10. Chapter Ten Brannoc
Chapter Ten: Brannoc
I was going absolutely crazy, my bond straining and testing me. All I wanted to do was turn into my shadow form and search for my mate, but without even having a general idea of where she was, I was stuck here. Thankfully, Baer was now awake. However, he still wasn’t one hundred percent, and we needed to wait for him to heal. Pacing the living room, I ran my hands through my hair again, hating the waste of time. The longer we were away from her, the higher the chance that something could go wrong, especially after the way we’d left off our last conversation. This suspension was killing me.
Before Rhowyn, I’d honed my patience over my long life as an assassin, taking as much time as I needed to get the job done right. You’d think that with all my training and skills, I’d be in a better position than I was now, but I wasn’t. Everything had gone out the window when I’d woken to find her missing from my home.
Now, she was out there, goddess knew where, and I was stuck here waiting. Thankfully, I’d gotten enough to find out she was in Autumn territory before she’d pushed me out of the connection again, but that still would leave us looking for a needle in a haystack. It was the largest of the territories, what with their need for plenty of space to grow the crops that fed all of Avalon. We could search for weeks and still have only covered a portion of the area.
Ugh! I groaned in frustration, hating the thought of her out there, basically alone and in trouble. That woman had a way of finding it like no one I had ever met before. Callum smashed his fist into the stone again. “That damned woman! I’m going to wring her neck when I finally get my hands on her again.”
Lennox chuckled sharply. “I could think of better things to do with my hands once she’s back with us. Maybe punish her by denying her orgasms?”
“It’s not funny, Nox,” Callum grumbled, trying to fight off a smile at the idea of doing just that. Thinking about it, I knew immediately that she’d hate it in the best way, which only made the thought more appealing.
“If I have to chain her to me, I will. She won’t ever leave us again if I have anything to say about it,” Callum grumbled with a shake of his head. Turning to me, he asked, “What made you think she was in Autumn territory?”
“I got a brief glimpse of her surroundings when she connected with me the first time. I saw the orange leaves and wide-open fields ready for harvest. The second time, she was in a cave, but it was dark. I was able to make out that she was in a forest and there was a stream nearby,” I answered him for what felt like the fiftieth time.
“Anything else?”
I sighed, tossing back the human whiskey, relishing the burn and brief relief it offered me. I needed to sleep, and it seemed that the only way to succeed at that was to get roaring drunk. “Nothing that I can remember since the last time you asked.”
“Fuck!” He punched the wall again, storming off to his room.
Arryn sighed, rising from his chair and moving to heal Callum’s no doubt broken knuckles. Bags circled his eyes, an indication that he was more stressed than he was letting on. That, and he’d been expending any healing magic he could to heal Baer as quickly as possible. Rhowyn had given him back enough to heal the stump but not the resulting blood loss and sore muscles.
Lennox rose, too, to follow them both. “That bastard needs to quit hurting himself. Arryn needs to replenish his magic too, but he can’t if he keeps injuring himself,” I groused to Lennox.
He paused, nodding in understanding. “I’ll talk to him.” Somehow, I got the sense that their talking would also involve a physical outlet for them both. Whatever got them through this mess. I couldn’t blame them for needing it, as long as it wasn’t destructive. Jude and Jonathan had been buried in my library, searching for a way for us to either find Rhowyn, break her glamor, or a way to weaken the Queen. I had tried to help them, having a better idea about what books would be the most helpful, but I couldn’t sit still long enough to scan the pages. My mind wouldn’t allow me to focus. Which left me sitting here, draining my dwindling stock of whiskey.
I wasn’t used to being this helpless. I needed to keep busy, but there was nothing else I could do. Instead, here I was, chugging from the bottle of whiskey now, no longer bothering with a glass. The sooner I could get drunk, the sooner I could pass out and maybe get some sleep. I needed to be at full capacity for when we finally located that frustratingly sexy Queen of ours. I smiled at the thought of her, memories of her floating through my mind as I kept drinking. Meeting her for the first time and the way she’d showed no fear in that inn room. The time she had decked me outside of that cave, hooking me with her fire and passion. Claiming her for the first time, finding out she was my True Mate, and my favorite memory of all, hearing her tell me she loved me while joining with Arryn and I, our bodies bringing each other pleasure.
My cock woke at the memory of how Arryn took charge, forcing both of us past our stubborn stupidity, making us embrace what we both had desperately wanted but didn’t know how to take. I grabbed the neck of the bottle, deciding to relive these memories in my own bed, where I could stroke myself. Perhaps it would help me find sweet oblivion faster. Stumbling down the hall, I somehow made it to my room without breaking my neck.
Taking another swig, I threw myself on my bed, undoing my pants and freeing myself as thoughts of Rhowyn’s soft skin, luscious mouth, and thick ass taunted me. What I wouldn’t give to be holding her in my arms right now. Instead, I fisted myself, stroking slowly and imagining my hand was her warm mouth. Pictures of her tongue swirling around the head of my cock, flicking out along the crease, assaulted me. I groaned as the sensations became more intense.
Thoughts of her intoxicating scent wrapped around me and filled the room as I pictured her looking up at me, gauging my reactions. I jerked in my hand, precum leaking from the tip. I imagined her taking my balls in one hand, rolling them, and tugging gently. The imagery was so real that I almost felt the ghost of her touch as she smirked up at me. She took my whole dick into her mouth, swallowing me down until her lips touched the base, gagging slightly as she drove me closer to release. Fuck. This felt so real , but all I could think about right now was the way she would twist her hand as she slid her mouth off of me.
My other hand twitched, wishing she were really here so I could play with her nipples while she pleased me. Instead, I was forced to fantasize about her working me harder and harder, sucking forcefully as she reached the tip before grazing her teeth gently down the length of me as she took more and more of me inside her.
My own fist sped up as I got closer to my climax. Her scent became more intense in my mind’s eye, and I couldn’t help but throw my head back into the pillows, my eyes closing as I finally came, my seed spilling out onto my hand and abdomen.
Holy shit! I thought, my breaths heaving in and out, her scent still lingering as I tried to regain my senses. Slowly, I came back to reality, my breathing evening out, but I could still smell her. Even her arousal wafted toward me, getting me ready for another round. I didn’t dare open my eyes, afraid of the certain disappointment that I’d meet when I was forced to admit that she wasn’t with me. If I just laid here, I could almost picture her lying in the bed next to me, her warmth surrounding me like her scent.
I couldn’t believe I had come that hard, like a youngling again. Even then, meeting my release at my own hand had never felt this good. A soft chuckle reached my ears at that thought. “I’m glad to know I can still rock your world, even from here.”
I sat up in shock, realizing she had opened the bond while I was busy. No wonder it had been so fucking good. “Where are you, Rhowyn? ” I asked her, desperately needing an answer even though I knew I wouldn’t get the answer I wanted.
I could feel her sadness. “ You know I can’t tell you that yet. I miss you, though. You have no idea how much I wish you were here with me, but this is something Avalonia wants me to do on my own. I know that now. It’s more than just keeping y’all safe. I don’t know why it has to be this way, but it does. ”
I crumpled in on myself, knowing she needed to do this, but not sure how I was going to live without her any longer. “ I need you ,” I whispered, admitting the truth I had known for a while.
“ I need you, too ,” she admitted, her voice soft with regret and longing. Fuck, how I wished I could pull her into my arms and just hold her.
“ I want that, too ,” she told me, obviously sensing my need to hold her.
“ You’re okay? ” I asked her, remembering how she’d cut off our last conversation and the panic that had engulfed me at the thought of her being in danger.
“ Nothing Cyerra and I couldn’t handle ,” she said cockily, but I could sense she wasn’t being fully truthful with me.
I felt a twinge in my abdomen, an echo of her own pain. “ You’re hurt ,” I said, not even bothering to say it as a question. Now that I was sobering up some, I could sense the truth of how badly she was injured.
“ I’m on the mend. I promise, I’m just being cautious ,” she told me, dancing around the truth. With an obvious change of topic, not wanting me to dwell any further on that, she said, “ I found where I’m supposed to be, but I haven’t figured out yet why Avalonia wants me here. Between Cyerra and I, I’m sure we can figure it out .”
I couldn’t help the pout that graced my face as I whined, “ Why did she get to go with you and not one of us? ”
She sighed. “ Truthfully? I don’t know. I can sense that this is the right thing, though. I promise I’ll do everything in my power to get back to you guys as soon as I can ,” she told me.
A ringing in the background drew my attention, but she started talking again. “ Look, I gotta go. I just wanted to check in to let y’all know that I’m good and to remind you guys that I love all of y’all. I promise we’ll be together as soon as we can, but for now, I need y’all to trust me .”
I sighed. “ It’s not that we don’t trust you or that we think you’re incapable. It’s more of the fact that we’ve come to realize just how much we need you, how much we can’t live without your touch or hearing your voice. We all need you here. Without you, we’re just shells .”
“ Ditto ,” she said softly, then laughed at the puzzlement she sensed from me. “ It’s an Earth saying .”
“Earth is so weird ,” I told her, still not getting it or any of the other things she said.
She laughed again. “ I love you, Brannoc. Promise me you’ll tell the others I love them too? ”
I heard chanting in the background, almost like prayers, stray words reaching me through the connection. “ I will ,” I told her, not really looking forward to telling them that I had no leads. Again.
She cut off the connection, slamming her walls down once more. I sat there for a moment, bereft of her and the love I had felt radiating down the bond. Tucking my cock back into my pants, I eyed the bottle of whiskey, but I couldn’t stomach it at this point. How was I going to go another day without her?