21. Elorie
Elorie
For months, I’ve been floating.
Unbound and lost.
Wilder’s kiss is a caress over any uncertainty. Grounding, while setting me free from all doubt.
“Wilder,” I moan as he kisses the line of my jaw, nipping his way down my throat.
My hands dig into his thick hair, while his arms fasten me against him. They band my waist as his magic hoists my hips, wrapping my legs around his as he presses my back to the stone wall.
His hips thrust between mine until he sets me back on my feet and starts working his way down.
“Gods, I missed you.” He plants a kiss on my rune mark, and my body ignites.
Slowly, he trails a path down my body until he’s kneeling before me, looking up. His fingers toy with the slit in my dress, grazing just beneath my backside as my hand threads through his hair.
“I missed you too,” I admit, emotion thick in my voice. “I’m sorry I’ve been distant. It wasn’t because I didn’t need this or didn’t need you. It’s just…”
“I know.” He leans forward, planting a kiss on my thigh where skin peeks through the lace.
“I was scared,” I tell him as he bends my knee so he can kiss a path up the inside of my leg.
“What were you scared of?” His eyes meet mine, but his lips don’t leave my skin.
His magic hugs me to the wall, and even as he kneels before me, he’s everywhere.
“I was scared the Rite took my choice away. That maybe what I felt for you was because of the ceremony, or the bind. That it wasn’t real. I was scared to trust it.”
My fingers tighten in his hair as he inches closer to where I’m aching for him.
“Or maybe I was scared because I knew that wasn’t the case at all.
I knew what my heart decided, no matter what that meant for my realm, and it was selfish because it doomed my people.
But I couldn’t help it. I chose you in my heart, my soul.
Long before I found you in the prison, my spirit chose you in the fates.
And in the time we were apart, I tried to forget that so it wouldn’t hurt so much to be away from you. But it did.”
A tear slips down my cheek as he pauses, looking up at me. His large palms cup the backs of my legs.
He swallows hard. “It hurt me too. Every second away from you felt like I was barely surviving. Years in a prison is easier than one day without you.”
“I know it’s a silly human thing, but…”
He waits for me to finish my thought from his knees, smirking when he hears the whisper in the thread before I can find the courage to speak the words aloud.
A beautiful smile climbs Wilder’s face. “I love you too, Elorie. It’s you and me from now until the fates unwind.”
He stands, picking me up, carrying me across the room, and setting me at the foot of the bed long enough to strip us both before he climbs over me on the mattress.
Wilder drags my lower lip between his teeth as his hard cock grinds against my slick heat. I grip the sheets with such intensity that my nails rip small frays in them.
From now until the fates unwind.
It might be sooner than I’d like. It might be tomorrow that the Luminess decides we’ve had enough, and the Well finally swallows us whole. But for tonight, Wilder drives his cock into me, and I lose all sense of anything but my mate.
A connection woven through existence.
Wilder hooks his arm under one of my legs and pulls it up over his shoulder, and he’s so deep I can hardly catch my breath. My lungs stutter, and our mouths meet, sealing us together.
He rolls his hips, and magic sparks from my fingertips, winding over his shoulders, wrapping with his aether, ready to play. We’re bound in sparkling threads of light as he thrusts.
Desire turns to need.
Longing turns to necessity.
My back arches off the bed, Wilder’s gold eyes watching me as I press my palm to his heart. It beats too quickly—faster than mine now. I don’t know what that means except that my magic wraps tighter, trying to keep him here.
“Gods, I can’t get enough of you.” He looks down at me, and somehow the rest of the room has dimmed.
We’re a star at the center.
A pinprick of light so bright and endless it dulls all else.
“Then don’t stop.” I moan, wrapping my hand up around the back of his neck and pulling him close. “I need—”
My breath catches.
Thoughts seize.
My chest is expanding with this heat inside me. Magic that slumbered for so long now spills from every pore. Pleasure peaking with his strong, heady thrusts.
“What do you need?” His teeth nip at my lower lip.
“I need you.” It’s a cry and a moan.
A prayer.
A manifestation.
In a strong sweep, Wilder flips us around so I’m straddling him. My hair hangs in waves over my breasts. His palm flattens on my stomach, grazing up between them until he’s wrapped his hand around the front of my neck.
Gentle but strong.
Possessing me.
“That’s it, Elorie.” He rocks my hips with his other hand while I grip his thighs. “Hold on and let me take what’s mine.”
Both hands grip my hips now, holding me in place so he can thrust up into me. My nipples peek through the curtain of blue hair as I tip my head back. He slams my body down on his like he can’t get enough.
I can’t get enough.
Can’t get enough.
Can’t get—
I’ve lost all thought, all being, but Wilder reads my mind. My heart. My soul.
He pulls me off him and throws me down on the bed, stomach first, as he spreads my legs from behind.
Two fingers slick through my center, driving deep. “You’re divine.”
I shiver at his voice in the thread.
He wraps my hair around one fist as he climbs over me from behind, replacing his fingers with his cock, showing no mercy as he drives in.
“So tight. So needy.” His bare chest heats my back as he tugs my hair, arching my neck so he can whisper into my ear. “If I let you come, what are you going to give me?”
His breath is hot on my neck. Magic weaves through the room as I soak his hard length with every intense drive.
“Everything.” My breath catches as he pauses deep, shoving his knees wider to spread mine. “Everything.”
“That’s right, Starfire. You’re going to give me everything.” The sharp points of his teeth graze my neck, teasing the flesh. “Now come for me.”
Wilder pierces skin as he starts to move again, sealing his lips to my throat. The sting is quickly soothed by the lap of his tongue as he swallows a thick wave of blood. His drink pulls from everywhere. And while his tongue laps against my neck, I feel it between my legs.
Blood pulls from my throat. From my toes. From my fingertips. It rushes as I grip Wilder’s cock harder. As my entire body tenses with the need to unravel.
His teeth sink deeper.
The pull stronger.
The need endless.
And I come apart.
My nails rip at the sheets as he pounds into me from behind, not releasing my hair or my neck as he continues to drink. Until I’m not just myself. I’m a part of him. Swimming through his thoughts, lost in his vision of us.
This endless desire he can’t sate. Even as he drives deep and empties inside me, he can’t get enough. Aether fills the room in a burst of light that forces my eyes closed. It’s the waking of a star in the darkest sky.
We’re here, but we’re not.
We’re separate, but we’re one.
Wilder retracts his teeth, and I’m throbbing. His warm tongue drags over my neck, and I clench him between my legs, eliciting a growl, so I do it again.
“Careful, Starfire. You’ve yet to understand just what you do to me. But keep that up, and you will.”
“Is that so?” My smile grows as I purposefully squeeze him again, and his body shivers.
He hums, dragging his tongue over the blood dripping from my neck.
With my blood coating his lips, he turns my face to the side and presses his mouth to mine.
The bloody kiss sends a swarm of emotion to my heart.
A rush of his love for me barrels down the thread, and I’m overwhelmed by the intensity of what I am to him.
His tongue moves in a slow dance in my mouth, coaxing a fresh wave of desire. Our passion tangles, until there is no difference between what is me and what is him. All I see are the images Wilder sends me. The feelings I stir in him.
“Is that how you feel about me?”
“I could never properly show you how I feel about you.” His magic brushes me like his hands have multiplied. “You are peace in an endless darkness. Temptation my body can’t deny even if I’m caged in obsidian.”
He kisses the back of my neck, slow and controlled, pouring his love through the thread until I can hardly drink it down. To see myself through his eyes—to feel myself through him.
It’s not a matter of human or Fae.
It is a matter of fate.
The other half of existence. A white sparkling light that glitters with gold at the edges, and I cling to it while he paints this vision for me.
Wilder pulls out, and the loss of him is overwhelming. This craving is insatiable.
“Did you think I was done with you?” He flips me over, pinning my arms overhead as he hooks a leg under his arm and teases me with his length. “I’m going to be dripping from you all night. Unless you’ve had enough?”
The hitch of his eyebrow is a challenge, and I can’t help but smirk.
“Not yet, King Riven.” I bite my lower lip as his eyes heat at my words.
And when he drives back in, I lose sense of place and time. All that’s here is us.
Until the fates unwind.