27. Starlight
Haera
The bond shuddered with the realization that Theos was back. The fluttering settled into her mind before she felt it in her chest, and she heard his voice before the sensations of delight from the bond could even spread through her. The familiar warmth of his healing filled her ears to toes, and she felt the wound on her head disappear, its throbbing subsiding.
“Star!” Theos called.
She whirled. He was at the door of her bedroom, already moving towards her. Her feet moved without waiting for command – arms reached out before she could process the movement. Her eyes pressed tight as she threw herself into his arms. Coherent thought caught up right then. She shouldn’t have launched herself at him full force like this. They were both going to tumble backwards. The fall never came.
Theos’ body was hard under her soft one, secure as the Earth itself under her feet. He never swayed. His arms slid under hers around her to crush her against him. For the first time, she truly understood his meaning. She was one of the best werewolf hunters in Aegon. Three hundred pounds in her most true form. Two hundred and ten as she was now, and still, his body had not budged. A part of her defenses shattered at the feel of him. “You feel like nothing in my hands.”
When his arms locked around her, she melted against his chest, hot tears burning a path down her cheeks and into the fabric of his shirt.
Silence, then his broken whisper. “Are those tears because of me?”
“Yes.” She choked out.
Something like shock jolted through the bond. Then his arms were loosening from around her waist, and he was standing up. She writhed and twisted against him. The whimper bled through her unwilling mouth, and she didn’t even care that it went straight into his ear. He froze.
“No,” she breathed. “Don’t let go.” She tightened her arms around his chest, frustrated that they couldn’t fit. Another whimper. “I need to feel you.” Theos’ whole body shuddered under her. “Don’t let go,” she begged.
His arms tightened again, and he slid back into his kneeled position. She moved only barely, just enough to slide her hands up his body and wind them tightly around his neck. Her heart was pounding. The bond was pouring relief into her body, adrenaline driving her heart as fast as it could go, before the feeling of safety finally overpowered it and she slumped against him. Her legs gave out, but before she could crumple, one of his arms slipped down to catch her under her thighs and pull her forward onto him. His body still did not give. She melted into him even more.
“I didn’t realize how…” she hesitated, trying to find the right word. “Solid, you are.”
Theos’ chest reverberated with a chuckle, and then his palms were on her ass, fingers sliding between her thighs to part them. Her breath hitched in her throat as he pressed them wider still, sliding her legs around his torso and standing so she was wrapped around him. In their new position, his arms could wrap around her back even more snugly, and she felt her lungs complain slightly as her entire chest was forced up against him.
“Immovable as time and space itself.” He whispered next to her ear. “As sure as the sky, over which you will reign, my little star.”
Tears burned her eyes. Relief flooded through her, then fast on its heels, an ache. One she did not recognize. One she could not explain, except that it was pain. “I’m so angry with you.”
He tensed again. “The knowledge of it unravels me to pieces. Tell me how I’ve hurt you. Grant me the chance to heal it. Please.”
His voice was pleading. More pleading than it had been when she’d asked him to leave. She was sobbing now, crying into his neck, her emotions a confused mess of garbles and thoughts.
“You left me!”
“You…asked me to.”
She hiccupped. “I know. That’s not what I really wanted. I don’t know why I asked you to leave. Don’t let me make you leave.”
“Even if you beg me to?”
She nodded into his neck, her tears glistening on his skin. And then, his hands were tightening around her torso, pulling her away from his body. He knelt again, setting her feet on the floor, directing his white gaze into her blue one.
“I want you to hear what you’re saying.” He began, eyes moving across her face before locking with hers again. “You’re telling me to override your desires and replace them with whatever I decide is best – which is not leaving.”
Haera stared at him, letting her eyes lower to his lips. A strangled sound of restraint slipped out of his throat, and she snapped her attention back up to his eyes. His gaze was darker.
“If you keep stealing those not-so-subtle glances we’ll have a much larger consent conversation on our hands, little love. Let’s get through this one first.”
She nodded, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth. Her heart was thrumming with sensations. Worry. Fear. Desire. Painful memories. Consent. Just the thought of it made her nauseous.
“Do I have permission to override your consent? Stay when you ask me to leave? Pull you close when you ask for space? Tighten my grip on you when you demand I let go?”
Haera nodded, not trusting her trembling lips to speak without making a fool of herself. But Theos’ eyes darkened as she watched, and his energy shifted into something she had never witnessed it as before. He regarded her with scepticism. His voice was a whisper, his eyes dropping to her lips.
“If I can’t trust your lips to give me control over your consent, how will I trust you to tell me to stop when you need me to?” He asked, tone deathly serious.
She blinked at him. He tsked , hands sliding up the back of her thighs, over her ass to hold her at the waist, locking her in.
“Tell me, little star. Do you want me to take control of you, or not?” His voice was a treacherously low growl that grated deliciously over all the pleasure points in her body.
“Yes.” She breathed, the word turning into a tiny whimper when his lips widened into a grin that revealed those canines. They were each as large as her fourth finger, all four of them triggering wetness in her panties. “Yes.” She said again.
“Your consent is safe in my control.”
She nodded.
“If you need your ability to consent returned to you, how will I know?”
She chewed on her bottom lip, her own much smaller canines digging into flesh. “I’ll ask for it back.” She whispered .
“How?” He cocked his head to the side. “What defines where my control stops, and your consent begins?”
“W-we could use a word.” She trailed off, mind racing with all the safe words she had read about in human novels.
Theos pressed a kiss to one side of her mouth, then the other. “Tell me what you want it to be.”
Another kiss to her forehead. Her mind strained under the pressure to think coherent thoughts while his hands were kneading circles into her side.
“Thoughts short-circuiting, little star?”
She nodded pitifully, and Theos chuckled.
“I adore that I have that effect on you.”
She pouted, and he laughed again.
“Do you need help coming up with something, little star?”
She nodded.
Theos surveyed her for a moment. “You are my star; I am your sun.” He whispered. Her heart quivered at the sentiment. “If you ever feel unsafe, if you ever need me to give back control, ‘ starlight’ will return it to you.”
She took a deep breath. “Starlight.”
Theos nodded slowly, his eyes on her lips again. “Yes, little star. Starlight. Your light. Your control.”
Her heart shuddered with fear from the question on the tip of her tongue. There was the subtlest shift in his attention on her. He knew.
“W-what if I’m confused and I need you to take control?” she asked, feeling the heat of embarrassment creep up the back of her neck. She searched Theos’ gaze for something…anything that betrayed that his mind had automatically moved to sex the way hers had. She found nothing. “What do I say then? How do I ask for your control?”
“Sunlight.” He breathed the word like a prayer to her. “My light. My control.”
All she saw in his eyes was the utmost respect. Another small chunk of her defences crumbled.