Chapter 26 - Hyacinth
A cool breeze gently ruffles my hair, making goosebumps shiver down my spine. My senses are hyper-aware, my entire body ringing with emotion and feeling.
Trina’s hand tightens on mine, and I remember to maintain my thread with the world. Shane’s hands tighten on my shoulders, and a smile spreads across my face as my heart glows with pure love. Sadie squeezes my hand from the other side.
I open my eyes, looking up into the slowly darkening sky before turning my gaze down to the rough patch of earth at our feet.
“Here lies Lynette and Darian,” Sadie says. “Once torn apart, but now together for eternity.”
“May they rest in peace,” Trina says. “By their love, all in this valley are healed.”
“Their souls entwined, now live as one,” I whisper, adding my own blessing to the spell.
I can feel magic flowing between us and through our mates standing behind us—but the wave of energy spreads even further now, through witches and wolves that have joined their hands all around the gravesite.
Sadie was right. Not long after the curse was broken, witches began to wake and arrive in town. They came here desperately seeking meaning to their lives, and all of them had been just like us—living with a maddening sense of incompleteness deep in their hearts.
They were welcomed by the wolves, and to our surprise, some matched up almost immediately. Bonds of true love had always existed between our species; they had just been corrupted by the curse. Now that it was broken, they were free to follow their hearts.
The wave of energy ripples away from the grave, and for just a moment, I can hear Lynette’s happy laughter. An image flickers briefly before me of Darian and Lynette holding hands as they walk away from us, going into the light.
Around us, a cheer erupts, and people all start talking at once. Sadie gives my hand another squeeze.
“Ready to go and eat?”
“Sure,” I reply. “Since I made all the desserts for this party, it’s only fair I finally get to eat some.”
“Come on,” Trina says. “I helped.”
“Setting fire to simple syrup does not count as helping,” I mutter, rolling my eyes.
“I thought I could make it cook faster by turning up the heat,” she says, defensively.
“You’re never allowed in my kitchen ever again,” I tease.
“Good. I much prefer eating cake to making it.”
I give her a little nudge, sliding my arm around her shoulders to give her a quick hug. “I haven’t forgiven you. But I still love you.”
“You’re within your rights to withhold forgiveness,” Sadie says, her voice an overdone solemn tone. “That anger constantly reminds you who you can allow into your kitchen.”
“I think I saw that on a meme,” Trina says.
“Guys,” I say. “None of this is bringing us closer to the food.”
Sadie laughs, walking ahead of us with Rhys towards the tables laid out behind the manor. Trina snuggles close to Owen, and I feel Shane’s arm wrap around my waist as we follow behind.
It’s been three weeks since the big day, and the group assembled here now is massive, a gathering of all three packs and every witch in the area. It started as a small celebration, but quickly became a major event.
“It’s the first time the packs have ever gathered like this,” Shane says, reading my thoughts. “We had events before, but never every single member of all three packs.”
“Plus a few dozen witches,” I put in.
Shane nods. “That’s just wild. I grew up thinking there weren’t any witches left, or they were very rare.”
“The curse was hard on all of us,” I reply. “But now we know it was all worth it.”
We join the others at a table, and I take a huge piece of cake for myself.
“Why don’t you just take the whole thing?” Trina asks as I sit down beside her.
“I should have,” I reply, flicking whipped cream at her.
She shrieks, wiping it off her face and hurling a handful of sprinkles at me. I reach for the power that now lives in my soul, and the sprinkles all bounce off me, scattering to the ground.
“It’s totally not fair how you can do that,” Trina mutters.
“You could do it, too. You just have to practice.”
“Hmm, I’ve tried. I just don’t understand why you’re a natural at this.”
“It’s all the folklore I read,” I say, grinning as I stuff a bite of cake into my mouth. “You just need to study.”
Trina goes to throw cake at me again, but I simply raise my hand, reminding her that I can flip it straight back at her. She pouts and goes back to eating her cake.
The conversation flows around me, a happy rumble of voices discussing ordinary things like work or school. The lives of the packs had been on hold while they suffered under the curse. Now everyone is back to everyday activities, and clearly thriving.
When I finish my cake and put the plate down, Shane snuggles close to me, wiping a bit of cream from the edge of my lip and sucking it off his finger.
“Don’t go doing that out in public,” I whisper. “What are you trying to do to me?”
“Oh?” he asks innocently. With the same wide-eyed look, he drags his finger through the leftover cream on my plate, then sticks it in his mouth.
“That’s it,” I say, getting up. “You’re done.”
Shane shrieks like a maniac and runs. I chase after him, listening to the laughter of the others fading behind us.
There is no pain and no doubt at all anymore. For any of us.
Shane dodges a few groups of people, heading for the nearby trees. I chase him down, knowing full well he could outpace me if he wanted to.
As I reach the tree line, I slow down, looking left and right. Suddenly, Shane leaps out from behind a tree, wrapping his arms tightly around me.
“Aha!” he shouts. “The hunted has become the hunter.”
“Oh no,” I moan. “Whatever shall I do?”
“Whatever I tell you to,” he whispers against my ear.
A chill runs across my skin from where his breath touches my neck all the way down my arms, and back. I lean into him, wriggling just a little.
“And what is your will, then?” I ask in a low voice.
Shane turns me around and kisses me, wrapping his arms around my waist and squeezing me against him.
I lean my head back, running my hands up his arms to cling to his neck as he deepens the kiss.
He reaches down and squeezes my ass, hard enough to make me jump and let out a little yelp as I cling to him.
“I like those sounds,” he whispers in my ear.
“I do, too,” I giggle, kissing his cheek.
He pulls back a little, gripping my chin to look straight into my eyes.
The deep pools of blue are barely inches from my own, and they move with living light.
His eyes aren’t just blue—they seem to reflect the soul of the universe itself, portals into a far-reaching domain that only the chosen can enter.
“Are you lost in my eyes again?” he asks.
“If only you knew how deep they are,” I say.
“Yours swallow me, too,” he says. “Haven’t you noticed? You say infinity resides within me—but the great abyss lives in your gaze. My infinity is powerless against the void.”
“We are one and the same,” I whisper, kissing him softly. “One cannot exist without the other.”
Shane kisses me back, squeezing my ass again as he deepens the kiss. His tongue flicks into my mouth, and I answer it with my own, devouring him in return.
“But my question, my king,” I whisper. “I asked, what is your will?”
He pulls back a little, his eyes dancing with warmth now, like softly swelling currents in a perfectly blue bay.
“On your knees,” he says.
I comply eagerly, grabbing the waistband of his jeans as I quickly kneel. He covers my hands with his, his blue eyes burning through the dark like flames from a sacred pyre.
“Slowly,” he says.
I graze the skin of his belly with my fingertips, slowly teasing the button of his pants with my thumbs. It pops open, and I stroke my hand gently down the zipper, teasing up and down before I actually grab the tag to open it.
Reaching up, I slide my hands across his hips and lean back to see his face. Shane is looking down on me, his mouth slack and his eyes wide, the blue softening to the mild depths of a summer sky.
I dance my fingers back across his belly, feeling goosebumps rising under my touch as I come back to the zipper. I pull it down the rest of the way, tugging his jeans down. Shane groans, leaning his head back as I slide my fingers into the opening and stroke his hard cock.
“Oh my fucking God, woman,” he mutters. “You’re killing me.”
“But you said to take my time,” I remind him, giggling. “Isn’t this what you want?”
I tease my fingers up and down the shaft, feeling tension singing through his body in response.
“Forget that,” he hisses. “Put it in your mouth right now.”
“As you wish,” I whisper, grabbing his cock and wrapping my lips around it.
Shane moans, almost buckling at the knees, and I grab his hips, rocking back and forth as I slide his cock in and out of my mouth.
I keep moving back and forth in long, slow strokes, running my tongue along the shaft.
Every now and then, I pause, sucking on the head before gulping the length of him down my throat again.
Shane’s cock gets so hard in my mouth, I can barely stand it. I pause, pulling back. Shane drops to his knees and hurls me back against the ground, pouncing on me. His hands roughly push up my skirt, and he dives into my pussy, his tongue immediately finding my clit.
A shriek bursts out of my throat as I thrash on the ground, feeling Shane’s weight holding me down.
He sucks slowly on my clit, running his tongue down the slick folds to bury it deep in my pussy.
With a groan of satisfaction, he runs his tongue back up again, coming in for soft kisses and licking up my juices.
When he reaches my clit, he teases it with the lightest flicks of his tongue before sucking on it as hard as he can, punishing me with hard laps from the flat of his tongue.
I arch and moan under him as a massive orgasm crashes through me, waves of pleasure cascading from deep inside, scattering all the way out to my fingers and toes. When I can remember to breathe again, Shane is on top of me, his face inches from mine.
“I love those sounds,” he says.
I put my hand on his cheek, losing myself in the deep prisms of his blue eyes. I shake my head a little, the love inside me so powerful that I can’t describe it. There are no words in me that could match the emotion swelling in my heart.
Shane blinks, and I know he understands and feels exactly the same. I smile gently, kissing him and wrapping my body around his.
Shane grabs my shoulders and thrusts his hips forward, and I feel his hard cock sliding against my wet pussy.
I bend in his arms, opening my thighs and begging for him to come inside me.
He teases me, pressing his hips forward, then pulling away again, until I wrap my legs around him tightly, desperate to pull us together.
“Please,” I gasp. “Please fuck me.”
“That’s all I needed,” he whispers, a mischievous tone in his voice. “A magic word.”
I dig my fingers into his shoulders, ready to show him some real magic if he doesn’t immediately let me have his cock. He grips my hips and sinks lower onto his knees, thrusting his cock inside me.
I writhe desperately against him, locking my ankles and my hands across his back to work my hips up and down until his cock is as deep inside me as it can possibly go.
When he finally touches the tender point at the end of me, shudders run up my spine, and I cling to him weakly as all my perception narrows to the place where our bodies are entangled.
Shane strokes my sides, and I stroke him back, feeling his cock grinding against me.
Gasping, I tighten my knees around his waist, leaning back to invite him even further inside.
A pulse shocks through me, my deepest muscles gripping his cock and sending waves of pleasure rippling through me.
I collapse back against the ground, gasping at the sky as Shane tightens his grip on my shoulders and begins to thrust.
He starts off slow, treating me to every single inch of his cock with each stroke.
Tremors cascade inside me, multiple orgasms bouncing off each other, renewing with every thrust. Once I’ve come so many times that I can barely stay lucid, Shane finally braces his knees, clamps his hands down on my shoulders, and rams into me hard and fast.
Trapped between the grip of his hands and the pressure of his thrusts, I writhe under him, clinging desperately to his shoulders even as my limbs grow weak.
My inner muscles spasm again, gripping his cock as he swells inside me.
His thrusts become wild, erratic, and deep, until tension streaks through his whole body and he crushes me to his chest, a groan ripping from his mouth as his cock blows deep inside me.
We stay locked together, our hearts racing against each other as our skin cools in the evening air. Shane gently wraps his arms around me as he slips away, cradling me to his chest and stroking my hair.
The soft, soothing touch seems to reach every inch of my body, and even into my soul. I look up into his beautiful blue eyes, seeing the depths of his soul shining back at me. Stroking his cheek, I kiss him deeply, my heart aching with the intensity of my love.
“Forever,” I whisper, knowing what the word truly means now.
It is beyond this life, even this body. Forever is eternity. It is infinity, and it’s right here in his eyes.
“Forever,” Shane whispers back, and I know he is acknowledging this truth. The vow is made by us both, and can now never be broken.
*****
THE END