CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE #2
I leaned into him. He groaned as my lips glided across his throat, pressing a soft kiss over his pulse. I felt the moment my canines elongated. My tongue slid across them. And as I bit into him, I nearly fell apart.
His blood was sweet too, but what it evoked within my senses was akin to an unbearable longing.
A shiver born of a first touch. The fear of being caught under an electric, lilac sky, attempting to get home before the lightning struck.
The reddened hues of a dying sun, and the beauty of its violent end.
The final collapse of complete exhaustion, falling into the warmth of an eternal embrace.
I felt everything. Every bead of sweat as it trailed down my skin. The heat between our bodies wherever we melded together. His warm blood on my tongue. The press of his fingers that dug into the flesh of my ass and hip. And him deep inside me, hitting my most sensitive area.
I broke away from his neck to gasp at the sharp prick of his canines.
My vision blacked out for a moment as he bit into my shoulder.
I lapped at the rich crimson dripping down his neck, and we drank from each other.
I shattered so violently as his fingers came to my clit that I knew I would never be the same after I pieced myself back together.
He spilled inside me with a deep groan, holding his last thrust deep as his pleasure washed through him. Our eyes met once more, and we stilled for a moment. His lush lips stained scarlet. And I felt it then.
The silver thread of the universe, of existence in its entirety, weaving through our very souls, stitching us together in a bond that extended past death.
And I let out a breath I had been holding for years.
The expectations of others fell to the floor around me, sinking into the earth to be swallowed up within the burning center.
Taken far from me. A weight released, eliciting a lightness I didn’t know what to do with.
A joy I didn’t know how to handle. A happiness unfamiliar to me lined with dread.
Sebastian cupped the sides of my face. He revered me like the beauty of a thousand suns. He held me like a long-lost artifact that could break apart in the wind. His eyes swam with a conflict of confusion and conviction. Tears stung my eyes, and he swiped away every one that fell with his thumb.
After a moment of unmeasurable time, we finally fell to the bed, facing each other as we laid on our sides. He caressed the soft dip of my hip. I ran my fingers along the planes of his face, through his hair. Not once breaking eye contact. Lost in a trance.
I had to keep so much of myself hidden. I had even kept myself in the dark.
My love for Sebastian bloomed despite how much I clawed at the soil, fearing its growth and the consequences of the feelings I couldn’t control.
Loving him meant I was just as much of a monster as my world believed him to be.
I dug my own grave to be with him. And I had never felt more free.
“I love you, Sebastian.”
His fingers dug into my hip as he pulled me flush against his body, his other hand wrapping around the nape of my neck, cradling my head.
“A hold so innate overtook me when I first saw you. I came to your world to close the portal, but there was no letting you go. You became all that mattered to me, all that I needed. I love you, my moonlight.”
A tear slipped from my eye, and he kissed it away.
“You are the color I had lost. You have given me life and taught me how to wield it. You are the light that brought me back to myself.” Every word cut loose a thread holding on to each part of myself I feared, everything I wanted to reject, all that made me undesirable in the eyes of those who told me I was not acceptable.
“And what a lovely life it is, one I get the honor to be a part of.”
I hid my smile in the fluffy duvet, not knowing what to do with this joy that was so foreign to me. A thought hit me, causing me to peek an eye out. “Did you really need to ask for my hand to get us to the portal?”
A sly smile tugged at his lips. “No.”
I gasped. “Sebastian!” I slapped his arm.
He chuckled, feigning surrender. “Our fake courting was torturous because of all I had to hold back. A touch, a kiss, telling you how beautiful you are. I didn’t know if I’d ever get a real opportunity to ask for your hand, so I wanted to at least pretend, get some semblance of what it might be like. ”
My lips parted at his admittance, at all he laid before me, trusting me with its fragility. I knew I’d ruin the moment, but I couldn’t hold back my grin. “And that’s the proposal you came up with?”
He barked out a laugh, something I had never heard from him or expected from the stone-faced Sebastian. I almost started to believe he was incapable of such a thing.
“I didn’t want to scare you away by being too forward. Especially with not knowing how you felt. You made it clear from the beginning that you never saw a future with me, not that I blamed you. We are from two different worlds, and you come from one that views vampires as a plague.”
My heart ached at the idea of him feeling rejected by me, at him longing for me in secret as I did for him.
I trailed my fingertips along his cheekbone. “Does that mean we also didn’t really need to pretend to be engaged in Svealin?”
He winced slightly.
I gasped, and he flinched, waiting for the slap. I tangled my fingers in his hair instead.
“Hmm, it seems we have both kept a lot hidden from each other,” I murmured.
“We won’t have to worry about that anymore.”
My eyes rounded as I remembered. The soulmate bond created a link between our emotions. I grappled with this new reality of not being able to guard my feelings, the sudden exposure leaving me hung out in the open.
He shot me a wicked grin. “I warned you, killer. Every spell comes at a price.”
I sighed, hiking my leg around his hip. “I suppose that’s for the best. Think of all we have missed keeping how we have truly felt from one another.” Unspoken feelings decayed beneath the surface, leaving the stable ground to rot away.
And I hoped I could find a way to free all that I kept buried. I had a feeling it would need to be soon, that I wouldn’t be able to hide from my world for much longer.