Chapter 41 #2
“I’ve got you,” I growl, the sound vibrating through the water and straight into her. “I’m going to take it all. Give the ache to me, l?nveshka.”
I let Rh?ven take the lead, just enough to find the center of her pain. My hands move in a slow, agonizing rhythm, working through the knots in her muscles and the tension in her core. Every touch is an invocation; every moan she lets out is a command I’m helpless to ignore.
I find a spot at the small of her back where the bond’s energy is coiled like a spring. I press my palm flat against it, sending a pulse of cooling waves deep into her.
She gasps, her body arching, hips tilting into mine.
“Yes... right there... oh God, Andrik.”
I grit my teeth so hard I fear they’ll shatter. My wet pants are a joke, a useless barrier against the heat of her and the sheer, driving need to be buried inside her.
I lean forward, lips brushing the shell of her ear. “Is it better, baby?”
“Better?” She pants, her voice thick and honey-slow. “I’m not burning, but it just... wants.”
I know. I feel it too. The pain has burned off, leaving behind a raw, hungry void that only one thing can fill.
I shift my grip, my hands slide back up to her waist to turn her around in the cramped tub.
The water sloshes over the sides, hitting the floor with heavy, throbbing thuds that sound like a heartbeat in the quiet of the cabin.
I don’t care. I don’t care about the mess.
I don’t care about anything but the need to see her face.
I lift her easily, settling her across my lap so she’s facing me. Her legs wrap around my waist, her wet skin slick against my own.
She looks like a goddess of the Mist. Her hair is plastered to her neck, her eyes are wide and dark, her lips parted as she gasps.
“Sha’veyl—thr?’nak mai breathe.” I rasp, my hand coming up to cup the back of her head. (You’re so beautiful—you steal my breath.)
“My queen. My match, My soul.”
I don’t wait for her to answer. I lean in and capture her mouth with mine. It’s not the gentle kiss from the forest. It’s a collision. It’s the sound of every wall I’ve built for over three thousand years finally crumbling into the bottomless sea of my need for her.
She tastes like lavender and desperation.
My tongue sweeps against hers, and Rh?ven lets out a triumphant roar in the back of my mind.
The screech of my claws gouging deep into the porcelain is a jagged, metallic sound that makes my fangs twinge with the insistent need to pump venom into her.
She pulls back just an inch, her forehead resting against mine, both of us struggling for air.
I bury my face in the crook of her neck, my fangs dragging in a slow line from her collarbone to the sensitive skin behind her ear.
“Andrik,” she whispers, her hands framing my face, thumbs tracing the line of my fangs. “Don’t be careful. Just for a minute... stop being careful.”
“Thrahk’kal.” (Fuck it all.)
I hook her legs over the sides of the tub, spreading her wide without an ounce of gentleness.
I want her open. I hitch her hips up, dragging her out of the water until she’s displayed for me.
A millennium I've waited for this view, and I refuse to miss a single twitch of what I'm about to do to her.
Kaemorin. Ael’mira. (Mine. All of you.)
She’s glistening for me, and so swollen. My hand slides between her thighs—her slick covers my fingers the moment I touch her.
“Veyr’sal kael ves kynval, Sael?n,” I murmur against her skin, voice rough with barely-controlled need. “Virae ves’kai tharn ves’theln. Kaemorin. Ael’mira. (You’ll be caged in snow and godfire, soulbond. Writhing on my furs for days. Mine. All of you.)
She hisses, bucking into my touch.
I’m not going to take her.
I’m not going to claim her.
But I will give her this.
“Please,” she whimpers, her voice breaking. “Please, touch me, Sael?n.”
I freeze.
Every thought in my head scatters like snow in a whiteout. That one word from her lips—my own tongue, my own soul—melts every bit of ice I have left. She just remade my world with a single breath.
“What did you call me?” My hand slides from her chin to the back of her neck, my fingers tangle in the wet silk of her hair to hold her steady.
“Sael?n,” she whispers again, eyes locked on mine. Pleading with me to touch her. “You’re mine, Andrik, please...”
“Say it again,” I growl, fingers sliding through her warm vaeliss?n, parting her l?nhae. “Call me yours again, thal’kisha, and I’ll give you everything you want.”
“You’re my Sael?n—” she gasps as I circle her clit slowly. “The best Sael?n—”
A broken sound tears from my throat. “I’ll be the best at everything for you,” I growl, sliding two fingers deep inside her. “The best mate.” Thrust. “The best protector.” Thrust. “The best at making you come until you can’t remember your own name.” Thrust.
She cries out.
“Too much?” I breathe against her throat.
“No. Never too much. Please, keep going—”
“Slowly,” I rasp. “I want you to feel every bit of what I'm giving you. You're being so brave for me, Lumi. Let me take care of the rest. Just open up and let me in.”
Her hand clamps around my wrist, desperate to guide me faster.
“Alright, kaemirtha,” I murmur, letting her set the rhythm. “Move my hand however you need. Take control, Sael?n.”
I don't need to tell her twice.
She moves my hand with frantic precision—faster, then slower when she needs to catch her breath, then fast again. Little beads of sweat roll down her stomach, dripping onto my hand. I keep my fingers exactly where she puts them, angling when she directs, applying pressure when she demands.
“Perfect,” I breathe, watching her in awe. “You know exactly what you need, don't you? Take it all, lumina’ka.”
For what feels like forever, I let her command me. My hand is hers. My fingers are hers. I am hers.
She whimpers, thighs trembling on top of mine. Her movements become erratic, chasing something she can't quite reach.
“Sael?n,” she gasps, frustrated.
“I know,” I murmur. “Let me.”
My other hand slides up to wrap around her throat. A heavy reminder that she belongs to me in every way one soul can belong to another. I feel the rapid flutter of her heart beneath my thumb—so fast, so alive. I cradle her jaw, marveling at the way she trusts me with every throb of her pulse.
“Now let me take care of you properly,” I rasp, adjusting the angle of my fingers inside her, finding that spot that makes her see stars. “You did so good taking control, baby. Now let your Sael?n finish what you started.”
She nods, and her hand falls away, but when she moans ‘Sael’var?n’, my grip falters.
(Soul-guard.) The predator in me stumbles, blindsided by the sheer weight of being called her soul-guard.
My title’s been shouted on battlefields and whispered in the halls of Citadels for centuries.
But hearing her—with that soft, human roundness to the vowels—is like hearing them for the first time.
It’s not a language anymore. It’s a tether.
I want to sink into her. I want to stay in this tub until the stone crumbles and the world turns to dust, just so I can hear her say it one more time.
“You have no idea,” I rasp, forehead dropping to her stomach, as I struggle not to claim her. “You have no idea what you’re doing to me,” I murmur, thrusting my fingers deeper.
“Your soul-guard is right here, kaemirtha. And he’s not going anywhere.”
“Ohh, just like that mor’kael,” she cries. “Just like that.” (My fierce heart.)
Gods. She’s speaking Vraks?n like she was born into it. Naming me. Claiming me.
And I am helpless to obey.
The bond is rewriting her, making her mine in every way.
“Keep taking,” I growl. “Keep saying my name in our language, thal’kisha, and I’ll keep fucking you with my fingers until you come so hard you forget how to breathe.”
She’s so thrahking perfect—clenching around me, so wet I can feel her dripping down my hand. I pump slowly, relishing every flutter of her walls.
I don’t need my own release, I just want to watch the moment her mind fractures. I want to be the one who catches the pieces.
“Look at me, Lumi,” I command, my thumb hooking under her chin to tilt her head back. I want to see the amber in her eyes drown in the black of her pupils. “Tell me again who I am. Tell me who you belong to.”
“I love you vesh’rh?n.” (Keeper of my breath.) Her free hand reaches for me, fisting my hair hard enough to sting. I growl low in my chest.
I set a brutal pace, fingers driving into her while my thumb works her kaelinae. The wet sounds of her body fill the bathroom with obscene echoes.
“I love you,” I rasp against her neck, fangs scraping her pulse. “I love you, I love you, I love you—”
"Harder," she begs, voice breaking. "Please, rh?en’ka—" (My beast.)
She’s calling for him? Her beast?
Something feral roars to life in my chest. Rh?ven surges forward, demanding, begging to give her what she needs.
“You want my beast?” I rasp into her ear, voice dropping dangerously low. “You want to see what happens when I stop being a man?”
“Yes. Please. Need him—”
My fingers aren’t enough. I can feel it. She needs more. I curl them one last time, a final, wicked goodbye to the Andrik who was trying to be careful.
“Not enough,” I growl, pulling my fingers free. “You need more than this, don’t you? You need more of me?”
A primal idea strikes me—possibly insane.
I reach up, gripping one of the smaller tines branching from my antlers. With a sharp, painful twist, it snaps off in my palm. The break is clean, but the edges are rough.
Lumi’s eyes fly open, hazy and unfocused. “Andrik, what—”
“You trust me, remember?” I murmur.
Magic flows from my fingers onto the broken antler. Ice crawls along its surface, smoothing the harsh edges, filling in the imperfections, polishing it until it gleams like black glass. But it’s not enough. Rh?ven wants more.