Chapter 23 #3
Melek halts in front of my seated position, dropping to his knees, silver webs streaking across his skin in a beautiful lattice.
Lifting his face, he groans—an anguished noise.
His hair falls over his forehead. My need to push it back and fall in front of him is a desperation I’ve never understood.
Him. He always makes me irrational. It was one of the reasons I hated him so much. Now, it has evolved. Now, it’s more…
“Papa?” Sunny’s soft voice questions beside me. I hold my arm out before him so he doesn’t move from the log.
Melek’s gaze darts quickly to our son, and then back to me, making the connection. The six fae surround us. I pay them no heed. If what Seraphina told me is true, my mate just wants to know I’m okay, and there is only one way I know how to show him that.
Standing, I instruct Sunny to stay where he is on the tree. He reluctantly agrees, his eyebrows pinching together in concern. Reaching into Melek’s orbit, I seize his shoulders.
“Storm, you don’t…” Ren’s voice snaps my gaze his way. My husband snarls at the fae’s words. I hold up my hand. He won’t hurt me. Not this time.
The longer Melek and I hold eye contact, the more I feel everything that is running through his body. Pain, regret, and so much sadness. It calls me to him.
Stepping further into him, I run my hand up his shoulder to his jaw, an alluring tingle reaching out to my heart, filling me with want for him, to know every part of him and heal his hurts and have him heal mine, again and again, like he’s done so many times before in secret.
My mate strikes, nuzzling my proffered hand with his cheek and lips.
He takes his full height before me, and I stand on my toes to wrap my arms around his neck. Melek stills.
I look into those pools of endless glimmering molten silver and find him winking on the periphery. “I’m okay. We are safe—”
And that’s all it takes for his lips to descend on mine, pulling our bodies together.
It’s rough. It’s carnal. It’s purely Melek.
And I strap my arms around him and revel in it.
I thought I had to leave this, leave him, but what if we could still have this?
Us. We can live here. We can be happy—all four of us.
“Ewww. Gross,” Sunny says in disgust.
I run my hands through the back of my husband’s hair and tug his head back. He complies. “Good commander.” I nip his lip, and he moans loudly. It’s my turn to be the leader.
Facing Ren, I find the fae watching on with fascination. “If I can get him to listen to me, can he ride on my kelpie?”
The fae take turns looking at each other, and they all agree. “He can ride with you as long as he stops hurting my people.”
Pushing up, I brush his lips with my own.
“You got that, Commander? If you listen to me, you get to touch me and kiss me all you want.” I release my grip on his hair, not that it was holding him, and he goes straight for my neck.
I gasp. He sucks and licks, making my core pool with desire.
My fingers dig back into his hair, pulling back.
“Okay, big boy, that’s enough of that. Sunny is here,” I hiss. He rumbles through his chest.
Taking his hand in mine, I lead Melek over to the black beauty we rode in on. Sunny won’t fit with us, and there’s only one other person I trust to look after him.
“Can Sunny ride with you?” I address Sera, seeing her in my line of sight now that Melek has stopped mauling me.
“Come on, Sunny,” she shouts. “You can pick which kelpie we ride.” The other fae males fuss, eventually acquiescing to her command. My stomach flips, or maybe that’s my heart seeing how happy it makes my boy to have his own kelpie with his new friend as he bounds over to her.
Melek is stuck to my back as I stand before our ride, holding the silken strands of hair cascading down our steed’s side.
Now alone, my husband wastes no time rubbing his stiff cock into my ass.
Wiggling against him, I say, “A little help, husband.” He growls suggestively when I call him husband, placing his hands on my bottom, giving my backside a firm squeeze through my thick layers of clothing.
The barriers do nothing to stop my body from leaking at his touch.
He catapults me up onto the kelpie, not letting me go until I land safely with my legs on one side.
Gripping the mane, Melek flies up behind me. His hands instantly wrap around my swollen middle, and he makes himself a meal of my neck. I squeak and squirm as he sucks and licks and nips.
“Melek,” I whine, unable to control his hold over me.
A loud cough comes from beside us. Ren brings his identical kelpie before ours. “Well, that’s definitely one way to tame the beast, shorty.”
I pant at my husband’s ministrations. “Well, your way wasn’t working. I need Sunny to ride at the front.” And away from his father’s overzealous show of affection.
“Done,” he says, galloping his creature over to Sera, who has Sunny, grinning widely and hugging her from the back. She tilts her head, a mischievous grin on her lips. Damn fae. What does she think I’m going to do with Melek, heavily pregnant, on a moving animal?
They take off at a trot through the trees. Ren sidles back along my mount. “I’ll hang behind you. Just follow the others. Dulse knows the way.”
“Dulse?” I question.
“It’s the name of the gorgeous lady you’re riding.”
“Right. Thanks.”
Lifting Dulse’s hair, I urge her forward with a scratch behind her ear like Sera taught me, and off she walks behind the other kelpies.
Ren keeps pace at the back of our entourage through the wilderness. I’m glad he’s the only one holding the rear, considering the way Melek is fondling my body so openly. This is definitely not the man I’ve lived with for the last twelve years.
The dry humping is new. My thighs clench together.
And I can’t say I mind the way his hands and mouth claim me as his, even though it feels diabolical to admit that.
Slipping calloused fingers under the top of the nightgown holding my breasts in place, the beast makes contact with my firm chest, moving up and down to the time of our jostled motion.
He purrs into my neck, lips lingering, tingling my over-sensitive flesh at his nearness in this state.
His hands roam teasingly until they make contact with my nipples, which serve as a direct conduit to my clit.
He flicks the hardened peaks, making me moan deeply for him.
“Do you need us to stop?” Ren projects his voice.
What? We’ve barely made it a mile… Melek tugs on my nipple, my hands flying up to meet his, holding them still as I feel a wave crashing through my centre.
“I…” My voice sounds way too breathy, and I moan again as my mate grinds into my back.
This is not like the last time he touched me at all.
“I… Fuck, Melek. Stop it—” He growls into my neck, sending a shudder through me.
What is this? Some mate pheromone I cannot resist?
What happened to this being just a fae thing?
He ignores my plea, his hands massaging my very swollen breasts. “No. It’s fine,” I grit out through my teeth. Ren doesn’t hide his chuckle. He would find this funny. “How long until we get to your city?”
“I’d say no more than an hour.” There’s mirth in his voice. Under my breath, I whisper, “Fucker.”
Dulse walks on through an ever-changing forest, careful of her payload.
Trees of every shape and size surround us, some with trunks wide enough to live in, and others tall enough that I can’t see the end of the canopy above.
The closer we move, the more I start to notice the magic of this land, and how different it is from our wooded area back in Halo.
Tiny lights fly around us, mushrooms bloom directly from the trees, and moss covers everything in sight.
The trunks get denser as we move further away from the barren land of Halo, a faint chirp along the whistling wind. The air here is lighter on my tongue, less laden down with heaviness. Freer. A true haven.
Not the pretentiousness of Halo’s walls and supposedly godliness. This. This is what connection, what life, feels like. Surrounded by nature. To know it as oneself. There is no going back for me now.
Along our journey, I’ve managed to tame the commander plastered to my back, placing a hand behind me and running fingers through his thick hair.
I knew he secretly loved it when we were together.
He practically confirms it with his head lolling to the side as I pet him, purrs erupting evenly from his chest—a most unnatural sound for a human to make.
His hands firmly grasp my bump, feeling the little girl who woke up an hour ago, the soft nudges of our baby pacifying him further.
As soon as he felt her foot digging into my skin, he was enamoured.
Leaves crunch with increasing speed behind us, Ren making an appearance at our side.
“This is the marker.” He shoots a quick glance up at a winding, looped circle carved into the tree before us.
“If you ever come across one of these sigils, you know you’re only about five minutes from the Willow’s outer ring. ”
Ren is correct, and a few minutes later, we meet the others at an outpost made of a giant wooden statue.
The untamed beauty of a feminine figure with pointed ears, and flames emerging from her fingertips, a glorious sight to behold.
“The original fire fae. You’ll find one of each of the elemental goddesses circling our village.
They keep the invisible barrier intact. Only fae can pass through. ”
“But I’m not fae.”
Ren glares at me and the newly minted quarter-fae male behind me. “Currently, you hold fae in your womb, do you not?”
“I-I suppose, but—”
He interrupts me. “And once the child is born, if you ever need to leave or enter, you’ll need a fae escort.” I do have a fae permanently attached to me, so I guess that won’t be a problem.