CHAPTER XX #6
I comply, throat tightening around his length as he swears to all the Ancients. His hand quickly leaves my ass to join his tongue, fingers pinching my clit even harder before he thrusts three inside.
“Keane!”
I scream his name to the room but the sound is lost around his cock in my mouth.
“Ancients, you’re so damn perfect, Alexis,” Keane praises, holding his fingers still as I start grinding on them and his face.
“Your sounds are perfect...” he thrusts his length between my lips.
“Your fucking body…” he sucks on my clit before nipping down.
“This pussy on my lips…”
My moans become a constant chorus of vibrations on his cock at each one of his praises.
I suck him in and out until my hips are moving to the same rhythm, everything about the two of us so hot and heavy that I don’t ever want it to end.
But just as the thought passes my mind Keane lifts his hand behind my ass once more, the anticipation making me clench on his fingers as I moan loud on his cock.
He chuckles knowingly and then lands his palm, ripping my orgasm through my full body as I hollow my cheeks and suck him down thoroughly.
Hot, milky, release streams down my throat at my cry.
Keane pulls out his fingers and brings both of his hands to my hips, holding me to his tongue as he licks my orgasm clean.
I swallow down his own release and run my tongue up the length of him, smirking when he twitches and his nails bite into my skin.
My forehead drops to his thigh as I pant in satisfaction, truly thinking that I could live a lifetime of this.
“Every. Damn. Thing. I. Need.”
Keane says each word slowly as he caresses my ass. I close my eyes and nod into his leg, tilting my body to the side as I fall heavily on the floor.
“No. Come here, trouble.”
I grin and reach down for my pants, pulling them up my thighs as I lift to my knees.
Keane pulls his on as well and then pats his chest, his brown eyes raking over my bare breasts before I lean down and press them into his side.
I throw my leg over his thighs and grip the black and fluorite chain around his neck, finally dropping my head to his shoulder.
Keane sighs in contentment and wraps an arm around my back.
“I thought you were going to, when you turned me on my knees…”
“I wanted to,” he chuckles, kissing the top of my head, “but that’s not how I’m going to take you for the first time, Alexis.”
“No?” I grip his chain tighter.
“No, trouble. You’re going to be completely naked with your body under mine. I want to see all of you.”
I close my eyes and sink sadly into his hold. The Shadow Oak seems so far away now.
Keane fists his hand in my hair and pulls my head back, demanding that I look at him.
“None of that, Alexis. I came here to make us both feel good.”
“You came here to stop me from going after Hirovale,” I narrow my eyes on him.
Keane nods his head in agreement, “and how do you think I planned on doing that?” he chuckles.
“I distinctly remember you threatening to lock me in my room, Keane.”
“I never said I wouldn’t be in here with you.”
My eyes narrow on him again, remembering his cold, hard features that greeted me when he first arrived.
“You were intimidating… I didn’t get that impression. And what’s worse…”
I sigh and turn my head back into his chest, “I was still turned on by you.”
Keane runs his hand down my neck, “I was in my own head, Alexis. I wasn’t sure how everything would play out.”
“But if it helps…” his hips shift beneath my thigh, “your violent tendencies also turned me on.”
My lips flick to the dagger on the ground as a small smile pulls at my lips. Keane grins and presses his lips against my hair, letting out a deep breath as I fiddle with the chain around his neck and chest.
“How is your mother?” I ask quietly.
“Not doing good,” he admits, “I’ll be surprised if she makes it out today.”
“And you?” I glance up and catch his gaze, “how are you?”
“Not as surprised as I should be,” he says quietly, “I, too, suspected something from the Ancient. I noticed his reference towards me when he visited us in Bardot. Didn’t think much of it when we were in Fumagalli, but hearing it twice is too hard to ignore...”
“I tried to bring it up with my father before court the next day. He silenced my attempt and told me to let it be.”
“He knew as well,” I nod.
“Yes,” Keane grimaces, “I have no idea how, but his summoning memories proved that he knew.”
Keane takes a deep breath and moves his hand down my back, “I suspected, Alexis, but didn’t think it would come this soon. Your animosity towards the Ancient is no longer your own.”
There’s anger behind his words, the same anger that still courses through my veins.
Hirovale knew of King Zander’s impending death.
But at least Keane had a few moments to prepare, to consider what the Ancient’s reference of him meant. It would explain why he was so calm in the King’s chamber, why he looked down at his father not in shock but in expectancy, already knowing and suspecting what was happening.
My heart breaks for him as I press my hand into his chest. “But how are you?”
“Processing,” he sighs, “letting my family grieve as I take on meetings with the Lords of the Courts. Planning. Letting you grieve… or at least until Desmond showed me your fire this morning.”
“And where is your grieving in all of this?”
Keane nods down at me, “it’s here, Alexis. Quiet and internal, but it’s here. There’s too much going on in the Kingdom right now to allow me to fully consider the weight.”
My brows furrow at his answer. I don’t like that he hasn’t been able to properly mourn his father, and as I lean up to press my lips against his, I wonder if this may be the first time in the past two days he’s been allowed some sort of break from his duties.
Keane’s hand on my back moves to his chest, palm pressing into my hand as he squeezes us tightly.
“What of you Alexis?” he pulls away from our kiss, “how are you?”
“Still grieving,” I admit quietly, “for everything. For your father and for everything he showed us.”
Keane nods in understanding just as I desperately start to search his eyes.
“My younger self…” I whisper, faltering on the words I want to say, “did you notice?”
“You were wearing the attire of a human from Woodlands, Alexis.”
“Ancients, I have so many questions.”
“As do I.”
I burrow myself into Keane’s side as my mind races in different directions.
I replay what Zander showed us, most notably coming back to the memory of Troy using his summoning on me.
I pair that knowledge against my life in Bardot and how I grew up, frowning as my own memories from this recent travel keep rumbling in my head…
I see Holis and Mana eyeing me perceptively when I inquired about their Ancient. The two of them had asked if I’d always been this curious.
I see Keane smirking when I answered Lord Daniel in the forest of Fumagalli, replying that my friends were too content in themselves to notice the sleeping air.
I see all of the little breakthroughs that Zander had mentioned to Golem, realizing that my own contentment had fully left me the moment I set foot in the Court of Warriors.
I embraced the curiousness roaring inside me and came alive in the Black Capitol, disregarding every prior idea I had about what it truly meant to live as a human in Disce.
“Everything I felt growing up,” I whisper, “my easiness, my unbothered life… was it all a lie? Was it all a lie until I met Golem?”
Keane drop his lips to my hair again and tightens his hold.
He was the first to see the battle within me, the first to see my fire. He watched me fight against a life I thought I knew, recognizing what that battle meant even before I did.
But that fire has always been within me, even if I never recognized it in myself. I saw it in the visions of when I was a young girl. Saw the flames that held me so steadfast in my anger until Troy pushed them away.
Keane and his Court, and now Golem, only helped to fan those flames again. They were there, waiting to take light, just needed the proper push to get them started.
And Ancients.
Oh Ancients…
I pull away from Keane’s chest and look into his intense gaze, remembering his father’s words…
I wish I could be there to see their children…
He knew.
Zander knew this would happen, just as Elena foretold.
Perhaps it was destiny after all.
“It’s you and me,” I whisper.
Keane watches me closely, watches as I come to the realization that it’s the two of us.
Keane and me…
Our lives together. Building with eachother.
I can’t stop the tears that start falling down my cheeks.
“It’s you and me, Alexis,” he affirms, “we’ll figure everything out together. Always.”
Death’s Bonfire has always been a grand event, one that’s worthy of celebrating a life lived in the Old World. It’s an event that aims to wash away the mourning period, and by the grim mood circling around Castle Bardot, it’s exactly what our capitol needs.
The tradition is held by all Four Kingdoms, though the more I learn about the Leviathans, the less I believe they actually practice it. The event calls for honoring a life, celebrating a life, and is practiced by everyone throughout the Old World, magical and human, high born and low.
Today’s event has been strictly kept to the people of Bardot and the residents living here.
The staircases leading up the Greenstone Mountain to the Palisades are still boarded off, but a select few people such Alanna, Barnes, Sutton and Tripler have been allowed back down.
All of them were staying in the castle anyways, they just happened to be stuck on top of the mountain when the events of that night unfolded.
Cal, Holis, Mana and Sera also chose to stay in the castle for the remainder of the lockdown, the four of them taking up guest rooms on the third floor even though they had residences in the Palisades to go home to.