licking the blood that coats my teeth, eyes blown wide as crimson swallows his pupils.
“I love you,” I whisper like a broken tune, repeating those three words that are my only undeniable truth.
If all else fails, if there is nothing left to cling to, this moment here will last for all eternity.
Our love is immortal. And through it, so are we.
His fangs are pressing against my skittering pulse, burning but not sinking. I moan deeply as my hips pick up the pace, riding my Vampire King like it’s the last time.
Because it could very well be.
But it won’t.
“Feast on me, Killian. Devour me. Bleed me dry and carry my very soul within you for eons to come. Make us one.”
His control finally snaps, canines plunging into my throat just as his hips snap harder, sharper.
My wails pierce the night, bouncing off the domed glass ceiling of the greenhouse.
Our shadows hum, a buzzing static against our flesh.
They burn ever brighter, twin flames of darkness threatening to swallow us whole.
I lose all sense of time or space; my entire body is a raw nerve pulled taut, ready to rupture at any moment.
And then I fracture.
I surrender to the fall.
My being a flimsy thread caught in the eye of a violent storm of pleasure.
Spurred on by my clenching heat, Killian tenses, the vein in his temple a living thing. He spills with a roar, lapping the rivulets of blood marring the curve of my shoulder.
As we lay in the afterglow, chest deep in the cleansing water of the pond, a small, satisfied sigh escapes me.
“Gold coin for your thoughts, my umbra?” Killian asks against my hairline, his breath ruffling the fine hairs there.
I twine my fingers with his, resting our palms on his chest, just above his heart.
“Just happy, my love. Right now, in this perfect little bubble of ours, this is my happy ending.”
His penetrating gaze burns a hole in my face before he whispers, “There is no end to us, little umbra,” and kisses me anew.