Chapter 42 #2
We tore at each other’s clothes, desperate to bare our bodies as we had bared our hearts.
Shirts were thrown off. He yanked my pants down so hard they ripped in two as I struggled with his belt, before he took over and undid it himself.
Cupping my leg behind my knee, he lifted it up to wrap around his hip, as his finger sought my entrance. I heard a whimper—was that me?
He grabbed my other leg, and with a boost, I was wrapped around him.
Reaching between us, I took him in hand and guided him into me.
He seated himself with a single, frantic thrust. The frenzy fueled us, a white-hot urgency that scorched away everything but this moment, this closeness, proving to each other that we were here. We were alive. And we were in love.
“I will never get enough of you.” His mouth covered mine as he spun us, placing me on the table, the wood cracking and straining against our unhinged movements. “Not if we have forever. Not if we only have tonight.”
I wrapped my entire body around him, knees locked behind his back, arms around his neck, chests pressed together so tightly there was no space between us as we moved as one.
“I need you to survive this. I need us to survive this,” I said.
My fingers bit into his shoulders as he pounded into me, every movement desperate, like he was trying to brand himself into my very soul.
But he was already there. He already owned every fragment.
I felt the storm building up inside as frantic as the energy consuming us, wild with the need to claim him as thoroughly as he was claiming me.
Never stopping his motions, never stopping his mouth moving over mine, he told me, “I love you, Lexa Andrever. In this life and whatever comes after.”
The words caressing my mind caused that storm to break. As I cried out, clenching around him, I felt him shudder inside me, our yells muffled by each other’s searching lips.
“Always,” I managed to think back, the word carrying every promise I couldn’t speak aloud as the bond between us flared golden-bright, bathing us in the light, sealing the vows we’d made with our words, our bodies, and our souls.
They had taken over the Great Hall. My eyes met Griff’s over the horde of darkness.
He was literally kicking people out of his way to get to me, dual swords flashing and cutting through the bodies.
I fought off the hands that continually sought to grab me, but there were too many of them.
They tugged me backward, away from Griff.
They had separated me from my weapons but I was never without weapons these days. I tunneled into my power, but while I felt it there, bubbling beneath me, I couldn’t summon anything.
“Griff!” I screamed as they dragged me out of his sight.
“I will find you,” came the steadfast reply, as he continued carving into bodies. “You are mine and I will not be parted from you. I will find you.”
The bodies poured in between us as shadows pooled and oozed around the hall, eventually converging into the shape of a man. He stepped over, around, and through the bodies, in a quest to reach me. My veins turned to ice as he approached and extended a shadowy hand.
“Come to me, my queen.” His haunting voice could have been beautiful, if it hadn’t been for the cruelty. “Take my hand and it will all be over. Whatever you want, we can bring to pass.”
I ignored his words, never ceasing my struggle against the shadows that gripped me. Fighting to get back to Griff. To my mate. To my love.
“Ah yes, love.” The shadowy form chuckled as it solidified, becoming almost human. “I can give you what love truly means. Devotion without limits. Power without consequences. Take my hand and I’ll show you what it means to be cherished.”
As I continued fighting, the voice changed, carrying centuries of longing in the cruel whisper, “Come to me, my queen.”
I woke up with a start and sat straight up. I was in my room. Next to my mate.
“Lexa?” Griff asked, blearily opening his eyes, his hand finding mine in the dim light.
“Just a dream,” I told him, but we both knew it was more than that. I repeated that mantra to myself as I tried to even out my breathing, clinging to this reality where my love was warm and alive beside me.
I ran my fingers through his sandy hair and he sighed in contentment. He opened his arm, holding up the blanket, and I tucked myself into the opening, cuddling against his chest, savoring every point of contact.
“I’m sorry I keep waking you. I would understand if you chose to sleep elsewhere, to actually get some sleep.”
His arm tightened around me. “You’re my mate, my heart. Where else would I go?”
Through our bond, I could feel his contentment at simply holding me.
It felt like dawn should be on us at any moment, but it was still dark out. Too late to try to sleep again, but that gave us more time for this. I settled more firmly against him, basking in this quiet moment where it was just the two of us, before we would have to face what could be our last day.
“You meant it, right?” I asked him, letting vulnerability color my voice and our mental link.
“Meant what, Princess?”
“What you said yesterday. That you love me. That we can survive this. That whatever comes, we’ll face it together.”
“Every word. I love you, Lexa Andrever. Nothing, not war, not darkness, not the end of the world, will ever change that.”
I raised up on my elbow to kiss him, feeling the bond, the connection between us. He wrapped me in his arms and flipped us over so that I was nestled into the crook of his arm.
“Lexa!” The scream ripped through the quiet solace of our room. That was Finn’s voice in my head.
I scrambled out of Griff’s arms and began throwing on clothes. From his actions, he had heard it too.
Since when did Finn call me “Lexa”?
Something was horribly, horribly wrong.
As soon as we were dressed, Griff grabbed my hand and took us straight to Finn, straight into chaos in the Great Hall.
People were shrieking, crying, clamoring over each other.
Voices shouted, screamed. Finn was directly in front of us, his face taut and sweat beading on his forehead.
Zachariah stood on a table, his voice cracking as he attempted to be heard over the racket.
Tables and chairs were overturned, the food that had been laid out for breakfast abandoned and trampled on the floor.
Before we could figure out what was happening, the room began to dim, the sun hiding behind a cloud, casting shadows over the Great Hall.
I looked up at the skylights as it continued to get darker, the temperature in the room dropping.
My eyes widened as I took in the scene above me.
There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I had seen this before, fifty years ago.
And my memory of it paled in comparison to Violet’s.
Darkness to block out the sun.
Griff, sensing my terror, looked up a fraction of a second after I did, and drew his swords. Anamlae was in my hand before I realized it.
It was then that I realized we had teleported directly to the Great Hall. The wards were down. The Veil had failed.
We were out of time.