Chapter 4 #3
My ecstasy pulls Lanlin into coming as well.
I feel like I can see him. He is connected to me by golden threads, even across the palace, as pleasure bursts through him as well.
Daire presses a final kiss to my sensitive inner thigh, as I catch my breath.
I feel relaxed and sated.
By the Shadow Gods, that was just what I needed.
I smile at Daire, as he tugs my dress back down, before casually throwing himself to sprawl next to me.
He shamelessly kisses the lotus, licking over his glistening lips. “Tastes as sweet as your scent.”
I blush. “I’d call you an asshole but that was incredible.”
“Of course.” But then, Daire drops the flower, holding out his wrists to me. “Now, free me.”
Was the sex good enough to literally melt my brain?
“What do you mean?” The good tingles are fading to be replaced with a familiar anxiety.
Was that myth about the blue lotus not about Lanlin but about Daire?
Cold dread seizes me.
“You stole the lodestone, the Bone of the Gods, from Heka,” Daire says, levelly.
Confused, I shrug. “I am not only a spy but the best thief in the Fang Kingdom.”
I work my hand under the mattress, where I hid the lodestone last night.
Heka told me that the secret lodestone talisman, which he had been working on, had magnetic properties. He added ancient hieroglyph magic that meant it could battle cursed iron, silver, gold, and other metals.
If we were lucky, this anti-metallicum would be our first and only weapon against the most powerful sorcerer in the realms, Maximinus.
I pull out the tiny stone, which is shaped like a scarab beetle. Its powerful magic thrums.
It is smooth, dense, and dark as the Void.
Suddenly, I wish deep in my soul that I had never seen it, and even more that I had never stolen it.
I have never wished that before about anything I have taken. It must break some kind of thief code or something.
Yet I’d felt that tingling sensation that I always do, when I see something worth stealing. I had known that this lodestone would be valuable.
But not if it risks my soulmate’s life.
I clutch the stone beetle in my hand, attempting to hide it again.
“You better not be considering using this. There is being brave and then there is spitting in the face of the Shadow Gods. This could undo Maximinus’ magic, but Heka told me it was only in the experimental stage.
It could cause you great pain or even kill you. ”
“If something is worth fighting for, then it always hurts.”
“That’s not true.”
Stubbornly, Daire stares back at me. “I’m not scared.”
“Well, I am for both of us.”
Daire keeps his wrists raised like a pleading prisoner.
I don’t like it.
I try to bat his hands away, but he raises them again. “You hold my freedom in your fist.”
“I hold your pain…your death.”
“I could have my powers back.”
“This is reckless.”
“You know me so well.”
I growl in frustration, scooting as far away as I can, until my back hits the headboard.
Daire pursues me, however, and although he is the supplicant, I feel like the prey.
His wings flap, and I realize as I study his grim expression, that I am now dealing with the leader of an army, the king of a frozen land, and a primal god.
I shiver. “Don’t ask me to do this.”
Daire raises his hand, resting it by my head. He leans closer.
His long canines graze my ear. “We’ve always been co-conspirators.
What’s changed? Tonight, the Blood Moon will rise, then this cursed mask will melt from my face and form shackles to trap Sin.
I don’t know how to stop that unless I have my powers back.
Remember that I wink at death? Now’s the time. ”
I take a shuddering breath.
At last, I swipe at my cheeks, as a moth’s ghostly wings brush across my skin, circling my head.
Am I imagining it, or are the drapes fluttering like a pair of giant moth wings?
“Don’t do this,” I whisper.
Daire’s lip curls back. “I could have died on that altar. I may die tonight in the ritual. Give me this…I need to feel freedom coursing through me. Let me be free.”
The ache in Daire’s cry is visceral.
I can hear the sacred groves, weeping waterfalls, and the icy mountains of the Unseelie Kingdom shivering through each word.
I hear the ancient fae, his fallen Winter Court, and the ashes of his ancestors.
Freedom.
It means more to the Unseelie than their own lives.
I hadn’t truly understood how differently Daire sees the world than Aurelius or Lanlin do.
Yet I am seeing it now.
He would do anything to taste freedom, even die.
My throat becomes dry.
He is taking this risk for Lanlin and our pack.
Will Lanlin appreciate that? Understand it?
Finally, I nod.
Daire’s expression brightens with a sunny joy, even as fear courses through me. He pushes me onto my back, and his majestic wings spread out, until he turns day to night. His shadows surround me, caressing me with their icy feathers.
Daire pushes my dress up, and I widen my thighs.
My pussy is already wet and aching for him.
Daire thrusts into me, slow and perfect.
I moan, still clutching the stone, until it indents my palm and I believe that I will be marked forever.
Then Daire fucks me, frantic and hard.
It’s devastating.
“We’ll explain to Sin.” Daire gasps. “Apologize. Then entice our Vampire King back.”
Or die trying is hidden in every thrust of his hips
Daire’s wings flap, gusting air across my face like wind. We are caught in his shadows, flying through the night sky together, already free.
But that’s only an illusion.
The lodestone hasn’t touched the bracelets on Daire’s wrists that I can see dangling near my head, as he clutches the sheets beside my head.
Ecstasy coils through me. It builds fast and hard, and when Daire kisses me with the passion of someone who knows that it could be the last time — his goodbye — I come with a sob.
Then Daire is coming too. “Spark…”
I snarl, reversing our positions. I shove Daire’s hands above his head, pushing down hard on his wrists to hold them beneath me.
Daire lies below me, another beautiful sacrifice.
He doesn’t struggle but looks up at me with such painful gratitude that I have to look away.
“Are you serious about this?” I can’t stop myself checking in one final time.
Say no…
“Deadly.” Daire’s gaze is open.
Trusting.