Chapter 17 #2
“If a little pain is all it takes for this day with you to be permanently seared in my brain, I will endure it a hundred times over.”
Ella stared at me, watery eyes wide, like she couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. That was fine. I would keep saying them anyway.
“Come on.” I waded backward, motioning for her to follow. “Get in the water.”
“I think it should be tended to.”
I stared down at the burnt flesh. “Well, I?—”
“Come here.” She waved me back, and I obeyed, unable to resist her pull. “It’ll still leave a scar, but let me heal it enough so you don’t get an infection.”
Of course. She was a living, breathing repository of divine power, and healing was one that seemed the most her . She healed my cold, jagged heart simply by existing. It was only natural she would be capable of healing every other part of me, too.
For the third time this afternoon, she showed me power, and this one seemed the most effortless.
No flames or water or light, just a hint of jasmine lingering in the air.
Warmth rushed through my veins, and the burn subsided.
I glanced and saw the burn wasn’t red, just scarred over. Absolutely miraculous.
But when I looked at her, her shoulders slumped with exhaustion, and her body swayed. My hands shot out to steady her while a warning stirred in my gut, demanding attention.
I didn’t like the way her cheeks had lost color. Her eyes were still bright, but her skin was pale. I didn’t like that one fucking bit.
“What just happened?” I snapped.
“I healed your burn the same way my body healed this. See?” She tugged the collar of her dress down just enough to fully reveal the scar from when she’d been stabbed as an infant.
“No.” I searched her eyes. “What happened to you ?”
She stared back, unwavering. “Nothing.”
“No. I saw it. I see it. You healed me, and it was like you… lost some of your light.”
Her responding smile was soft, but sad. “I know you’re worried, but it’s temporary.”
“ What’s temporary?”
She waved it off like I shouldn’t be concerned. “When I heal, it takes something out of me. It’s the only power of the twelve that drains me in that way. Simeon thinks it’s because it’s the only power that actually takes my life force. Like losing blood.”
Losing blood ? Her life force ? “Well, don’t ever heal me again,” I ordered.
She tilted her head. “Pardon?”
So damn polite. I took her chin firmly but gently between my fingers and stared her down. “Do not ever compromise your health, your strength, your safety, or anything at all for me, ever again. Do you understand?”
“No.” She was indignant. “I won’t agree to that.”
“Why?” I growled.
“Because I I—” Her lips pinched together. “Because it could have been a lot worse. That fire was a fraction of what I can do,” she explained. “My powers are… wild . If I ever hurt you, I won’t hesitate to heal you.”
I was completely unsatisfied with that answer.
But how could I explain why? I considered my life inconsequential next to hers.
She mattered. I didn’t. One could argue I wasn’t even supposed to be alive, but Aryella was the most important person in this world.
That was exactly the way we were meant to be.
“I’m sorry.” She squeezed my hands. “It’s your birthday. This is too much. I am too much?—”
“No!” I ran my thumbs over her soft cheeks. “You are not too much. I’m quite positive that when it comes to you, I will never get enough.”
I needed her to know that truth. She was always trying to appease those around her. With everything going on in that castle, she’d expressed her fear of being a burden.
She’d told me her mother was cursed and ill, no longer able to do much of anything on her own.
Eating, drinking, speaking had become a battle.
The curse Molochai placed on the queen had been eroding her body and mind for eighteen years.
Aryella’s mother barely remembered her anymore.
I couldn’t imagine that kind of pain: having someone you loved so much not have a single clue who you were.
To cope with my nagging fear, I rested my lips on her forehead and refused to think of a world without her in it.
“Your uncle,” I began cautiously, “exerts a lot of control .”
When it came to Simeon Whitlock, I needed to understand what we were dealing with. When I looked at her, I saw a perfect, breathtaking girl desperate to break free from it all.
She nodded. “Yes. He has the whole continent to think about.”
“I’m talking about control over you , specifically,” I reminded her.
Her full lips parted. “Yes.” She cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders like she felt she needed to convince us both. “Again, he has an entire continent to protect and care for.”
But who was caring for her? Who was making her wishes and feelings their priority? I remembered the bars on her window and suspected the answer was no one .
“I just want you safe and happy,” I told her. “That’s what matters to me.”
I kissed her soft, rosy cheek, then retreated, sensing she needed space.
“Well, in that case, I should probably tell you that I don’t know how to swim.”
I froze with my back to her. “What?” I barked out, spinning to face her in the water.
She bit her bottom lip, wincing. “You’re going to make me say it again?”
My jaw clenched in panicked anger at the memory of the castle rooftop weeks ago. “What if you had fallen off the castle roof, and I hadn’t been there to jump in after you?”
Her brow creased in confusion. “I tell you I have powers straight from our gods, I burn you with one of those powers, and you’re most upset that I didn’t tell you I can’t swim?”
“Correct,” I answered tersely. “You could have fallen and gotten seriously hurt, or worse.”
“I wasn’t going to fall in.” Her answer was so simple, her voice so soft and sure. It took me a moment to calm down.
“Reckless, beautiful angel.” I shook my head.
“You know how to make a man’s heart stop beating.
” She laughed, the sound light and free, and I almost forgot my panic.
“All right. Come here, in the water.” I stepped between her barely parted legs and fastened my arms around her waist. “My girl has to know how to swim.”
“Oh, is that what I am?” she teased, winding her arms around the back of my neck. “Your girl?”
“You sure are.” I barely refrained from possessively adding, Anyone who says otherwise is dead .
“Why do I always end up soaking wet when I’m with you?” she laughed.
I choked out a strained laugh before covering it up with a cough. She was referencing the last two times we’d visited the castle rooftop and been rained on. Her eyes—large, green, and beautiful—were filled to the brim with nothing but innocent worry as I lowered her into the water.
“Gavin?” she asked nervously. “Are you okay?”
In the past, I’d preferred women older than me. They were less emotional, less likely to get attached. Usually a little jaded, like me. But not my Ella. Everything about her was genuine and true.
“I’ve never been better.” Smiling to myself, I muttered, “Time to get wet.”
I pulled us deeper and pressed my mouth to hers.
Within seconds, our hungry tongues glided against one another, soft, hot, and wet.
I kept one hand on the curve of her right hip beneath the surface, though between the water’s buoyancy and how tightly her legs were wrapped around my waist, she didn’t need help clinging to me.
I drank in every needy little moan she gave me.
It was misery and heaven all at once, the way my cock rubbed beneath the swell of her ass each time our bodies shifted.
I was starting to give up hiding how badly I wanted her.
Wanting her was inevitable. What mattered was if I acted on it, and I wasn’t going to let us move past kissing until I put a ring on her finger.
I let out a low, feral noise as my cock begged to sink inside her.
And fuck, I could. It would be so easy to slide her panties to the side and feel how wet she was for me.
I dragged my mouth from hers.
“What?” she breathed, her face and neck flushing pink. “Did I do something wrong?”
“Ella,” I chuckled breathlessly. “Sweetheart, you never do anything wrong.”
“Then why do you always pull away?” she rushed out, insecurity plain in her eyes. “When we’re kissing, you pull away. Like you’re afraid.”
I cleared my throat. “ Afraid is not the right word.”
“Do you not want me like?—”
“ Don’t finish that sentence,” I snapped, a little more harshly than intended. “Believe me, I want you.”
“But?”
Fuck. This didn’t matter. My soul would seek hers in any age, in any time. “But you’re young , you’ve barely been out of that castle, and?—”
“You want someone older?”
“No,” I said sternly, bending down to catch her eye. “I want you . I want you so badly that I’m having a difficult time controlling myself, and I need to. I want to be gentle. I want to be what you deserve.”
She searched my eyes. “What do I deserve?”
A ring covered in gemstones. Security in every way. More than a poor blacksmith with an old, rickety loft above an ash- covered forge could give her, but I was too selfish to let that stop me from keeping her.
“You deserve to be cherished,” I told her. “You deserve every single good thing this world has to offer.” I tucked silver-blond hair behind her ear. She leaned into my touch, closing her eyes.
“I just want you to be you.” She gently scraped fingernails across the base of my neck. I had to fight to keep my eyes from rolling back in my head at the sensation. “What would you do if I told you to just be ?”
I forced a swallow. That list was thoroughly thought through and never-ending. “Are you sure you want me to answer that?”
She smirked. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”
“I would steal you away,” I rasped, voice low. “I would take you somewhere no one could find us. And I would spend every hour of every day and night with the taste of you on my tongue and my cock deep inside you.”
Blood rushed to her cheeks. “Oh,” she squeaked through shallow breaths.