Chapter 47 #2
“Good,” I managed. “Because I think far too often about how much I’d like your mouth against my body. You’ll be busy during perfectly respectable things, mapping out plans and talking to Bismyth, and you bend your head, and all I can think is how good your head looks between my thighs.”
He grinned, sharp and delighted. “You should tell me. Discreetly, of course.”
“I don’t think there’s anything that discreet about the way I look at you, Fear.”
His gaze sharpened. He seemed to love even my clumsy attempts, and I resolved to continue in the future.
“Come and fuck me, please,” I murmured, catching his shoulders.
Fear brought his mouth to mine again, kissing me tenderly as I slid my hands down the hard, heated planes of his body until I found his underwear. I made an attempt at dragging them down, and he smiled against my mouth and helped me.
Eagerly, I reached for his cock. His breath stuttered when I caught him and guided him toward my entrance.
I teased him through the slick there. “See what you do to me?”
“Do you know what you do to me?” he said against my ear before he bent his head and kissed the sensitive spot just beneath it. My head tilted away, welcoming more of his mouth.
Fear shifted over me, one thigh pressing between mine as his mouth moved along my jaw, my throat, his hands roaming slowly over my body now with less restraint than before. Heat coiled low in my belly.
His hand slid down my thigh to grip himself, to tease his tip against my need. He seemed to take his time, savoring that, even as I made sounds that might even be considered whiney.
“Fear,” I murmured, full of protest.
He grinned, unapologetically smug now, but it was only a momentary reprieve. His need for me was written in the tension in his shoulders as he leaned over me and finally, finally, slid inside me.
My heels dug into the small of his back, my thighs locking around him; I thrust my hips up to take his cock more eagerly, more needily, than he would have given it to me.
As I rocked up into him, his cock filled me painfully.
I could barely take all of him, but that didn’t stop me from rocking myself up even as he paused, taking him until he was all the way in, my thighs against his hips, my clit pressing his smooth skin.
I gasped at the feeling of taking him all the way, but that didn’t stop me.
“Gods, Cara. You feel so good.” He began to move, easing out of me slowly and then back in fast, rolling his hips that way that hit my inner ache and turned me to nothing but molten, liquid need. “As if you were made for me.”
The feeling of him deep inside me had me clutching at his shoulders. My nails dug into his skin mercilessly, and he groaned as if he liked it.
My core squeezed around him, my orgasm washing me away even if I wanted to hold on.
Fear made another rough sound low in his throat and stopped moving entirely, as if he was trying to regain control of himself.
But it was too late. I was coming, squeezing around him, and he followed me over the edge.
The two of us clung together, our bodies shaking with the power of the orgasm.
His gaze was so bright, so golden, that I lost myself in it as I fell apart.
When I came back to earth, he was gathering me into his arms. My clit was still throbbing and sated and raw, and I felt it when he slid his thigh between mine from behind, parting my legs.
He pulled me against his front so I was trapped with that wall of warm muscle behind me, his broad arm the perfect pillow.
His hand traced gently over my hair, tucking it back.
“You are very good at distracting me,” I admitted.
“I’m going to be smug about it later.”
“You’re smug about it now, and you should be.”
He laughed, and I felt his teeth against my shoulder before he shifted into kissing me tenderly.
“Sleep, Cara. We’ll save the kingdom tomorrow. For tonight, you’re safe.”
It was ridiculous. But he held me as if he would stay between me and all the darkness that pressed in against us, and I fell into a deep sleep, curled in his arms.
In the morning, I woke too early, but I was grateful. Fear was already gone, though he’d be far more cheerful than me on far less sleep. The shifters were annoying and superior in so very many ways.
I dressed and came out into the corridor, expecting to find him holding court, manipulating people and managing a war on many fronts.
The common room at the bottom of the stairs smelled of smoke and the salt of the sea coming through the cracked shutters.
Maura sat at the table by the window, a wrapped bundle balanced on her knees. When her gaze met mine, I stuttered to a stop.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Morning.” I looked around for the kettle, but she nodded toward the chair across from her. A cup and kettle were steaming on the table. “Fear left your tea.”
He excelled at pretending to be a good husband. I wondered how he would be if he were actually being a husband and not just play-acting. “Did Fear leave you here as my bodyguard?”
“No,” Maura said shortly. “You are well-guarded.”
She nodded toward the window. I leaned to look: Fear in conversation with other shifters on the cobblestones below, watchful, still attentive. Looking up at the rooflines, I could just make out a dragon watching, his silhouette dark against the gray morning sky.
“Why are you here? Obsidian’s taking bets on when you’ll be laid on your cloak.”
It felt like being slapped. “How much did you bet?”
Her gaze met mine. Her large eyes were striking, a deep shade of purple. “I bet on you.”
Did Fear still not trust her? And if he didn’t trust her, should I be wary?
“What is it that you want, Maura?” I didn’t feel I owed her a great debt of civility.
“You have made friends in Bismyth.” She hadn’t managed to hide her resentment of that fact.
“Still a surprise to me as well,” I agreed.
“But they were Fear’s friends before they were yours. And they are his friends before they are yours.”
That was true, and I knew it, but it was still jarring to hear aloud. I didn’t dignify it with a response, merely sipping my tea.
“If you could tolerate my presence, you could have someone on your side who is loyal to you above Fear.”
The sip of tea that I’d just taken attempted to murder me. I gasped and put the cup down as Maura watched me with what seemed like mild disgust. “How would you ever be loyal to me above Fear? Your loyalty to Fear has been terrifying.”
That was a kind way of phrasing it. I wasn’t sure if she was entirely loyal to Fear after being cast out of Bismyth, but I certainly didn’t expect more from her toward me.
“I’ll be terrifying on your behalf, Cara. Never against you.” She sounded so sure of herself, but now she seemed to falter. “Never again.”
I wished I had Fear’s gift to understand people, because I didn’t understand this conversation. I glanced back at the door. This felt as unreal as if I were dreaming. “You can see, given our past, why I find this conversation…strange.”
“Yes, I understand. I came to apologize.” She was always so hard to read that I couldn’t tell if there was any real emotion under her cool affect or if she was merely going through the motions of an apology in the hopes that she’d be allowed back into Bismyth. “I am sorry that I hurt you.”
I expected some caveat about how unexpectedly breakable I was, but she paused there. How unusually diplomatic.
She stared at me for a long second, then seemed to interpret my stunned response as goading her for something more.
She let out a long, exasperated breath. “I told myself I was protecting Fear. I had done that for a long time. We had been good friends and…I was afraid of what you meant.”
“That I would take your place?” I wasn’t sure entirely what that meant.
“At first, I felt that you had. I have come to understand it was never…my place.” She bit her lower lip, looking away.
She was always so proud, and I felt both a little uncomfortable and a little touched by her vulnerability. She probably still saw me as lesser than her. But she’d humbled herself enough to come to me when she needed help.
“I understand why you would love being part of Bismyth.” Certainly, I had fallen in love with the clan.
“The other clans are annoying.” Then, reluctantly, “I don’t want you to think I’m here just to get back into Bismyth.”
I thought exactly that. It was impossible to hide my skepticism as I asked, “You want forgiveness?”
“I want to be free,” she said, and she sounded so fervent that I believed it, but I didn’t understand what she meant.
She rose to her feet, pulling the fabric off the bundle from her lap. “This is a gift from Starfire, our attempt to repay the debt I owe you.”
I took it without understanding what it was. It was smooth and hard under my palms.
What she had pressed into my arms looked like light, scaled armor. It was gleaming, purple, iridescent, and unearthly. It was also the smallest set of armor I had ever seen.
“What is it?” I asked, and the question was stupid on the face of it, but why had she made me armor from Starfire’s scales?
Something came over her face, possibly exasperation chased by resignation. She had just offered to stand by my side, and surely she had to realize that meant answering stupid questions about dragon shifter ways.
She stared over my head as she launched into her explanation. “It’s a debt offering. I wronged you, and I am acknowledging that. The item is a physical representation of my attempt to repay the debt I owe you for…” She seemed to lose some energy.
When the pause had gone on long enough, I suggested, “Beating me nearly to death?”
Her throat worked once, and then because Maura was nothing if not brave and fierce, she blurted it out. “For betraying you when I should have seen you as a sister because we are both Bismyth.” Pain came over her face. “Or we were.”
Letting her leave Bismyth was a mistake. Not when we had this war coming and needed every shifter. She had been right when she had told Fear she was wasted in Obsidian.
“You’ll always belong to Bismyth, Maura.” I said it before I could consider that I was offering what Fear had taken.
Perhaps a place in Bismyth was not mine to give. I decided to give it anyway.
Lightbringer said in my mind, “You are learning from your mate. You are going to be a clever pair, aren’t you?”
I wasn’t sure how much of that was judgment and how much was promise.
“I am not the one who decides if I belong to Bismyth or not,” Maura admitted. Then she soldiered on. “At any rate, the debt is repaid through service until I save your life. Which, given the threats against it, should be about an hour or two.”
“You nearly killed me.”
“Yes.” Maura looked as if the topic were dull, though I didn’t think I would ever find my near-death experience all that boring.
“So you endeavor to prove that you’re trustworthy by being my bodyguard instead?”
“Until I save your life. Yes. Then I will watch your back as I would any member of our clan, but I won’t owe you my service.”
“Your service that includes…what, besides protection?”
“I can explain to you the many things that you clearly do not know. I’ve had my moments of misjudging Fear, but I know him well. I can help you understand his tricks. I can help you understand Bismyth and the rest of the clans.”
“And why should I trust you?”
“If you cannot believe that I would regret hurting you for any reason beyond the consequences, I cannot change that with words alone,” Maura said.
“But this is a gift from Starfire. Starfire, who knows my heart, who is ancient and honorable. If the gift means nothing from me, well…it is barely from me. I did the work of the forging. Starfire gave up her scales.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
Disbelief rushed across her face. She covered it quickly. But there had been relief there, too.
And it occurred to me that if I could forgive Maura—not that I had forgiven her yet, but I hoped she would be worthy of it—maybe Fear and I could forgive each other too.