Chapter 31 - Soren
I sit at Aurela’s bedside with the ring box in my hand.
“Anything?” Gramps asks from the doorway. I just shake my head, not looking back at him.
It’s late afternoon, and she’s been unconscious for nearly an entire day now. When she touched Tara, floating above the cliff, I thought she was going to die. To burn alive then and there.
But she didn’t. She disappeared into the flame, and when the blue orb around the two of them finally disappeared, only Aurela was left there. Tara was completely gone.
And then, Aurela plummeted.
Shae was the first to scream, then I shifted, running with Frederic as fast as we could toward the edge, even though there was no way in the world we would get there in time to keep Aurela from hitting the beach below.
Our only hope would be that she was far enough out over the water to keep from hitting the ground too hard.
But in the end, it didn’t matter, because Phina and Valerie thought fast, sprinting out and throwing their hands up, using what was left of their magic to catch Aurela’s body, bring it back up to a piece of the ground that was in one piece.
Then, all of them collapsed.
Now, Gramps disappears from the doorway, and I listen to the sound of his slippers rustling over the floor. He’ll go sit somewhere in the house, waiting a decent amount of time before he returns to see if there’s any news.
Aurela is already his granddaughter-in-law—daughter-in-law, really—and we haven’t even made anything official. I continue doing what I have been doing from the moment I scooped her body up into my arms—staying by her side. Watching to see if—no, when—she wakes up.
She has to wake up. I didn’t wait this long for her, suffer this much, only to have her ripped away from me at the last moment. I love her. She is my mate. And I know, deep inside me, that it’s enough to keep her here.
Aurela is stronger than any of us ever realized. And she’s going to make it through whatever is going on inside her body right now.
After I had her in my arms, Xeran and Frederic were both asking the same question.
“What happened to the blue-haired bitch?” Xeran growled, prowling around once he knew his mate was safe and alive. He had his nose to the air, sniffing for Tara.
“She was up in the air,” Frederic said, pointing to the place his daughter and Tara had occupied just minutes before. “And then…”
“I think she’s gone,” I said, even though I didn’t just think it.
I knew. As much as I knew Aurela was my mate, I knew, with her there in my arms, that something tremendous had happened up in the air.
That the woman I held was a little heavier, a little fuller than she had been before she went up there.
“We’ll have to be sure,” Xeran had said, immediately launching into the clean-up efforts, search and rescue, and securing the town. My only hope for him is that now, with Tara gone, he can finally take some time to occupy a semi-reasonable leadership role.
In the day since, there’s been no sight of Tara. Not near town, not anywhere in the mountains.
And, though it’s probably too soon to call, I know there will be no more daemon fires.
At least, not until someone else comes along trying to harvest the energy. But it won’t be because of Tara. And with her gone, I have a feeling the energy will simmer back down, becoming much harder to access in the first place.
“Soren?”
I jolt, eyes flying to Aurela, who sits up in bed like nothing is wrong, rolling her neck and holding her hand out. The glass of water on the bedside table is in her palm before I have the chance to hand it to her.
“Aurela,” I whisper, not caring about the water, not caring about anything but being close to her. Standing, I crawl into bed with her, gathering her up and pulling her into my arms. “How do you feel? Are you okay?”
She nuzzles back into me, sighing contentedly. Something is markedly different about her. More centered, more confident.
And I like it.
“Better now,” she says, smiling and turning her head to look at me.
“Will you marry me?” I ask, glancing over at the side table. I grab the ring box, open it, and show it to her. “Sorry—I wanted it to be special, but I also didn’t want to wait another second before asking you. We can have whatever wedding you want—”
She cuts me off with a kiss, twisting in my arms and swallowing my words. I kiss her back slowly, my hand falling to her back, holding her body against mine.
Aurela still smells like smoke and ash, but she also smells intoxicatingly like herself.
When she pulls back suddenly, her eyes searching my face, I breathe, “What? Are you okay? Do you need anything?”
“There is something I need.”
I start to sit up, “What? I can—”
But she holds her hand up, positioning herself so she’s straddling me, her knees on either side of my hips. I’ve been so busy worrying about her that it takes my body a moment to catch up to this new development.
“Aurela,” I whisper, but her name dies in my throat, along with anything else I thought I was going to say.
Her hair tickles my chest when she leans down, places a brief kiss on my neck, then buries her teeth in my flesh. My head tips to the side automatically, giving her more access, a groan escaping me at the pure ecstasy of the moment.
Some people dabble in casual biting, just to see what it’s like.
Some shifters don’t take it as seriously as others.
But I have barely been with another woman, let alone let her teeth anywhere near my skin.
I’d always known, deep down, that the only bite I’d want would be from Aurela, serious or not.
“Fuck,” she whispers. “That felt really good.”
“Yeah,” I manage, and I can already feel the spot starting to heal, a benefit of being an alpha.
My eyes lock onto the spot on her neck where I bit her, which feels like ages ago. It’s practically healed now, already starting to fade. I lick my lips, then force myself to meet her eyes. “We have a lot to talk about, baby.”
“I know,” she whispers back, then rocks her hips against me, and I realize that somehow, I’ve gotten hard beneath her. “But we can talk later, right?”
“Right,” I agree, voice husky.
She skims her fingers over my face, looking at me like she wants to memorize me, then she adjusts, and I sit up a bit more so I can get my teeth on her mark, deepening it, reinforcing it, getting my scent even deeper in her.
And, after that, I’m rock-hard. She must feel it, because she rolls her hips again, whimpering at the friction.
When I brought her home, I cleaned her up, wiping away the soot and dirt, washing her hair, tucking her into bed. I put her in a nightgown, but didn’t even think about putting a pair of underwear on her.
That comes in handy now as she lifts up from me, and I pull my shorts roughly down my legs, letting my cock spring free.
Aurela reaches down, wrapping her small, warm hand around it, and a noise gets caught in my throat at how good it feels for her to touch me, her skin on my skin, the look on her face when she knows she’s making me feel good.
“I love you,” she whispers, tearing her eyes away from my cock and meeting my gaze.
When I swallow, I watch her eyes track the movement. “I love you, too.”
“I know,” she whispers, then lowers down onto my cock, taking me as deep as she can. My eyes shut, my body tensing, cock twitching with pleasure inside her. Her hands land on my shoulders, and she moves, throwing her head back, breathing hard, pleasuring herself on me.
It’s desperate. The kind of lovemaking you do when you’ve almost just died. And I like watching her ride me, like watching her take control.
Until I’m ready to do it myself.
“My turn,” I say, but the words come out as little more than a growl as I grip her tightly, lifting her with ease, keeping her legs around me and my cock buried deep inside her.
“Where are we—?” she starts, but the words die out when I carry her right into the shower. I hold her with one hand and reach over, turning on the shower so the hot water sprays on the wall, the room steaming up.
Carefully, I peel off her nightgown and throw it over the top of the shower door, not caring where it lands on the other side.
“You’re perfect,” I whisper before leaning down and taking one of her tits into my mouth, loving the way I can feel and hear her whimper of approval.
I get lost in her chest, hands on her tits, one of her nipples between my teeth, until she rolls her hips against me impatiently. Her scent is all around me, drifting in the steam, in the air, and I could ask for nothing more.
Gently, tenderly, I lift my head from her chest and press a kiss to her lips. It’s a kiss that says I’m glad she’s here, that I love her, that I want her.
Then, I press her against the wall, put one hand over her mouth, and fuck her.
I drive into her, letting my wolf take everything he wants, my hips driving up into her with a pace and force I’d be terrified to use with anyone but my mate.
But her body was made for me, and my body was made for her, and when she bites into my hand, her moans muffled by the sound of the water and my palm, it only spurs me on.
Water drips from the ends of her hair, sluicing down over our bodies when I turn it to face us, making our chests and bellies slick and hot, sliding against one another with ease.
And when my cock starts to grow inside her, the knot forming, I don’t stop. She clutches at me, whimpering and moaning, and I know that pressure hits just the right spot inside her, because her tight walls hit just the right spot on me.
Finally, she comes apart on my cock, and I allow myself to let go, too, my orgasm shuddering through me with an intensity that has stars bursting in my eyes.
Then, when it’s over, my knot steadily releasing inside her, I hold her as I gently wash her hair, her body. She reciprocates, taking the soap and using her hands to wash each part of my body she can reach.
When we’re both clean, I turn off the water, and we step out together, my knot still pumping inside her. I wrap a towel around her, still holding her tight to me, breathing her in, and I know this is just the first of many shared showers together.