Chapter 32 Forgive Me #2
The moment her mouth closes around me, my entire world shatters.
Wet heat surrounds me. Her soft little tongue flicks against one of the ridges, and I nearly sob.
“Lúmina’ka, veyr’khae...” I pant, while my hands clench into the frostvines above my head, claws digging into the frozen bark. (Little light, I’m breaking.)
I can’t breathe or think. There’s nothing but the feeling of her mouth on me, her lips stretching around my girth, the gentle pressure as she tries to take me deeper—the unbearable sweetness of her tongue dragging over me like I’m something sacred.
My hips jerk involuntarily. The vines scream as they tighten, ice cracks, gouging my skin hard enough for blood to bloom in cold halos around my wrists.
Three thousand years.
Of waiting.
Of aching.
Of convincing myself I could bear this when the time came.
But I can’t
Her tongue circles a carved fractal near the base, and my control fractures completely. “Sael?n, veskhae, veskhae—” (Soulbond, take me, take me—)
She sucks harder. My whole body convulses. I turn my face into my arm, fangs sinking deep into the flesh of my own bicep to muffle the cry tearing loose. Cool blood floods my mouth.
“Lumi—” Her name breaks on my lips. “I can’t. You need to stop. I’m going to—”
She doesn’t pull away. She moans around me and takes me deeper. Her hands wrap around the length that won’t fit in her mouth, and begin to move—long strokes over my slick, swollen skin.
The pressure building at the base of my spine is unbearable now, like a dam built of centuries cracking wide open.
“Please. Please don’t stop.” I moan. My head tips back as I struggle to breathe. “Let me give it to you, Ves’Lumi. Sael?n. Kaemorin—kaemorin—kaemorin.” (This is all for you, Lumi. My mate. Mine—mine—mine—)
She hums around me. The vibration destroys me.
“My kaev?n is yours,” I beg. “Take it, please take it.”
One of her hands wraps around my vreskaeth, and the sound that rips from my throat is inhuman, even for me.
“Tighter, please, lumina’ka.” I choke. “Squeeze my vreskaeth, like you own them. Because you do—you own all of me.”
Frost explodes from my chest in a blinding burst. The vines crack. The bed shudders beneath us. Shimmering ice splinters up the walls, crawling across the ceiling like an Alaskan light show.
My release hits like an avalanche. I feel it pulse out of me in waves, spilling into her mouth endlessly. She swallows every. single. drop.
“Velkaer?n ael’sael?n. Ves kar?n.” (Swallow me, soulbond. Take my offering.)
I watch her throat bob, catching everything I give her. Her eyes flutter closed like she’s savoring the taste of me.
The vines snap. My hands are finally free.
I lurch forward before she can even open her eyes, dragging her up my body, crushing her into my chest. My fingers twist into her hair. My mouth crashes into hers desperately, tasting myself on her tongue.
“Thal’morin,” I rasp against her lips. (My heart.) “Sael?n’kora, you destroyed me.” (Soul of my soul.)
She blinks up at me, dazed and glowing, utterly drunk on my thraev?n and release.
She smirks. “Good.”
I laugh breathlessly.
“Do you believe me now?” I whisper.
“Huh?” She murmurs.
“That I want you.” I say, cradling her face. “Not the bond. Not the beast. Me.”
A slow, genuine smile spreads over her face, like the sun rising over snow, and it wrecks me all over again.
I flip us in one quick motion, pinning her beneath me. The remnants of frostvines still cling to my ankles, but I can’t bring myself to care about anything except the way she’s looking at me right now.
“Kai’morin ves thral,” I rasp. (You are my everything.) “Do you see it now? That I’ve always wanted you?”
She nods, eyes glassy.
“Say it,” I growl softly. “I need to hear you say it.”
“I believe you, Andrik.” Her voice is raspier than usual.
I claim her mouth in a messy kiss, pouring everything I can’t say into it.
When I finally pull back, we’re both breathing hard.
“So you have a knot,” she whispers.
I chuckle, “A vreskaeth, yes.” I confirm hoarsely. “The only one of my kind that has it. Rhavaris do have heats, but not a single female has ever concieved. The gods create us.”
She glances down between us.
“I did have an elder examine me, he said the purpose was to lock us together.” My hips press against hers involuntarily. “When I’m inside you. When I—”
I can’t finish my sentence. I have to control myself so this doesn’t go any further. Not until her stalker is dealt with.
Her legs wrap around my waist, pulling me closer.
“Show me,” she breathes against my ear.
“Lumi, you know we have to wait,” I say, forcing the shift back under my skin.
She makes a frustrated sound, her legs tighten around my waist, fingers digging into my shoulders like she’s trying to climb into me.
“But I want—” She nuzzles my throat, her breath hot against my pulse. “Andrik—please.”
“Sael?n.” I catch her face gently, forcing her to look at me. Her pupils are blown wide, “you’re drunk on me right now.”
“So?” She tries to kiss me again.
I laugh softly, pulling her fully against my chest and rolling us again so she’s draped over me.
Close, but not in a position where she can try to—
“So,” I murmur into her hair. “I need you clear-headed, not high on venom.”
She huffs against my chest, but doesn’t argue. Just clings tighter, her body melting into mine.
I can’t stop kissing her.
Even after the frost has stopped spreading and the room has gone quiet—I can’t stop.
Her lips.
Her jaw.
The mark on her throat that pulses with our bond.
“Andrik,” she whispers against my mouth. “I can’t breathe.”
I pull back immediately, panic flooding through my gut. “Did I hurt you? Was I too—”
“No,” She coughs. “I just meant... I need to catch my breath.”
I rest my forehead against hers, trying to steady myself. My heart is still racing. My body is still humming with the aftershocks of what she just did to me.
What she gave me.
“Sael?n.” I pull back just enough to meet her eyes. “You unmake me. Every time you touch me. Every time you look at me.”
She bites her lip, and I can see the question forming before she asks it.
“The shame,” she says quietly. “Is it.. are you still—”
“No.” I cut her off. “I’m not ashamed. Not anymore.”
“But you came so fast—”
“Because you destroyed me.” I brush her hair back from her face. “After thousands of years of control, someone touched me, not to reap pleasure, but to give it. And I had nothing left. No walls. No defenses.”
I press a kiss to her temple.
“I know now that’s not a weakness, lúmina’ka. It’s surrender. To you. Only ever to you.”
Her chin wobbles.
“I’m sorry I made you think—” My voice shakes. “I’m sorry I pulled away. That I made you doubt me.”
“I know. It was just a misunderstanding. ”
I catch her hand, trailing a kiss from her palm to her wrist. I breathe in the honeysuckle scent clinging to her skin, feeling her pulse flutter under my lips.
“Let me clean you up,” I murmur. “You must be so exhausted.”
“I’m okay. I don’t ever want to move again.” She whines dramatically.
I smirk, glancing down at the corner of her mouth where pale blue shimmer still lingers.
I carry her to the bathroom and run warm water in the basin. She watches me through half-lidded eyes as I gently wipe her mouth—it feels wrong, like I'm erasing evidence of something special. When I lean forward to kiss her forehead, something snaps.
She still smells like something unclaimed, and I can’t have that.
“Sael?n,” I rasp, pressing my face into her neck. “I have to scent you.”
Her face scrunches up,
“You have to what?” she asks in confusion.
“I need to cover you,” I whisper. My scent thickens, rising around us. “So no part of you remembers anything but me.”
She shudders in my arms.
“I don’t know why that sounds so sexy right now, but it does. Mark me, forest daddy!” she slurs.
That does it.
A low sound breaks from my chest. My hands roam over her skin, dragging my scent across her collarbones, her throat, her belly.
Every kiss is a promise: Every breath, a brand.
“Kael’ves?n ael,” I murmur against her skin. (You are mine in breath and bond.)
I kiss the soulmark on her chest, right above her heart. “Right here,” I murmur. “Kaevorin ves thral. The gods wrote my name into you, Lumi. Before we ever met. Before we ever burned.” (Sacred heart, you are my everything.)
I scent the inside of her wrists, backs of her knees, the base of her spine. Every last inch of her flesh is drenched in me. No part of her belongs to the cold, to fear, or anything but the bond and me.
She exhales something soft and sweet, under her breath.
“You taste like cinnamon,” she mumbles, eyes already drifting closed.
I press one final kiss to the crown of her head.
“And now, my little glutton,” I chuckle, “so do you.”
I tuck her against my chest, arms wrapping around her completely, cocooning her in warmth. Her breath softly fogs over my chest.
“Andrik?” Her voice is sleepy.
“Yes, thal’morin?”
“I love you.”
Everything in me stops.
She said it once before, in the heat of the moment, when she was overwhelmed and lost in heat. But this—
This one is real.
“Kai’morin ves thral,” I breathe into her hair. “Sael?n’kora ves’aleth.” (Soul of my soul, light of my life.)
I feel her smile against my chest.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I love you too, more than I have words for. In any language.”
Her breathing evens out, and she lets out a little snore.
I should let her rest. She’s exhausted and finally sated in my arms, but my eyes drift lower, to where a bead of kaersin still clings to the head of my kaev?n, refusing to be wiped away.
The beast inside me stirs.
Mark her.
I try to ignore it, but another drop wells up, pearlescent and potent with my scent.
My hand moves before I can stop it.
I catch the drop on my finger, watching it shimmer in the dim light.
She shifts slightly, completely trusting, completely mine.
I shouldn’t.
But my hand is already reaching, spreading the slick warmth across her hip. Then her stomach. The curve of her ribs.
Another bead forms. I collect it and massage it into the soft skin of her inner thigh.
She sighs, nestling closer to me.
My hand trembles as it moves lower between her thighs, where she’s still slick from earlier.
This is wrong. She’s asleep. Even with permission, this feels—
But I can’t stop.
My fingers part her so gently.
I collect more kaersin—there’s so much, I can’t seem to stop producing it—and slowly I press inside.
She makes a small sound.
I freeze, stilling my fingers, barely breathing.
Her legs drop open, her body accepting me like it was made entirely for this purpose.
Mine, the beast snarls. Fill her with our scent. Make sure nothing else can ever touch what’s ours.
I work the kaersin deeper, massaging it into her inner walls. Marking her where no one else will ever reach. Where only I belong.
More beads. I collect them all, pressing them inside again and again.
Until she’s full of me, until my scent is so deep inside her, nothing could wash it away.
When there’s finally nothing left, when I’ve given her every last drop, I carefully withdraw my fingers.
My chest heaves—shame and satisfaction battling inside me.
She’ll smell like me for days. Inside and out. Completely claimed.
“Mmm... Andrik...” She murmurs, a small smile curving her lips.
She may not know what I just did, but her body does.
I pull her close, tucking her against my chest.
Forgive me, thal’morin. I press a kiss to her temple. I couldn’t help myself.
I hold her through the night, thanking every God I know that she's mine. That she chose me. That after lifetimes of solitude, she finally came home.