Chapter 39 #2
Her hands aren't idle, exploring the planes of my back. When her nails scrape lightly down my spine, I growl against her skin, my wolf rising to the surface like a tide answering the moon's call.
She pulls me back up to seize my mouth, the kiss fierce and commanding. Her leg hooks around my hip, pulling me more firmly against her. The contact ignites every nerve ending, the heat between us building to an inferno that threatens to consume us both.
And I want it to.
My hand slides down her side, over the curve of her hip, tracing patterns on her thigh that make her breathing hitch. When I find the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, she breaks the kiss on a gasp, her head falling back against the furs.
"Fen, please."
I trace my way back up her body, mapping every inch with lips and tongue and gentle teeth. The soul shard beneath her skin pulses with amber-white light as I near it, growing brighter when my mouth hovers over the spot.
“You belong to me, Astrid. And I to you.”
The possessive words make her eyes flash, her wolf responding to mine. She moves suddenly, flipping our positions so she straddles my hips, looking down at me with a mixture of desire and newfound wildness that makes my breath catch.
"Yes," she says, and it's not a question. Her hands pin my wrists to the furs on either side of my head, her strength surprising and arousing in equal measure. "The wolf says it’s forever."
"The wolf is right," I agree.
The word forever resonates differently when you've been alive for centuries.
Forever is not an abstract concept to me, but a vast, stretching reality I've endured largely alone.
Until her. The thought of traversing the rest of my life with Astrid at my side fills me with a profound peace I've never known.
What was once an endless burden now feels like a gift. Forever with her will never be enough.
She leans down, her silky hair falling around us like a curtain as her mouth descends on mine. The kiss is different this time—she leads, setting a pace that's both teasing and commanding. Her teeth catch my lower lip, tugging before soothing the sting with her tongue.
When she moves lower, trailing kisses down my throat, my chest, I struggle to maintain control. Her mouth finds a sensitive spot just below my ribs, and my hips buck involuntarily beneath her.
She smiles against my skin, clearly pleased with the response. "I’ll remember this spot," she murmurs, and demonstrates by pressing an open-mouthed kiss to the same place. My entire body tightens in response.
"Astrid," I groan, her name both warning and encouragement.
Her exploration continues, unhurried and thorough, as if she's committing every inch of me to memory. The casual confidence of her touch, the way she takes what she wants, drives me to the edge of my sanity.
My muscles coil tight. Every gentle touch from her fingertips stokes the savage need building within me—to take her, to bury myself inside her, to sink my teeth into the tender junction where neck meets shoulder and mark her as mine for all eternity.
The mating urge pounds through my veins.
I grip the furs beneath us, claws threatening to emerge as I battle for control, wanting to savor her boldness even as instinct screams for completion.
When she returns to claim my mouth again, I move my hands moving to her hips. In one fluid movement, I flip us again, pressing her back into the furs, my body covering hers.
"Mine," I growl against her throat, feeling her pulse leap beneath my lips.
I trail kisses down her body, worshipping her with mouth and hands. Her skin tastes like salt and pine. Each gasp, each moan, each whispered plea of my name is a gift I never expected to receive.
When I reach the apex of her thighs, her hands tangle in my hair, her breath coming in short, sharp pants. I glance up to find her watching me, her eyes now more gold than blue, her wolf as close to the surface as mine.
"Please," she whispers.
I comply eagerly, my mouth finding her most sensitive spot. Her back arches off the furs, a cry escaping her that echoes in the small cabin. I hold her hips steady as she writhes beneath my tongue, watching with fierce satisfaction as she comes undone.
I move back up her body, capturing her mouth as she trembles with aftershocks. The taste of her lingers on my tongue as I devour her lips, my body positioned above hers, ready to join us completely.
The magnitude of this moment strikes me with breathtaking force. After centuries alone, after losing her to death itself, I hover at the threshold of something sacred and irrevocable. For one heartbeat, I pause—not from doubt, but from reverence.
"Fen," she gasps against my mouth, her eyes finding mine. "I need you. Now."
She reaches between us, her touch bold and sure, guiding me to her entrance. The heat of her nearly undoes me before we've even begun.
“Once we join, once I bite you and you bite me in return, there's no going back, Astrid."
Her eyes soften slightly. “I know.”
"You don’t know everything." I say honestly. "You will always be able to feel me, sense my emotions, know when I am in danger. I will feel the same with you. Distance will become painful if prolonged."
"My old life is gone," she says quietly. "You are my life now. I choose you.”
Relief and desire crash through me in equal measure. "Are you sure?" I ask, searching her eyes for any hesitation, but I see none.
Her answer is to pull me down for a kiss that leaves no doubt about her decision. When we part, her eyes are bright with determination and something deeper that makes my heart clench.
"I've never been sure about anything in my life," she admits with a small, wry smile.
Time shatters. Reality fractures. As I sink into her welcoming heat, the sensation transcends the physical—though that alone would bring me to my knees. This is something magickal. Something sacred.
Her eyes widen, the gold in them flaring brighter, wolf-light mingling with the glow of the soul shard. "Fen," she gasps, her fingers digging into my shoulders, her body arching beneath mine.
I begin to move, each thrust deeper than the last, our bodies finding a rhythm as ancient as the forest around us. It’s just us. Skin against skin. Breath mingling with breath. Her heartbeat syncing with mine until I can no longer tell where I end and she begins.
The soul shard glows brighter with each passing moment, its light bathing us both in amber-gold radiance. My wolf rises in me, clawing its way to the surface, demanding completion. From the way Astrid's eyes shine, more gold than human now, I know her wolf is doing the same.
"I feel it," she whispers, her voice roughened with desire and something wilder. "The wolf—she wants—"
"I know," I murmur against her throat, my teeth grazing the sensitive skin there. "Let her take what she wants."
Her hands slide into my hair, gripping tightly as she pulls my mouth to hers. Our pace quickens, the tension building between us like a gathering storm. I can feel her everywhere. Her essence intertwines with mine.
"Mine," I growl against her neck, feeling the exact spot where the wolf demands I mark her.
"Yours," she agrees, her voice barely human. "And you're mine."
Her head turns, finding the corresponding spot on my shoulder, her teeth scraping experimentally. The sensation sends a jolt straight through me, making me groan.
We move together, climbing higher, the pleasure building to a point that seems impossible to contain within mortal flesh.
As ecstasy crashes through us both, my teeth find the junction of her neck and shoulder, breaking skin. At the same moment, her teeth sink into my shoulder, completing the circuit. Blood mingles with blood, soul with soul.
A surge of power explodes between us, the soul shard's light intensifying until it's almost blinding.
I feel her spirit merge with mine, the wolves within us howling in unison as the bond snaps into place like the final piece of a cosmic puzzle.
This connection is electric, alive—two spirits entwining like ancient vines, separate yet unified.
Through it, I sense her courage, her fierce determination, her unwavering heart.
Then something entirely different occurs. I feel the moment the soul shard comes back to me.
The sensation is cataclysmic. Where our spirits merging was a connection forged, this pours into the hollow space inside me like liquid light, filling cracks and wounds I've carried for centuries. The relief is so profound I cry out, my entire body convulsing with the force of it.
Colors sharpen. Sensations intensify. The weight of my fragmented existence lifts as though a mountain has been removed from my chest. Tears spring unbidden to my eyes as the chaos that has haunted me since I first split my soul finally quiets, replaced by a silence so pure it rings like crystal.
The darkness that has shadowed me through centuries dissolves like mist in sunlight. Complete. I am finally, blessedly complete.
And yet, paradoxically, I am also more connected to another being than I have ever been. The bond with Astrid remains, a golden thread linking us eternally, but now I face it as a whole creature rather than a fractured one.
As the intensity begins to ebb, I lick the small wound I've created, tasting the copper of her blood and feeling the mark already healing into a silvery scar, a visible and permanent sign of our bond.
Pride swells in my chest. Now my signature rests upon her skin, declaring to all our kind what my soul has known from the beginning…
I am hers, as she is mine, until the stars themselves burn out.
She does the same to the bite on my shoulder, her tongue gentle against the mark she's left. The sensation sends a shudder of profound surrender through me. We are equals in this bond, neither master nor servant, but perfectly balanced halves of a greater whole.
"I can feel you," she murmurs, her eyes wide. "Not just physically. I can feel... you."
"And I you," I reply, brushing sweat-dampened hair from her forehead. "It will always be this way now. No matter how far apart we are, you will carry me with you, as I will carry you."
A small smile curves her lips. "So, what now?"
"Now," I say, carefully rolling to my side and bringing her with me, unwilling to separate our bodies just yet, "we rest. And tomorrow, we take the next step in our journey together."
The thought of tomorrow brings a complex tide of emotions. This perfect solitude cannot last. Avalon awaits with its politics and dangers. After losing her once, every instinct screams to keep her hidden away, protected, mine alone.
But I know better. We both have roles larger than ourselves. Neither of us would choose to be selfish over helping to protect others.
"Together," she repeats, the word holding new weight between us.
As she nestles against me, her body fitting perfectly against mine as if designed for this very purpose, I feel a completeness I've never known.
Whatever challenges await us, whatever enemies we must face, we will confront them as one.
I press a kiss to Astrid's temple as her breathing deepens, sleep quietly claiming her.
Mine, whispers the wolf.
"Ours," corrects the man.