Chapter Forty - Nine #2
"Cold," she answers honestly. "Calculating. Using me as a weapon for your revenge without caring about me as a person."
The assessment stings, more than it should. "And now?"
She lifts a hand to my face, fingers tracing the line of my jaw with unexpected tenderness. Through our magically-enhanced connection, I feel her confusion, her conflicting emotions—wariness and fascination, fear and desire all tangled together.
"Now I see more," she says simply. "The pain beneath the control. The purpose beyond the revenge." Her fingers still against my skin. "You want to keep me safe."
The words—so simple, so stark in their truth—penetrate defenses I didn't know I still had. Yes, I want revenge against the council. Yes, I need Sage to fulfill the prophecy, to complete my centuries-long plan.
But beneath that, driving it all, is a far more primal need: to protect her from sharing Elinor's fate. To ensure that no witch ever again suffers what my wife endured.
"Yes," I admit, the confession pulled from somewhere deep inside me. "I want you safe."
Her eyes widen slightly at my honesty. Then, before I can react, she rises onto her toes and presses her lips to mine.
The kiss is gentle, tentative, a question rather than a demand. But the effect is immediate and overwhelming. Where our lips meet, our merged magic intensifies, creating a surge of power that rushes through both of us, drawing a gasp from her and a low groan from me.
I remain motionless for a heartbeat, two, struggling against the rising tide of desire. Then, with a sense of inevitability, of surrender to something I've been fighting since the moment I first saw her, I respond.
My hands slide up her back, one tangling in her braid, the other pressing against her spine to draw her closer. The kiss deepens, transforms from gentle question to hungry demand. She meets me without hesitation, her body arching into mine, her magic pulsing in rhythm with her quickening heartbeat.
Through our magical connection, each sensation is doubled, shared—I feel her desire as well as my own, her pleasure amplifying mine in an endless feedback loop of escalating need.
My control, maintained for centuries with iron discipline, frays at the edges, then shatters completely. I lift her, her legs wrapping instinctively around my waist as I carry her to the wall, pressing her against it, my mouth never leaving hers.
"Is this what you want?" I murmur against her lips, needing to hear her say it, needing the certainty of her consent.
"Yes," she breathes, fingers digging into my shoulders.
The words unleash something in me—a hunger held in check for too long, a need too powerful to deny. I capture her mouth again, the kiss deeper, more demanding. Her response is immediate, eager, her body pressing against mine with a desperation that matches my own.
Our merged magic continues to build, golden light and dark energy swirling around us in increasingly complex patterns. The ritual circle beneath our feet pulses in response, the silver lines glowing so brightly they're almost blinding.
When I finally break the kiss, we're both breathing hard, our bodies humming with shared magic and rising desire. Her eyes are dark, pupils dilated, lips swollen from the force of our exchange.
"The others," she says hesitantly. "Elias, Asher?—"
"Are not here," I finish for her, my voice rough with want. "This is between us. Only us."
Something like relief flashes across her face. Through our connection, I sense her confusion about the multiple bindings, her uncertainty about what she's meant to feel for each of us.
"I won't share you in this moment," I tell her, my hands tightening possessively on her hips. "Whatever comes after, whatever the prophecy demands, right now you are mine alone."
Rather than bristling at the possessiveness as I half-expect, she nods, her gaze steady on mine. "And you are mine," she counters, a newfound confidence in her voice. "Not just me belonging to you, but mutual. Equal."
The assertion should anger me—I've never considered anyone my equal, not in centuries of existence. But instead, I find myself nodding, accepting her terms without resistance.
"Equal," I agree, surprising myself.
I carry her from the wall to the center of the ritual circle, where the glowing silver lines will amplify whatever magic transpires between us. As I lower her to her feet, our bodies still pressed together, I feel the last of my reservations dissolving.
This was not part of my plan. This connection, this unexpected merging of magic and desire, was never what I intended when I claimed her at the Ritual. She was meant to be a tool, a weapon, the key to fulfilling an ancient prophecy and exacting my revenge.
Now, as her hands move to the hem of my shirt, as her magic pulses in time with mine, I'm forced to acknowledge a simple, undeniable truth: she has become something more. Something essential. Something I cannot bear to lose, not for revenge, not for power, not for anything.
My clothing falls away, removed with impatient hands and whispered magic. Standing naked within the ritual circle, our bodies illuminated by the golden-obsidian light of our merged power, we pause for a heartbeat, taking in the sight of each other with unguarded appreciation.
She is beautiful—not in the delicate, fragile way of mortal women, but with the fierce loveliness of a storm gathering strength, of magic taking form. Her body bears the marks of her training—lean muscle beneath soft curves, skin glowing with vitality and power.
Her gaze travels over me with equal intensity, lingering on the ancient scars that mark my torso, testament to centuries of magical combat, of survival against the odds. When her fingers trace one that curves along my ribs, I feel her curiosity, her silent question.
"Council enforcers," I explain, voice rough with remembered pain. "From my first attempt at revenge. I was young, reckless."
"And now?" she asks, her hand stilling over my heart.
"Now I am patient," I reply. "Methodical. But no less determined."
Her eyes meet mine, searching, seeing more than I'm entirely comfortable revealing. "And I am part of that determination."
"You are essential to it," I correct, drawing her closer. "Without you, there is no prophecy, no restoration of balance, no justice for what was stolen."
She nods, accepting this truth without resentment. Then, with deliberate purpose, she rises to kiss me again, her body pressing fully against mine, skin to skin, magic to magic.
What follows transcends mere physical passion. As our bodies join, as I push my cock into her with a careful restraint that costs me dearly, our magic merges completely, creating a circuit of power that flows between us without beginning or end.
Through this enhanced connection, each sensation is shared, magnified—I feel her pleasure as she feels mine, creating an escalating spiral of physical and magical ecstasy.
The silver lines of the ritual circle respond to our union, pulsing in perfect rhythm with our movements, amplifying the power that surrounds us, flows through us, binds us together.
My hands grip her hips with bruising force; her nails score my back, leaving marks that will linger for days. Each thrust drives us both higher, the shared pleasure building toward something beyond ordinary release.
When the peak finally approaches, I feel it building not just physically but magically—a gathering storm of power that will forever alter the connection between us. The true binding forms, gold and obsidian threads weaving together into something unbreakable, eternal.
"Malachi," she gasps, sensing it too, her eyes wide with mingled wonder and alarm. "It's happening?—"
"Let it," I growl, beyond the point of caution or restraint. "Be mine, Sage. As I am yours."
Her back arches, her body tightening around mine, and then we're both falling, soaring, the physical release inseparable from the magical binding that completes itself in that moment of perfect union.
The band of obsidian that was already around her left wrist grows, now encompassing the gold and crimson from the others. On my own wrist, her golden energy materializes fully, burning slightly as it settles into my skin.
In the aftermath, we lie tangled together at the center of the ritual circle, the silver lines still pulsing with residual energy, our breathing gradually slowing to normal rhythm.
Her head rests on my chest, my fingers absently stroking the length of her spine, neither of us quite ready to break the intimate contact.