Chapter 37
SAPHIRA
The forest was quiet today. Strangely quiet.
I padded barefoot through it, my boots slung over my arm, the hem of the gaudy golden dress my handmaidens had insisted I wear brushing the dewy grass.
Meiryn had been helping me learn ancient fae, but as the day had worn on, I had begun to get tired of studying and finding nothing of use in the books I was translating, and she had suggested I get some air while she went to speak with Sylvan about something.
I suspected it was about Lorien.
The thought of some fresh air and a walk to stretch my legs had been too tempting to resist, so I had abandoned my work and strolled into the lower city, and from there I had teleported to the forest. I wanted to see if Arianell would tell me more about her time in this court, hoping I might find a clue in what she had seen in the centuries she had been here.
My steps slowed as I sensed more than one person ahead of me in the spot where I always found Arianell, my hand going to my dagger.
The fear and nerves that had collided inside me on realising the dragon shifter wasn’t alone dissipated in a heartbeat as I picked up a scent hidden among the perfume of the flowers lacing the trees.
Winter storm.
I dropped my boots and raced forwards, my wolf instincts launching to the fore to have my feet tripping lightly across the grass, any fear I knew I should feel overshadowed by the joy that filled my heart.
I rounded one of the trees.
And stopped dead.
Kaeleron stood there by the banks of the stream, a vision in tan trousers and a faded blue tunic jacket that had a certain rustic charm and told me he was really here.
He had to be, because I certainly wouldn’t conjure this image of him in a fantasy.
If I had been imagining him, he would have been as dark and commanding as he had always been in my eyes.
Not dressed like a Summer Court lowborn.
I raced to him, catching that smile that faintly curled his lips as he looked at me, sending a ripple of awareness through me that whispered he had missed me too.
I hurled my arms around his neck and jumped at him, wrapping my legs around his waist as I squeezed him tightly. Not quite how someone should greet a king, but I couldn’t help myself.
His low chuckle teased my ear as he clutched my bottom, holding me against him, that rumbling warm sound flooding me with heat and strength.
I held him a moment longer, burying my face in his neck to breathe in his scent and soak up his warmth, indulging my need to feel him in my arms, to feel that he was solid and real.
Here with me.
And then I pushed from his arms and slapped him on his impossibly hard chest.
Fear that he was going to get himself captured roused my anger enough that it overshadowed my happiness to see him.
“You reckless, stupid idiot!” I snapped at him, and then seized his nape and dragged him down for a kiss.
His strong arms banded around my back, pulling me against the hard heat of him as he angled his head and absolutely wrecked me.
His lips were fierce, desperation in every hard sweep of them across my mouth, and his tongue duelled with mine as I surrendered to the collision of need, anger, and relief that exploded through me.
He groaned, the sound teasing my ears, rousing my soul, and I shoved my fingers through his overlong black hair and twisted it around my fingers, greedily anchoring him to me, unable to get enough of this kiss.
This madness.
His hands gently claimed my waist, fingers pressing into my corset as his kiss deepened further, as he carefully backed me into the tree and pressed his body to mine.
My pulse thrummed a frantic beat, heart a hummingbird in my chest as I clung to him, swept up in the storm of need and the dangerous madness that stripped me of awareness of anything but him.
I didn’t notice Arianell making a swift exit, leaving us alone.
A moan escaped me as he shifted his hands down, cupping my backside and lifting me up, and I almost wrapped my legs around his waist again, obeying his silent demand.
Almost.
Reality of what he had done slammed back into me and I shoved him back to arm’s length, fighting to catch my breath.
He planted his hands to the tree on either side of my head, caging me as his chest rose and fell with his own ragged breaths, his silver eyes beautifully hazy with need that rolled off him in waves that rocked me to my core.
My wolf side urged me to rub against him, to drive him wild with a need of me so he would want only me.
Nope.
No.
My fingers still tightened against his hard pectorals though, an action I couldn’t seem to stop as his heart thundered against my palms.
“You… you idiot,” I spat, my face twisting as emotions and needs warred inside me, pulling me in two directions.
Chastise him or climb him like a tree. I couldn’t seem to decide which one I should be doing.
“I can’t believe you came here. I can’t believe you would endanger the Shadow Court like this…
for me. I’m not worth the danger you’ve placed our home in. ”
His profane lips slowly curled into a smile that melted me as I ranted at him.
“Why are you smiling?” I bit out, a little huffy.
“Because you speak of my court as if it is your home, as if you love it,” he purred.
And gods, I had missed his deep, rumbling voice caressing my ears.
And that way he smiled at me.
I boxed him around his pointed ears. “It is my home and I do love it!”
His smile became a full-blown grin that reached his silver eyes.
Melting me again.
Putting me back together stronger.
Gods, it was more than good to see him.
These last few days I had felt on the verge of breaking, as if everything was crumbling around me, as if I couldn’t do this anymore, and just when I was on the verge of falling apart, here he was again.
Making me feel stronger. Making me feel braver. Able to continue and face whatever came next, because he was here with me.
A different sort of female might have seen me as weak because I needed him at my side, to hold me together in the difficult times and give me courage to keep moving forwards. She would have been wrong.
This wasn’t weakness. This was a sign of our growing bond. A sign of our love and how we held each other together, lifting each other up, making each other stronger.
A sign we had been made for each other.
I reached up and slipped my left hand around his nape, gripping it gently, and splayed my right hand out over his heart, and tiptoed to press my forehead to his as I closed my eyes.
He tensed as I carried out the traditional greeting that Jenavyr had told me was a sign of affection between unseelie.
I hadn’t understood the significance of this when he had done it to me back in the forest in Canada when I had summoned him by accident, but Vyr had told me about it afterwards, and she had told me something else too.
Kaeleron rarely did it, so from him it had meant a lot.
I hadn’t reciprocated that day and I had felt miserable when I had learned about the ritual from Vyr and understood why he had looked so disappointed.
He slowly relaxed and mirrored me, holding my nape and resting a hand over my heart as his eyes closed. Our breaths mingled, our hearts slowly falling into sync, and it felt as if more than our breaths were entwining. It felt as if our souls were merging.
We lingered there, bound by some powerful connection that felt as if it was growing with every breath, and that fragile bond that had been blooming between us seemed to grow stronger with it, the invisible chains that linked our souls becoming forged of unbreakable Shadow Court steel.
“Saphi,” he murmured, his voice pitched low, so much warmth and love in it that ridiculous tears filled my eyes. “I am glad to see you too.”
I knew those words didn’t convey the depth of what he was feeling because it echoed in my heart, a powerful and consuming feeling that I had been hollowed out without him but now I was whole again. Right again.
Strong again.
I had missed him so much, and words were inadequate, unable to convey how lonely I had been without him or how glad I was to see him, and what this moment meant to me.
Just when I had thought I might not escape this court alive, here he was, as if I had somehow summoned him, and gods, I needed him and that didn’t make me weak.
It didn’t. I needed this male, this beautiful and reckless king, because his presence gave me the strength I knew I would need to make it through the next days or weeks.
He gave me the courage and belief I could do this.
All without saying a single word.
I kissed him again, unable to resist the pull of him, relishing the feel of his lips on mine and the taste of him. It was softer this time, a tender brush of his mouth over mine that only deepened the feeling that part of us was becoming one.
When I broke the kiss, I breathed against his lips, “What the hell were you thinking?”
He reluctantly eased back, breaking contact with me, but couldn’t seem to live without touching me, because he brushed his knuckles across my cheek, his gaze so soft it shredded my anger, leaving only love behind.
“I was thinking I should have been the one to come to you, not Malachi,” he husked.
I countered, “Even if you had come, I would have told you the same thing. I’m not leaving until I’m done.”
His visage darkened in the blink of an eye as he firmly cupped my cheek, pushing my chin up with his thumb as the black slashes of his eyebrows met hard.
“I do not care about my vengeance. I do not care about what happens to me… or to this world. The only thing I care about is right in front of me.”
I shouldn’t find this flash of darkness in him bewitching or alluring, but I did. I always did. Whenever he bared his fangs and turned dark, whenever he wanted to shake this world to its foundations, to dust, something inside me just melted.