Chapter 47
forty-seven
The Nest
The door opens to a wall of roses. Velvety red, bright pink, and soft white cascade down before us like a perfumed curtain. Between the green leaves and stems, I see the sandstone I remember from the pool long ago.
Bastian steps forward and uses his wings to part the hanging flowers, revealing the nest in all its beauty.
One large room lit well with blazing sconces.
A glass dome covers the once-open skylight above the natural pool at the center.
Around the edges are piles of plush blankets, pillows, and cushions arranged like forts.
Between them are shelves of books, trinkets, and more roses.
He sets me down at the edge of the water and my eyes continue to wander.
The runic designs on the wall have been filled with gold, making them glimmer in the flickering torchlight.
There’s a window opposite us that reveals a dark, moonlit body of water that seems to go on forever.
Another window beside a shelf to the left shows a towering, snowcapped mountain.
“Bast,” I breathe. “It’s beautiful.”
“A dragon must have a good nest before taking a mate, it’s important.”
Nests are for…
No, I shouldn’t jump to conclusions.
I turn to him. “What do you mean by mate? You’ve said that before, and so did Apollo. What is it?”
He pulls in a deep breath and begins to pace. I let the silence pass between us as he moves, waiting for him to find the words to go on.
“I’m soulbound to the book. As long as it lives, I live.”
“Right…”
He turns to me, his hands rising on either side without touching me. His fingers tremble just above my skin and he looks at me like I might disappear.
“Tell me,” I whisper as I step into his touch.
He wraps his arms around me and sighs.
“When I take my mate, you become the center of my hoard, the center of my existence. I tie myself to you forever in all ways. We become inseparable, and I will die without you.”
My throat seals up and my mouth goes dry.
He pulls back and looks down at me.
“I want this. What do you want?”
What do I want?
Images of a future that never came to pass flash before me.
A painful scrapbook of marrying Jeremy, having kids, getting the house, going on vacations, and growing old flip over and over through my mind’s eye.
Then the knife drives between us. A little piece of paper with just a few words and a couple of numbers.
“I might not be able to have children,” I blurt.
He takes a breath but then his face freezes mid-rebuttal. The fissure I thought healed rips open, and my heart squeezes painfully. I don’t know what else to say, or how to go from here. I need him to say something. Anything!
He blinks, closes his mouth, and nods.
“That is why your heart ached when you saw the children playing?”
My nose burns and my vision blurs. He remembered, and he put it together so easily. He cares. He notices. Do I deserve someone so good?
“Caitlin, do not hold your troubles in silence,” he says, brushing my cheek.
I lean into the touch and hold his hand against my face, transferring his warmth into strength.
“I said we’d talk about it later but then we didn’t and I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “Before you tie yourself to me forever, in all ways…reconsider, because I might be infertile.”
He wraps an arm around my back, pressing us closer together. “I do not need progeny.”
“But you made a nest. Nests are for having babies,” I cry.
His hand slides from my cheek and grabs the back of my neck. He forces our lips together with desperate need. I kiss him back, my tears infusing the sweetness of the moment with a bitter taste. He releases me and pushes our foreheads together.
“I made it for you. Only you, with no expectations of anything else.”
“Sylvia is pregnant,” I murmur. “With their second baby. And Jade is young and I’m…not.”
Bastian chuckles. “Your life so far has been but a single breath of what it will be.”
“I have so many genetic defects and illnesses.”
“I will heal you.”
“What if you can’t?”
“Then I will love you!” he proclaims. “Exactly. As. You are.”
A lump swells in my throat. “I’m emotionally unstable. I’m no good.”
“Are you trying to make me reject you, or are you giving yourself an excuse to reject me?”
I look up at him. This close, his eyes sort of merge together in my blurry, tear-stained vision. I laugh unexpectedly, but it quickly turns into a sob.
Bastian’s hand tightens on my neck and he kisses me again.
My breath hitches between each press of his lips, the next growing more demanding than the last. His tongue slides along my upper lip.
I open to him and he groans as he steals inside.
The pad of his thumb smooths over my cheek and wipes away the last tear.
He sees everything. He knows everything. He wants this.
He wants me.
Gone are thoughts of sadness and my perceived inadequacy. All that remains is yearning. A dire craving to make him an inexorable part of me, forever.
“Yes,” I moan into his kiss.
He grips a fistful of my hair and pulls back, looking down on me with feral hunger. “Yes what, Caitlin.”
“I want you.”
“Tell me, then,” he says and tightens his fist.
My scalp tingles and my mouth pops open in a gasp. I breathe through the delightful sensation of dominance, of being captivated by him.
He looms over me, his voice rumbling deep in the chest as he asks, “What are you?”
It comes to me without a thought, and I know deep in the pit of my soul it’s true.
“I’m your mate.”
“That’s fucking right you are,” he growls and descends with fervor.
Primal madness consumes me. I attack him with the same affection, pushing onto my toes and dragging him closer. He palms my ass, his claws pricking me with delicious pain, and hoists me up. I’m not afraid. I don’t yelp or squeal or fear that he doesn’t have me. He has me.
I wrap my legs around his hips, and he pins me against his groin.
He keeps one hand under me for support while the other tugs on my sweater.
I raise one arm at a time to keep a hold on him as he strips me.
I’m free of it before his head drops to my neck, kissing across my chest as he deftly navigates my five-hook bra.
I run my hands through his hair, tugging and pleading nonsense as I kiss him anywhere I can.
He yanks off my bra, snapping the straps, and then his lips are on my nipple.
He sucks, opened mouthed and greedily, taking in as much of me as he can.
The shock of his tongue flicking roughly while he sucks forces a moan through my hot throat.
I lean back, grinding my center against his pants. I need them gone, now. I hook my fingers in the band of his slacks and tug, but the angle doesn’t give me any leverage. I whine indignantly, trying to get a toe in on the other side.
Bastian’s laugh rumbles against my chest as he sucks and nibbles. “We’ll get to that, Kitty. But first…”
He turns and kneels, nestling me gracefully into one of the cushion forts. It’s so comfortable I melt into it, relaxing my legs. Bastian kisses across my chest, showing the other nipple the same affection as his hands work the zipper on the side of my skirt.
He bites just hard enough to send a confusing signal of pleasure zinging down my spine.
I scrape my nails across his back in response and he groans into me.
The tip of his tail presses against my pussy and I arch my back.
He pulls the skirt down my legs like he’d fucking planned it, and I almost laugh.
He glances up at me, his lips hovering over my hickey flushed skin. “What’s so funny?”
Oh. I guess I did laugh.
“You’re just…so good at this,” I murmur.
He leers and his fangs poke into his lower lip. I get the sense that somehow I’m in trouble when he grabs the front of my panties.
“Oh no—”
Shhrrrrrrip!
His claws shred them open down the front, exposing me to his probing tail. I don’t have time to scold or protest because his lips are already covering mine.
“Soaked for me, aren’t you,” he whispers between kisses as his tail paints through my arousal.
“All for you,” I moan as I cup his groin. “And this is all for me.”
Bastian flexes into my palm and I give him the friction I know he’s craving. He braces his forearm above my head as he covers me in kisses. His other hand finds my clit, working it over with long strokes.
At this angle I can more easily work off his pants, but his tail is so distracting I forget what I’m trying to do every few seconds. I soak in his adoration and lose myself to it, moaning deliriously as the sensations in my core build.
He chuckles against my lips. “Do you need help?”
I open my mouth to reply and his tongue dives inside, silencing me.
Well, now it’s on.
His tail presses an inch inside, filling me with exactly what he knew would stop me in my tracks.
My fingers fumble on his button as my other palm grinds against his hard cock.
The fingers on my clit change to circular patterns that pull back the hood at the top.
My swollen bud makes me sing with every downward stroke made in time with his thrusting tail.
“Fuck,” I cry as the pleasure holds me over the precipice.
All the air leaves me as I seize, mouth open wide, begging for the breath that will set me off. His tail pulses inside me, pushing back on my tightening walls.
“That’s it,” Bastian groans, his breath warm on my face. “You’re so beautiful like this. Seconds before losing control. You’re like a supernova waiting for permission.”
If I’m a supernova, he’s the black hole waiting to consume me; the gravity of him inescapable, the enormity of what we are together inevitable.
“Stop waiting, Cait. Let go. Detonate.”
I gasp deeply, the fire of my orgasm raging out of control. Magic explodes from my body like a million sparks, creating the night sky in our fort. My hands are on his face, pulling him down into my scream of ecstasy.
He holds me still as he works every ounce of pleasure from my clenching muscles, until there’s nothing left. I slouch back into the cushions and groan in satisfaction. Bastian is still above me, and something feels wrong about it. He always curls me into him and lets me listen to his heart.
I open my eyes to the thousands of sparkling orange particles settling on his skin. His eyes are closed, a blissful expression glowing with my magic. The sparks linger on him, then melt like snowflakes. Instead of running off his body in drops, it pervades his skin, becoming part of him.
“Now I’m yours,” he whispers.
When he opens his eyes, they glow bright orange with a single slit for a pupil running down the center. His gaze drops to me and he smiles, predatory and full of hunger.
“Are you ready to become mine?”
“In all ways,” I say as I undo the button of his pants. “Forever.”