Chapter 86 Ivy
Ivy
There was no one waiting for me in the darkness. Nothing but the swirling, thick shadows of my dreams.
I heaved a breath, turning slowly. I waited for the feeling of Sable’s magic to brush over me, or the electrifying, ancient power of Nyx, but when neither appeared immediately, I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
“Come on!” I shouted, throwing my hands up in frustration. “So, what, I should just sit here alone and wait out the internal magical explosion? You guys have nothing else vague to say?”
“You actually want company, or just someone to shout at?” Sable asked, sounding a mixture of amused and tense.
I whirled around to find her looking different to last time.
Tired, sunken eyes found mine. Her skin had a sallow colouring to it, hollow cheeks that reminded me a little too much of Orion when he’d been in his sleep stasis.
Only there was no light in her eyes, nothing that really made her feel like the Sable I knew.
A shiver rolled down my spine as I crossed my arms. “Is there a reason I keep coming here?”
“You mated the Old World creature.” She nodded as if I’d said something other than: why am I here? But of course, Sable wouldn’t answer my questions. “I liked him from the very beginning, you know. Thought he would be a nice addition to your circle. And I was right, wasn’t I?”
I released a breath. “Yes,” I replied, watching her carefully. “Xerxes is…great.”
“The knot must be nice, too.” She winked, and I couldn’t stop my cheeks from heating with embarrassment.
“Oh, don’t worry. There was once a time where we Archer women loved ourselves a good old dragon lover.
Back before dragons died off and only claimed female dragons.
You know, there was an Archer Seer who got herself a little circle of dragon mates once.
Very taboo—but she loves to talk about how much fun the knots—”
“Okay, I get it,” I muttered. “But seriously. What’s going on? Are you okay?”
The smile she’d tensely sported slipped, a crack appearing in the facade. “You have one mate left to bond.”
“I know.” I nodded. “And only a few days before the eclipse.”
“The one in Avalon, yes,” she said, wringing her hands. “Be careful.”
“What’s going on? Has something changed? Is there something I need to know before I face off with Dante?” If she was about to tell me all this bonding was for nothing and that it wouldn’t help in the long run, that we should have been really, really preparing for war, I would lose my mind.
I already felt like a selfish coward hiding away on the island while Nyx’s creatures were out there actually facing all this alone.
It would destroy me if she revealed it was all for nothing.
Sable sighed, looking away, and it only made my hunch worse. “You’re still on the right path, dear,” she said after a moment. “All the pieces are truly falling into place.”
Those words should have brought me some sense of relief, but instead a pit grew in my belly. “What does that—”
Before I could finish, Sable and the darkness disappeared.
I was face to face with an insanely warm, smooth chest. I blinked away the remnants of my dream, breathing in the sweetness of Xerxes’s scent.
Beneath me, the chest rumbled. “There you are.”
I pulled back just enough to realise we were both incredibly naked and he was shifted. Deep, unblemished dark brown skin met my eye before I allowed my gaze to trail up and meet his. “Hey.”
A smile tipped his full lips. “You might not want to move just yet.”
Frowning, I glanced between us and finally felt it. I was straddling his waist with his knot still buried deep inside me, fully inflated. “Uh…”
“You passed out again,” he said, concern darkening his voice. Glancing up, I found the smile now stiff as he watched me. “I shifted and brought you back to the house.”
We were in my bedroom, which brought me some comfort. “Where is everyone?” I asked carefully, expecting at least one of my other mates to be here. But when I looked around, we were alone.
“Well, since we know it’s the bonding that triggers your passing out, they decided to leave us alone. That, and because you and I are still knotted.”
Heat flared in my belly as I met his stare. “Which means?”
Xerxes flipped us so I was lying on the bed and he hovered above me, grinding his hips. I sucked in a sharp breath, moaning. “I need you to come at least one more time around me, fated. I need you to milk my cock of everything I have.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be too difficult,” I barely managed, biting my lip. “It won’t take too long, either.”
I had no idea how long I’d been out for, but it mustn’t have been long. Before I knew it, my belly tightened with that familiar feeling of getting closer to the finish, and I knew I wouldn’t need too much more to be taken over the edge.
When Xerxes kissed me, moulding his mouth to mine, I felt my release rush through me. His tongue swept over mine, drowning out my cries. I waited for the darkness to tickle the edges of my vision, but it never came.
Xerxes groaned against my mouth, his thrusts pausing as he came. Again, I felt the hot flood of his release inside me, but with it came the decreasing pressure of his knot.
“You…” He trailed off and pressed his forehead against mine, breathing hard. “My mate.”
I giggled, wrapping my arms around him. “How much, uh, did I milk you of?” Because I could feel it dripping out of me, and unlike previous times with my mates, it felt like a lot.
Xerxes stiffened, pulling back enough to meet my stare. “Too much,” he replied, grunting. “If I pull out, you’ll leak everywhere.”
“Sexy.” Pressing my lips together, I kept my arms around him. “Could you carry me to the shower?”
The Primal raised a brow, nostrils flaring. “Are you prepared for what could happen?”
“I think my vagina is closed for duty,” I replied.
He said nothing as he rolled us off the bed, somehow keeping himself seated completely inside me. Sable’s visit in my dream felt far away as I finally got the chance to enjoy the post-bond haze again, even if it could only be brief.
“This world is unlike anything I imagined,” Xerxes said quietly, fingers trailing through my hair softly, “and neither are you.”
I wasn’t sure why that made me flush, but it did. “You aren’t so bad yourself,” I murmured, resting my cheek on his shoulder, splaying my fingers over his chest. “You know, for two people who just bound their lives together, we don’t know much about one another.”
“You’re right.” His hand stopped to cup the back of my neck, but he didn’t move. When I looked up, I found him staring out the window. No surprise, there was another storm, though this one was violent.
Wind howled with the ferocity of a god, tearing at the trees and blowing debris across the island.
A branch flew past the window before crashing into something beyond, while a tree cracked and bent under the force.
I couldn’t see the ocean from here, but I had a feeling it was making its wrath known.
Xerxes covered my hand with his own. “What do you wish to know?”
I asked the first question that popped into my mind, which was important for me. “Do you have any family?”
Beneath me, Xerxes stiffened. “Yes,” he replied warily. “And no.”
I pushed onto my elbow to look into his eyes. There was a pain there that made my heart hurt; it was a pain I recognised all too well.
“They aren’t alive anymore, are they?” I asked quietly.
Slowly, my newest bond shook his head. “No. Not for a long time.” He stopped, though he didn’t take his eyes off me.
The hand that’d been on my neck shifted to cup my cheek.
“I had two mothers. The one who birthed me, and the one who loved me like her own. The male who would have been my father, brother to my second mother, died in a thrax attack, so I didn’t know him.
My mother died seven winters ago, her mate soon after. ”
Tears burned my eyes as I watched the mournful way he gazed at me. “I’m sorry.”
A small smile played at his lips. “They would be proud of me, I hope,” he murmured, brushing his thumb under my eye. “More than that, I think they might be glad I haven’t had the same fate as my father.”
“I’m sure they are.” Leaning into his touch, I kissed the inside of his wrist. “You were a warrior or something, right? Or a guard?”
“Something like that,” he replied, guiding me to rest on his chest again, smoothing his hand down my bare shoulder. After our shower, we hadn’t bothered to get changed and instead were under the blankets together. It was nice, even though we didn’t have much time left.
“We are given options as children as to what we want to be that contributes to our clan. Warrior, midwife, farmer, butcher, storyteller, scholar, trader, healer. There are more, but those are most important,” he explained, tracing circles on my skin. “I wanted to be a farmer.”
I snorted, raising a brow. “Really?”
“Why do you think I like spending time with you in the greenhouse?”
I shrugged, cheeks warming. “I thought you just liked stealing all the dragon fruit honestly.”
Xerxes chuckled, arm tightening around my shoulders. “That, too.”
“So…” I shifted in his arms, hooking my leg over his, feeling his cock twitch. It was almost tempting, since the ache I expected to feel was dim now. “Why were you a warrior if you wanted to be a farmer?”
For a moment, he was quiet, hand stilling.
“There was a thrax attack at a nearby clan. It was right before my education was supposed to start, but they wanted anyone with capable hands to go and help the survivors. So, I went with the few other young my age. We saw it firsthand—the devastation, the death. The thrax devour. They are ravenous.” He stopped, his words thick with emotion, and this time he didn’t stop me from shifting so I could meet his eyes.
There were tears in his thick lashes, a sadness that made my heart ache for him. “You saw what they could do, and it changed your mind,” I whispered.
“Not just that,” he said with a gentle shake of his head.
He wouldn’t look at me as he sighed. “One of the other young, a boy my age, decided he would track them down and set fire to their nest. We could not stop him, and so we followed. We refused to go into the burrow with him, so he went in alone, and he did not return. He did what he set out to do. He burned them all. But it was only his sacrifice that did it.” Finally, Xerxes looked at me, full lips pressed together. “I wanted to be as brave as him.”
I pulled my hand off his chest and cupped his cheek, wiping away a stray tear. “You are so brave,” I whispered. “Not many would survive an enemy like Dante. Even less would break out like you did. And you’re here, in a new world.”
Xerxes pulled me into him for a slow, gentle kiss. He tasted like peppermint toothpaste as he explored my mouth with his own. Kissing him was exactly that: an exploration. With how new it all was for both of us, it was nice to discover one another.
When he pulled back, there was a twinkle in his eye that made me think about his Primal. “What about you, fated? What were you before you became Queen?”
I couldn’t help the flood of nostalgia that hit me when I explained what my life looked like before magic entered it. I told him about my job, my family, my dreams. Explained my world without creatures and what growing up like that had been like.
And it was peaceful, even though we had a ticking bomb hanging over us.
For a moment, I found contentment with my mate.
I knew it wouldn’t last long, though.
Not with Dante waiting for us.