Chapter 48
White. Suffocating. Entombing. There was nothing and everything, no sense of up or down. Just…endless.
I blinked, trying to focus on something, anything that might indicate my location. But no matter which way I turned, only that incandescent void greeted me. Even Vaeron was nowhere to be seen—hadn’t we fallen asleep together?
Pleasure didn’t course through my veins. I looked down at myself.
Long, billowing sleeves held my arms captive. A set of robes, similar to what priestesses wore, draped the rest of my body. My brows furrowed.
Where was I?
“Daughter.”
The word had me whirling around, searching for the source of the sound.
From the abyss, a feminine figure emerged. Never had I seen someone so beautiful. Face perfectly serene, skin smooth as glass, omniscient orbs in a shade paler than should have been possible. She glided like the world bent around her, hair like freshly fallen snow drifting behind her.
It wasn’t comforting; it was cruel. Terror looped a noose around my neck and cinched.
“Why do you reject my gift, daughter?”
There was that term again. But she wasn’t my mother.
“I am no mere female. I am Goddess.”
The realization slammed air out of my lungs. Her divine stillness should have been the first indication. That unnerving, unblinking gaze the second.
I fell to my knees, hooking my thumbs together and pressing my palms over my heart. I rocked back and forth, fluttering my palms.
“Forgive me, Radiant Mother,” I pleaded. “I did not know.”
“No, you would not for how long you have tried to keep me out. But I am stronger than your attempts to reject what I blessed you with,” she said, her words sharp and aimed to wound.
“I am sorry,” I breathed, keeping my head down so she wouldn’t see the lie.
She tasted it anyway. “You think visions a curse. You have no idea the power you truly hold.”
She was wrong. In this realm, I was powerless. Trapped beneath those who sought to exploit me. And Seeing? That would be letting them win.
I’d resolved myself to find a way toward a continent I wanted to live on, a continent where peace reigned.
But now that I was at the center of the Angel court, I had no idea how to make it happen.
“You know more than you think,” she stated, because my thoughts were no secret from our creator.
“I don’t!” I protested, finally lifting my gaze. “Please, Radiant Mother, guide my way.”
Her gown fluttered on an invisible breeze.
Breeze?
We were no longer trapped in an incandescent void, but rather on top of a mountain. A broad, endless blue sky haloed the Goddess. Her bare feet floated above a glacial rock.
I recognized the place from drawings made by a long-dead Elessarum member.
One of the holiest places in Keleti, if not the holiest, at least to peace lovers.
It was where our founder had had a vision of Ravasz’s future.
No one had been around to record it, which meant he had to rely purely on memory.
The fragments were enough to frighten him into founding our society.
So why had the Goddess brought me here?
She studied me as if she were weighing my worth. I itched to shift out from under her scrutinizing gaze. My skin crawled, air tightening in my lungs.
Silence stretched between us so long, I had to shatter it or lose my sanity. “Why did you make him my mate?”
“Change,” she stated simply, like that was any type of explanation.
“I don’t understand,” I cried. Vaeron and I were mirrors to one another, that much I knew. We danced a delicate balance between defiance and duty and desire.
“You do not need to. You merely need to trust.”
I gritted my teeth. “I refuse. You know. Tell me.”
“No.”
The word had me rising to my feet.
“You have rejected my gift for far too long for me to give you an explanation.”
I was no vessel, not a plaything to be broken open by prophecies, not a female traded like a trinket of luck in a holy war.
“Then why are you here?” I gestured around us. “Just to admonish me for refusing to contribute to the slaughter of my kith? All I want is peace. Do you not?”
“Peace comes with a price, child. Are you willing to shoulder the cost?”
“What price?” I whispered, fear wrapping thorny vines around my heart.
Her expression remained perfectly neutral. So perfect. Like it had been painstakingly carved into stone and not earned.
“What price?” I demanded, my voice rising this time.
“Sacrifice.”
Lightning arced under my skin—and then the world gave way beneath me.
I woke with a start, hand flying to my chest. Sun flitted through shades on the windows, and a warm body pressed against my back.
I squeezed my eyes shut, willing my heart to slow its erratic beat. Memories of the previous night surged in the spaces between. The ball, Vaeron Commanding everyone, thereby saving me from dancing with that vile noble. His admission to the entire court that I was his mate.
How he’d claimed me.
An ache sparked to life—a reminder of last night’s surrender. My entire body was sore, and my soul was weary. Heat radiated off Vaeron, the slow expansion of his chest at my back soothing away the lingering terror of falling.
That dream had felt so real. So sharp, so precise, almost like a vision. But it sat wrong in my marrow, because there was no way I’d ever meet the Goddess in corporeal form, especially in our world.
Was it my guilt worming its way into my sleep, telling me that I needed to accept my secondary power and wield it?
Heraphia’s begging, all the times she’d sat in her chair and murmured “for Zuriel” to herself before we were forced to See, the death of the less powerful Seers, all of it could have been weighing on me while I wasn’t consciously able to control it.
But our Radiant Mother had said to trust.
And that was not something so easily given. Not when my life had been about running and hiding.
What had she meant about not knowing my own power? That part, above all others, haunted me. Had she been listening, been watching as Vaeron hunted me? Did she witness the thunderclouds gathering day by day as I suffered at the hands of the monarchs who ruled Her people?
Was that what she wanted from me now, to use my Sight to find a way to peace?
Bile rose in my throat. She’d said there would be a cost. A sacrifice. And asked if I was willing to accept the price. But without knowing exactly what that was, how could I make a decision?
Vaeron stirred behind me, halting the spiral of my thoughts. The flex of his muscles dragged me even closer. His lips pressed against my neck, and I sank into his embrace. He lingered there like he was memorizing how our bodies curved together.
“Morning, mate,” he murmured. His erection dug into my backside, insistently awake. “Goddess, it feels so good to wake beside you again.”
“I know,” I whispered, because it was true. I was cracked, shattered in ways my innate healing magic could not touch. As much as Vaeron had hurt me, he was also the only one who could piece me back together.
I battled with myself to let him in fully again. To trust that this time, now that everyone knew of our bond, things would be different.
We were still naked, and so he shifted, his hardness slipping between my already slick thighs. I groaned, unable to help myself. Unable to deny him. Unable to do anything but wriggle my ass against him, encouraging him to continue.
All I wanted was to forget. Forget the upcoming trial. Forget that danger lurked around every corner of this palace. Forget that the Koron and Korona wanted to use me as a weapon of war.
His teeth sank into my shoulder, drawing a hiss. And then, he slid inside me. Soreness bloomed, but he worked slowly, loosening my tense inner muscles.
One hand traveled lower, cupping my core. Skillful fingers found my clit and flicked. I gasped, back arching away from him. It wasn’t long before bliss closed in on me.
“Touch your nipples,” he ground into my ear.
My hands flew to my breasts, massaging them. Vaeron nipped at my neck, his pace quickening. “That’s my good girl.”
His praise made my center weep. My breath hitched as he shifted us, changing the depth of his dick. His free hand found my hair, circling around the tangled length, and tugged.
With the hold he had on me, I was utterly at his mercy.
I fucking loved it but loathed myself for letting the leviathan close. Wanting Vaeron would be my fatal mistake.
The edge neared, and I prepared to leap off it. Rolling my nipples between my fingers, I pinched. The bite of pain was all I needed to fall.
“Vaeron,” I gasped, clenching around him.
When I finished coming down from my high, he repositioned us so I was lying on my side, legs stacked and revealing my core.
With a brutal thrust, he entered me again. The darkness in his eyes seared into mine. He smacked my ass, fucking me harder and harder. Our skin slapped from the force of it.
The sting from his next strike made my breath flee.
He sank into me, all the way to the base of his shaft.
Retreated.
Spanked me.
Speared.
The slow pace allowed every moment to land with ruthless precision. Forced me to feel the entirety of each action.
And not once did Vaeron look away from me.
“You take me so well,” he growled, increasing the rhythm.
I hated that it was so easy to open up for him like this. Hated how my body pleaded for more when my soul hadn’t finished grieving the loss of everything I used to be.
I whimpered, my skin raw with pleasure.
“You can handle it,” he encouraged, like he sensed the sensitivity through our shared connection. I dragged in a breath, the world melting away as I stared into twin glaciers.
He rubbed a soothing circle over the spot he’d been punishing. Heat radiated off my skin while energy crackled beneath his touch.
“Look how good you’re doing,” he praised. That only served to make my center wetter. “I can’t wait until you’re fully healed. The positions I’m planning to put you in…”