Chapter 17 Rune
rune
. . .
The kettle whistled, sharp and sudden in the quiet of the morning. I blinked a few times to orient myself again and poured the steaming water over the herbs and watched them bloom. The steam rose from inside my mug.
I didn’t even realize Dimitri had joined me until the faintest scrape of his foot shifted against the wall.
Glancing up, I saw him leaning there, arms folded as he watched me.
“I’m sorry,” he said. His voice was quiet, almost raw. “I overheard you that night with Jesper. When you told him about the icedrake.”
I stilled, fingers tightening on the mug. The ache of what Darian had done in our relationship still pressed over me sometimes like a frostbite that wouldn’t fade.
“It’s fine,” I told him softly. “If it’s you, I don’t mind you knowing.”
“None of that should’ve happened.” His throat bobbed. “Are you ready for the final today?”
I shrugged. “I think so. I’ve learned a few things about myself, like the fact that I’m building resistance to tourmalyke essence.”
His brows rose. “How’d you figure that out?”
“The last final.” I furrowed my brows. “The gas seeped out just when I found my target.”
He shook his head slowly. “I didn’t experience that. That seems…counterintuitive for the mission we had. Maybe mention it to Jarvins?”
“Maybe.” I stared down at my tea, almost forgetting to poison it. I turned and put some poison in, mixing it.
He pushed away from the wall, his slow steps carrying him closer. When his hand touched my shoulder, it sent a flood of warmth through me.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “For everything. But also…I can’t keep doing this anymore.
I—Rune, I have feelings for you. I want to wait for my fated, and it’s not fair to her or the Fates, but I want you desperately.
After overhearing what you went through, I knew I couldn’t hide my feelings anymore. ”
My breath caught.
The mug between my palms shook as I stared into his serious red eyes. “Even though I’m mated to Jesper?”
He flinched as if I’d stabbed him. “I know, and I’m sorry. I won’t pursue you. I respect you too much for that. I’d never want to get in between—”
“I want you, too. Jesper knows. He’s okay with it,” I blurted.
His eyes widened, disbelief breaking across his face like an oleander blooming. “You…you still like me? Even after you’ve mated?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes, and I know you know what that means.”
The desire in his gaze was raw and unguarded, hunger threaded with shock. The energy between us seemed to pull taut.
My pulse jumped when his hand tightened slightly on my shoulder, when his lips parted as if he might close the space between us, but we were interrupted.
“Congratulations!” Brynn’s voice sliced the moment apart.
I startled, jerking my head to where Brynn stood with a satisfied smirk on her lips.
“I just heard from the News Sector,” Brynn said with fake sweetness. “You’re officially mated, Dimitri. Congrats. Is your mate fated or arranged? Do they allow…partners?”
“Mated?” My chest cracked open, hollow and raw.
“So are you.” She rolled her eyes before focusing on Dimitri again. “It’s all anyone online’s talking about. Your mate is stunning!”
“No, you don’t understand—”
“So, you’re not mated?” She frowned, tilting her head as if she were baiting him.
“Not officially, I mean, I—” Dimitri stumbled over his words like he didn’t know what to say or how to explain it.
I couldn’t look at him. I shook so hard my favorite enchanted mug slipped, shattering against the floor. The shards of the mug blurred through my tears.
My chest hurt so badly I thought it might split open.
“Rune, it’s not what it sounds like, I—”
Without letting him explain, I ran.
It was stupid, but I ran out of the kitchen and out of the house, not bothering to grab any of my things. Cold air clawed at my lungs, but it was much better than hearing it from Dimitri himself.
Why had he confessed his feelings for me?
Shadows stretched ahead of me, then Ominous stepped from them, keeping pace with me. “Rune! Slow down. Listen to me, hey, hey, he’s not following. I told him to back off. Where do you need to go?”
“Drecken,” I gasped through the sobs that I couldn’t contain. “Please. Take me to Drecken.”
Jesper was on a mission, and the others had finals. I didn’t want to mess with their heads right before a big assessment.
His hand brushed my arm, and the world folded into darkness. When it reopened, Drecken’s classroom loomed around me.
Shedding the shadows until only his face remained out, Ominous muttered, “The vampire made her cry. She asked me to bring her to you.”
Drecken froze, his blue eyes turning sharp. “Thank you. I’ll take it from here.”
Ominous faded into the shadows as Drecken grabbed his phone and put it to his ear. “Jarvins? Hey, I have Rune. Don’t mark her as deserted. She’ll be ready for the final in an hour.”
Jarvins said something, but I couldn’t focus on it. The feeling in my chest was suffocating.
The moment Drecken set the phone down, he was in front of me.
“Are you okay?” His hands hovered near my arms like he wanted to touch me but wasn’t sure if he could.
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “It’s like this ache. This jealousy that’s suffocating me. It gnaws at my chest when I see him with Brynn. When I even think of him not looking my way. It’s not fair, and I hate myself for it.”
Drecken stilled, his eyes catching mine, unreadable.
“My chest—” I pressed a hand there, where the matebond thrummed with Jesper’s silent reassurance but also a crack that led somewhere else.
“It feels like it’s splitting open. Fates, I can’t stop thinking of Dimitri.
Even when I don’t want to, because apparently he has a mate.
It must be an arranged mating, but why wouldn’t he tell me?
I shouldn’t even care about him, not when I should be happy already. I’m bonded to Jesper.”
“You think Dimitri is your mate.” His voice came out quiet.
Tears burned my eyes, but I nodded. “I don’t just think. I know. And that makes me sick, because”—my voice broke—“because I still want him. Even after hearing about his evident mating. And I don’t know how to live with that. What if he wants her instead?”
“Then, he’d be an idiot, and I don’t see him as an idiot.
” Drecken reached up slowly. His thumb brushed across my cheek, catching the tear that slid hot down my skin.
“You’re not alone in your jealousy,” he admitted.
The words sounded ripped out of him, like he’d been holding them back for too long.
“I’ve been brewing a potion. Something to numb jealousy because I can’t stand it, Rune.
I can’t stand watching you with them, and I hate myself for feeling that way. ”
His hand lingered on my face.
Our eyes locked, and for the first time, I saw him completely open to me, and what I saw was longing and pain.
“Drecken…”
“I’ve never felt this before,” he continued, voice breaking low, “and I hate that you’re suffering with it too. I hate that jealousy is eating at you the same way it devours me.”
My throat closed, and I blinked back another wave of tears. The honesty in his tone unraveled me again.
Had I not explained to him I want him, too?
“Can I have the potion?” I whispered, my hand curling against his lab coat.
He froze. His eyes searched mine. “I haven’t tried this one yet.
My last one didn’t work.” He reached into the other side of his coat and pulled free a slim vial, stoppered with a cork.
The liquid inside shimmered faintly. It was a violet that seemed to shift to dark blue in the light. “We can try it together.”
He popped off the cork and drank about half before pressing the vial into my palm.
My hand tightened around the vial. “Thank you, Drecken. I still have feelings for you, too, for the record.”
He froze as I tilted the vial back. The potion burned bitterly down my throat, heat pooling in my chest like a balm over my soul. My vision blurred, and I felt the bond snap between Drecken and I.
The potion didn’t numb my jealousy. It…forced our bond. It snapped like a lightning strike through the marrow of my bones, tying my soul to his.
Magic arced under my skin.
Drecken gasped.
My fingers trembled as the vial fell from my hand and shattered below us. Magic swelled, crashing through the classroom, off of us both in a way I’ve never felt before.
He staggered back, panic and elation warring in his eyes. “I didn’t mean to, Rune. That potion wasn’t meant to—” He paced, wild, his aura and magic blazing uncontrollably.
But all I felt was him.
Drecken.
His anxiety and worry, yes, but also the tether, the undeniable pull of the matebond.
I laughed through my tears and moved to him. “Drecken. We’re…mates.”
His breath caught. Every muscle in his body went completely still. “I never thought I’d be blessed with a mate.” His voice cracked. “Not me. Not after so many years of being alone.”
“Well, you are,” I told him. “And I’m ready to mark you if you are.”
His eyes darkened, magic flaring everywhere.
With a snap of his fingers, our clothes melted away into sparks, reforming on his desk, folded neatly. A bed took the place of all the desks in the room with the next snap of his fingers.
His arms locked around me as he teleported us onto the bed.
Heat radiated from his body, and the bond surged stronger.
“I’ve never done this,” he confessed hoarsely. “But I know the theory of sex magic. I’m confident in my ability to perform it.”
“Sex magic?” I tilted my head, desire thrumming through me, pushing me to mate him.
His lips twitched into a nervous smile. “Where do you want my mark?”
“I don’t care,” I whispered. “You choose. I just want you.”
“I wouldn’t tell me that.” Magic sparked from his body. “I’d mark your forehead if it were up to me.”
“Here.” I pointed to my left shoulder, watching his eyes drop and freeze as he noticed my exposed breasts, but then he forced himself to look at where I pointed. “I want your mark here.”
He smiled and leaned in, licking my shoulder. A sizzling burn seared into my flesh as the blue and green Grimsworn crest was branded onto my shoulder, marking me as his.
Tears dampened my skin as he whispered, “I never thought I’d be worthy of this.”
Need roared through me, eclipsing everything else. I couldn’t think of anything or anyone but Drecken. My fangs ached.
“You’re more than worthy.” My hands trembled as I tilted his face. “Let me mark you.”
“Mark me,” he croaked.
I pushed him back on the bed, sitting on his hardened length and leaning down until my fangs embedded into his neck, the same place I’d marked Jesper. I pushed my magic into him, and the bond erupted again as we sealed it.
Lightning tore through the classroom. Colors of blue and green whirled around us but never touched the bed. Our magic braided together until I couldn’t tell where his aura began and mine ended.
His mark on my shoulder began to burn badly, and I pulled my fangs out, gasping at how sharp the pain was. “It’s burning.”
“Because we’re about to make love.” He reached up and cupped my cheek. “Are you ready, viperling?”
“I need you, Drecken.” I lifted my hips, and he situated his cock at my entrance.
“I’ve never done this before, so I hope I don’t disappoint.” He let out a shaky breath.
“You could never disappoint me.” I slipped down on his dick easily from how wet I was, and pleasure overtook me in a way I wasn’t expecting.
Before I was even fully taking him, my first orgasm rippled through me, and the burning in his mark faded.
“Fates!” I cried out, slipping the rest of the way down in pulses from my inner muscles rippling around him.
Ecstasy ricocheted from the mark, down my spine, and into my core. It exploded over and over again. An onslaught of non-stop orgasms funneled through me until stars burst through my vision.
“Fates, Rune.” His hands squeezed my breasts gently, and his thumbs flicked over my nipples.
My eyes rolled back as his magic and mine swirled around us.
“Drecken!” I screamed just as another orgasm stole my breath. I rocked my hips in jerky, uncontrolled motions.
Friction penetrated every single part of me.
He grabbed my hips and thrust up into me. “This feels better than anything I have ever experienced in my long life, and it’s all because of you.”
After three, pleasurable thrusts, he moaned loudly and unbidden.
“I can’t…stop,” he gritted out, his thrusts deep.
“Don’t stop. Give me everything you have, Drecken.” I balanced with a hand on his chest as my body continued being thrown into the throes of pleasure.
The magic that sparked off him was coming off in arced bolts, and he spilled inside of me a few seconds later.
My cries and screams dwindled as I fell off him, onto the bed in a puddle. “Drecken, that was…”
“Sex magic,” he told me with a heavy breath of air. “I’ve never felt something like that before.”
“Have you never…” I furrowed my brows.
“I’ve never come. That was my first time,” he admitted, his cheeks red. “And it was everything I ever dreamed it would be.”
Our magic melded together in a way that made my soul feel that much closer to being complete.