Chapter nineteen
“Was that your own sequence?” Darce gasped, lying on the floor with me on top of him. My sword was against his neck. It was the third time I had disarmed him.
“Yes! I’ve been practising it all month.” I beamed, removing my blade from his throat.
“You are incredible. Do you know that? I’m not even sure if I have anything left to teach you.” My heart sank. Did that mean we were finished? Would he still come to Shielding Valley to see me? “What are you thinking?” he questioned, stroking my thigh gently.
“Will we stop meeting as often now?”
“Not unless you want to. I’m a slave for you, Alora. You know I can’t get enough of you.”
For four hundred years we had been caught up in each other, mixing training with sexual play.
Darce had done what he’d said he would. I was now a warrior to be feared.
He’d kept his promise about not deflowering me, too, even though I had begged him to take me on many occasions.
We simply didn’t know the outcome if we had sexual intercourse.
Holy Ether might smite us, or our light and dark powers could cancel each other out and destroy us both.
Neither of us were prepared to risk the other.
I had no doubt that I was in love with Darce, but those feelings had to remain hidden.
I loved him too much to risk his life if I ever learnt he felt the same way.
“If the training is complete, what will we do instead?” His eyes darkened and his hold on my thigh became stronger as his fingers dug into my flesh. “Apart from the obvious,” I snorted, slapping his chest playfully.
“There has to be an inch of your body somewhere that my mouth hasn’t caressed.”
“I seriously doubt it.” Squirming as his hand snuck between my legs to stroke my sex through my undergarment, I rocked against the bulge in his pants.
“Careful. You’re making it harder to resist the urge to slam my cock inside you, Alora.”
“Don’t fight it then,” I purred, leaning down to capture his lips with mine. His tongue darted into my mouth at the same time his free hand moved into my hair, pulling me flush against him. His length was rubbing against my core, and the friction was glorious. “Fuck! Please, Darce. Please!”
“Don’t beg,” he hissed, biting on my bottom lip. “You know we can’t.”
“It doesn’t stop me wanting it!” I yearned, pushing my core harder against him.
The thin fabric of my undergarment made his pants-covered length tease my entrance.
A moan escaped my lips at the tiny amount of material that was between us.
Another hard thrust and I might have felt his length against my bundle of nerves.
“Holy fuck!” Darce closed his eyes for a few short moments before stilling me by capturing my thighs with his shadows. “You never change. You always push me to my final strand of decorum.”
“And you don’t play fair,” I purred. I tried to break from his hold but I couldn’t move.
“If you used your light power you could break free. Try it.” He was distracting me from what I really wanted.
My power was still very subdued. It frustrated me that it simply wouldn’t surface.
I had done everything Holy Ether asked of me.
I was a trained warrior. I had allowed a Noxlin to train me.
What else did she want from me? Deep down, I feared my love for Darce was the issue.
Was she making me pay for falling for my enemy?
What Darce and I were doing was forbidden, but neither of us could stop.
“If you don’t try to break free, I’ll simply use you as my plaything.
” He began to undo the side of my fighting leathers.
“And that is meant to make me want to break free?” Roughly, he pulled my leathers down my body, exposing my breasts.
“You won’t be able to touch me.” That playful smirk that I had grown to love appeared on his face.
He sat up, taking one of my nipples into his mouth.
“Maybe, I’ll worship these until you come undone.
Maybe I’ll deny you a climax. We know how crazy that makes you.
” Pleasure flooded to my core, but I couldn’t get any friction because of Darce’s hold on me.
“Come on, Starshine. Fight me off with your light.” His other hand slipped into my sex and I was lost. All sense of thought and time merged together.
All I could feel was Darce’s fingers rubbing my intimate area and his hot tongue against my breasts.
I drowned in the feeling as it completely took me over.
“Gods, yes...” With a cry into the night air, my orgasm rippled through my entire body. Darce had been keeping me on the verge of release for hours. My nipples were sore and swollen from the constant attention, and my sex burned in such a euphoric way.
“You’ll feel my touch for days after that session,” he murmured, biting the underside of my breast. “I want you to lie in your bed tonight and feel me everywhere.” His shadows finally let go of me and I slumped down onto his chest. “I might not be able to claim you, but I will take you in every way that I’m allowed. ”
“That...that...was...” I was too exhausted to speak.
“I’m disappointed that you didn’t try to break free.”
“You were playing me too well. I didn’t want to move an inch.” Breathing in his scent, I ran my hand down his chest. He stopped it when it reached his belly button.
“You need to be heading back. It’s getting late.” The two moons were out in full force, cascading their light against the lake.
“We could stay here for the night and leave in the morning.” Tilting his head, he reached out to stroke my bottom lip.
“As much as I’d love to do that, I need to be somewhere tomorrow morning.” My heart deflated. It was getting harder to leave him these days. We were meeting up every two weeks and it still wasn’t enough for me. “I won’t be able to meet you again for a month, either.”
“What?” I choked. “Why?”
“There is an important Noxlin festival coming up. I’m not allowed to miss it.” He stroked my face and then leaned in to peck my lips. “How about we both stay here for a few days next time to make up for it?”
“I can’t deny you anything or stay angry with you.” I sighed, moving in for a more passionate kiss. “Damn you.”
“I always knew you wouldn’t be able to resist me.”
“Prick,” I breathed against his lips. Darce chuckled, deepening the kiss.
“You and Xavier seem to be getting on better these days,” Luz commented while I helped her collect the flowers for today’s blessing. “Have you set a date to be bonded?”
“We’re taking things slow. We don’t want to unbalance my power if it’s starting to surface.”
“Well, whatever you’re doing, it’s working.
Your aura is glowing. Even I can even see it these days.
It’s so pure.” She reached out, almost seeming as if she was touching it.
Nell had been the only one able to see my aura before.
It was a way of foreseeing great power. “Your power must be greatly connected to the ground if I can see it.”
“If only Holy Ether would hurry up and bestow them upon me. Then we would find out.”
“Take an extra offering to the blessing.” Picking a sacred, white iris, Luz handed it to me. “This might do the trick. History suggests that the iris was the first flower Holy Ether created. It’s a symbol of pure light.”
“Thank you,” I muttered, taking it and stroking the delicate petals. “I’ve never read that in the library.”
“It’s in the ancient, restricted books. The Book of Elder World, I believe.”
“Where is that in the library?”
“Uri has it under lock and key. Zohar ordered it to be done not long after losing...your mother.” Touching my arm, Luz gave me a sympathetic half smile.
“I was only allowed to check the pages about up-rooting roots, and Uri guarded me the entire time. I managed to save the rose garden just in time with its help.”
“Why would a book need to be under lock and key?”
“It has a lot of ancient information. It’s rumoured to have been written by Lustre, herself. The pages are unreadable due to the ancient language and age of the book, but some pictures I saw paint quite a different version of Afterlight.”
“In what way?” I didn’t realise I was clinging to her arm so hard until Luz pulled away. “Sorry.”
“I couldn’t quite tell. Uri turned the pages so fast. It was difficult to work it out, but our two suns and moons appeared to be joined in one image.
” Did she mean an eclipse? Darkness taking over the light?
I needed to get access to these books somehow.
There might be information about Noxlin and Dylin fornicating.
“Alora, I know that face. Don’t go poking your nose into business that doesn’t concern you.
Uri will not give you access to those books. Why would you even need them?”
“I wasn’t even thinking that,” I lied, giving her a shy smile. “Come on. We need to make our way to the temple. Noor and Fynn will be waiting for us.”
I was distracted at the blessing. Voices chattered around me, but all I could think about was the image Luz had seen in The Book of Elder World.
What if the eclipse picture had something to do with Noxlin and Dylin finding peace?
What if a Dylin and Noxlin had fallen in love before.
Was there a way for Darce and I to be together?
My heart soared at the tiniest amount of hope.
I knew the image could have been about a darker time, when darkness almost corrupted light, but my feelings for Darce had me praying that I could find some answers for us in that book.
“Alora, are you even paying attention to what I’m saying?” Xavier touched my arm gently, breaking me from my thoughts.
“Sorry, my mind was miles away.”