11. SETH
SETH
If more than two millennia of service to the gods was the price I’d had to pay to have Zara in my life, it had been worth that and more.
If I’d had to wait another two thousand years for her, she’d still be worth the price.
Back then though, I hadn’t known what I was missing.
Now that I’d grown used to holding her in my arms every night, six months away from her was going to feel like a lifetime.
I’d known the little minx had been up to something when she came sneaking up here without me, but I’d never in my wildest dreams imagined her doing something like that.
And some of my dreams about Zara were extremely wild.
That I’d managed to stay on that sofa and let her tease me the way she had was a miracle, but her performance was going to live in my head until the end of time.
I grinned as I suddenly remembered I’d set my phone up to record whatever she was about to do just before she’d appeared, and I gently disentangled myself without waking her and crept out into the living room, unwilling to wait until the morning to check whether I’d been lucky enough to capture a more permanent reminder.
It was still recording as stopping it had been the last thing on my mind when I’d carried her to our bed, and I eagerly started playing it from the beginning after muting the sound so it wouldn’t wake her.
If she knew I’d done this she’d probably demand that I delete it, so it would be getting uploaded to my secure private server before she had a chance to do any such thing.
It wasn’t perfect, because the lighting was less than ideal and she’d moved out of camera range a lot, especially when she was across my lap and on her knees in front of me, but the striptease and what we’d done on the chair after – that was all there.
And my memory was more than ready to fill in the gaps.
Fuck. I was getting rock hard again just thinking about it.
“Seth? Where are you?” I hastily uploaded a copy of the video to somewhere only I would ever be able to find it before I answered her.
“Forgot to put my phone on charge, sweetheart. I’m sorry if I woke you.”
“I’m not sorry. I meant to stay awake all night anyway.
Until you wore me out.” She came and wormed her way onto my lap, instantly noticing my state of arousal.
“Oh. Well I wasn’t expecting that. I’m not complaining though.
Any thoughts on what we can do about it?
” She shot me a mischievous look and if it had been possible for me to get even harder, I would have done.
Before I could give her a list, though, she frowned.
“I thought you said you were putting this on charge.” She picked up my phone from where I’d hastily tossed it on the seat next to me. “Something you’d like to confess?” She knew, dammit. She must have seen me setting it up.
“Like to is such a subjective term, pet. If I’m honest, there are lots of other things I’d like to do more.” I trailed my fingers lightly up her thigh in hopes of distracting her. No such luck.
“You recorded it, didn’t you? Can I see it?
” I knew her well enough to know that saying no wasn’t an option, even if she had made it sound like it was a question.
I turned up the volume as there was no point in keeping it muted now and played the video again, turning the screen so that we could both see it.
Even though I wasn’t in view of the camera, my ragged breathing could easily be heard over the music, and she giggled as she heard the evidence of how turned on I’d been getting.
“The way you didn’t just snap and grab me was pretty impressive,” she said when we got to the part where she’d pushed me back with the tip of her cane. “I was fully expecting you to when I did that.”
I held my breath as she started her striptease, waiting for her to say I had to delete the rest, but instead she surprised me by starting to squirm around on my lap and when she grasped my hand, the one that was still resting on her thigh, and started urging it towards somewhere more intimate, I began to question whether I was still in bed and dreaming.
I happily obliged though, and by the time she was screaming out my name on the video, she was echoing it in real time too.
“I need you to send me that video,” she panted as soon as she’d got her breath back. “But that can wait until the morning. Right now, I need you to take me back to bed and fuck me.” Well that was a plan I was only too happy to get on board with.
“Wake up, sweetheart.” It seemed heartless to wake her, but she wasn’t the only one with a plan for our last few hours together.
“No. It can’t be time yet. It’s too soon.” My heart felt like it was being ripped out of my chest as she clung to me.
“No, my love,” I soothed, “it’s not time yet, but I have something I want to show you. Can you wake up and get dressed for me?”
She looked at me with sleep blurred eyes, tears trembling on her lashes. “I fell asleep again.” She sat up, suddenly wide awake. “Why did you let me fall asleep again?”
“I fell asleep too.” I hadn’t. I’d spent the last few hours lying here just watching her sleep, feeling like both the luckiest, and the unluckiest bastard alive.
As the hours and minutes had ticked towards sunrise, I’d lost count of how many times I’d decided I’d refuse to leave her, only to have the realisation that I couldn’t do that bringing me crashing back to reality.
Now the moment we were both dreading was almost here, but I had one last thing I needed to share with her.
“Here, put these on.” I handed her the clothes I had waiting for her, and she took them without protest and wriggled into them.
“Where are we going?”
“Not far.” I couldn’t resist pulling her in for a quick kiss before taking her hand and leading her outside.
“This is bringing back a rather special memory,” she said as I opened the door of the Range Rover for her and helped her in. “Are we going to watch the sunrise again?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” I told her teasingly, echoing the words she’d used to me earlier back at her.
“Ha! I knew it,” she said triumphantly when I brought the car to a stop by the pavilion a few moments later.
Last time we’d done this Phoebe had set up a little magical bubble of warmth for us and left a bottle of champagne in the pavilion.
There was no happy occasion to celebrate with our friends today though and the shore of the lake was cold and empty.
Laying out the thick blanket I’d brought for us to sit on, I pulled her down next to me and wrapped my arm around her shoulders.
I’d brought another to drape over us, even though she didn’t really feel the cold that much now that she was fully immortal, and I pulled it over our laps.
“This is perfect,” she whispered as she snuggled into me, her head resting contentedly on my chest. “You are perfect.” She might change her mind about that when I broached the subject that had been weighing on my mind, but it was something that I needed to have settled between us before I could leave.
“I know you don’t want to talk about this,” I started carefully. “But I can’t spend the next six months away from you without knowing where I stand.” She pulled away a little so she could look up at my face, her own scrunching up in confusion.
“What are you talking about?”
“Last time I brought you here to watch the sunrise, I asked you to marry me. And you said you would.” I felt her stiffen, but I wasn’t going to skirt around the issue any longer.
“And yet we still haven’t set a date for our wedding.
I know you’re worried about your two families meeting each other, but there are ways of dealing with that, Zara.
Is that what’s holding you back, or is there some other reason why you’re avoiding the subject? Don’t you want to marry me anymore?”
“Is that what you think?” she said incredulously, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just that we’re already blood bonded, and that’s far more binding than any wedding ceremony could ever be.
I guess I’ve been putting it off thinking it’s not something we really need to do so why complicate things.
But if it’s important to you, then of course we can set a date the minute you get back. ”
I’d been hoping she’d agree to arrange it while I was gone, so I could actually marry her the minute I got back, but I didn’t want to push my luck.
“I’m not sure why it matters to me so much,” I admitted, “because you’re right, the blood bond is far more binding than any wedding ceremony.
But I want everyone to know you’re mine, not just the magical community who know we’re bonded.
I don’t like the idea of people thinking we’re not totally committed to each other. ”
She shook her head as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Seth Adams, you have now officially outed yourself as a big softie. I’m going to remember this conversation every time you start ordering me around, you know. You’ve got no chance of intimidating me anymore.”
“I don’t want to intimidate you,” I said, picking up her hand and dropping a soft kiss on the inside of her wrist. “I just want to love you.” Her eyes glistened with unshed tears, but I carried on speaking before she could answer me. “I have something for you.”
I pulled out the box that had been burning a hole in my pocket for months and opened it.
“I got this in Paris, at the same time as your engagement ring. I was hoping you’d be wearing them both together by now, but as you’re not,” I took the white gold wedding band, set with tiny diamonds and emeralds, out of the box and slipped it partway onto the ring finger of her right hand.
“Will you keep this safe for me while I’m gone?
” I slid it the rest of the way onto her finger as she nodded, the tears she’d been holding back now coursing down her cheeks.
“This is my vow to come back to you, my love,” I told her as I gathered her close, “so we can put it on the finger it truly belongs on. And it’s your vow to me that you’ll be right here waiting for me.”
“I will always wait for you, Seth,” she promised, choking back a sob. “Until the end of everything, I will always wait for you.”
We made love again as the sun rose above the horizon, tenderly, reverently, touching and tasting every inch of each other, creating one last perfect memory to sustain us in the days ahead.
And when we were finally sated, clinging together with our bodies still entangled and her head resting on my chest, I’m not ashamed to admit that she wasn’t the only one who cried.
“You should brace yourself for an invasion soon, my love,” I warned her once we were back at the manor and had showered and dressed. “I told everyone there was no need to come and see me off, but Eli insisted on a team breakfast. He said he’ll be here at eight with croissants.”
To be fair, I hadn’t tried too hard to dissuade them from coming. The thought of Zara being here completely alone when I had left had been weighing heavily on me.
“Before they get here though, there’s something I want to say to you.”
“You’ve got a lot to say this morning,” she teased, and I was relieved to see that she seemed to be holding it together better now. I sat on the bed and patted the space next to me, waiting for her to come to me before I continued.
“I want you to promise me that you’re not going to put your life on hold while I’m gone.
We talked before about you working with Morpheus and spending time in Fae.
Promise me you’ll do that, Zara. I know it’s going to be hard, for both of us, but I won’t be able to concentrate on what I’m supposed to be doing if I don’t know you’re going to be okay. ”
“I promise I’m not going to mope about feeling sorry for myself,” she said.
“You’re right that it’s not going to be easy, but I intend to keep myself busy.
That doesn’t mean I won’t be thinking about you a lot though.
And missing you. Oh, that reminds me. I’ve got something for you.
” She scrambled across the bed to her side and leaned over so she could pull something out from underneath it.
“It’s probably silly, you don’t have to take it with you if you don’t want to. It might not even work there. It’s just, I thought if you had this, then you could look up at the Milky Way and pretend we were both lying under the same stars.”
I took the box she was holding out to me and saw that it was one of those little projectors that show the star constellations on a child’s bedroom ceiling, and I felt my throat tighten again.
“It’s not silly. I love it. And I love you.” I pulled her close and didn’t let her go until I heard Eli and the rest of the team arriving.