Chapter 27
KORMAC
As I snapped the neck of the bandit, taking his weapon, the scream tore through my head.
The worst scream I’d ever heard. Pushing against the walls of my skull, roaring down into the core of my being. Breaking my heart, bringing an inferno of agony.
Valance wasn’t only in trouble, but…
No. He couldn’t be dying. He couldn’t be…
I tore off through the trees, back to the cave. My heart ready to stop and never beat again at this.
You can’t be dead!
I leaped over fallen logs, brambles, and low branches scratching at my exposed skin. I didn’t care. All that mattered was him.
My…
My prince.
Three of them, two standing over his body, one a few feet away with a bow in hand. So much blood oozing from Valance’s body. Throat cut. Dying.
By the gods!
One of the bandits held an axe over the prince’s neck. “You sure she wants his head off?”
“How the fuck do I know?” the woman beside him asked.
“Well, think.”
“An intact body might get us more,” the man with the bow said.
I kept low, moved quickly as if they were all rabbits.
Ran on fury and desperation. I came up behind the bowman, snapped his neck as the others looked up to see me.
Snatching an arrow from his quiver with the bow, I fired into the axe holder.
Hit him in the leg. He went down with a shriek.
The woman grabbed his axe and threw it at me.
She missed. I fired an arrow into her shoulder.
She cried out, charged for me. I fired again, hitting her in the stomach. She went down.
“You hellpissers,” I growled.
The axe fucker whimpered, trying to crawl away.
I moved, flinging the quiver’s strap across my chest, the bow over my shoulder. Moved without thinking too hard, picked up the axe that’d missed me.
“Get the fuck out of here!” the woman wailed, sitting up on the ground with two arrows in her.
I scanned for others, listened for movement.
Nothing.
I killed her first. I should’ve left her to die with the arrow in her guts. There would be no coming back from such a wound.
Like Valance’s open throat…
Instead, I drove the axe into her neck, almost cutting to the other side. Her head lopped to the side, hanging by a sliver of sinew. The rest of her collapsed, ready for the creatures of the forest to consume.
“Happy eating,” I whispered coldly, making for the final bandit.
“Please! Have—”
I took an arrow and stabbed it through his left eye. With another, I did the right socket.
Dead.
I fell to Valance’s side, his pale skin now a sickly pale, his Sidhe luminesce gone. Close to death, the wound at his throat so savage, too torn up to be healed.
“No… Please… You can’t die like this.”
A flicker in his dying eyes, darkness locked to me. His shadowy light faded, our soul bond slipping away.
I cradled his head, my palms touching cold skin. “Please don’t leave me.”
Gods! Hearing myself scared me. But I didn’t want him to go now. Not when we were so close to our goal. Soul bond or not, he couldn’t leave me here alone.
“Valance…”
There had to be a way to stop this. The quest couldn’t be over by the hands of these human bandits. That wasn’t a decent death.
When was death ever decent?
“Oh, gods… I don’t know what to do.”
Helpless. I should be happy, somewhere deep down. Freedom was coming. Far from it. This hurt. This wasn’t fair.
“I have to save him.”
Colors in my hands. The colors of the vision with the snow—blue and green. Starlight in the swirling mass smothering my palms. It brightened, my heart set to explode out of me, my head singing with a strange melody.
Calling…
Calling…
We are here.
What?
So much warmth, so much power at my disposal. The power of me, of what made me Kormac.
“I don’t understand,” I responded to this realization. “What makes me?”
We are here…
“Who?”
The blue and green light spread up my arms, across my whole body. I looked down, every inch sparkling with this strange power I knew was mine but didn’t know why or how or where the fuck from.
Then it happened. Valance shimmered in the same light—first at his head, then the rest of him. A jewel, all radiant and pretty, bringing tears to my eyes I didn’t understand.
So much not understanding!
I felt him inside me. Moving. Breathing. His heart beating. Stirring. Our bond returning. Death chased away. There was no death here.
No death here.
Never death.
Only life.
He came back to me, his wounds healing. I pulled the arrow from his chest. The light bathed where the metal had pierced. Healing. So much healing. So much light.
The prince blinked up at me, alive, his luster returned.
No death here.
I offered my hand. He took it. I helped him to his feet, and his fingers curled with mine. Locked together.
No death here.
He faced me, taking my other hand.
“You saved me,” I said. “Again. My life… This…”
No death here.
There was so much softness between us, so much light and warmth. So special. So beautiful.
I took his face in my hands, traced the sharp line of his cheekbones with my thumbs. Devoured him with my eyes. Gods, he was a feast. He shone. A dark star, a dark sun. A shadow snaring me in its trap.
A trap I never wanted out of.
The things he’d done to me, to Ren. They would never leave me. I would never forget, and forgiveness was a world away right now. But in that moment, seeing him alive and well and radiant, I knew things were changing faster than I could breathe.
I brought my lips to his. Hands came to my waist as flesh touched flesh. He held me with delicate fingers as more heat bloomed within and without.
I’m kissing the prince!
Fucking was one thing. But a kiss…
He responded more, lips parting. His breath mingled with mine, his grip on me tightening. My tongue slid to meet the edges of his mouth, sliding in. His tongue met mine, kiss deepening, my hands sliding up to bury themselves in his hair at the back of his head. Pulling him closer.
Deeper and deeper.
The heat between us flared, our hands wandering across flesh. The kiss broke, but the desire did not.
“We have to get out of here,” I said breathlessly, lips tingling. “There could be more.”
He nodded, the blues and greens falling away.
But not the desire.
Take him…
Take him…
No death here.
Was this the soul bond? Had it given him life through me? Something else? This thing that made me myself?
I moved, gathering my clothes from the cave, cock an aching throb. Took the bow and the axe, Valance scooping up the blade.
“Weapons,” I said, dressed in yellow again, ready to take him against the side of the cave.
Gods!
Rather than fuck him, I led us away, taking out my compass. It still pointed north, no longer the direction of Autumn where we would have met the old woman but toward the northern border.
I checked on him repeatedly as we walked, unable to carry him with our new supplies. My lips were a mass of sparks waiting for oil to ignite them. He was fine, using his seed magic to help him navigate the muddy path. Moss grew where he walked, a soft carpet for his bare feet.
I’d seen him do that before…
“Do you need some?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Concentrate on yourself. My boots work well enough.”
We continued, hungry, not stopping until we were sure we were safe. I listened, I watched, waiting for the first sign of bandits or even Fomorian fae soldiers.
The word was out to get the prince.
Damn!
I’d kissed him. I’d…
Oh, gods.
And I wanted more.
We found shelter at the edge of the forest between two tall, fallen logs. The trees were taller at the edges, thicker and older. Perfect for taking a pause before heading out to steal some horses. Perfect for scouting the landscape.
My mind was a mess.
What had I done to him? To make him live? What the fuck was I?
I slumped against the trunk, tired and hungry and confused.
“She knew this would happen,” I said.
He sat beside me, so close.
“She knew… She knows so fucking much,” I added. “Is that why we’re bound together like this? Because I have some sort of trick to make you better?” I blew out a breath, pushing my hand through my hair. “Damn her!”
He watched me, dark eyes threatening to drown me if I held his gaze too long. “If she is split as she is, maybe she cannot say until we see the whole of her.”
She’d already said that. “Doesn’t make it any less annoying.”
“I know.”
“I know you know.” On strange instinct, I put my arm around him once again. But then I tugged him more, my fingers drawing circles on his flesh. My cock still aching for release.
He touched it, feeling it through the Spring cloth. Rubbed it, kept his eyes on me.
I kissed him. A crushing kiss this time. Harder and rougher, like the time in the shack. But this time a kiss. No kissing for then, but now…
He removed his robes as I freed my cock, moving to straddle me. Exposed his flesh to the air, his nipples erect. His hair spilled across his shoulders, tendrils draping around those swollen nubs.
I put my hands on his amazing skin, took those nipples between my fingers. He gasped as I tweaked, his cock at full attention.
The desire had not died.
“There is no time for this,” he whispered.
“We should stop,” I said.
But I used my saliva as lubricant again. He added some of his own to my shaft, stroking with expert movements to make my toes curl. Smiling.
“We should definitely stop,” he said.
“Fuck that.”
“Fuck that,” he agreed and pressed himself against the tip of my erection.
As soon as it was in, he worked me. Taking control. Riding me hard and fast and rough, his cock bobbing up and down in the fervor.
He took my hand, put it to his throat.
“What…” I breathed, my toes completely scrunched up inside my boots.
“Choke me.”
“Like before?”
“Yes.”
“But… Your injury…”
“Is gone,” he said. “Do it.”
I obeyed. Not too hard, but enough to be exciting.
He liked that.
With my free hand, I stroked his cock. Kept my eyes on his. The friction and pleasure incredible. Needed. Better than before. The sounds of his breaths, the rising moans, they brought out my own.
“Fuck…” I breathed. “You feel so fucking good…”
He worked me harder, taking me to the edge. I tightened my hold on his throat.
“Faster…” I said.
He gave it to me faster and harder and faster and—
My balls tightened, my cock throbbed, and I came, calling out his name.
“Valance! Oh, fuck!” I grabbed his sides, arching my hips, pushing myself deep into him.
Burst after burst after burst. He released his seed in my hand, spraying some of it across my yellow clothes.
“Oh, Kormac… Oh, yes.” He collapsed forward, took my face in his now warm hands. Kissed me.
No death here.
Gods. We were just layering this mess on thick, weren’t we? As if things weren’t confusing enough, we had to add a second fuck to the mixture.
And it’d felt so good.