Chapter 11 #2
You can eat these if that helps you pretend you’re working.
What are they? she asked.
I described the delicious tea and powder dye you could make from the Star Harpie’s bright blue blossoms. It had to be ground in a certain way, and I outlined it at length, but mainly just as a distraction from the next part.
My saunter to the edge of the sheer cliff wasn’t exactly stealthy. I said, Hold tight, as casually as possible, before I dropped into the void below us. Her scream echoed off the mountaintops. We only fell for a few seconds before my paws hit the ledge of the east-facing temple’s portico.
"Aren't there stairs?” Her choked words mirrored her thighs squeezing me.
There was. Where’s the fun in that?
She aggressively mangled my pelt. I had a difficult time not groaning with pleasure.
“What if you slipped?” she said.
I have four legs. I can hang on with at least one.
Fallon slid off my body, dragging the bag and blankets unnecessarily hard across my back.
No other complaints? I shook out my fur, spattering her with snow. She would have to take off layers if they were wet. My lupine laugh puffed out and she glared. This was more fun than playing catch with squirrels.
“That’s all I can think of for now. I’ll let you know if I come up with anything else once my heart leaves my mouth.”
She looked around the stone room and it afforded me a chance to see it with fresh eyes.
“What is this place?” She kept her hands at her sides.
I inhaled to read its story before I shifted, dressing in the spare clothes.
An osprey had made a nest and raised chicks here last breeding season.
After they flew the nest, the temple had absorbed the raw materials and the chick who died, as was its custom.
That wasn’t what she was asking and would probably freak Fallon out.
Magic didn’t act like that in the rest of the Harrowlands.
“Old Magic gifted us this. It’s as close to a temple as will ever contain something so elemental. Nothing will hurt you here.”
Less polished than any temple she had been to, the two rooms and the well that made up the sanctuary weren’t quite natural either. More like Old Magic had scooped out a raw space in the rock with bare hands and left time to polish it.
She touched the walls with a reverence that expanded my heart.
The Old Magic filled my eyes with the future memory of her dressed in the traditional sheer collar of moth thread, embroidered wisteria flowers picked out with gold, silver, and void berry-dyed thread.
The trail of a train brushed over the stones with the sound of petals falling.
Winter blooms made a crown on her head, tumbling down her back in a bounty far outmatched by the rich shine of her chocolate hair and even brighter eyes.
“Will it be mad if we rest here?” She broke into my fever dream.
The space faded back to the winter night. I blinked away the dizziness, my heart still beating fast, my hands clenching on nothing.
“You’re thinking of the Godds. Old Magic just is. It doesn’t care about that stuff. A temple is the same as a cave, which is the same as the stars in the sky.”
The other room held a small store of tinder and logs, along with a few supplies. I spread out the blankets in the main chamber and started a fire as Honey removed more layers than I could have hoped.
I waved her over to get warm before the blaze and I think she reacted before our new awkwardness crept in. She snuggled between my legs and I draped over her back, chin on her shoulder before she thought too hard.
True happiness existed right here, surrounding her like we had done countless times with our friends.
Since we were almost the same height, I was always a breath away from touching her lips, licking her neck.
There was no escaping her apple and cinnamon scent.
I wondered if she would taste of it too.
But it wasn’t quite the way it used to be.
Our same ease weighed with the hunger that now sat between us, sharpening its teeth.
The glow of wanting her, the pure need to press my hips to her generous ass, made me shiver.
“Are you hurt from that fall?” Her tone fell short of sarcastic.
No. I was dying and it felt so good.
“Just cold. Someone is sucking up all my heat.” I gritted my teeth against the image of her sucking other things.
Her light chuckle made me drip into my loose pants. All that fabric preserved a small amount of my modesty. I couldn’t be sorry for it because as Fallon relaxed against me, the bond expanded. Just enough for a bit of my lust to slip through.
Her breathing grew heavy. “What are we doing?”
Fallon’s musky scent told me what we should be doing. My nails bit into my palms. The bond opened a little wider for her lust to echo back. It tasted delicious.
“We're watching the sunrise.” That was partially true. A greater part of me reached through the bond to touch her in ways I wouldn’t let my hands. They fisted at my sides, scooping the dirt of the temple into my grip.
“Can you get it to go any faster?”
I licked my lips and she heard it by the way she exhaled.
Fallon leaned further back into my chest. I threaded through her body, pulling at her from the inside, seeping between her legs.
I didn’t know if I would do this right, but the need to pleasure her was too great. I wanted her turned to jelly.
“When you control the sun, let me know. I’ll open a shrine to you.” I would anyway, and pray on my knees to her every day.
Her clit, her nipples, called for me as I reached through the bond. She felt it because her heart raced in her chest and her legs clenched together.
“Dec, where are your hands?”
“Glued to the floor, Honey,” I said.
“Can you feel–”
“I can.” I cut her off so she couldn’t ruin this with logic. It’s not like I could explain this was just a little magical petting between friends.
“Would you ever be someone’s mate, Fallon?”
I had to keep it general so I didn’t immediately bite her.
“Does this come as part of the package?” she asked.
“It could.”
My lips met her shoulder and I locked my jaw. The taste of MINE flooded my tongue, rich and decadent. She squirmed against the bond contracting her core, laving her clit. My intent brushed over her neck, her cheeks, her hair. I wanted to touch it all, even if I couldn’t use my hands.
“More,” she whispered and her lust snapped back at me as her greed opened the bond wider.
My claws dug into the stone.
“Is this okay?” I asked as I poured more want into her, tugging harder at her clit in the same rhythm I wanted to be filling her body. The points of her nipples hardened against her shirt, rubbing on the fabric there. My fingers itched to worship them. I murdered the stone beneath me instead.
I played a dangerous game with the magic returning to Nightfell. It whispered to me to make her mine with wordless encouragement. Would it disappear again if she didn’t accept it, as it had when my father and Momma’s bond broke?
Her strangled gasp brought me back to us as her lust consumed me. She didn’t know how to guide or focus it so I swam in it, reveling in how it wrapped around every part of me.
The first glow of sunrise hit our bodies.
Warm rays found her toes and I pooled our bond there.
As the golden hour crept up her body, so too did my ministrations until the burst of dawn exploded Honey into a million pieces.
Her orgasm triggered my own without even touching her.
I couldn't be sorry when my pants darkened and my thigh grew sticky.
I allowed myself to set my teeth against her skin before kissing her there. Cuddling was off the table, no matter how much I wanted it. Moving on to something else would be the key here. Before Honey’s frighteningly efficient mind could catch up and tell her that was not how friends acted.
The game I slipped into the sack was easy to find amongst the food.
“Set out what you want to eat first and then I'm going to teach you Whispering Woods.”
Regret pooled in my belly as I sat across from her, the evidence of our shared affection clear for her to see. The stain was too big to cover so I ignored it.
Her chest still rose and fell. “Is that how you seduce all the girls? Food, card games and whatever that was.”
I dealt her five cards, spreading out mine, noting how she watched my hands.
I measured my tone even though I snapped at the idea. “That's never happened before.”
“Which one?”
“Any of them. I've never shared something like this with anyone, Honey. Your kiss in the kitchen was my first. I've never gone further than that.”
I said it matter-of-factly more to impress how special she was, but the dawning look of horror on her face wasn't encouraging.
“You're a virgin?” Her voice cracked.
Now a blush started under my skin. “I don't tend to go around announcing it to everyone I meet. It's not a big deal.”
She opened her mouth to argue. I hunched my shoulders, ducking my head.
“You start with five cards.” I nodded toward her cards.
“Dec.” She ignored the cards, leaning forward, elbows on her knees.
“You're trying to add them up to a whisper, which is twenty-three.”
“Declan.”
I resisted the urge to bend the entire deck in half. We weren't doing this. We weren't ruining what we had just shared with her stupid human assumptions. Maybe human males weren't virgins at a hundred years old, but saving yourself for your mate was perfectly normal here.
“Five whispers make a wood.”
She blushed at the word ‘wood’ and at least we were somewhat even.
Fallon let me teach her the game, though she turned grumpy at the subject change.
We passed the whole day in the temple. Her shoulders finally fell from her ears.
Fallon let her bare foot wag back and forth as she concentrated on her cards.
Her eyes fully relaxed for once as we ate, napped, played cards, filling me with her presence.
Fallon’s undivided attention was a heady thing.
A happy hum thrummed along the strengthened bond.
I didn't touch it a second time, afraid the guarded look in her eyes would end anything before it began.
That didn't stop me from thinking about it as the sun dipped below the horizon again.
“Are you cheating?” I asked her playfully. I knew Fallon would be good at this.
She spread her winning hand over the blanket, shifting her weight to her other hip. “If only I had this kind of control over everything, I would be a rich and happy woman.”
“Is that your true desire?” Because I wanted her completely out of control.
She shrugged. “You can see the benefits.” Her hands gestured to all her tallied wins scratched in the dirt. Although she said it as a joke, I could hear the ring of truth in it so I answered honestly.
“You can put down that worry. Not a single one of us should be in control all the time. Chasing that, Honey, only leads to sorrow and ruin.”
She scoffed in a way that spoke of deep pain and adjusted her hips again. “You have ultimate control over your body. You can shift it into a whole new thing.”
She looked away. I don't know if Fallon meant to give me a clue as to what was wrong. The need to protect her wound me up, sharpening my attention to the fact she set her cards down to cradle her left hand.
“Even our line, as old as it is, can't ultimately control our wolves, especially when the Old Magic gets involved. Going Ajak was a real problem when we first settled here, before the Old Magic granted us mates.”
“I might be ready for you to explain what that is now.” Fallon stretched her back and winced.
“Some turn into a terrible monster, full of rage and sorrow and endless hunger. It lives in us all.” No one had turned Ajak in thousands of years when our mates brought balance.
“I’ve seen a lot of monsters come through my kitchen and none have ever been truly irredeemable. You’re just…”
Her words slowed down until they stopped. A change came over her face as it went frighteningly blank. I scrambled to her side.
“Honey?” Afraid to touch her, I hovered.
She startled as if she hadn’t seen me move. “I’m sorry… what? Stop talking?”
Her sentence fragment shoved ice into my veins. “Please tell me what’s wrong. I want to help.”
I braced for another lie, my heart stopping in my chest. My hand floated over her skin, needing the contact.
“Tired.”
That was true, but not wholly true. The bond at least let me sense that.
“Who can you trust if not your best friend?” I forced it light, even when my heart sank into fear.
“Nothing to do, Dec. Useless to talk about. Besides…” She trailed off again and I waited patiently for her to find her way. I just wasn't prepared for, “We're not really friends anymore.”
My heart crashed to the floor. “We're not?”
“I don't know what this is, but it's not friends.”
The urge to reach for her boiled my blood. Her scent filled my nose to the point of madness.
Her voice grew soft. “We're not friends anymore. We’re…”
She kept saying it like she were stuck in a loop, trying to find the missing answer, but it got smoother and warmer each time. I wanted to pant. A spark of hope ignited within me. Something had shifted with all this pretending. Still, Honey wasn't right. That meant I needed to get my girl home.
“We need to go-”
“Can we leave?”
We stumbled over each other and smiled at our accord.