Chapter 48 #2
His ideas flooded the space between us. My back bent into a deep arch while I gripped the edge of the bed. My legs over his shoulders while he drove into me from above. Tying my limbs to each post around us so he could feast on my center. Taking me into the forest and fucking me against a tree.
Each image was filthier than the last, and heat flooded the place we connected.
His laugh rumbled in my mind. “Like what you see, little fugitive?”
“Perhaps.” Breathy need laced the response.
Vaeron snatched my throat, a sinister smile twisting his lips. His fingers tightened, only allowing me a sip of air. “I love hearing your voice in my mind. Perhaps I’ll always have to have my hand here, so you can only speak to me that way while I’m deep inside you.”
The way he bowed over me placed him in the perfect position. He pistoned his hips, dragging the perfect curve of his cock over my favorite spot.
“Yes, yes, yes,” I chanted, ecstasy overtaking all other words.
Another orgasm rose, quick and fast, and I cried out, body tensing before going lax.
With a groan, Vaeron pulled out of me, his cum pooling on the top of my thigh. Bracing his hands on either side of me, he dropped his head, capturing my mouth in a passionate kiss.
When he was satisfied, he released me at last. “I need to get you a potion.”
I tracked the way his muscles moved as he shoved off the bed. He retreated to the bathing chamber, returning with a damp cloth. He cleaned me gently, then pressed his lips to my reddened skin.
“Why?” I asked him, sitting upright when he finished. I winced, but my innate healing magic had already worked its way to my rear and soothed what remained of the sting.
“Because I’m not sure if I can hold myself back from coming inside the next time I have you,” he groaned, one calloused hand pressing to the middle of my chest and flattening me.
The next breath, he pinned me beneath his hard body. I pushed against his shoulders and gave him a shove. He didn’t so much as move. “Who says there will be a next time?”
A possessive growl rumbled against me. “You are mine, Sylaira. Don’t forget that. I own every part of you now.”
The vehemence of his words drenched me in a heady wave of lust. I should have been terrified—after all, this was what I had feared since my first vision of him.
But now that I knew Vaeron, knew his heart, knew the lengths he would go to for me…I couldn’t find fear within me.
Yes, the Issaraeth owned me—the entire Angel court knew it now too.
I’d let him claim me. I’d responded to his rough touch with eagerness. Our primal desire surpassed all the pain between us.
Now we were irrevocably joined, and there was no turning back on this path we walked.
I swallowed and turned my head to the side. I couldn’t look at him, not when reality wrapped around my ribs and squeezed.
“Hey, where did you go?” he asked gently, leaning to the side to capture my gaze.
Easier than when he’d made me his captive all those months ago.
“It’s nothing,” I said in a rush.
But he tasted my lie. After all, I hadn’t slammed up a new barricade to keep him out.
“Tell me,” he insisted, shifting off me and propping himself on his elbow.
The intensity of his scrutiny seared me, and I kept my attention firmly on the canopy over his four-poster bed. “What happens now?” Deflecting was easier than trying to unravel the complexity of my feelings. Because I couldn’t tell him beneath the bliss, the worry that I’d be hurt again lingered.
Dread trickled down our bond, despite his neutral expression.
Vaeron blew out a long breath. “You are excused from the morning Seeing session today. But Iaoth will expect you there in the afternoon. We can dine together and then I can walk you back.”
My stomach chose that moment to rumble.
“What else?” I asked, because today’s logistics weren’t what I’d meant when I asked that question.
My mate was silent for a long moment, but his thoughts were a blur.
He raked a hand through his mess of iron-gray hair, rubbing the back of his neck.
“My sister will tighten her grip now. I would advise keeping to yourself as much as you can. Maelsar, Heraphia, Lyriasthe, me, those are your safe people. Everyone else is there to watch you. To exploit the slightest weakness.”
A chill sank into my bones. Always, always, always I was the coveted object for what I could do for someone else. Never was I wanted for just me.
Except…
Vaeron was still looking at me like he would gladly face the wrath of the most powerful Angels in the realm for me. Like I was the air he needed to breathe. Like I was his salvation.
There was nothing he should like about me. We came from very different backgrounds. Our beliefs weren’t in any way aligned.
But he wanted me.
Because I’m his mate.
The thought whispered from the back of my mind, diminishing the beacon of the idea that he might want me for any other reason.
This bond was really the only chain tying us together. Without it, he would have simply handed me over and been on his way to hunt more Elessarum down.
“None of that is true,” he growled, hand tightening on my waist and dragging me closer to him.
“Listening to my thoughts?” I lifted an accusatory brow.
“It is so rare that you don’t have a wall higher than the one that divides our continent in place,” he murmured, eyes searching mine.
A breath shuddered in my chest. “It’s so difficult not to.”
He flipped me on my side and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I know, little fugitive. I know.”
A choked sob burst out before I could silence it. Vaeron only held me closer. The heat of his body, the firm, sure way he cradled me…
All of it shattered the thin sheet of glass I’d managed to erect over my feelings.
“You—you killed everyone I love,” I cried, shoulders shaking. “My parents. My friends. You hunted me, made me feel terror like I’d never known. Took me against my will.”
My fingers dug into his side like I could tear into his flesh. He made no move to stop me. Said nothing either.
“But now I’m in your bed, I’m in your arms seeking comfort.
How fucked up is that?” I hiccuped. “I was so, so angry that you didn’t tell me about your betrothal.
And now that it’s over, I don’t have anything to cling to to hold steadfast in my resolve to loathe you. In fact, I’m terrified of your trial.”
Vaeron rubbed a soothing circle on my back, reminding me far too much of the ring of black decorating the skin between my shoulder blades.
“Now, I have to confront myself. I don’t even know who I am anymore,” I admitted, my voice no more than a whisper.
“Our Radiant Mother has plans for you. For us,” he murmured, pressing his lips to the top of my head. “You may not believe that, but I do.”
A scathing laugh escaped me. The Goddess’s words blistered through me then, raw and wounding—maybe I didn’t know my power either.
“I’m serious, Sylaira.” He gripped my shoulders and forced me to look at him.
“Before our bond snapped into place, something in me was already moving toward you. Call it instinct, call it our dormant connection, I don’t care.
I tried to ignore it, but I failed. You were carved into my soul long before I understood why.
Your defiance, your quiet loyalty, your refusal to break…
I admired you before I even touched you. ”
I stuck my tongue into the side of my cheek, weighing his sincerity. My attention drifted to the scarred words over his heart.
DUTY ABOVE ALL
“You are a storm, Sylaira. The only one I’ve ever walked into willingly.”
He picked up one of my hands and placed it on his chest. The pads of my fingers traced the raised runes as the steady thrum, thrum, thrum into my palm grounded me.
“You will find your way again,” he promised, soft and shattering. “I’m going to make sure you dance again, and soon. That will help you more than anything else, I think.”
Air lodged in my throat. It had been so long since I’d properly risen to the tips of my toes, arms lifted toward the sky. Since I’d airstepped across a space. Since I’d spiraled beneath the sky.
Movement always helped me process my emotions, but since Vaeron had chased me into the mountains, I’d been denied what I’d spent decades honing to cope with the weight of my power.
I desperately needed it again.
“If you ever feel lost in the downpour, know you can tug on our bond and I will lead you home,” he promised, the velvet of his tone pebbling my skin.
“I have failed you in so many ways, and I will spend the rest of my life atoning for those moments. I want to be your sanctuary, Sylaira. Trust me. Even though it’s terrifying. ”
How was it that this male perfectly understood the tumult raging inside me? Surely our connection couldn’t convey the depths of it in such a way. I didn’t even understand it myself.
“Thank you,” I managed to say.
Vaeron swiped his thumbs across my cheeks, catching my tears. “Always.” He pressed a gentle kiss to my lips.
The release had left me feeling oddly…cleansed. Like by admitting my fears, I was free of them. That didn’t remove the ache of grief and guilt, but it abated. I sighed against him.
“While I would prefer to spend the rest of the day in bed with you, we really do need to get moving. I won’t risk Iaoth’s wrath on you today, not while her anger is still so fresh. At least for the next few days, we have to be perfect, dutiful servants of the crown.”
I nodded, and he released me, his touch lingering to the last moment. Rolling out of bed, I found my rumpled clothes and shimmied into them. Vaeron tugged on a loose pair of pants and nothing else. His sculpted physique drew my attention immediately.
I couldn’t help but drink in the sight of him.
At least if my choice in life partner was outside of my control, I’d gotten someone who looked like that.
And who fucked like a God.
A smirk curved his lips. I realized then I’d been caught staring.
But Vaeron dragged his gaze over me as if he was undressing me in his mind.
Images of positions he’d put me in flitted down our connection.
After everything we’d shared through the night, I found myself eager to return that night so he could be inside me again.
Yet as we parted ways, so too did the fog of bliss that had hidden the reality of our new situation.
Vaeron would face a judgement, a reckoning, beneath the divine eye of the Goddess.
Ice slithered through my veins as a singular worry rose.
What would happen to me if She found him lacking and killed the one person who protected me like I was something sacred?