Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
I fell back as if slapped. I wasn’t dead. I couldn’t be. I was alive. I felt every sensation. People could see me. No. No. It couldn’t be real. Maaier pulled me back into him. Holding me close on the floor. I gasped into him, heaving for air. Air I thought that I needed. That I did need.
“You died that night,” He whispered into my hair. His lips a brushing kiss. Heat rose in my eyes. But I wouldn’t cry. Not again.
“I got there just in time to secure a tether to you but your body was already gone.”
“What do you mean?”
“I tied your soul to the earth but also myself. A selfish thing to do. I’m sorry.” He kissed my forehead over and over again. Forcing his love into every affection.
“How?” I managed. My hands clawed into his shirt. How could I be dead? I can’t be! I was here. Everyone could see me and interact.
“I tethered your soul to the earth here. To the outside world, you would be alive here but no one outside of the manor or town would know you if you were to journey past them. They wouldn’t see you. You would remain here forever. Never ageing. Never dying.” He took in a deep breath before continuing “I tied the other side to myself. Knowing that you were mine, I claimed you. But you are mine. I recognised your soul. A soul that mirrored mine after so long of being on my lonesome.”
“If I’m dead, how do I bleed?” I tried my hardest to find cracks in his story but he always had an answer.
“You still look as if you bleed and feel pain as these are earthly notions.”
“You said I had a choice.” My voice high as I pulled back staring into his desperate face. A face that no doubt mirrored mine. What had he done?
“I lied. Your choice was always me. You always had to come home in the end.”
“Then why did you look so sad when I said I can cross over with the girls?”
“That’s the only choice you ever really had. It was me or you crossed over to eternal darkness.”
“Why don’t I get an ‘other’ side?”
“Me tethering here you took that away.”
“Did you know?”
He said nothing.
“Did you know?” I said, my voice growing firm.
Nothing.
“Maaier did you know what would happen to me?” I hissed through my teeth, pulling him from myself.
“Yes.” He uttered softly, avoiding my gaze. I shifted back again, making more space between us. This was all too much. My head was swimming with endless thoughts and accusations.
“You had to choose me.” He flashed me a hopeless look. “No one else had ever chosen me. But you. I knew you were different.” His words shocked me to my core. My soul teared deep inside of me. Despite it all, I did not find any anger in my heart, nor could I. For I knew his story. The horrifyingly tragic tale and his life after. And even after all of that darkness, I still chose him. Just as I would now. It was like the book had shown me. He was always watching as Florians chose other lovers. Never once choosing him. I breathed in deep before taking his head in my hands.
I understood. I understood what it was like to want love but be terrified of the aftermath. Of the colour coming in. It was terrifying in and of itself. All I had longed for was someone to choose me. To not abandon me the way others had. To hold me through each and every painful or joyful thing that happened. Someone to accept me as I was. Was that too much to ask?
The man before me was offering all of that and more. A comfort I had never dared to fully consider for myself was sitting before me. Having made the choice for me but knowing I would find my own way to him in the end after all.
“I would have chosen you, Maaier. I would have chosen you if you were a peasant on the street. I would have chosen you if you were a man of the night. I would have chosen you if you were nothing but a simple human living their life. And I still choose you. Even after this confession. Not because I have no choice but because I love you.” Maaier’s eyes widened at my heartfelt words.
“I have loved you since that night you saved me. And I will love you for eternity. I will love you through each reckoning and each disaster. I will love you through each soul because that’s what you are. My soul. You’re my soul, Maaier.”
A long tear dropped from Maaier’s eye. His smile wobbled as he pulled me close. My forehead met his.
“Until the world requires us no more.”
“Until the world requires us no more,” I repeated.
Maaier’s lips crashed into mine. The hands holding my back now woven through my hair loosening the knot as he held me as close to him as he could. Our lips met with a bruising force. My heart thundered within. My pulse beating madly through me. My hands explored his just as the door lock sounded. I smiled against his mouth before tugging his shirt over his head.
Our lips broke for a single breath only to allow our tongues to dance once more. Maaier’s gentle yet demanding hands drifted down to the buttons on the back of my dress. The bodice falling free to land on my hips. His hands drifted to my front, needing my exposed breasts. I moaned at the contact. Currents of sparks blazing under my skin as he kneaded my flesh.
I needed him. I craved him. Just as much if not more as I had the first time. My fingers ran up his bare chest. Squeezing his shoulders as I straddled him. Taking the lead to where I needed him most. He groaned as I rolled my hips over his clothed length now hard and desperate against the fabric confining it. The sensation against my sensitive skin a welcome delight. I stifled a moan, rolling my lips together just as I did my hips. Slowly Maaier lifted us. I gasped at the sudden loss of the ground only to be thrown on the bed behind us. He stood over. Wild lust filled eyes burning down at me. He knelt forward. His hands tugged at the fabric of my dress until it tore free from my body.
“Like the goddess I knew you to be,” He muttered with a smirk. I propped myself up on my elbows. Watching as he loosened the tie in his pants. His hard cock sprung free. My mouth watered at the sight. Maaier knelt over me once more. His hand skimmed my skin over my hips up my waist over my chest only to stop atop my scar. The other landed on the jagged scar just near my belly button where the knife had made its final blow.
“You are utter perfection, my soul,” He crooned before lowering himself onto me. I welcomed the weight. His flesh warm against mine. His lips peppered mine again before I opened them for him. Allowing him to taste me. His hand slid under my behind before he thrust into me.
Not as rough as he usually did. Slower this time, as if truly savouring the feeling of me around him. The first time our naked flesh had touched. A movement so intimate, so natural, so utterly devastatingly perfect. I knew I made the right choice.
Maaier thrust slowly, his mouth moved to my neck. A sigh of pleasure left my mouth. His hands gripped my waist. The head of his length hitting just the right spot deep inside me, over and over again. A coil tightened near my spine. Pleasure rolling through me. My body, alive once more. His name, a melody on my lips, sung to him with each brush. The coil finally snapped. Warm heat exploded through me with a deep moan. Tiny rivers of lightning forming behind my eyes. Maaier followed not long after. He panted against my bare skin. Dropping his weight on me.
“Gods, little bloom. You have ruined me,” He sighed before nuzzling into my chest.
My hands ran through his hair. Holding him close. I didn’t need to tell him he ruined me too. He knew. He knew all along I was his and that I would choose him. I knew it within myself that was always my destiny. All roads always lead back to him.
With the reaper, I was home.