Chapter 10 #2
Callie was as sleepy as she was suddenly turned on. With the sun still streaming in through the slats in her bedroom window blinds, she could tell that it was only mid-afternoon. A short nap to recharge before starting round two seemed like a great idea to her—
—and then Ash slipped two fingers inside of her, testing her readiness, and she figured there would be plenty of time to sleep later on.
Callie let out a soft moan as her fae lover slowly pumped his fingers in and out, in and out.
He was teasing her, working her body like this was their hundredth time together and not their first. She had thought that initial orgasm couldn’t compare to her addiction of his hands on her skin, and then he blew her mind with the second.
Now, working toward her third, Callie buried her head in the mattress as she lifted up her hips, giving Ash complete access to her body.
He called her his? At that moment, he got no arguments out of her.
She moved with him, meeting his fingers every time they returned to enter her. He was keeping her loose, keeping her ready, while also teasing her so mercilessly that she would have agreed to anything just to have him trade his slender fingers for the girth of his cock.
He knew it, too. With a smirk that made him seem as dangerous as he was that first night in her kitchen, Ash slowly withdrew his fingers before climbing on top of her.
But, once again, he paused.
She almost screamed in frustration. “Ash!”
“No,” he told her, a hint of a tease in his lilting accent. “For you, it’s Aislinn. Guard my name. Keep it safe. But know that, whenever you need me, you only have to use it and I’ll always come running.”
Was it the head of his cock nudging at her entrance that had Callie on the edge of coming?
The weight of his fae name settling over her as he easily picked her up by the waist, guiding her to straddle him as he reversed their positions?
Or the promise that he was giving her a way to call him since there was no such things as phones in Faerie?
Any of them, she decided, almost deliriously. All of them.
It was all of them.
Callie pushed Ash so that he was lying flat on his back, lowering herself until she was fully seated on his erect cock.
And then, with a smile, she did exactly what he had done when she gifted him with her full name.
She whispered, “My Aislinn,” before squeezing his length and starting to ride him.
“It’s getting late,” his Calliope murmured. “I think the sun’s starting to go down.”
Ash wasn’t so sure he cared. In his more than three centuries, he’d never enjoyed sex as much as he had during the last few hours he spent with Callie.
With all of the courtesans who pleasured him, the nixes and the huldra and the banshees he took over his existence, he thought he’d experienced everything his body had to offer.
Even the few human females he played with seemed tiresome after a while.
When a touch of their hand offered as much of a rush as dipping his cock inside of one, he didn’t waste the time getting them undressed.
And then he met his mate.
Callie Brooks.
Calliope.
He let the syllables of her true name echo around his brain.
He thought that the gift of her body would be one he could never match, and while her name hadn’t—not quite—it was still pretty close.
But sleeping with Callie? No wonder sex seemed to be so much of a chore after his first century. It was only a warm-up, practice for when he finally found his fated mate, the other half of his soul.
So what if she was human? It might have been a shock to discover the truth behind his attraction to her at first, but Ash was nothing if not sure of himself. This woman—human or not—belonged to him. Of course he took her.
And took her.
And took her one last time for good measure before she finally shoved him away, sleepily telling him she needed a nap.
To his surprise, he fell asleep alongside her. A soldier first, Ash had never slept with another being before; he always slipped out of a lover’s bed, careful to watch his back while never letting a conquest think they could take more out of the arrangement than he already offered.
When it came to his mate, though? He would give her everything.
But, in order to do that, he needed his strength.
And while he was getting used to spending his days in the Iron, he only retained his power by returning to Faerie before the shadows arrived.
He wouldn’t die if he lingered, not like how the Dark Fae burned in the sunlight unless they were cloaked in shadows, but he’d be severely weakened.
If Ash was weak, then Callie was unprotected.
The bond between them, their fated mate tie was already hard at work.
He was a bonded fae male who just claimed his mate.
As much as he hated the idea of leaving her bed, putting himself in a position where he could lose her through his own arrogance was even worse.
Swallowing an aggravated sigh, he rolled into Callie, pressing a quick kiss to the top of her pale hair before nuzzling her adorably rounded ear with his nose. “I’d rather stay,” he told her.
Even if he couldn’t lie, that would still be the truth.
She patted his side. “I know, babe. But don’t you have to?”
It all depended on what have to meant. To Ash, who would do anything to protect his mate, he decided the answer was: “Yes. But I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Good,” Callie told him. Her blue eyes twinkled mischievously. “That’ll give me time to miss you.”
“You will miss me, Calliope.”
“Oh, yeah? Is that a command?” She waited a beat. “Aislinn.”
He fought the urge to shiver as he heard her use his name. He loved the way it sounded, the way it spilled so easily from her lips, and he wanted to beg her to say it again. It was a brand, a way for her to show her possession of him.
When they first met, he could’ve used her name to compel her.
But that was before. Now that they were bonded mates, her name was just her name.
It was the same way how the Fae Queen couldn’t control her subjects by using their true names.
He couldn’t make his mate do anything she didn’t want to, just like how compulsion was just one power that Melisandre couldn’t keep after she stole Oberon’s throne from him.
There was no time to explain that to her, though. Callie was right. Even if he couldn’t see the weak light dribbling through the slats in her blinds as the sun continued to set, Ash’s internal clock was telling him to go.
“It’s not a command,” he said. “I’m just being hopeful that you will.”
“Oh.” Callie looked surprised. She blinked, then threw him another grin that had his cock stirring. “In that case, I can promise you that I’ll miss you as soon as you go.”
“I’d stay if it were possible.”
“I know, Ash. But, hey. Don’t worry about me. Shoot, I might just sleep until I have work on Monday. I’m exhausted.”
Ash chuckled as he reluctantly slid out of her bed. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Do that.” From behind him, he heard her voice slur as she swallowed a yawn. “You deserve it.”
Bending down, he grabbed his trousers before glancing back at Callie.
When he noticed the way his mate watched his naked body move as he started to redress, Ash couldn’t help but preen a little.
That was one good thing about Callie’s sight.
When glamour couldn’t work on her, her attraction to him held a little more weight.
She actually saw Ash—and from the scent of her arousal perfuming the air again, he could tell that she really, really liked what she saw.
Damn the shadows. If it wasn’t for the dawning night, he’d hop right back into her bed—
No. No. He’d return to her as soon as he possibly could. It wouldn’t be long, either. Now that she was his mate, his instincts wouldn’t let him stay away from her.
With one last kiss and another promise to return to her, he used the side of his hand to create four slashes of faerie fire. As soon as the portal appeared, he stepped through it, going from Callie’s bedroom to the edge of the veil in one step.
The second his boot fell, he sensed the space in front of him shifting.
In an instant, he regretted not taking the portal straight from the Iron to the barracks, but he’d been so careful to always come and go through his post so that the Fae Queen never realized that he was neglecting it while he was with his Callie.
As the Light Fae in the elaborate uniform stepped in front of him, he knew that time—so fluid, so untamable, so unpredictable—had finally run out.
She knew. Melisandre knew.
And she couldn’t be happy with him.
Biting back his curse, he bowed his head as he greeted the higher ranking member of the queen’s guard.
“Captain Helix.”
“Ash.” The captain’s expression was unreadable as he pulled his diamond-edged sword out from its leather sheath. “Come with me, soldier.”