Chapter 30
B ronze was an immortal fallen angel. A feared sentinel warrior. A being created by the prime mages and lauded for his cunning and cruelty in combating the demon charmers.
And he’d just been plopped on his ass by the woman of his dreams and ordered to sit as if he was—and the irony was not lost on him here—a dog.
“Clara,” he begged. Again—dog . “What are you doing?”
He was waiting for words. Waiting for an audible explanation as to why his princess had gotten to her knees before him and inched her mouth closer to his jutting erection that was so hard it was about to cut a hole in the tile beneath him. Because in what fucking world did he deserve this?
It was a dream. A miracle montage where she was the angel and everything around him was a temptation literal actual Heaven couldn’t touch.
And then her mouth was around him.
“Fuck.”
He lifted his head and tried to focus on the shower spray anointing the curve of her lower back and waterfalling over an ass he’d yet to stop dreaming about. Shit, no. Too much. Already, the suction and swirl of her tongue over his head was pulling him faster toward a curtain call. He shot his gaze to the ceiling, then back at her, then up again, throwing his hands out, bracing his palms against the cool slick tile and then swiping them away because he did not need another reminder of just how slick his current environment was.
“Clara . . . princess . . .” he breathed over a few too many strenuous swallows.
That was when the teasing really started. Slow, yet relentless. Curious, yet miraculously skilled. But it was when she dragged her tongue down the thick vein bulging along the underside of his shaft, then expertly cupped his balls, and squeezed . . .
Bronze lifted Clara off him and, palming the ass he loved so much, dragged her up his body until she was seated right where he needed her, with those powerful thighs hugging his hips and his cock sliding closer to her welcoming entrance.
“Baby,” he whispered into her mouth as they exchanged desperate breaths in quick pulses, “I’m going to finally— finally —kiss my mate as I’ve longed to. Rightfully. Wholly.”
Were there words after that? Maybe. In his mind, definitely , though they were mostly limited to the onomatopoeia variety, and all were lost to the welcoming shift of her hips that saw her hot core sheath him with such swift efficiency. Mouths came next, moving in a hurried rhythm that chased away any worries that had hunted him the past few weeks. Hell, his whole goddamn life. There was only the feel of Clara, in his arms, around his cock, expanding throughout his mind like a majestic starburst, searching out nooks and crannies that had only known darkness and illuminating the fuck out of them until they had no choice but to open themselves up to her beautiful brilliance.
The water had washed away all the debris and blood of the day—the nick from Raff’s claw scraping his chest, the bits of shorn hair that had managed to cling to Clara’s skin. But it couldn’t chase away the heat. Never that. Instead, as her hips and breasts swung toward him in a syncopated rhythm that would play on repeat in his mind for as long as he’d remember, a burning ball of embers deep within his core churned as well. Hotter than the relic’s smooth moonstone, which seemed to warm between them. Hotter than the approaching orgasm, which curled his hips tighter and made his muscles tense beneath the now-tepid shower spray.
Hotter than Clara’s faith in him, which had never once wavered.
Bronze broke from her mouth as a wave of heat punched through him, lighting his limbs on fire and pulling a cry from his soul that made the very water around them quiver. His release was painful in its pleasure, erupting in wave after glorious wave that only strengthened the heat around him.
Heat that spread and spread and spread some more, until it wrapped around Clara and cradled her as it guided her through her own pleasure.
Bronze . . . Bronze, hear me . . .
Beneath the heat and flame and fucking perfection of it all, an ethereal feminine voice urged his eyes open. His lids were only peeled wide for a second, but it was enough for the whole of his existence to bloom with eternal clarity.
The relic, nestled safely between Clara’s breasts, glowing with pristine opulence. Blue flame cocooning their bare bodies. Cleansing water dancing around them, misting into steam upon contact with the fire.
His angel fire.
The voice spoke again in his mind, through the shock, through the stinging tears that threatened to draw him away from the female in his arms. Bronze held Clara tightly to his body, tucking her head against his chest as they both rode out the spark that joined them in ways nothing else could. All the while, he kept his mind open, receptive to what the voice told him. All it revealed. All it granted.
All it pardoned.
And then it was gone, along with his fire, leaving behind nothing save for the soul-absolving clarity that Clara was unapologetically, undoubtedly meant to be his.
Bronze breathed through the shock of what he’d just learned and reached for the knob to turn off the shower. He grinned into Clara’s hair at the serendipity of it all. “Are you all right? Are you harmed? Burned?”
“Burned?” She pulled back, though her thighs still rested comfortably on top of his and her stomach draped across his own. “In a shower?”
“Let me dry and dress you. There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
A stark calm froze her features, and a look of concern flashed behind eyes far too knowing, but eventually, she smiled softly, nodded, and, thank fuck, let him tend to her.
Once they were dry and he saw her nestled comfortably within his arms under a mountain of bed covers, he let himself inch toward the one thing he couldn’t believe was waiting for him.
“What’s this all about?” Clara asked, proffering a sweet kiss to the center of his chest, right over the scratch where Raff’s claw had found its mark. “You seem troubled.”
Before he could lose his nerve, Bronze grabbed up her right hand and turned it over . . .
And breathed through the gut punch of his life.
“By the mages, it’s true.”
“What’s true?” Then she saw what he saw, and her eyes widened to match the perfect O of her lips.
The tattoo of his Empyrean name on her wrist wasn’t gold, like the ones he’d seen on his brothers’ mates, but was purely opalescent, like it had been ground from the most precious of seashells before being etched into her skin. Yet when he moved her wrist to catch the light, the same iridescent effect was achieved. Gone this way, and visible the other way.
A nod to her lycan heritage, one that was averse to metal but one that was still made perfectly for him.
“That is my name, princess, written in the old language of the Empyrean. Sendran . It is a mark that can only be bestowed upon the joining of true soul bonds.”
A shining awareness lit her features. “Soul bonds? As in . . .”
He smiled and kissed her fully. “Mates.”
“But how?” Clara tried to rub at the thing, but it stayed pressed into her skin regardless. And after a time, the worried rubs turned into sincere swipes and then, finally, soft caresses. “I don’t understand.”
Bronze fell back into the pillows and cradled Clara higher against his chest. “Many months ago, a goddess prophesied that I would meet a woman who would challenge me. A woman of lycan heritage who was, and I quote, ‘so very fond of their games.’”
She laughed softly, though her reaction was tempered with notes of disbelief. “How remarkable.”
“Quite. Her name was Saulé, and she was a celestial goddess who had done quite the number on my brother Brass and his now-mate, Molly. But anyway, it was Saulé’s words that convinced me I was on the right path when I learned of your heritage. And even more so when the true origin of your moonstone relic was revealed as well.” He lifted the fang-like horn from between her breasts and examined it with no small amount of wonder. “This isn’t just a relic of your people, Clara. It’s a piece of the Empyrean.”
“The Empyrean? How is that possible? How would you know that?”
“Because Saulé showed me in my mind when you and I joined together and enacted the soul bond. What you and your people view as a crescent relic of your Moon Mother is actually a piece of the Empyrean’s gates, which had been severed from the structure at the time my brothers and I enacted the Sealing. Whatever dormant celestial magic was still contained in here was the very thing powerful enough to break the magical suppression of my soul’s spark among your lycan land so it could finally spring free and seek out the matching spark in your soul.” His throat tensed with the enormity of all the goddess had shown him, all he was now being forced to reveal to Clara. “This,” he said, swiping a thumb over her wrist with as much tenderness as a warrior like him was capable of, “is the mark of the soul bond, of eternal mates. And now that this is truly free, so is my angel fire and all my celestial powers.”
Of all the things Clara managed to snag onto, that got her attention. She bolted upright, nearly headbutting his chin in the process. “You have your powers back? Are you certain?”
“You didn’t feel that heat or see the blue flames surrounding you as my power recognized you as its own to protect and serve? Are you telling me you really didn’t notice catching on fire? ”
She shook her head in disbelief, though her eyes hadn’t left the relic she now cradled.
And then, because he was a bastard and couldn’t resist, a teasing smile slowly split his face. “Did I just blow your mind to the point of actual memory loss?”
It wasn’t a headbutt, granted, but the slap to his chin still stung regardless.
“So, we are mates, then?” she asked. “True soul-bound mates?”
“Yup,” he said, sawing his jaw back and forth but smiling through it.
“But this relic is not of my people.”
“It is. Saulé assured me as much. Once it split from the Empyrean, it belonged to whoever claimed it. If it was your Moon Mother who blessed it thereafter and birthed the lycans, there is no taking away from that. It is yours, though whatever celestial magic that was in it has been spent in freeing the block on my power.”
That was another thing he’d have to dissect when his mind caught up to the events of the last few minutes. The relic was just that now. A true relic. An ancient artifact with no more power in it than whatever the lycans believed it to hold.
There was no going back to the Empyrean, not with that, at least. The stark reality of it all was almost laughable in its irony. He’d gotten the very thing he was meant to find, and yet he found no remorse in the change of course.
Fuck. His brothers, however, would not take well to the news. In that moment, though, with Clara curled safely against his chest and her body melting into the promise of his protection, there wasn’t a single regret to be mustered.
“I know,” Clara murmured, her voice growing heavy with the events of the day and all they’d learned. And then her slim hand came to settle on his chest, inches below his right collarbone. “I kind of figured something significant happened when Polina’s name disappeared before my eyes when we were in the shower.”
Saulé came to his mind again, pressing out the ripples of his anxiety even as Clara offered a revenant kiss to the spot on his pectoral once owned by another.
Your oath is fulfilled, warrior. Guard your lycan well. You have earned it.
As sleep cast a heavy pall over them both, he held his treasure close to his heart. He’d never earned anything in his life, and yet somehow, in the span of a week, he’d managed to win the world.
It was a lot to process and something he wondered whether he’d ever truly believe. But he was not one to dismiss fate, nor turn his nose up at what it offered.
So tomorrow, he’d tell his female exactly what was in his heart and dive headfirst into whatever awaited them.
Bronze yawned, clutched the covers up over the bare side of Clara’s head so she wouldn’t catch a chill, and cocooned her against his chest.
Yes, tomorrow.