Chapter 10 #4
“An eternity isn’t half as long as the bastard deserves.
” That she could, for even a moment, consider herself anything but the survivor of hell ripped his heart straight out of his chest. “What do I see, Elloven Hawthorne? When I look at you, what do I see?” Jesstin dropped to his knees in front of her.
“I see the sea. The sky. The clouds. The river. The world. I see you in everything. I see my heart in your soft, warm hands.” He gathered them in his and kissed them.
“I see you and nothing else, not even the sun, because my love for you is blinding.”
Elloven pressed her face to their knotted hands and cried more freely. He let her have her moment. He could feel she needed the catharsis, and if he could hold even a little of her pain for her, he would. He’d take it all. He prayed to whomever was listening to just let him take it all.
“We can’t go back to the market,” she said. She wiped her tears on their hands and sat up. “Because I did something that will cause a lot of trouble for us if they ever find us.”
Jesstin had no idea what she was talking about. “You were with me the entire time.”
“You were busy signing your soul away,” she said.
“I watched the Conductor take her fee and place the vial alongside another one. Both had your name etched on the glass. When she went to retrieve the map, I grabbed one without looking.” She reached into her dress and withdrew a glowing vial.
“I could only take one. It was all I had time for. I don’t know which fragment this is, but when she realizes what I’ve done, she won’t just come for this. She’ll come for everything.”
Jesstin stared at the murky glass, stunned.
He couldn’t believe she’d done it. He’d considered doing it himself when they had been there but decided it would have been too dangerous, and it was more important to get her out of there safely.
But then she’d done it anyway. For him. “You beautiful little thief,” he whispered.
“You tricked the bitch out of her own scam.”
“I don’t know which vial I stole,” she said again, and the notion seemed to genuinely distress her. “I don’t know if you’ll return to a family who doesn’t know you, or you’ll die and be forever a curio of that witch.”
Jesstin took the vial. He held it up to the moonlight, regarding the violet swirl. Which piece of himself was pinched between his fingers? Which piece had he forever left behind?
“I could go back and steal the other one—”
“No, you’re right.” He nodded, swallowing. “You did a brave thing, and I’m in your debt. Forever.”
“Our debts to each other have already been cleared,” she said with a sad smile. “Go on, open it.”
He wasn’t completely sure what would happen, but he removed the cap, and it did the work for him.
The wispy curls traveled toward him, then into his nose, his mouth, and he gasped as he received them, his entire body going stone stiff.
It was like being punched by light itself, but the sensation was gone as quickly as it had come on, and he felt no different afterward.
“I think... It’s done,” he said, tilting the empty vial. “Please don’t worry about the one we left behind.” He’d do enough worrying for both of them. Either his living world would change forever, or his eternity would.
She nodded, but her attention had drifted back to the woods.
“Don’t think about him,” Jesstin said.
“I don’t know why I didn’t just come to you.” Elloven’s face crumpled. “I’m safe with you. I know that.”
Jesstin moved back to the bench. He pressed his forehead to hers. “Do you remember offering safety to me? When I was little, after my mom had died?”
Elloven went quiet. She’d forgotten, of course. What were a few moments with a child to another child?
“The garden,” she said with a touch of surprise in her voice. “And the frogs!”
He exhaled in joyful relief. “The family of busy, working frogs, yeah.”
“You see?” She made a soft, happy sound. “Our union was fated.”
“It was,” he said distantly. He saw her wiggling her fingers in the garden, speaking of magic. He saw her doing it again, many years later in the Night Soul, speaking of fate. “I see that now.”
“Before you came, I had this sleeping draught, which got me through the long nights. It’s gone now.”
“You’ll sleep very well tonight, just like you did last night.” He peeled her hair away from her ear and kissed the edges. “Do you know why?”
Elloven pursed a grin, her body lighting up. “I might.”
“Stand up.”
“Why?”
“Go on.” He nudged her shoulder.
With a skeptical frown, she did.
“Now turn and face the woods.”
“What?”
“Do as I say, Elloven.”
He hadn’t intended the command in his tone, but the way she responded to it, snapping her posture straight and dragging her teeth against her bottom lip as she dutifully complied, made him hard as a rock.
Jesstin worked the stays of her dress until it was loose enough to tug it down around her shoulders.
She swathed her arms around her nudity, but he tsk-tsked her until she lowered them reluctantly to her sides.
He dotted kisses down her spine as he wriggled the dress over her magnificent hips, and he didn’t stop until she puffed in offense at his overfamiliarity with a certain tender area.
He chuckled to himself but went no further.
Some women liked it, but he’d only ever do for Elloven what Elloven loved.
“Hold onto the beam,” he ordered. He felt her obey, but his eyes were fixed on the fiend who still believed he held all the power.
Jesstin would correct that misunderstanding.
Elloven shivered, though the night was warm. He knew she was thinking both of what Jesstin intended for her and also of her fear of whatever was left of Fabrien Quinlanden, but Elloven had taught him that the only way to truly kill a nightmare was to replace it with a dream.
It didn’t matter anymore what he wanted.
But she... She deserved the world. He’d thought loving her was selfish, when it was the most unselfish thing he’d ever done.
Certainly the most pure. She’d never known intimacy without pain, and though he’d leave her with some in the end, if she also walked away knowing what it was to be truly revered, she’d find it again.
“He’s still there,” she said. “Watching.”
“I know.” Jesstin tenderly gathered her hair and set it over one shoulder. Her neck bare, he breathed her in and kissed her through his exhale. He loved the way she lifted into the affection. “Let him.” Let him see how completely he’s lost.
Elloven wound her arms farther up the beam, lengthening.
Jesstin rewarded her with more gentle kisses along her velvety flesh, relishing every twitch of her muscles.
He folded one arm around the front of her and claimed her belly in his palm, whispering, “I’ve got you,” and with the other, he removed his trousers.
His affection traveled with him as he stepped one foot out, then the other, then went to work on his shirt.
When it was only flesh against flesh, he reached for her face and turned it sideways so he could hold her attention. The touch of fear in her eyes held no candle to the longing flushing her cheeks.
“You look at me, Elloven.” He ground himself against her to secure her full consideration.
Her focus impulsively shifted back to the woods, so he used a firmer hold to return it.
“Only me.”
She answered with a fitful nod. Her eyes fluttered up in anticipation, which he fulfilled with enough force to send her arms crawling up the beam. The sound of his name moaning from her lips was a gift from whatever gods had made them.
“He’s nothing,” he said. His fingers spread along her cheek, forming a cradle. “There’s only me. See me. Hear me.” He thrust upward until she gasped. “Feel me.”
“You.” She breathed into his palm, straining onto her toes with each plunge. “There’s only you.”
“There’s only me,” he replied. When she closed her eyes, he allowed her to, but she would never, ever look back into those woods again.
Jesstin clutched the beam to drive himself deeper.
With each thrust, he whispered words he’d never imagined saying to anyone, sweet confections that sounded nothing like the man he’d created.
The sensation of her muscles anticipating and moving in perfect synchronicity with his own left him blurred on the separation between she and he, if there even was any, if they were even discrete people at all anymore.
He slowed to draw out the pleasure. That morning, he’d been a virgin who had only ever given or taken gratification to uphold the lies he told himself. He knew now what to expect—how she felt, inside and out. When to move, when to still.
Jesstin leaned in to kiss her and caught the fiend staring. Just give me a reason. Make the first move so I can end your bloodline.
Was it his imagination, or was the fiend glowering with rage?
If so, good.
He had no power. Not there. Not anymore.
He’d lost. All those years Fabrien Quinlanden had spent grinding Elloven into dust had all led her to this moment, when he knew and she knew that love had won.
Jesstin returned his full consideration to Elloven, and there it remained until dusk gave way to dawn.