Chapter 54
DEZ
“Are you sure about this, Dez? You almost died while she was—”
“I want to do it, Kaiden,” I interrupted him. We were alone now. After Naaz, Eris, and Tristan left, Cassius went down to the dining hall. I needed this. Morrigan always put everyone else before herself. It was my turn to do something for her.
I climbed onto the bed and lifted Morrigan, sliding behind her before laying her back down onto my lap. Gods, did it feel good to touch her again. I would never get enough. And after hearing Eris all but confess how he felt, I got the sense that we might be needing a larger bed. A much larger one.
“If you lose too much blood, I’m taking over,” Kaiden insisted.
“Too much jealousy for one day?” I teased him, though I probably shouldn't have.
All of my joking aside, this had to be hard for him.
Me? I was perfectly content with the new addition to our family—now that I knew Morrigan was okay, of course.
Tristan was a god. If there was anyone in this world that could protect her better than we could, it was him.
Though, I wasn’t sure she needed much protection anymore.
With the soul bond in place, it was impossible to imagine just how much power she would have access to now. Would she even be mortal anymore?
I should have told Kaiden what really happened that day with Rosina… Perhaps one day I would.
I brought my wrist to my mouth and made a deep cut with my canines, then placed it against her lips. The blood dripped into her mouth slowly, a few drops sliding down her lips as she remained asleep.
“What if this doesn’t work?” Kaiden whispered, but I had a feeling that he hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
“It will work, Kaiden.”
A couple of minutes went by, and the wound started healing itself. Once more, I brought my wrist to my mouth, cut even deeper, and placed it back against her lips. This time, I tilted her head up a little more so that the blood would have a better stream down her throat.
“Come back to me, baby,” I whispered in her ear. Her heartbeat thumped against my ears, and I could almost feel it in my own chest. It pulsed slowly now, but much stronger than it had before. “You’ve got this, okay? I just need you to drink for me.”
I felt a small twitch against my thigh, and when I looked down, I noticed her fingers shifting slowly. The movement was almost impossible to detect.
“Did she just move?” Kaiden asked.
“There you go, beautiful. Keep drinking,” I encouraged her.
The second I saw her throat bob, I wanted to scream in relief. She had swallowed the blood on her own. She’s here. She came back to us. Beside me, Kaiden sank down into the chair and dropped his head onto his hands.
Kaiden rarely showed emotions in front of others. And, with the way his shoulders shook under the weight of his own relief, I had to fight the urge to reach out and take the pain from him.
But before I could, a pair of lips attached to my wrist, and I almost jumped at the sensation. Morrigan’s eyes were still closed, but she was actively pulling from my wrist now.
“She’s… She’s waking up,” I said under my breath to Kaiden.
His eyes burned a hole in the side of my face as she pulled harder, and gods… did it feel good. It wasn’t something that I could help. The heat blazed through my arm and shot straight into my chest, then crawled its way to my core.
And she felt it, too. I heard a small puff of breath leave her nose. She began pulling harder. In an instant, her hands moved to my arm, gripping it tightly.
“Dez,” Kaiden warned quietly.
“She’s fine.” I had to catch my breath a little without letting him know the real reason my body was so flustered. “Just… fucking turn around or something. I don’t want to see your face right now.”
“See my face?” He paused, then his expression stiffened, and I had to swallow down the laugh in my throat. “Are you serious right now? Now? You’re over three hundred years old, Dez!”
“Hey! I can’t stop my body’s reactions—”
I stopped talking when I noticed the pulling had stopped. Morrigan stared at my wrist, but I couldn’t see her face at my angle. Kaiden, however, gaped at her. In his eyes, I saw the reflection of the glow burning in her irises.
Suddenly, a white light outlined the veins beneath her skin, sliding down to her hands that still held my arm.
They crept toward her fingers, and I felt a slight shock as it seeped into my wrist, just below the wound she had opened even more.
It tingled as it began lighting the bite mark before I watched the light physically stitch my skin back together.
“Morrigan?” Kaiden said breathlessly.
She didn’t answer him. Instead, she started shifting her body to turn around.
“More,” she whispered, but her voice had such an ethereal resonance to it that I didn’t even believe that it was her at first. When she finally faced me, I saw the bright white ring of light that threaded itself through her blue irises. “More.”
“Take it, princess,” I whispered.
In a quick motion, her head snapped toward my neck, but something stopped her before she could bite down. I turned to find Kaiden holding her back, and a look of fury crossed over Morrigan’s face.
“You took enough,” he told her.
“Not enough,” she answered him through clenched teeth.
“Then, you can take it from me.”
Morrigan stared at him for a couple of moments. The look she gave him was that of a stranger, almost. For a good few seconds, I was scared that maybe it wasn’t Morrigan. Perhaps something else had come back in her place.
But the look of fury slowly subsided, and a softness crept over her eyes that I recognized all too well. It was a softness she only ever graced Kaiden with, but it didn’t upset me. If anything, it warmed my heart in ways I couldn’t even understand.
“Come on, little dove,” he goaded her. “Is my blood not good enough for you?”
Her lips twitched back a little, and she reached over to grab his shirt, pulling him toward her. A string of light poured from her arm and made a quick swipe at Kaiden’s neck, causing him to wince in pain. Then, her lips latched onto the wound.
Kaiden was forced to move closer to the bed in order to get comfortable, and Morrigan shifted her legs so that they straddled my hips. When I stole a glance at Kaiden’s face, I saw the blush creeping into his cheeks and smiled to myself.
A better man would have kept his mouth shut.
I am not a better man.
“You’re looking a little flushed, Kaiden,” I teased him.
When his eyes opened, they were black as night, consumed in his shadows as he glared at me. “Watch it,” he warned.
He didn’t scare me.
“More,” she whimpered into his neck, with the same glow to her face that matched the one in her veins. “More.”
Each time she spoke, she sounded more and more like… her.
“We’ve got you, princess,” I told her, sitting up and wrapping my arms around her. “Take what you need.”
I heard a moan escape her lips, and even Kaiden seemed to twitch at the sound of it. “M-More…” It was her this time. “Dez…”
One of her hands wrapped around my arm and pulled it from behind her. She placed my fingers on her thigh, and all I could do was stare at it.
“Morrigan,” I breathed out nervously. “I’m not sure you know what you’re asking for right now.”
Instead of speaking, she moved her hips against me, and I dug my fingers into her thigh to stop her, but the sound that vibrated through her sounded like pleasure.
Suddenly, her body stilled, and I looked up to see Kaiden’s hand wrapped around her throat.
Her eyes shone so brightly that it lit his entire face.
But neither of them spoke first. Instead, it felt like a conversation was passing through them that I couldn’t hear.
“Please,” she whispered to him, pleading.
Giving me no time to even register what was happening, Kaiden’s lips consumed hers in one of the most passionate kisses I had ever seen.
Morrigan’s hips resumed grinding against me, and my lashes lowered as my resolve slowly crumbled to ash.
I was trying to be a good guy for a change, but the way she pressed down on my cock made it impossibly hard to hold my restraint.
There was no way that Kaiden wouldn’t regret this later, but I couldn’t stop myself from sneaking a glance as he completely ravished her lips.
My hands took on a mind of their own and lifted her gown, tracing a path up her thighs. “Are you sure about this, Kaiden?” I asked, only once.
He responded by reaching down and lifting the gown over her head.
That was all the permission I needed. I leaned forward and kissed her chest, just below her collar bone.
I needed to taste her skin again. I needed to lick every fucking inch of her body, and I needed to do that every day for the foreseeable future.
My kisses lowered to her breast, and I brought my fingers to her pebbled nipples before giving them a light pinch. I reveled in the cry she released into Kaiden’s mouth in response, making my cock twitch in my pants.
Morrigan continued to grind her hips, giving me only a tease as her hands moved to Kaiden’s clothes, attempting to remove the belt around his hips.
He stopped her, though. “Not yet,” he whispered to her.
“Please,” she whined, and the sound of her need gave my body the sweetest high. “Need… I need you… I need both of you…”
Fuck, I cursed internally. I quickly wrapped my mouth around her breast and flicked her nipple with my tongue before reaching out for her with my gift.
When I found the thread of lust that glowed like fire, I plucked it until her body squirmed in pleasure.
Feeling her shifting on top of me made me groan even more as I kissed back up her chest, continuing to lick until I stopped at her ear. “Turn around for me, princess.”
Breathless and already panting, Morrigan gave me a gaze drenched in desire as she twisted her body until her back pressed against my chest.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked her, even though I begged for her to say yes. “We can wait—”
“Yes.” Her head tilted up so she could look at me, and her cheeks were a burning crimson red.
I wasted no time in tearing the thin fabric separating my fingers from where they really wanted to roam.
“Open your legs,” I told her, and she did. Then, I slid my feet under her ankles and spread them wider.
Kaiden walked around the bed, watching her the entire time. He kept his pants on, but slowly unbuttoned his shirt and let out the smallest amount of his shadows that seeped from his markings.
“He missed you, princess,” I whispered, bringing one hand behind her head and sliding it between her curls, making sure she kept her eyes on him. As selfish as I wanted to be, I wasn’t the one who really needed this.
I didn’t know what happened out there, but I did see the tension between those two. It was dark and unnerving, and if they couldn’t fix it with words, I could be their mediator.
“Did you miss him?” I asked with my lips pressed to the side of her face.
“Yes,” she answered, so quietly that it was barely audible.
My hands teased her skin, tracing lines over her stomach and up between her breasts. “Touch yourself,” I told her.
Without hesitation, Morrigan slid a hand between her thighs and grazed her fingers just over her center. She gasped and closed her eyes at the sensation, a glistening wetness already clinging to the tips of her fingers.
“Gods, you do need it, don’t you?” I said in her ear, too low for Kaiden to hear. “Do you think he wants a taste?”
Her whimper sent a chill down my spine as she dipped a finger inside of her. When she pulled it out, she reached her hand toward Kaiden. His jaw ticked as he stared at her. He was torn—that much could be seen on every tense line of his face.
“What’s it going to be, Kaiden?” I asked him, only slightly taunting the beast. “You really gonna tell our girl no?”
With a low rumble reverberating in his chest, he climbed onto the bed and settled between Morrigan’s thighs. “If you so much as brush me with that emotional manipulation shit, Dez, I will kill you.”
I couldn’t help but smile to myself.
Maybe next time.