Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
Indecision hurts, but overconfidence kills.
LUCA
Everything is tits up, but I’m oddly calm. Like the moment you first wake up in the morning, when you’re not aware enough for responsibilities to weigh you down yet and everything is soft and fuzzy.
Will I try to bond with Celine and accidentally kill her instead? My body doesn’t think so. I’m too languid and lackadaisical. I should slap myself, but I can’t, because again, I’m too fucking chill.
“Healing potions,” I say, looking at Riven. “Do you have any extra? Just in case?” I wave my hand around like I’m stirring a pot of imaginary soup. Idiot.
“Are you asking if I have a healing potion lying around that’s strong enough to offset the direct injection of your venom into her bloodstream? Because if so, the answer is no.” Riven’s voice drips with sarcasm, but his face is blank.
“Great,” I mutter. “Your bedside manner could use work.”
He scoffs. “You need me by the bed too? You’re not inspiring confidence, basilisk.”
A ripple of annoyance disturbs my pool of calm. It’s almost a relief.
I take a step toward the veydra. “I don’t need help, but I’ll feel better if . . .” I trail off, running my fingers through my hair, then tugging angrily on the strands.
“You have the illusion of safety.” Riven’s tone softens, and I nod. “I’ll provide the necessary props. Do you need candles and wine too?” He’s mocking me, but it doesn’t make me as mad as usual.
Riven is a shifter too. He knows how big a deal this is.
Fated mates, bonding—that’s the stuff of legend. Magic, fanciful, cutesy shit that most shifters get fed in heaping portions while still in the cradle. Although Riven doesn’t strike me as someone who had a lot of fairytales told to him as a kid.
I guess I didn’t either.
“What if it doesn’t work?” I mutter.
My crushing fear of accidentally killing Celine has died down, but the hope is almost harder to handle. There’s a lot riding on this, and there’s no point pretending otherwise.
Riven shrugs, pulls the cloak off his shoulders, and hangs it on the spike protruding from the wall. It’s sharp. I imagine bumping into it while going to get a glass of water in the middle of the night and wince.
“I’ll be shocked if it does,” he says. “Although the witch I spoke to was convinced it was possible.”
“How did a witch end up here?” I ask what’s been bothering me since we first met Hyacinth. Witches and humans are native to Earth, and while many supernatural creatures from other realms have fled there to start new lives, it rarely happens in reverse.
Riven freezes. I’ve either broken his brain or stirred up something he’d rather leave buried.
“Hyacinth’s mother isn’t like the witches you know,” he says quietly. “Her magic and opinions make it impossible for her to be part of a coven, but she’s too powerful to go unnoticed or unbothered.”
“So she decided to live in the worst fucking place in the universe?”
Riven huffs. “I said the same thing, but Rue was adamant.” His shoulders hunch as if someone placed a boulder on his back, then he snatches his cloak off the hook again.
“There’s something I must do. Potions are in my bathroom.
Take as many as you need.” He swings the heavy, mottled fabric over his shoulders, thrusts a hand in his pocket, and disappears before I can do more than blink.
Weird guy. I shuffle to his bathroom and poke around until I find the biggest vial of sludge in there. I tilt it back and forth, watching as the thick, greenish-brown goop rolls sluggishly against the glass.
“Looks tasty,” Celine says.
I glance at her and my breath catches. Long, red hair hanging in loose waves over her shoulders. Brown eyes that see too much of me. And a smile that makes me want to drop to my knees, crawl to her, and beg. My imagination isn’t good enough to come up with anything half as beautiful.
I squeeze the vial and close the distance between us, hauling her into my arms. “I’ve loved you for so long,” I whisper. “I can’t lose you.”
All thoughts of candles or premeditated romance leave me the second our lips touch. We’re us—Celine and Luca, a team—and it’s about time the gods, fate, and whoever else wants to fuck with us accept that.
We undress each other in a chaotic tangle of limbs and laughter. The potion falls forgotten on the bathroom floor, buried under our clothes. We won’t need it. I believe that now.
No matter how many times I see her body, I don’t think I’ll ever get past my excitement. “You’re perfect,” I say, heart pounding as I grip her ass and lift her off the floor for a better angle to feast on her neck.
We’re in Riven’s bathroom, but I don’t think I can wait any longer. I need her like oxygen. From the way Celine fumbles with my pants and roughly shoves my underwear down, she feels the same way.
“The first time I saw you,” I pant between kisses. “I’d never seen anyone so beautiful. My breathing entered manual mode, I swear to the gods, I forgot how to inhale and choked on my own tongue.”
She smiles against my lips. “I thought I’d done something wrong,” she says. “You looked like you were in pain.”
“I was.” I groan. “Because I knew my brand-new coworker was going to make me permanently hard at work.”
Celine laughs. “We work at a strip club, Luca.”
“Yeah, and I never had a minute of trouble until you.”
She wraps her fingers around my cock and smirks. “And you haven’t had a moment of peace since.”
“Fuck peace; I want you.”
Celine lines me up, but her eyes never leave mine as she says, “You have me, Luca.” Her skin lights up as she activates her magic, and the truth rune wallpapers every inch of her. “For our forever, however long it lasts.”
Then I’m inside her, and nothing else matters. Everything goes quiet: my worry, the dangers of this realm, her father’s evil schemes. All I can think is how right it is to love her.
I’ll never get enough.
My strokes are slow and shallow; I can’t stop kissing her.
“I love you,” she whispers, nipping at my lip ring. “I love us.”
Groaning, I drop to the bathroom floor. My bare ass hits the stone, and I shiver.
With Celine in my lap, riding me, nothing can go wrong.
I adjust my angle to ensure my piercing hits her just right and smile as her head falls back.
The arch of her neck is graceful. I push her hair out of the way to give myself a better view.
Beautiful. Her nipples are pink and rosy. Bathed in the dim glow of the roving witch light, she’s more goddess than angel.
Mineeeee. The basilisk surges into my consciousness and makes himself impossible to ignore. I brace to shove him away, then stop myself, remembering why we’re here.
Ours, I correct him. Accepting the monster inside me doesn’t mean I’m going to let him take over. I get a say too, and Celine is far more than a bond or a mate—chosen or destined.
She rocks in my lap, and I hold her tight against me.
“Nothing feels better,” I say, “than being yours. I could hold you every day for the rest of my life, and I still wouldn’t get enough.”
Celine’s breathy moan echoes around the bathroom, bouncing off the walls.
Like the first time I made her smile, years ago at the Fang, I feel like I’ve won something precious.
The only thing better is making her come.
Knowing I stole the air from her lungs and replaced it with white-hot pleasure? I shudder. That’s better than perfect.
I drag a hand down to where we’re joined and slip two fingers in beside my cock, swallowing her whimper as I pump them inside her, testing different angles by the sounds she makes. Once I’m coaxing cries from her lips with every thrust, I rub my thumb over her clit in determined circles.
Celine tenses, then melts on top of me, bracing her heels on the floor. “Th-that’s amazing,” she gasps. “Don’t stop.”
I wouldn’t fucking dream of it.
Paying attention to every cue her body gives me; I work her up slowly.
If I push her over the edge too hard and fast, the orgasm won’t be as good.
I want her pleasure to feel endless and never-ending—as forever as we are.
A deconstructed ten-course meal of ecstasy that Celine will remember until we’re both old and gray. The Michelin star of orgasms.
I drive her up, back off slightly, then push higher. Again and again, until she’s boneless and strung out. She rides me through it all, her rhythm never faltering. A bead of sweat trickles between her breasts, and I bend down to lick it up.
It belongs to me—I’ve got to have it.
“Baby,” I gasp. “So good, so good, so good. I—fuck, Celine—you’re everything.”
Her pussy flutters around me, squeezing my cock, determined to keep it inside. Fine by me.
“Luca,” Celine pants. “I choose you, for forever. I don’t want to spend a single day without you. You’re the future I want and the future I need, and I claim you no matter what the gods have to say about it.”
The runes on her skin glow bright gold, and the bone-deep sensation of how right this is spreads through every inch of my body. My fangs pierce my gums, coating my mouth with the taste of my own blood. There’s a hint of venom, but it’s sweeter than usual, missing the thick, acrid bitterness.
I want to give her a pretty speech. Celine deserves my best, but the words are too scrambled inside my mind. In the end, all I can give her are the two loudest ones.
“I’m yours,” I shout.
I repeat it as she clenches around me, body wound tight, a string stretched to its breaking point.
I repeat it again as she drags me over the edge with her, and my orgasm slams into me with the force of a wrecking ball.
And I repeat it one more time when I sink my fangs into her neck, piercing her skin with a certainty that steals the breath from my lungs.
The witch light flickers, then goes out, plunging the bathroom into darkness—except for the glow of her runes.
Celine bites my shoulder, and I groan. It’s symbolic; she’s not a shifter and her teeth aren’t made for this, but it’s exactly what I want and need.
Pulling my fangs loose from her neck, I cradle Celine against my chest and pepper her face with kisses. “You okay?”
She nods and nuzzles my neck. The golden runes fade slowly from her skin, then we’re alone in the dark. “I can feel you, Luca.”
There’s wonder in her voice. I blink, then gasp as I sense what she’s talking about. Next to my basilisk, in the deepest part of me, there’s a ribbon of pure light. It’s throbbing faintly, and it takes me a second to realize the throbs are synced with her heartbeat.
Celine. Part of me forever.
It’s what I’ve always wanted.
My basilisk examines the light, then entwines himself with it, basking in her glow until the ribbon forms a second skin around him. “I feel you too,” I say. My voice cracks, and a tear squeezes loose from the corner of my eye. “You’re wrapped around my heart.”
We don’t move for a long time.
Only after our sweat has cooled do I stand, carry Celine to the shower, and wash us both. My bite mark on her neck has stopped bleeding, but it’s deep. Even with her fast healing, there’s a chance it will scar.
I frown. “Do you want me to get Ali? If he licks it now, it might not scar.”
Celine covers the mark and scowls at me. The ribbon of light inside me throbs faster, heating up as she gets annoyed. “Why would you do that?” she demands. “I want your mark.”
I kiss her shoulder and grin against her wet skin. “It was only a suggestion, baby.”
She huffs. “Do you want Ali to come seal yours?”
“Fuck no,” I snap. She barely broke the skin, but my basilisk rattles with fury at the thought of losing her claim, coiling around the ribbon like he’s going to war for it.
Celine tugs me against her. “Then shut up about it.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I kiss her until the water runs cold, fresh determination growing inside me.
We’ll escape this realm. Together. Then we’ll never come back.