Chapter 47
O nce they’d walked for half an hour to a place west of her family home, Aelrie turned to Fyn, a smile growing on her face as the sound of lightly falling water and the blending of light green and gold came into view. “Here it is,” she said, gesturing ahead. “My special spot.”
She let Fyn marvel at this slice of tranquility, her own personal playground as a child, her secret.
No monsters knew the area, and somehow, it never really became too cold or too hot in this special place.
Now, the fall chill in the air did not reach them.
The sun shone brighter, warmer. The trees grew denser, their foliage fuller.
She beckoned him closer to the sound of gentle falling water.
A crystal-clear waterfall and a pool of sparkling blue water that greatly resembled the waterfall in the cavern with the golden, light-giving tree.
She'd never thought about it before, but was there a tree spirit here, like the tree spirit in the cavern?
Is that what made this place special? Perhaps there was magic involved here as well.
She turned to him, and the corner of her mouth tilted in a shy smile.
But what she did next was not so shy. She unlaced her boots and threw them to the side, letting her toes sink into the grass.
Her dagger came next as she disarmed herself.
Next came the black cloak, which was unneeded in this warm sanctuary.
With a twinkle in her eyes, she removed her leathers.
His red eyes glimmered in the daylight, more ruby now than bloodstone. He stood rigid, lips parted, nostrils flared, clearly more affected than he let on, and she smiled at his tells.
The pool of water was uncommonly warm as she waded into it in the nude.
“Come, join me,” she turned around to say, but he was already removing his clothing.
She laughed and splashed him with water as he came after her.
He caught her by grabbing her around the waist, and they laughed and played around like innocent children.
From behind her, his hand roamed down her waist not so innocently, and his breath caught about her neck as he kissed her there.
Her head lolled to the side, and his finger entered her, thrusting in and out.
The waterfall was at their backs, its gentle rain a serenade.
Her hips ground against his nakedness, hard and aching for her.
But the ache for him built in her as well, stronger.
He took her in his arms, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. He brought her to the grass by the waterside and lay down as she slid him into her.
A moan escaped her throat, and his hands gripped her hips.
She had never been in charge like this before, but her body overtook her mind, and her hips moved on their own, rocking back and forth, feeling him push deeper inside her with each movement.
Another series of moans escaped her. Her head was thrown up to the sky, but her eyes were still closed, completely enraptured.
His hands massaged her breasts, and finding her nipples perked, he twirled them around using his fingers. She let out another moan. The feeling was intense, as if stars were bursting, worlds colliding.
I need to see him, I need to see this.
His eyes opened as if he knew it too. His face was rigid, a stone, holding an orgasm in. So was she, but when his eyes lifted to hers, at that moment it hit.
She rode it out on top of him, her pleasure issuing from her mouth in cries of hallowed ecstasy.
He flipped her onto her back and thrust himself inside her. Pinning one of her legs down with his arm, he went deeper inside her. She cried out again—the pressure, the pain, and the pleasure of their sacred union. They were everything at once, the perfect connection of male and female.
Everything else was lost to oblivion; the entire world around them could have just disappeared. Nothing else mattered. Nothing … nothing …
Her hips lifted off the grass to take more of him inside her. She needed him, was greedy, wanted all of him, all he had to offer her—his body, his heart, his soul. To devour him.
With every roll of his hips, he lost control just as she did. It’s as if both stood upon a precipice, slowly edging closer to the unknown oblivion beyond. But they were not afraid, and did not turn from it, welcoming this abyss .
They came undone in each other’s arms. She was crying and didn’t realize it until the orgasm shuddered through her, leaving her shaking and in tears.
He drew a ragged breath and fell to the grass beside her.
They lay like that for a moment or a while, she couldn’t tell, she was still lost to the abyss they’d fallen into.
His seed was inside of her, a warm, comforting reminder of their union. She closed her legs to keep it, not wanting to part from this gift of his, not yet.
“I’m ruined,” she gasped, the tears having dried on her cheeks. “I’m ruined. And I … want to be ruined.”
He turned to her. Brought her face to his. His eyes were truth, his voice the end of everything. “Aelrie, I was ruined the moment I met you. From the first time I saw you, I loved you. You were everything I wanted—my sunlight, my hope.”
Her head rolled back to look up at the sky, a clear blue between the green shady trees. To think the end of her life was just the beginning.
“My life was planned for me,” she started by saying. “Every day was the same as the day before. Then you came along and brought chaos into my world.” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and reopened them. “And I needed that, gods forgive me, I did.”
They looked into each other’s eyes. There was nothing to be hidden here. No lies. No shame. No regrets.
“I can’t forgive you. But all the same, I don’t want to. I want to be here with you always.”
“Then let me ruin you,” he responded, his voice low as he nuzzled her ear. “As you’ve ruined me. ”
Their decision was sealed with a kiss. They would become each other’s ruin.
“Ruin can be a source of new beginnings,” she then told him as his kisses trailed down her neck. This was not damnation but a rebirth. “Let us wash each other’s sins away and build life upon it anew.”
After another round and then a dip in the pool, they dressed and walked back to her family cottage hand in hand.
The sun was setting, and supper would be ready soon.
Her mother greeted her with a curious look at Aelrie’s slightly damp hair.
“It smells good,” she said as a response to stop her mother from asking questions.
Her mother just smiled at her but cast a glance at Fyn, noticing his hair was damp as well. She didn’t say anything about it, though. “I don’t know what Dark Elves like. But can you eat Light Elf cooking?”
“I can. Very well, in fact,” Fyn answered.
Her mother’s nose crinkled a bit with her smile.
Maybe Fyn was being a little too charming here, but at least he seemed to win her mother over despite being a Dark Elf.
Though Aelrie was a little more tolerable toward Dark Elves, her parents, like most Light Elves, were not so tolerable. Maybe Fyn could change their minds?
Dark Elves were Light Elves’ mortal enemies, and, as she’d experienced in the Evergloom, it was the same the other way around. It had something to do with opposites. As light to its shadow, the two may never cross.
Light is presence, shadow is absence, yet they can never exist wholly without the other. Just as Light Elves and Dark Elves … though from her time spent with Fyn, she wondered if they were really so incompatible.
Her father had more reason to be suspicious of Fyn.
She grew up here, not in Alfheim, because her father was military. He was the watcher of Emerald Forest, a position that brought his family here. And if he could kill and skin a few chimeras every now and then for extra coin and to cull their population, then all the better.
She knew her father had questions about Fyn, although he didn’t ask them. He really did trust her, as she did him.
Her father came home not long after they did. He knew when supper was served and knew not to be late for it or mother would be angry, or worse yet, he might go to bed with an empty stomach.
They sat down for supper: pumpkin soup with toasted pine nuts, roasted pheasants her father caught that morning, and warm, freshly baked pumpkin bread with spiced cream butter. Not the grandest Light Elf food, but hearty and delicious, and that was much better in her opinion.
It had been a while since she’d had mother’s cooking, since the summer when she came for a visit during the Midsummer festivities that lasted a whole week and gave her the entire time off from work at the temple.
Had Lindana spent that time with her lover, Vainir?
The deception still hurt. She didn’t want to hate Lindana and couldn’t even if she tried. She had cared deeply for her, but now that Lindana’s lies had been brought to light, she felt nothing at all for her former high priestess. Didn’t even care about avenging her.
And Vainir … she tried hard to feel hatred for him, but she couldn’t muster it.
Still, she needed to kill him. It was for herself and the death of who she was before, but also, it was her job, her duty.
He was a corrupt councilor, and judgment had been placed upon him by someone.
It seemed she was to be the one to mete out that justice.
She slept in her childhood bed that night, now a little too small for her. There was a guest bedroom at the back of the house where Fyn slept, little more than a shack because they lacked many visitors, but her and her parents’ bedrooms were on the second floor.
She closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep, but thinking of the day ahead and the murder to come prevented her from doing so quickly.