Chapter 12
Twelve
Ivy was having an incredible dream.
She was lying in Vale’s nest, cocooned in his arms. Plants swarmed over her, sending pulses of affection and safety through her skin. Her chest throbbed with discomfort. But, as it was with dreams, there was no true pain.
Ivy hummed, nuzzling into Vale’s robes. She had never felt so held as she did in Vale’s big arms. Why couldn’t all her dreams be so sweet?
“You are awake,” Vale said suddenly. “How do you feel?”
Ivy blinked, suddenly much more alert.
It wasn’t a dream. She really was lying with Vale in his nest, plants swarming all around it.
She sat up gingerly. As soon as she moved, the plants started to ripple.
Petals fluttered, grass waved, vines bobbed and curled.
For a moment, Ivy could feel their joy and relief and deep weariness.
Then it faded, and Ivy was left reeling with her fuzzy memories.
Ivy looked up at Vale, stricken. “Did… did we go back to the mortal realm?”
Vale nodded. “Do you not remember?”
Ivy didn’t answer. The memories were flooding back now, leaving her horrified: Vale carrying her forcefully back to the mortal realm; her uncle shooting her in the chest; her begging Vale not to kill her uncle, even after—oh gods.
Ivy covered her face with her hands. All those people, dead. She could remember their crumpled bodies now, lying where Vale had killed them.
Vale nosed at her hair. “What is it? You do not smell like pain.”
“I got all those people killed,” Ivy whispered.
Vale growled. “Your uncle got them killed. He almost killed you. You should have let me snap his neck.”
“He’s my uncle,” said Ivy, appalled.
“He clearly does not value family as much as you,” Vale replied. “Since he gave you to a Skullstalker, who he thought would eat you or ravish you against your will. And again, he shot you.”
Ivy’s chest throbbed. She looked down and saw a ragged hole in her dress.
She had a small scar underneath it, pink and pitted.
She touched it, thinking back to the blood that had stained her dress so badly.
There was no blood now, although there was still the faint scent of it in the air.
She wondered if Vale had washed her dress while she recovered, or if the void had magicked it away, like it had fixed her dress after Vale tore it in two.
“He didn’t shoot me on purpose,” Ivy muttered.
Vale huffed resentfully. Ivy almost wanted to join in.
Her uncle might not have meant to shoot her, but he had thrown her away so easily!
After all her work, all those years of trailing after him, talking people into their cause, washing pots and mending clothes and foraging for food…
How could he give up on her like that? She never wanted to leave him. She just wanted him to not hurt Vale.
Cold dread washed over her as she remembered Vale’s betrayed expression. He knew she had poisoned his void. That even if she was no longer helping her people to bind him, she was still the reason his void was dying.
But if he knew…
Ivy looked around the nest, all the plants watching her expectantly. Vale watched along with them, his gaze intense and, for some reason, caring.
“Why am I here?” Ivy asked.
Vale cocked his head. “You were injured.”
“But…” Ivy’s eyes itched. She forced the tears back, refusing to cry in front of him when she had ruined his life. “I poisoned your void. I was going to let him bind you to fight for us!”
“But you didn’t,” Vale said. “You tried to protect me. To talk your uncle out of his foolish plan. It was useless; he could not overpower me then, even with his malblossom. And you could not make him change his mind. He is blinded by his desires. I knew that when he gave you to me.”
Ivy stared at him, stricken. Surely this couldn’t be so easy. Whenever she ruined something in the Circle—burning a meal or botching a recruitment—she would, at the very least, get glared at.
But Vale wasn’t glaring. He looked uncomfortable, those beautiful green eyes trained on his own claws, but there was no malice in his gaze.
Ivy watched the leaves twine around her shaking fingers. “How long will you let me stay here?”
Vale answered instantly. “You poisoned the pool.”
Ivy winced. “Yes. I’m—”
“So, it is not your presence making it sick,” Vale said, cutting her off.
Ivy waited. He couldn’t be saying what she thought he was saying. Nobody had ever gotten pardoned from a crime so easily.
“So?” she said, finally.
“So, you do not need to leave,” Vale said stiffly. “I told you. If it is not you, you can come back.”
Ivy laughed wetly. He had said that when he was carrying her to the pool. It felt like a million years ago, though it had probably only been… hours? Days? Ivy had no idea how long she had been healing in this nest.
“You’d keep me here,” Ivy said, stubborn tears spilling down her cheeks no matter how hard she tried to keep them back. “After what I did to you?”
“You are trying to fix it,” Vale said, and paused. “If they came into my void right now—”
“I would die before letting them take you,” Ivy said, shocking herself at the fierceness in her tone. She wiped her face, twisting in his arms to face him properly. “I will help you cure your void. I will fix my mistake. I swear.”
Vale made a rumbling noise deep in his throat and leaned down to kiss her.
Ivy gasped into his mouth. His lips were cool, but his mouth was blazing hot. He licked into her mouth, and Ivy groaned as her own tongue brushed against his razor-sharp fangs.
Vale grasped her face, tilting it sideways to kiss her deeper.
His skull mask dug into her skin, his claws pressing hard against her soft cheeks.
Ivy wondered if she would be covered in marks after.
The idea filled her with a strange, fluttery zeal, much like when she touched the dents in her skin that he left behind from gripping her thighs while he sated her pollen-lust.
Suddenly, Vale pulled back, breathing hard. “You have no pollen in you. It would have bloomed in your blood again. It must have left you while you were healing.”
“Oh,” Ivy said, oddly disappointed. “I still want you. Is that… okay?”
Vale laughed and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “It will be good to mate you without the threat of your potential death. Will you still beg for me so sweetly?”
Ivy flushed. He licked her red cheek, then slipped his tongue into her mouth. Lightly at first, then deeper and deeper. Ivy opened obediently for him, heat pooling between her legs as he fucked his tongue further inside her mouth.
Finally, his tongue bumped the back of her throat. Ivy braced herself to gag. But her throat didn’t reject him. If anything, it opened up—welcoming him in.
Ivy made a shocked noise, pushing at his chest.
Vale pulled his tongue out of her throat with a slick pop. He furled it back into his mouth, and Ivy shivered with want as she realized that it was slick with her own saliva.
“It must have worked,” Vale said.
“What?” Ivy asked. Then another memory hit her, and she gasped. “The spell! You went to your brother?”
“I did.”
“How does it work? Will I just…?” Ivy touched her throat.
She had never managed to fit any man down her throat before, but her few attempts had left her drinking hot lemon water afterward.
Her throat felt like it had nothing in it at all, let alone a Skullstalker’s giant tongue less than a minute ago.
“I do not know,” Vale admitted, his gaze trained hungrily on her. “Let us find out.”