Chapter 33
Chapter
Thirty-Three
This was it. After everything that had happened—this was going to be what killed him.
Araya surged forward, the sting of her nails biting into his shoulders eclipsed by the heat of her body against his.
Her lips crashed into his, the coppery tang of blood filling his mouth as her sharp canines dragged against his lip.
The sound she made was a lance through his heart, pinning him in place—at her mercy.
Loren’s breath hitched as her hand closed around him, water splashing in her haste. She notched his tip against herself, and for one delirious moment, instinct screamed at him to stop her. That she wasn’t ready. She would hurt herself—
She sank down onto him.
“Fuuuck,” Loren groaned.
Araya dropped her head against his shoulder, burying her face in the crook of his neck. Her heart was racing so fast he could feel it against his chest, her entire body trembling around him.
It was bliss. It was agony.
It took every bit of his willpower not to grab her hips. Not to rock her against him. He could wait. He would wait. As long as she needed.
Because she had survived. She was here. With him. And this moment belonged to her.
Loren stroked his hands up and down her sides. Over her back—tracing each thick ridge of scar tissue. Her shoulders shook under his hands, her breath catching on a wet sob against his skin.
She was crying.
“Ael’sura—” Loren leaned back, one hand rising to cup her face. Her silver eyes almost glowed, the tears running down her cheeks a knife through his heart. “Do you want to stop?”
What did I do to hurt you?
But she shook her head immediately, leaning into his touch.
“I thought—” her voice broke, thick with tears. “I thought you hated them. That you couldn’t stand to look at me. Touch me—”
Her scars. She thought he hated her scars.
“I don’t hate them,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I hate what was done to you.”
“This is the first time you haven’t flinched when you touch my back.” Her lip wobbled, but she didn’t look away.
“Only because every scar is a time you needed me and I wasn’t there.” Loren brushed her tears away with his thumbs. “But I have never—not for a single breath—looked at you and seen anything but strength and beauty. And if you ever thought otherwise for even one moment—”
He leaned forward, pressing soft, gentle kisses to her face, tasting the salt of her tears on his lips.
“—then I have failed to show you how deeply, hopelessly in love with you I am, Araya Starwind.”
“You still love me,” she whispered, as though it had ever been in doubt.
“Yes,” he breathed, the word torn from his chest as her hips rolled against his. Goddess—she was still wrapped around him. “Yes. I love you. I love you—”
She swallowed his words with a kiss. Loren’s hands fell to her hips, his world narrowing to her lips on his and the erratic pounding of their hearts as she found her rhythm.
“Loren,” she whimpered, his name breaking as her body tensed around him.
“Yes.” He slid his hand between them, finding the spot that made her hips buck, water sloshing wildly around them. “That’s it—” he moved his thumb in quick circles, his pulse spiking as she tightened erratically around him. “Let go, ael’sura. I have you.”
She shattered with a sharp cry, collapsing against his chest. He caught her, holding her in his arms as she shook, her breath reduced to short, wrecked gasps against his neck.
Loren held her there, staying perfectly still as her breathing eased, her racing heart returning to its steady beat.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured, pressing soft kisses across her shoulder.
Steam rose around them both, turning the world around them blurry as birdsong filled the air.
It took everything he had to let her go when she slid off his lap, but this was about her. Not him—
“Lorendrael,” she mumbled, and his name soft and slurred from her lips might have been the best sound he’d ever heard.
He caught her hand, helping her rise on trembling legs.
Steam and shadows caressed her reddened skin, the soft murmur of dara’el a contented hum in the back of his mind as she bent forward and braced her hands against the moss-slick stone, glancing back at him over her shoulder with bright eyes.
Loren forgot how to breathe.
He scrambled to his knees, tracing his hands up the outside of her legs as he rose. Her skin was hot against his palms—whether from the water or from him, Loren didn’t know—her soft sigh a siren’s call.
“Are you sure?” he asked, pressing a kiss to the small of her back.
She nodded once, dropping her head to rest between her elbows on the soft, green moss.
That was all he needed.
Loren moved slowly, letting her set the rhythm even like this. Her breath shuddered, a soft cry falling from her lips as he brushed kisses along her shoulders, her spine—worshiping every ridge of scar tissue with his lips and tongue and teeth.
It didn’t take long for her to shatter again, the sound she made pulling him over with her.
Loren buried his face in her back, breathing in her sweet, wildflower scent as his heart rate returned to normal.
For the first time since she’d been taken from him, he felt at peace.
The shadows surrounded them both, quiet and content to bask in the warmth of their reunion.
He didn’t need anything else. Nothing but her skin warm under his hands, her sides rising and falling under his touch.
“Loren—”
Loren lifted his head, glancing over her shoulder at the tiny white flowers blanketing the moss around her hands.
“Pretty.” He reached out, brushing his fingers lightly over the blossoms. Their sweet scent—her scent—rose around them, bringing a smile to his face.
“I guess you enjoyed yourself.” He laughed, dropping one more kiss on her shoulder before he straightened.
“We should get cleaned up before Finn comes looking for us.”
Araya shook her head, her gaze fixed on the flowers as if they might vanish if she looked away. “I don’t think—” She faltered, her voice tightening. “No, I know I didn’t do that.”
She turned to face him, her hands clenched so tightly that her knuckles were white.
“I think,” she said, “that there’s something I have to tell you.”
“I’ve been having dreams.”
“Is that really surprising?” Loren scrubbed his hands across his skin, taking advantage of the thick, unscented bar of soap one of the others had left behind. “Your mind is still processing everything you’ve been through. If you want a sedative—”
“No,” Araya snapped. She blew out a hard breath, staring at the flowers like they might lash out and bite her. “These aren’t like that. They’re like—like the dreams we first shared. Except I’m alone in the middle of all these gigantic trees and there is this palace—well, what’s left of one anyway.”
Loren glanced up at that, but Araya was staring at the flowers without seeming to see them, her brow furrowed.
“Sometimes I’m inside,” she continued, “and I can feel this presence. It’s all around me.”
“It sounds like Tirnavel,” Loren said.
“The fae palace?” She looked at him now, her silver eyes wide. “Why would the forest show me that?”
Loren’s hands slowed. “You think it’s the wild magic in the forest calling you there?”
“I’m positive that’s what it is,” Araya said. “I always wake up before I get to the center…but I think it wants me to go there, Loren. There’s something I have to see.”
“Araya...” Loren trailed off, rinsing his hands more thoroughly than he needed to while he gathered his thoughts. “The wild magic here is very powerful—I’ve seen that for myself. But it isn’t sentient like dara’el.”
As if summoned by their name, the shadows crept closer, gathering back around his feet. Except for one. The little shadow darted through the water like a dark fish, slipping up Araya’s body to wind itself back around her wrist.
“But it spoke to me.” Araya stared down at the shadow on her wrist. “In Elvanfal. It offered to kill me. Told me that—” her voice faltered “—that I didn’t have to keep suffering.”
Loren’s chest tightened.
“You were in a lot of pain,” he said carefully. “I know from experience that when there’s so much suffering for so long…the mind will look for any escape. I’m not surprised you imagined an end to it.”
She shot him a dark look. “I said no, Loren. I told it I didn’t want to die, I wanted to get back to you.” She crossed her arms, shaking his hand off. “Then, just days later, the forest brought down the wall right in front of me. It told me to get up. Do you think I imagined that too?”
“That’s not what I’m saying at all.” Loren climbed out of the hot spring, stepping carefully over the white flowers. “Wild magic is still magic, it could absolutely have answered your intention—but it doesn’t talk, ael’sura. It’s just aether.”
Her face fell. “You don’t believe me.”
“I believe you felt something,” he said gently.
“And I hope it brought you comfort when you needed it. But I’m sorry, no.
I don’t think wild magic is calling you into the forest to go to Tirnavel.
It’s been abandoned for decades, ael’sura.
Whatever power is left there—it belongs to ghosts now. Not us.”
Araya climbed out of the water, ignoring his offered hand. She dried herself off in silence, her brow furrowing as her mind worked over his words.
“I don’t know,” she said finally. She stared at the white flowers, like she might find the answer there.
“I do.” Loren reached out, cupping the side of her face. “I just got you back, ael’sura,” he murmured. “Please don’t ask me to risk you chasing dreams.”