Chapter 43
Aimer
BASTIEN
I’d always been a man of few words. They mattered little to me.
Instead, I cared about actions. No matter what my mate may have believed about me or my kind in the past, I knew from this moment on that she was mine.
Our bond ran deeper than forbidden kisses or carnal desire. We were willing to die for each other.
I intended to spend the rest of my life ensuring that she would never be put in that position again.
She was my new Blood Treaty. Her body my sacred land. Her breath my oath. Every inch of her mine to protect. To worship. Which meant there was only one thing left to do: kill Hera and take Claire away from here. Everything else would have to be figured out after she was safe.
I locked eyes with her and opened our connection. I tried to convey how sorry I was that she was about to witness the ruthlessness inside me as my fangs lengthened. My thirst for blood was almost too much to ignore, but I had to. I had to protect her. To save her.
“Your Grace,” called a faint voice. Reluctantly, I tore my gaze away from Claire to find the witch who had come to our aid whispering from behind a gravestone. “I’ll bind the ones holding Claire. Then you attack.”
I would’ve offered her my thanks, but I didn’t have it in me to thank anyone. I was too thirsty to think of anything else but my vengeance.
With one quick movement, I leapt to my feet and clamped my hands around the back of the nearest witch’s throat.
After that, the monster in me took control. Killing one after another. As I moved from body to body, time slowed, or perhaps it sped up. I wasn’t sure as the blood coated my chin and stained my clothes.
I wasn’t biting to drink, but to kill, and the taste of vengeance was sweet. And before long, the witches whose bodies had once filled the graveyard with music and song now lay in a puddle of their own blood or had run for their lives.
All except the woman who was shoved against the same statue Claire had been bound to. As I stared into Hera’s eyes, I trembled with rage. An unhinged monster. I wanted to rip her throat out as I’d done to the others, but this one wouldn’t get a quick death.
She was going to burn.
“Go ahead, Bastien, make me a martyr,” hissed the witch. “Kill me, and it will start the very war you swore you’d prevent. It goes against the sacred oath you took as part of the Blood Treaty.”
I glared back at her, barring my teeth. “It’s a good thing you revoked my protection.”
My reminder stilled her tongue, and I went back to work tightening her binds. Once she was secured, I began piling sticks at her feet, stealing them from the bundles that had been neatly stacked beside the bubbling cauldrons.
“Kill me, and other covens will rebel!”
Grabbing a nearby lantern, I walked over to the pyre and tossed it on. Watching as the flames caught. Her threats were nothing to me. They quickly turned to screams as the flames rose higher.
My job was done.
“Bastien!” Claire shouted, and the sound of her sweet voice did something to me that I couldn’t explain.
I turned to find her running toward me with her arms spread open wide. There was nothing more beautiful in the world. Nothing that I ever wanted more.
She jumped into my arms, and I squeezed her around the waist, holding her against me as I lifted her off the ground. There were no words to describe how good it felt to hold her, to know she was all right, to feel her reassuring heartbeat thud against my chest.
“I was so worried,” she whispered. “You’re covered in blood.”
“I’m fine,” I reassured her, rubbing her back in circles as I held her in my arms. “Does the sight of me like this make you ill?”
“The sight of you alive and standing is the only thing I’m focused on right now.”
I carefully set her on her feet long enough to take a red handkerchief from inside my pocket and wipe the worst of the blood off my face, then tended to the cut on her head. Dabbing away the sticky red trails.
“Better?” I asked, wrapping my arms around her waist again.
Claire grinned up at me. “A little.”
For a brief second, I forgot about everything else except the pull of her warm brown eyes and the way the rising sun made her copper hair shine.
Our reunion was interrupted when Cora appeared beside us, and I managed to tear my attention away from Claire for a moment to thank her. She saved me against her family’s wishes. And for that, I was in her debt.
“What will you do now?” Claire asked. “Where will you go?”
Cora shrugged, and I noticed she was holding a demonic relic in her hand. The others were stuffed inside a bag.
“Not sure,” she replied, casting a forlorn glance at the burning witch. “All I know is that I can’t stay here.”
I offered her a place at my court, but she only shook her head. Then she handed the curved sheep horn to Claire.
“This was my Gran’s favorite relic. Charge your powers. Learn the ways of our people. Make her proud.” Then she snatched up her broom and stalked out of the graveyard without another word, her white raven squawking after her as she mounted the broom and took flight.
“I didn’t know dark witches could fly,” Claire breathed.
“Most can’t. It’s a rare gift. Much like the fire you possess.”
We watched her silhouette disappear on the horizon in silence. Our breaths mingling in frozen puffs. We were truly alone. Not another soul around. For the first time ever. Standing in the middle of carnage.
Claire bit her lip. “Hera was right. I can’t control it.”
Something had changed in her. I wasn’t sure if it was her new magick, but I could feel the difference.
“You don’t know how to control it. Yet. But you will learn.”
She nodded, then gathered her red hair at the nape of her neck and tilted her head to the side. “Drink,” she whispered. “You need it.”
I knew she thought I looked weak. It struck at my insecurities.
I’d let myself get hit by a spell, and because of it, she’d nearly died.
If it hadn’t been for Cora, we’d both be dead.
She dropped her hair and took my face between her hands.
Holding me even though I was a ruin of a man.
A cold-blooded murderer. She looked at me like I was still an honorable prince. “You need to eat.”
Her blood wasn’t the only thing I wanted. No. Far from it.
I pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. Then another to her jaw. Feathering kisses until I reached her earlobe, teasing her with the promise of teeth, but never biting.
“Take what you need,” she demanded. “Don’t be stubborn.”
I couldn’t help the smile that curved my lips. “There’s only one thing I need from you, my darling.”
Slowly, haltingly, I slanted my face to hers and brushed our lips together. As soon as our mouths connected, it was as life giving as drinking from her veins. Her. Just her. It was all I needed.
She was the only thing I craved more than blood.
“Please, Bastien,” Claire said, breaking off our kiss. “I need you to live. This can wait until after—”
I swallowed her words with another kiss that was anything but halting. It was demanding. “This can’t wait.”
Sliding my hands down, I cupped her beneath the thighs and lifted her higher, coaxing her legs around my waist.
“Bastien,” she gasped as I sidestepped gravestones and bodies and began walking us toward the now-vacant house.
Kicking open the back door, I strode inside the darkened kitchen, kissing Claire’s neck as I searched the first floor for a bedroom.
Her wolves padded in behind us and curled up beside the door.
“What are you doing?” she asked breathily. “Please, you need to eat.”
Pausing, I eased her back against the nearest wall and ground my hips between her thighs, letting her feel just how well I was.
How very alive I felt. She tried to say my name again, but it turned into a moan when I kissed the soft spot just below her ear.
I braced my hand against the wall, rocking into her, but it wasn’t enough.
I caught her lips in a kiss that consumed me and somehow made me even hungrier for her.
Slowly, I fisted sections of her heavy skirts and dragged them up until my hand could slip between her warm thighs.
Like the starved man that I was, I massaged her sex over her undergarments while she moaned in my mouth.
I swallowed each little sound like it was the sustenance I needed to survive.
I’d resisted Claire as long as I could. But now, after what we went through together, I didn’t want to wait any longer.
“Bastien, please,” Claire gasped between kisses. “Please.”
I didn’t know what she was begging me for. To let me drink from her or for something else. Something deeper. Something that would seal our bond so we could never be torn apart. Something that would twist our souls together.
Tucking my hand inside her undergarments, I found the slick seam of her sex and ran my finger through it, dipping the tip just inside her tight entrance. The sound that escaped her lips was delectable.
“I want to make love to you on the bed of our enemies,” I whispered.
Letting my breath fan across her skin as I continued to curl my finger inside her, coaxing more little whimpers from her.
“I want to bury myself inside you, filling you with all the pleasure you deserve while the woman who dared to hurt you burns outside. That’s what I need. ”
I searched her face for disgust or hesitation but found neither. Still, I asked, “Tell me now if you’re not ready or don’t want the same thing.”
“I do,” she rushed to say. Those two words helped to put my reservations at ease. “I want you in the same way. But…” Claire hesitated, biting her lip in a way that made it difficult to concentrate on anything else.
“But you told me that you were going to send me away when our year was up. That you could never be with me because of the laws.” She swallowed hard and cast her gaze down to the floor.
I cursed myself for making her feel this way and for putting anyone or anything in front of her. If she let me, I was going to spend a lifetime making it up to her in a million little ways.
“Claire, look at me. Look at me.” When she refused to meet my eyes, I grabbed her chin, forcing her to look into my eyes.
She needed to see the truth. She tried to look away again, but I held her in place.
“Do you truly believe some law could keep me from you?” She didn’t answer.
Just stared back at me. I knew I needed to try harder and be more honest, even if words were not my strength.
“You’re more than just my mate. Claire, I love you with every shred of my soul. ”
She relaxed and stopped fighting against my grip. Her eyes widened. Cheeks pinked with a fresh flush. She was silent for a long moment. I waited patiently for her to find her voice, and when she did, each word came out haltingly.
“I-I don’t really know what love is,” she explained with sadness in her eyes.
“I’ve lived so long without it that…” Her words broke my heart.
How could she not know love? “Bastien, this feeling between us is what I think love should feel like. It’s warm and exciting and drives me crazy most of the time, but it’s there. ”
I kissed her once. Hard. Then again, softer. Her mouth opened for me, and I slid my tongue inside, rubbing it against hers just like my fingers were rubbing against her swollen clit.
She loved me, too. In a deeper way than just because we were fated. That knowledge made her next words even more meaningful.
“Bastien, I need you. Now. Please.”
I couldn’t disobey her. Not anymore. Reluctantly, I pulled my hand from her undergarments, and only after licking her sweetness my fingers, did I open the door to the room beside us. I lifted Claire into my arms and carried her inside, shutting the door behind us.