Chapter 29
Stesha
Zenevieve is lying on her side facing me, tears shimmering in her eyes. A sob rises in her throat. “It’s too late. I’m broken. I don’t know how to trust anyone ever again.”
I press her hands harder to my chest as agony blazes through me.
Hearing her talk this way terrifies me. The despair in her scent is so close to Mirelle’s before she perished.
“It’s never too late. Please don’t say that.
We can still be happy together. Happier than any fated pair who has lived or will ever live. ”
I couldn’t believe it when I caught her scent just as my rut was coming on, sweet and intoxicating and clamoring for me to see Zenevieve for who she really is.
My mate has been under my nose this whole time.
I could feel she was close, but I could never catch her elusive scent.
With Zenevieve in my arms and my lungs full of her perfume, I pulled aside the covering on the window and watched her flinch away from the dazzling light, and I knew.
Her designation was finally emerging. She’s my mate, and I was right to obsess over her all these years. My mate. Mine.
“I wish I could just be angry with you,” she cries, her shoulders shaking. “I can bear it easier than all this pain and knowing what we’ve lost.”
“I’m so sorry for the pain, aash’lin. I wish I could take it away, but I can catch all your tears and treasure them.”
“And if I’m always broken?”
“I will cherish all your beautiful pieces, but to me, you are always perfect.”
“So I will be your penance?”
I smooth her hair back from her tearstained face. “It’s not a penance to be your mate. It is my purpose. All of your days, and all of mine, I will be yours.”
She lets me pull her close and rock her in my arms, but she’s still sobbing as though her heart is breaking all over again.
“Finding out I’m an Omega and you’re my mate should have been the happiest day of my life,” she sobs. “He stole that from us.”
I feel a pulse of anger toward Emmeric, but I take a breath and push the anger away before it can fill my scent and upset her. My lips whisper over her brow. “This is the day. You’re finding out now. We haven’t missed out on anything.”
“But I could have been with you as my designation emerged.”
“We are together as your designation emerges. These are those days. He didn’t steal them from us.”
“You know what I mean,” she cries. “What if I’d never been poisoned? My designation would have started emerging while you were teaching us to fly. I would have known you were my mate, and I would have been so happy. It would have been—”
“Torture.”
She looks perplexed. “I was going to say beautiful. Why would it have been torture?”
I pull away and gaze down at her. “Because I would have driven myself mad pacing through the corridors of the castle every time you went through a false heat. Riding my dragon back and forth across Maledin. Swimming laps of the lake.”
“But why?”
“Because you were my ward, aash’lin,” I remind her gently. Despite all that’s happened, in many ways it’s better that her designation is emerging now, when we are equals, and I can kiss her and touch her as much as she’ll allow me to.
“But us finding out we’re fated would have changed everything,” she protests.
“Some things. Not everything.”
“I would have been able to sleep in your bed. We would have been together for all your ruts and all my false heats.”
I snort in wry amusement. “No, we wouldn’t have.”
She blinks in surprise. “But why not?”
“Because I would have handed you over to the Hratha’len every time you were in a false heat, and just like I always did, I would have gone to a ruthouse for my ruts. I’m ten years older than you, Zen. It would have been the only thing I could have done.”
Her expression is indignant. “Gods, you would have, wouldn’t you? Stesha, you’re absolutely no fun. No one would have minded if we’d stayed together. No one would have cared or even noticed.”
“I would have cared. Your mother and father would have cared, had they still been alive. Your brothers would have cared. Would keeping you with me have been protecting you, like I swore to do? Mother Linnea would have had a different reason to write my name on her list of terrible, unforgivable Alphas.”
“But Mirelle and Onderz were always together. No one made them stay away from each other.”
“They were the same age.”
“So you would have just thrown me out of our home?” she cries.
“Of course not. I would have walked you to the temple, holding your hand. I probably would have sat outside the temple for hours on end, days, because I couldn’t bear to be parted from you.”
She grasps fistfuls of my shirt and gazes up at me imploringly. “Would you have given me a kiss before you said goodbye?”
“No kisses.”
“One kiss,” she pleads, fresh tears springing to her eyes. “Just one kiss before you send me away.”
I smile and caress her cheek. She’s begging for a kiss as though we’re in a time and place that never existed. She needs to know what it would have been like for us if everything had been different back then.
“All right,” I whisper. “Just one kiss.”
I press my lips sweetly and chastely against hers.
“Thank you, Alpha,” she says, choked up, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Would we have felt lonely while we were apart?”
“Not for a moment. But I would have longed for you. I would have done everything that I could to make you happy.”
Zenevieve blinks away her tears and shifts closer to me. “Like what?”
“Given you my cloak to cuddle in your nest. Passed letters to the Hratha’len for you to read. Brought you tea to drink when your false heat had passed off. Flown with you to the hot springs so you could have soaked away all the aches in your muscles in the water.”
She smiles. “That sounds nice. And when I was a little older, how would you have kissed me?”
“Like this.” I cradle her head and press my lips to hers a little longer, letting her feel how much I care for her and adore her as my mate.
She tastes her lips, and whispers, “I like that. And when I went into a true heat, and I pushed you into a rut, how would you have kissed me then?”
Heat and desire roll up my body.
“Like this.” I part her lips as I kiss her and roll her beneath me, kissing her with all the hunger and passion that I feel.
The small space beneath Nilak’s wings grows heavy with our mingling scents.
Zenevieve opens her mouth wider with a whimper, inviting me deeper, and my tongue caresses hers.
Our bodies are pressed as close as they can be, and she clenches her legs around one of mine.
Her slick melts into the fabric of my riding clothes and soaks my thigh.
I’ve never felt anything more wonderful.
My hands caress the nape of her neck, and my teeth tease her lower lip.
“Please, Alpha,” she pants. I squeeze her softness and rub her nipple through her dress, and she cries out. “Please… I need…”
“Can I make you come?” I whisper in her ear.
Her nails dig into my shoulders with a sharp cry. “Yes. Please.”
I unlace the summer dress she’s wearing and sit up so I can slip it over her head, then I gaze down at her in her underclothes.
She’s just as beautiful as I remember, slender and curved, with pretty freckles across her shoulders.
I grasp her nipple with my teeth through her underclothes, and she moans her appreciation.
While I’m pulling the scraps of fabric from her body, I feel her tugging at my shirt, trying to get it off me.
I stop her with a touch. “I don’t need anything for me.”
She’s still stubbornly holding fistfuls of fabric. “Taking your shirt off is for me.”
I laugh softly, grasp the back of my collar, and pull the shirt off over my head. “Does my Omega like that?”
Zenevieve smiles and runs her fingers down my chest. “She does. I’ve always loved you shirtless. Your hair is so lovely when it’s loose like this. I’m lucky my Alpha is so handsome.”
“I don’t deserve such praise. If I’m handsome, it’s only to please you.”
I gather her up in my arms and press trailing kisses down her naked body.
I want to put my mouth on her. I remember she liked that, and I’ve been fantasizing about tasting my Omega’s slick for centuries.
Zenevieve was soft and sweet against my tongue the first time we were together, but now she tastes like heaven.
I part her thighs and run my tongue up her sex, and I’m rewarded with a fresh gush of her slick.
I groan as the taste of raspberries and honey bursts over my tongue.
I never knew what my Omega’s perfume would be like, but now it seems so obvious that I wonder how it’s possible I didn’t know.
As I focus my tongue on licking the swollen bundle of nerves at the top of her sex, I push one of her thighs up to her chest and seek her opening with my fingers. She’s hot and dripping as I thrust my middle finger inside of her. Zenevieve cries out and digs her nails into my forearm.
“Stesha, please,” she pants.
I add my third finger as well and fuck her firmly with them as my tongue works her clit.
I’ll take my time with her the next time.
Right now I just need to make her come. She’s been waiting too long.
We’ve both been waiting too long. Her cries grow higher in pitch and louder still.
I keep thrusting my fingers into her until she screams out, arching her back, her inner muscles clenching rhythmically.
Her climax goes on and on as her slick gushes over my fingers.
There’s a rough spot behind her clit inside of her, and I rub it firmly.
She seems to like that, and just as her body seems to relax, she starts riding high again, her whole body flushing the prettiest shade of pink.
Gods, her body is a miracle. I’m breathing hard as I withdraw my fingers and gather her into my arms.
“I think…I think I needed that,” she pants. “Gods, the relief is intense. I should have realized it would help.”