Chapter 7
KAELERON
It turned out that my dark mood over the last few days had nothing to do with the seelie incursion into the Forgotten Wastes.
And everything to do with the beautiful female standing before me.
Because the moment I had set eyes on her again, that tight knot in my chest had loosened and unravelled.
And now I found I did not want to leave her side.
Especially when she was in a difficult situation and the wretched wolf was nowhere to be seen. Some protector that male was, pulling her into this predicament, failing to take care of her needs, and currently absent from her side.
“I’m not the only one who looks tired.” She gazed up at my face, brow furrowed and blue eyes sombre as they studied me.
Her touch was light as a feather, her warmth bliss against my skin as she stroked my cheek, following the faint line of a cut that was only hours from fading from existence entirely.
“You’re not taking care of yourself,” she muttered as she pushed me back, gaze raking over every inch of me as her hands followed their path, and I compressed my lips, doing my best not to let her see that beneath my armour there were other injuries and secretly enjoying how she felt compelled to check me, revealing that she cared about me.
She drew in a subtle breath through her nose as her right hand stilled on my left side, and her eyes lifted to mine, silently demanding an answer.
“Expending so much magic in the Wastes prevents several of my injuries from healing as quickly as I would have liked, but I am not in any danger from them. This one in particular is healing irritatingly slowly.”
My answer did not satisfy my little wolf in the slightest.
The mulish twist to her lips and the fire that flashed in her eyes was both adorable and warmed that shrivelled black walnut Neve believed rattled around my hollow chest.
“Take better care of yourself. Have you been resting? I bet you haven’t been resting.” She huffed and looked ready to poke my wound to punish me. “How did you get injured in the first place?”
I debated not telling her, but that steely look in her eyes said she would not be denied and while I despised being coddled, I found I did not mind being fussed over by her. It did not make me feel weak. It made me feel something else.
“Perhaps I was a little reckless. It happened soon after you left with that wolf.” I lifted my right hand and brushed the backs of my fingers across her cheek, and burrowed them into her tangle of silver hair to anchor her to me. “My head was not clear and I acted rashly.”
“Because of me,” she said, filling in the blanks, the flare of anger fading from her eyes as they met mine and softened. “Because you missed me.”
“I—” I sighed. “I admit I discovered I did not enjoy the thought of you slipping beyond my reach… leaving me like that.”
Admitting such a thing did not make me weak.
In fact, my little wolf looked at me as if I was wonderful, even as her words gained a bite as sharp as her fangs.
“You were the one who sent me away.”
“With good reason.” My shadows eased from the ground, pooling close to her booted feet, and tendrils of them slowly crept towards her to twine around her calves unnoticed by her, holding her gently.
She made a big show of rolling her eyes. “To protect the delicate little female.”
“I believe it was more like… to protect all the realms from my wrath should something happen to said little female.” I smiled when my shadows tugged her to me and she gasped, her eyes flying wide as they dropped to the black vines wrapped around her legs, moving them for her.
When she was close enough, I wrapped my arms around her too, savouring the feel of her in them.
Back where she belonged. “Better said little female be furious with me than all the worlds end, no?”
She exhaled, not quite a huff and not quite a sigh, and casually muttered, “I suppose.”
But that glimmer in her eyes revealed that she liked that I would destroy this world and the rest if she was taken from me.
Just as I would destroy them all to keep her safe.
To keep her mine.
“How… how is the Shadow Court?” Saphira’s bewitching blue eyes met mine again, barely holding my attention as my own eyes wanted to fall to her kiss-blushed lips.
I wanted to take them again.
To coax her into surrendering to me.
She had looked so wicked hidden in that small alcove, her leathers around her knees, her hand frantically moving between her supple thighs as she reached for release.
Thinking of me.
She cleared her throat and nudged my chest. “Stop it. I know what you’re thinking about.”
I shrugged, refusing to apologise for allowing my thoughts to wander pleasurable paths when she had been the one responsible for my current distraction. A distraction I found I badly needed.
Perhaps Oberon had been right.
I needed female company.
Her company.
“Stop,” she bit out, gaze chastising me.
“Kiss me again and I will.”
She shook her head. “I’m not falling for that. If I kiss you again, you’ll have me naked and against that cliff.”
“The thought had crossed my mind.” I eyed it.
“Can you just focus?” she snapped.
“But it is so very hard.” I snared her wrist and pressed the flat of her palm to the front of my leathers, showing her just what she did to me.
She loosed a long, dramatic sigh.
Not that it stopped her from gripping my aching shaft slightly as she pulled her hand away.
“My wicked little wolf still wants me,” I purred, savouring the colour that threatened to climb her cheeks.
“Your wicked little wolf asked you a serious question that she really wants an answer to because she’s worried about everyone, not just you.”
“Ouch.” I clutched my chest as she plunged that blade into my heart. “And here I thought it was only me you needed. Of course, I had good reason to believe that… since you were hiding in the woods, touching yourself while thinking of me.”
She scowled at me even as her cheeks pinkened.
“Very well. The court is as well as can be expected. We keep the seelie at bay with the help of the Winter King and his men. Both of our sides have suffered losses, but I feel we are turning the tide now.” My mood threatened to take a dark turn again as I thought about how I had left things there, and what the high king had done.
“Ereborne deems it suitable to send us scholars and scribes, rather than the soldiers we need to protect unseelie lands. The high king wishes to study the ancient magic they are using to cast a portal into such unstable lands.”
Her pretty face slowly blackened as she listened to me and there was a mulish twist to her lips by the time I had finished. “What kind of fool is he? What use are such males against a war party?”
By the goddess, it was good to be with her again, to hear her sword-sharp tongue as she aired her thoughts without reservation.
“A mad fool,” I said and planted my hands on her waist, slowly drawing her against me again. “But one whose orders I must unfortunately entertain at the very least. I am allowing his males to join us… but I may have failed to assign any soldiers to their protection.”
Her little smile was dark and wicked as she nudged my chest with her palm. “You’re terrible. What if you get them killed?”
I shrugged. “Then perhaps the high king will send some men to protect the next contingent he sends.”
“Is it really wise to irritate your ruler?” She frowned now, a flicker of concern in her eyes as she leaned closer, narrowing the distance between our bodies again, as if she could not get enough of the feel of me against her.
I could not get enough of the feel of her against me.
“Perhaps not, but I tire of him and his machinations.” I slid my hands around to the small of her back, pulled her flush against me and dipped my head to capture her lips in a slow, sensual kiss that warmed the deepest reaches of my heart, banishing the chill that had settled in every crevice and crack the moment she had left me.
I whispered against her lips, “Let us not talk of him. Let us talk of what my wicked little wolf was doing when she summoned me.”
She slapped my chest and pushed back. “No. Let’s not. You’re just trying to make me blush.”
I lowered my head, bringing my cheek to hers and feeling it heating against my skin, and purred into her ear, “But I do so love the way you blush, little one. I love how it betrays you… telling me you are thinking of me… for you blush over no other like you do over me.”
She huffed, her breath bathing my neck, tickling and teasing me, and her hands slid up my chest to my shoulders, curling over to hold me in place. “Don’t you have a court to run?”
I hiked the shoulders she gripped so fiercely, as if she did not wish to let me go. “My sister is a capable leader, and Rhyn is an excellent strategist, and Oberon is a powerful ally. The three of them can handle things for a moment or two.”
She pulled back, gaze colliding with mine. “A moment or two.”
Disappointment coloured her eyes, dulling the blue, and she sighed as she eased further back, her hands falling from my shoulders.
“I understand.” She nodded slightly, the smile she plastered on her delectable lips not fooling me as her eyes brightened again with false happiness. “I shouldn’t keep you.”
But I wanted her to.
I wanted her to keep me.
Forever if she was so inclined.
That thought hit me out of nowhere, sending my mind spinning and my heart whirling as I gazed down at her, as I realised that something deep inside me needed her so fiercely that I would give up everything just to have her.
Everything.
She swallowed and ducked her head, brushing rogue strands of silver-white behind her ears as she looked at her boots, and it would not do.
I captured her chin between my thumb and fingers and lifted it, on the verge of telling her to never let anyone or anything cow her—especially me. The unmistakable tears in her eyes stilled my tongue though and wrenched at me.