Chapter 19
nineteen
RAE
There was no backseat in my new Corvette, so I reluctantly agreed to let Darius drive me back to the hotel after my knees hurt too much from the awkward position we were in.
His hand was between my thighs the whole drive back, but he didn't let me come.
He just teased my clit and slid his fingers in and out of me lazily, dragging his release over my core.
When we neared the hotel, he refused to keep going until I found my shorts and pulled them on.
My legs were shaky as we walked through the hotel's lobby, ignoring the many eyes on us while Darius held me close to his chest.
Suddenly, moving to a house sounded even better.
Our suite was on the top floor, so we stood in the elevator for what felt like ages, my face pressed against his neck and my chest to his.
My fangs throbbed on the slow journey up to the suite. When I gave in to my instincts and nipped at his throat lightly, he threaded his fingers through my hair and pulled me tighter against him.
It was a clear invitation.
Bite me.
I sank my teeth into pure, delicious muscle.
A few people in the elevator gasped in pleasure when he growled. His magic must've flared.
It was fucking mine.
I released him immediately, healing the wounds I'd left quickly.
"I want to seal the bond," I said against his skin, as the elevator closed behind the last person who'd been inside with us. "I don't want other people feeling your magic while you're with me. Kat said she absorbs Callum's power when they're touching. I want that."
"You'll have to drink a fuck ton of my blood tonight if you want to seal the bond, Rae. I'm not risking you struggling with bloodlust or your shadows afterward."
"Then I'll drink a fuck ton of your blood tonight, while you fuck me over and over." The elevator dinged, and the doors opened on the floor.
We didn't move.
I finally lifted my gaze to his, and found his eyes practically burning. "I'll probably lose control and get too rough.”
“You’d better.”
Dare's lips stretched in a slow, wicked grin, and he lifted a hand to stop the elevator doors from shutting. His mouth crashed into mine, and he walked me backward, our tongues getting reacquainted as we stepped out of the elevator.
It took him a few tries to get the door open, but when he did, he lifted me off my feet and hauled me into the room.
"Show me the way you'd fuck me if we hadn't made a bargain," I ordered.
He carried me to the couch and set me down on my feet behind it. The door slammed shut, but neither of us looked backward.
"Bend over, baby." His low command send goosebumps over my arms.
I bent over the back of the furniture, and he slowly dragged my shorts down my thighs.
He wouldn't have been so gentle, without our bargain. I knew that, but I didn't care.
"Hands on the couch," he commanded.
I set them there.
"If you touch me, this ends," he said, a hint of a growl to his voice. I heard his hands on his jeans, undoing the button, then the zipper.
His magic heated, and the t-shirt I'd been wearing slowly turned to ash. The fragments of it on my skin were small and hot, but they didn't burn me. They felt good.
Dare's hands caught my ass, gripping firmly as he tilted my hips a little bit before he drove into me in one smooth motion.
I gasped out a curse, my fingers digging into the couch.
"You okay?"
"Stop worrying and just fuck me, Scorch." I breathed.
"I will always worry about you."
He drove into me in long, rough strokes that had me crying out in pleasure every damn time. We came together again, faster than before.
Darius pulled out long enough to yank me off the couch and spin me around.
He lifted me off my feet again and carried me toward the bedroom, my bare chest pressed against his. He only made it a few steps before I managed to hook my legs around his ass and take his cock again, sinking my fangs into the center of his throat, too.
A vicious curse escaped him. He staggered to the nearest wall, pinning me to it as he fucked me rougher than before, with one hard thrust after another.
God, it was perfect.
We lasted longer that time, but eventually, I lost control with a desperate cry.
He snarled through his release.
We both panted as we fought to catch our breaths, and our eyes locked again.
"Too rough?" he gritted out.
"I don't think there's such a thing."
"There is for you."
"Prove it."
"You're going to fucking kill me, baby."
"I wouldn't let you die. I need your blood too much."
He grinned for a beat before mouth crashed into mine.
Then he scooped me up again and carried me to the bed, setting my back on the mattress as he kissed me deeply, no longer in a rush.
The slow heat of this kiss was almost as good as the crazy burn of the one in the car.
And this time, he fucked me so, so slowly.
I wasn't prepared for that.
For the intensity of feeling his cock stretch me slower.
For the way our breaths mingled and our bodies moved together, dragging each other closer and closer to the edge of our pleasure.
I wasn't at all prepared for the way it would feel to have my teeth in his throat while he took me like that, either. Or the way he dragged me to my climax on his cock multiple times before we finally went over that ledge together.
Nothing could've gotten me ready for the emotions I would feel as I watched the larger-than-life man who had somehow become my friend lose complete control with me.
His expression contorted with the intensity of his pleasure every time, the pleasure I had given him.
My eyes burned, just a little.
The intimacy. That was what I hadn't been prepared for.
How intimate it would be, to share my body with him in this way.
It caught me off guard entirely, but I was already completely and utterly addicted to it.
To Darius.
My mate.
We spent most of the night locked together in bed. Or against the wall. Or in the bathtub. Or in the shower. It was fast and rough sometimes, and soft and slow at others.
I tried to shift into my demon form, but it didn't work. I wasn't sure I had one, after going full shadow. Darius said he didn't care, and I believed him.
He ordered food in the middle of the hazy, lust-filled night, and we came up for air long enough to eat together.
I hadn't expected to feel so close to him just because of the sex, but I did. I craved him even more than I had before, and that was seriously saying something, because I had craved him endlessly.
I sated myself with his blood over and over again, drinking until I was bloated and sealing those wounds with my tongue until he ordered me to bite him again, and drink again, and I was full and bloated all over again.
When the sun came up and I felt like I'd been reborn through blood and sex and pleasure, I finally looked down at him while I sat on his cock, and asked him if he knew the vows.
He did, and we said them together, igniting that old, unbreakable magic.
The bond locked into place between us on that couch, and his magic finally soaked into my skin.
It wasn't pleasure, but it did make me more sensitive to his touch, lighting my senses on fire when he focused it.
It was mine.
Darius was mine.
That was what mattered to me the most.
My eyes burned again as he carried me to the bed and fucked me one last time. Our magic mingled around us in shadow and heat until we were crying out and collapsing on the bed.
As he pulled me tightly to his chest, his emotions seeped through the new, flimsy wall that separated our minds. The single thing he was feeling was so big and loud and immense that I could hardly breathe.
Love.
Darius loved me.
He was already asleep when horror curled in my chest...
Because I had no fucking clue if I loved him back.
I slipped out of bed when I knew he was asleep enough not to notice me leave.
Sleep wasn't coming for me. Not at the moment.
I took a few steps toward the bathroom, but hesitated, looking back at the man in my bed.
Our bed.
My mate. He was my mate.
Darius looked as content as he felt through our bond. My shadows danced slowly over his skin, the magic intense and protective, blocking him from the price of his magic.
Half of them weren't clinging to him.
All of them were.
Almost all of them, at least. I was the one who now had only a small dusting of my power on my skin.
His blood ran through my veins even more than his soul connected to mine. My magic thought he was more me than I was.
It might've been right.
At least he wouldn't have to deal with his apathy anymore.
I walked the rest of the way into the bathroom, and sucked in a breath when I saw myself in the mirror.
The woman staring back at me was almost identical to my mother, but she had my father's striking blue eyes.
Tears welled in those eyes.
I wasn't just looking at the Wraith identity I'd been clinging to since I clawed my way back to life in that cellar.
I was looking at me.
Raven Levine. The daughter of two wealthy vampire politicians.
She felt more like me than the Wraith did, but I didn't know how to be her. Not now that so many things had changed. I had still died and lost everything as a teenager, regardless of what I looked like.
I didn't know if I'd ever be ready to embrace my identity publicly.
But a glance back at Darius in my bed told me what I already knew.
I couldn't run.
He needed my shadows, and I needed his blood.
For better or worse, I was going to have to wrap my mind around the city realizing who I really was, because there was no way to hide my past anymore. As soon as pictures started circling, the demons would start talking, and someone would figure it out.
But not tonight.
Tonight, I would just enjoy the feel of my mate's body wrapped around mine.
I tried once again to shift into my vampire form, the way I did automatically when I was a kid, but it was gone. That part of me must've died in the cellar when I tethered myself to the shadows, somehow.
I walked back to my bed and slipped into the arms of the fae king who had somehow become mine.
When he pulled me close in his sleep, still snoring steadily, I couldn't stop the tears that dripped to the mattress.
I wasn't crying about Darius. Not anymore.
Now, I cried for the past I'd tried and failed to run away from. And all of the truths I was going to have to learn how to embrace.