Chapter 24 #3
As the noise quiets beyond the doorway, eventually stopping altogether, there’s a cynical part of me that expects him to be gone.
But we are in the Fairy Lands, and hope has taken a new shape within the walls of my being.
Here, it feels like anything is possible.
Finding a forgotten blanket on the floor and my somewhat dry underwear, I cover up the markings on my body and open the door to the living area to find a broad-shouldered commander sitting on the couch, looking beyond the fireplace and walls of books.
Delicately, I pick out a route around broken chairs and an overturned table to get to him.
Doing the only thing that makes any sense, I kneel before my husband—the man who found a way into my shredded heart regardless of circumstances.
Amalgamating this Melek with the commander who has probably committed heinous crimes is another matter altogether.
I’m still not sure if I’ll be able to come to terms with everything he’s done in the long term.
One step at a time, I tell myself.
His eyelids are closed, his body unmoving.
I rest my palm on hard muscle to feel the erratic beat beneath, and I say the words I know he needs to hear, regardless of my fears.
If life has taught me anything, it’s to love fiercely regardless of circumstances.
“I know this—this pain you’re feeling. It lives here.
” I tap my free hand against my sternum.
“Because you belong here, to me.” Brown lashes flutter open, watching.
“This is hard for me to say because I never wanted to admit it to myself, but when you used to leave for work, I would count the hours until you came back. I was desperate to push you over the edge.” Our matching smiles know the truth.
“To push you away from me. The way you looked at me from the beginning. The empty threats. I used to lie out in the garden and imagine scenarios where we would meet under different circumstances. None of them was right, though. The only us that made sense to me was the one I was living. I couldn’t let you in, but then…
Then I saw you with Sunny.” Clouds form over my vision.
“I got a little jealous of the way you so openly loved him and turned your anger on me. Don’t expect me to admit that again.
” A nervous laugh escapes my lips. He goes to speak, but I shake my head, and he lets me continue.
“Seeing that side of you also made me realise I was wrong. My heart had so much more love left to give, and I craved you to fill it for me.” Absurdity.
All of this is absolute insanity. Melek’s all-encompassing hand comes to cup my cheek.
I hold it there with both of mine. “You helped me revive my soul. By giving me a family. By giving me comfort. By giving me safety. And you gave me permission to show all of myself without consequences, besides the fun kind.” I take delight in his groan.
“Now you can say something.” I’ve never felt more vulnerable in my whole damn life. “Please.”
“Get off the floor, Storm.” Melek reaches out a hand.
I take it, pushing to a stand, and he pulls me into his lap, my knees landing on the cushions on either side of his legs.
“Tell me what happened. How did I give you these?” A hand grazes the marks on my inner thighs.
Some progress. He firmly takes hold of my chin. “Don’t roll your eyes.”
“I wasn’t.”
A sting radiates through my bottom. “You were. Now, tell me what happened?”
“Fine.” I’m trapped in the spice of him, lulling me back into a liquid form for his moulding. Wrapping my hands around his neck, I try my best to explain. “Did you know you are quarter-fae?”
“Yes,” he answers, and my mouth flies open. He shuts it with a finger. “What about it, Storm?”
“How do you know?”
The sigh he releases relaxes his tense form, running his hands down my back and under the blanket, finding my skin. “A fae soldier raped my grandmother.”
“What, how?”
“That’s all I know. It was my family’s greatest sin and liability.
We are one of the original founding families of Halo.
If word got out she was sullied, they would’ve condemned us.
At the time, she was married, and could pass the baby off as an Abaddon, so that’s what she did.
She was lucky my father came out a normal colour.
More prone to bronzing in the sun, but passable as full Haloian.
” His dexterous fingers distract my mind, tracing the bumps of my spine–shivering luxuriously.
“My mother died in childbirth with me, and she never knew of my father’s family’s true heritage.
And he only told me on his deathbed. He thought he was invincible, but he was killed in a fae insurgency.
Since I learnt of my heritage, it fuelled my need to be the best, to take them down.
My family is on the Airiel Council. Pure, chosen.
” He laughs at that. “It was easy to take over from my father. He’d been training me since birth to be his succession plan.
” Holy fuck. I had no idea. I knew he held secrets.
Just not the kind of ones that would get him in trouble with Halo and the council.
They’d kill him if they knew. “Tell me, wife, what has that got to do with these marks and this cottage and your eyes?”
“Well, I don’t know what you remember before this morning, but Adam—who is fae, by the way—agreed to help me and Sunny escape if I gave him some information.
” Surprisingly unfazed by the news, my husband asks me to continue.
He’s probably saving the freakout for later.
“You followed us. We made it to an old mining tunnel before you caught up to us, and you went full beast mode.”
“Beast mode?” A thick eyebrow quirks, and I decide that I’m enjoying this playful side to him too much.
“Seraphina said it happens to fae sometimes when they are mated and the fae cannot control their baser animal, especially when their mate is in danger. When you beasted out, we discovered that you have an elemental power.” I save him the details of my almost-death.
It’s best if he doesn’t remember. “Long story short, the only thing that seemed to calm you down was me.”
He takes a moment to process the information, hands lingering on my back, head slowly nodding up and down.
“And who is Seraphina?” Seriously, that’s all he took away? “Who is Seraphina?” I pull at his chest hair. “Wife,” he grumbles.
“Fine. She is a fae who helped us get here. She’s really nice. Sunny spent the night with her because you were desperate to get your hands and cock all over me.”
“Sunny is safe?” Panic enters his voice, the fog of his mind falling.
“Yes. I wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t. He’s just in the house opposite us with Adam, whose fae name is Ren.”
The tension in his muscles doesn’t abate at the news, teeth clenched.
“I’m not happy with Sunny being around two fae.
” The small hairs on my arms rise, wondering if this is the moment I’m going to have to relax him.
“But I trust your judgement.” I deflate.
He’s trying his best not to throw me over his shoulder and go to our child, I’m sure of it. This is his version of hell.
How the tables have turned.
Stroking the back of his neck, lightly scratching my nails up and down, I inch closer, up his thighs. “Did you know about Ren?”
“No.” That word alone is gruff, telling me the effects I’m already having on him and his naked body beneath mine.
A single scrap of underwear is between us.
“I had an inkling he was too good to be true. No human has scored higher than I have on both the physical and written exams.” He scoffs.
“How his power works within Halo is what interests me. And you still haven’t told me how you got these?
” Pushing against the blanket around my shoulders, his gaze descends to the rounded skin I’m showing off for him.
“You wanted to lick and suck and leave your mark on every part of me. Well, that’s just my educated guess because you didn’t talk.” Heat travels the course of my limbs at his lavish perusal.
“I wasn’t talking?”
“No, just a lot of grunting and moaning when I sucked your cock.”
“God, Storm.” His head hits the back of the couch, his eyes shutting firmly.
He grasps my hips torturously tight, and I can’t help grinding on the hardness beneath me.
“I don’t know how to take this information.
I’m really trying to keep it together here.
” The hands gripping me shake. “I was taught my whole life that fae were bad, then I found out I was part fae, and I hated them even more. I can’t just be okay with all of this.
” Anguished slate eyes gut me. “The only reason I’m holding on by a thread here is because I need you, Sunny, and Phoenix to be okay.
” He lets out a ragged breath, closing his eyes again.
I lean in close, running my lips up his rough jaw. “I promise we are all okay. If anything, we are better off here because they have fae who can heal.” My voice is a murmur, travelling over his ear.
My mate huffs despondently. “No one is better off here.” He suddenly pulls back so we are holding grey to grey.
Now, we’re the same in the view of Halo.
Nothing sets us apart any longer except for the tiny blue that never left my eye.
“You don’t get it. They don’t understand.
” A hand brandishes towards the door. “This is more than war between humans and fae. They will stop at nothing to prove themselves. They are fucking rotten. You’ve seen nothing of their depravity. ”
He’s shaking worse than before. In his stare, I see so much more than worry for our children and me. Melek is scared. It unnerves me. My husband doesn’t get scared. “What are you talking about, Melek?”