24. Richterite
As I sweep my mate away from the rest of the world, the walls blur before us, and we make our way into the king’s suite. Our room, as she called it while we were traveling. My blood is thrumming through my ears, and my cock strains against my breeches, waiting to be reunited in all ways with my woman.
Sleep is the furthest thing from my mind.
No sooner than my door opens and closes, her small hands push against my chest. She’s breathless, too.
“I need to bathe,” she pants.
I nod, thinking of what happened in the spring, and walk to the bathroom. She sucks in a sharp breath when she sees the tub in the corner.
“Can I… take you near the water?” I ask.
She nods, though tears well up in her eyes.
I stand there, frozen as I don’t want to make everything worse.
She bites her lip. “Please. Just—don’t put me inside.”
I nod and take a few more steps.
Tears slip down her cheeks. The hot water warms a few smooth stones, and she fits neatly atop one.
“Don’t worry, my star.” I brush away her tears.
There is a towel nearby. I pick it up and dip it in the pool. Then I take one of her hands, pushing up the long cloth of my dirty shirt, and expose her wrist. I brush the water over one finger and she trembles.
“What else have they done to you?” I ask, not allowing the rage under my skin to boil up for fear of scaring her.
“First, they would come into my room. They left it cold and half-freezing most of the time. One of their snakes would bite me.” She takes a slow breath and pulls up her cloak to reveal healing bites all over her ankles and calves.
I count the pairs. There are eleven.
“They did this more than once some days?” I ask.
She nods with glistening cheeks. “The bite had some sort of paralytic effect. They would lift me off the ground with their magic so that my legs were slightly above my head.
“All the blood would rush to my brain, making it hard to hear and think. It wasn’t painful at first, but the sensation of feeling like I would fall was…” She squeezes her eyes, and I take her hand.
As we sit there, connected, she opens her mind to me.
Words no longer serve her, and they need not. I feel her shaking increase as the witches’ eyes watch her memories.
I recognize the hollow ghosts of each image.
I see the night we made love in the royal pools, the time we kissed, and when I carried her. The memory of us dancing flits in.
The human witches violated them all with their profane eyes, and then they cut them to ribbons, replacing them with gore and pain.
Then, just as Estela woke, they drowned her. A punishment, I am sure, that came from Rholker for knowing what we did in the water. I see his cruel face sneering.
My eyes flutter open in time with hers, and I study her hallow, quivering mouth.
“How can you stand to touch me?” I ask.
She presses a hand to the Fuegorra.
“Because we are mates. And because of this magic. Even though those memories are mostly… gone. I know you.” She lets out a sob. “I know what you are. I am safe with you.”
I shake my head and cup her soft skin, brushing away each tear as it falls.
“I will make sure I continue to be your safety. Would you like to see our memories again?”
Her eyes go wide as if she hadn’t considered that.
“Yes,” she breathes, grasping my hands and begging me. “Give me them back.”
Her eagerness nearly knocks me over.
“Careful,” I murmur. “We will start with one. I don’t want to hurt you worse than you are.”
She takes a deep breath, deflated. “Very well.”
The air between us is heavy as I go to the place where all the pain started.
Our wedding night. The first memory that was broken and is possibly the most damaged of them all.
I show her everything I saw. Every scar and reminder of the texture of the skin. I speak the sacred words between us, of love and promised protection. I glide with her through the water as our tongues and teeth clash together over and over. As I explore her body, and then finally, enter. I bind myself to her body and soul.
The feeling is so potent between us that I take a deep breath to keep from spending in my breeches.
Not yet.Not like this.
In real time, she gasps, clearly overwhelmed.
I focus on her flushed face and the rise and fall of her chest. All the tears have burned away in the heat of her skin.
“I—” she breathes. “That was real.”
She presses a hand to her feverish skin.
I nod. The closeness between us still feels far away. As our chests heave, almost but not quite brushing, the mellifluous sound fills the room.
“Estela,” I say again. “I will wait an eternity for such moments to happen between us. You set the pace. Can I try to clean you once more? Or would you like to?”
Her mouth close.
“No, I want you.” Her shaking fingers remove her clothes, and I wait with far more patience than the blood rushing through my veins allots me.
When she is bare, I dip the rag in and rub it over her skin. It is my joy to watch as her flesh pebbles and her nipples bead.
It is pleasure enough.
“Talk to me,” she says when water drips down one arm and her eyes squeeze shut.
“Of what, my star?” I murmur.
“You know so much of me, of my pains. Show me your scars,” she says, still mostly breathless.
I pause. “You wish to know of…”
“Your time with the giant queen.” She hesitates, opens her eyes, and then continues. “I know what your father asked of you—we’ve spoken of that before. I just want to know more.”
The heat between us evaporates. But perhaps, that is for the best if she is not ready to fully submerge in the tub. Perhaps vulnerability is exactly what our moment together calls for.
“I thought of it often as I came for you.”
She nods, as I lather soap onto the rag and rub it into the faded powder and grime.
“The woman that Mrath made me kill was Lijasa’s sister,” I say, trying to fight past the tightness in my throat.
I don’t speak of the human she murdered. Not yet.
She looks horrified. “Are you all right?”
I nod. “Lijasa came from a poisoned vine. All those around her were just products of the same world.”
Estela watches me. “I don’t want to talk about you together… It makes my blood boil. It is hard to hate someone so much when they are dead. I detest abhorring someone I can’t strangle.”
I raise my eyebrows at her murderous words.
“Amor?1, don’t worry. I made her pay for every moment. And it was long ago. I had so many years to heal, and I did everything for my people. When you accepted me into your life, you closed any cracks that remained. Don’t weep if some of them reopen. I’m sure they will be resealed with you here.”
She starts to blink again, and I can see she is going to cry.
“Perhaps that is enough speaking about the past for now.”
A part of me wants to ask for more of her stories, ones not tainted by Rholker, but I hold my tongue and stand up.
She looks up at me, her skin still soapy and wet.
I pull off my shirt, and she sucks in a breath.
Her eyes track every movement as I unthread the laces on my breeches.
“I am going to wash your hair,” I announce as I tug down the leather, and my length springs forth. Her eyes are wide, and I can almost feel the beat of her heart, the nerves, as she looks at me. “Fear not. There is no pain in this room. Remember?”
Her pace, I remind myself as I step into the warm water of the bath. It feels nice after so many days in the middle of the wilderness.
As soon as I sit down, I gently guide her head toward the water, still leaving her body stretched out over the rocks, and pick up a bowl that once held a bar of soap. I hold my breath, anticipating her to panic at the increased proximity to the steaming liquid.
She shifts and holds her breath until I pour the water over her scalp. Her eyes close but she doesn’t protest as I work in soap and untangle every knot. A pleasant melody starts up in my Fuegorra, singing to her as her heartbeat finally slows to a normal rate.
As soon as her locks are clean enough, I section and braid the curls and tie the ends around each other. Brushing a hand over her brow, I lean over and say, “Finished.”
Her eyes open, and she makes a frown of protest.
“If you’d like, you can join me,” I say, and let a bit of the memory in the pools replay.
It’s impossible to miss the way that her legs press together. It has always been this way between us. My invitation, and her initiative.
She will come if she wants or she won’t, and I will help to rinse whatever soap remains before carrying her to our bed.
Estela takes a breath and then pushes on the rocks and turns back toward me. She slides into the water and pauses, gathering courage. Just one more movement, and she is submerged up to her hips.
I am frozen as I wait.
She does, and in a burst of courage, she slides down onto my lap so that I am positioned perfectly at her entrance. I gasp.
“For weeks, I couldn’t think of this,” she murmurs and pushes herself down. I can hardly see straight as she stretches to accommodate me. “They took me from you and forbade me from reaching for you even in my darkest moments.”
She pushes more until she is seated to the hilt. The sensation is exquisite, causing my head to tilt back while I groan.
“Thank you for showing me our memories, but I need more than the past to live on,” she says, somehow keeping her breathing even. “I want a future. I want this every night. I don’t want to fear the water. Everything you promised me is still clear, and I intend to make good on it.”
A dozen meanings pass through her words, but then she starts to move, and every sense of reason flies away in the sensation of her.
She moans, forgetting whatever words she wanted to whisper.
I encourage her as I move my hips in time to meet her rhythm, to make it better and sweeter.
She takes her time, though the time apart blurs my sense of reality. I have no idea how long we spend together, only that we are joined.
When I slip my fingers between us to rub at that sensitive little nub, the release starts. She freezes, hanging on the edge of the precipice.
Then her muscles flutter around me, and I let myself go as our movements turn more frantic. Each thrust is a promise.
And when it’s over, my need fades into satisfied exhaustion.
I pull at her braid playfully, and she makes a sound that I feel in the bond between us. Instead of taking the action further, I ease her off me, acutely aware that we absolutely must rest.
She only barely protests, yet I feel the loss of her around me as I dry her skin.
Then I hold her tighter and sling a towel over my hips before taking us from the room.
“I can walk,” she says up to me.
I shake my head. “You’ve already done so much today. I like carrying you—you’re very small.”
She doesn’t protest. When I set her on the bed, she looks around. “Do you have something I could wear to sleep?”
A part of me is sad that she won’t sleep next to me, skin to skin. But I open my drawer and pull out a long brown shirt. She smiles and takes it from me then brings it to her nose and inhales deeply.
I opt to sleep without clothes and dry off quickly before sitting next to her.
“I missed the way you smell, too,” I murmur and draw my mouth close to her mating mark, licking the now-healed scars.
She shivers.
Then she slips the garment on and lays down.
I pull the covers around us and watch as she tucks her hands under her cheek. She looks so tired.
Twice, the gods gave me you, I say through the bond. You will never be taken again.
This ache inside of me is almost healed, but not quite. It is one thing to have her back here in my arms, but another to not know what looms on the horizon.
I know the sound she makes when she comes around me, the way she laughs, and her fiery glances. Her power is the song that leads me forward, and her scars are a map of my world.
Yet… there is so much to her that remains a mystery.
“Tell me a story,” I say aloud.
Her form stills under my heavy hand. “About what?”
I drag my fingertips over her arms. “Anything. Whatever you tell me is a treasure, and I am a greedy drake, hungry for more gold.”
I feel her laugh through the points of contact in our bodies. She rolls over and looks up at me.
“After Mikal was born, and my mother passed, we were brought before the king. He meant to kill us both.”
Fear still pierces my heart for an event long past. I hold her closer. The rational parts of my brain know that all is well, and the story ends in a positive way, but still, this was not what I expected.
“My mother appeared, as a woman cloaked in light, and she stayed the king’s hand. He… feared her.”
“As he should. You are a terrifying creature, and your mother must have been nothing less.”
She smiles. “Mikal cried the whole time there, but after we left, he was calm. Contented. Like he only needed to know his mother once, and that was enough for him.”
My finger trails up her arm, over her clothed shoulder, and to her cheek.
“A mother’s love is a powerful thing.”
Estela blinks. “After that, he was the easiest child to raise. He hardly cried, and he was tidy. He made me feel loved and strong, even though it was my working hard to provide for both of us.”
She pauses for a few moments.
“I told him I would always take care of him. I am… inadequate in many ways.”
I realize that this isn’t quite a story, but these words seem to press on my beloved’s heart. In the end, it doesn’t matter.
Every word is a precious gem, and a drake doesn’t distinguish between gold or jewel. It all glitters.
Her eyes finally flick to my face, and the contact gives me a window into her heart.
It is a beautiful, vulnerable, lonely place. My heart recognizes her from the deepest part of me.
“You are enough,” I say slowly.
Those lonely, broken eyes watch me carefully.
“Sometimes, when I’m with you, I almost believe it.”
My being fractures into a million pieces.
“Tell me a story every night we are together. I wish to know you in a way different from the bond. Gift me every moment with you and your brother, every memory of your mother, everything that has ever made you laugh. The beautiful and the terrible, I want it all.”
A tear slips down her cheek. “I am not that interesting or noble. Not like you.”
My lips brush over hers.
“Perhaps I should share more of my mind. We are more than lust and attraction; we are eternal. We are bonded through something greater than grief—you will be mine until we grow old and our bodies leave these mortal forms. Entrust yourself to me. I will cherish you and keep you safe.”
“You can’t promise that,” she says after a minute.
I shake my head. “I am doing it, the gods as my witnesses.”
Her weariness mars her features. “But I?—”
“I love you, Estela.”
She looks up at me with wide eyes. There wasn’t time to say the words before, but there is now.
“I—I love you, too.”
Something more intimate than everything we have shared passes between us. My heart breaks, but this time, not to shatter on the ground. It breaks and molds itself into something new.
It rises from the rubble and soars far away from this plane.
“Sleep, my love. I look forward to more tales of your life tomorrow,” I say, brushing my hand over her eyes.
Several minutes pass, and I wait for her to say something else.
“My star?” I whisper at last.
Her mouth curves up into a sleepy smile, but I can tell that the dreams claim her before she can respond.
I place a hand on her hip drawing her near, inhaling her clean scent, and let that drag me into dreamland.