Chapter 9 #2
I smiled and tiptoed, more than willing to pay the price for his good behaviour as I brought my lips to his. A shiver traced down my spine as they met, pleasure rolling through me at the first brush of his against mine, and I had to bite back a moan as he kissed me slowly, deeply.
Possessively.
A kiss that backed up what he had told me. He had feelings for me, just as I had feelings for him.
I sank into it, sliding my hands around his neck, pulling him closer to me as heat stirred in my veins, as my body came alive and ached for his touch.
I was on the verge of begging him to whisk us both away from this spot to somewhere more secluded when he broke the kiss on a weary sigh that said he knew what I did. We couldn’t. Morden would return at any moment, and I didn’t want to be missing when he did.
And catching us screwing like rabbits would probably only make things between Morden and Kaeleron even more tense.
I grabbed Morden’s belongings again.
“Come, my little wolf.” Kaeleron took hold of my hand, leading me into the forest, making my wicked mind race with thoughts of finding a tree and making him take me against it, a hard and fast coupling that would satisfy this unbearable need for him for at least a day or two.
Instead of convincing him to do that, I looked for branches we could use for a fire.
“This is maddening,” Kaeleron muttered.
I was inclined to agree with him.
He stroked his free hand over the broad trunk of a tree, his look teasing. “Are you sure you cannot be tempted? I could fuck you right here… right now… right against this tree… covering your perfect little mouth with my hand as I took you, stifling your cries of bliss.”
“Bastard.” I squirmed, rubbing my thighs together. “Stop it.”
“Magic has its uses, sweet Saphira.” His grin was feline. Predatory. Tempting. “Shadows do too.”
He swirled them around me, making the world go ghostly, and I shivered, so damned tempted to take him up on the offer as it dawned on me that he could pull me into the shadow world and Morden would never see us, never hear us.
“Have you ever… had sex with someone in your shadows?” I had to force those words out, something within me locking up tight as I put them out there, bracing for impact.
“No.” His gaze was open, honest, as he rounded on me, coming to tower before me, and lowered his eyes to my lips as he stroked a finger over them, tickling and teasing me, his voice low as he husked, “You would be the first, and the only.”
“Gah,” I muttered and pushed him back, his amused smirk as he staggered back a step making me want to slap it off his face. “Stop tempting me. We should be making camp.”
He shrugged easily. “Very well. The offer is on the table. I look forward to you begging me.”
I probably would be begging him by the time I took him up on it, so wild for him, so desperate that I would do or say anything for a fix, another shot of the pleasure he had given me back in Falkyr and that deeper connection I craved from him.
I glanced at him as I walked around a small clearing, one just big enough for a fire and for two wolves to sleep near to it.
That look in his eyes as they tracked me said I might not be the only one open to a little begging to get what they wanted.
He looked as starved as I felt as he dutifully gathered wood with his shadows and tossed it into a pile in the centre of the clearing.
Morden trotted into the glade, two rabbits held gently in his fangs. Two. Not three. I bit back a sigh and tamped down the urge to roll my eyes. He shook out his wet black fur and dropped the rabbits close to his clothes, and then shifted back.
And took his sweet time dressing.
I looked at anything but his naked form, deeply aware of the way Kaeleron slid me a look.
No matter what he believed, I really wasn’t interested in Morden.
I willed Morden to hurry up, but he didn’t pick up on the psychic message because he dressed at a snail’s pace, letting it all hang out for far too long.
“I could only find two.” He stooped and grabbed the brace of rabbits and offered them to me. “Could you do the honours?”
He wanted me to gut them with my dagger.
“You mean to task her with menial work because she is female?” Kaeleron completely misinterpreted it as a slight against my gender, that Morden had asked me to clean and gut them because as a female I ranked lower in pack hierarchy and it was my duty to look after the males.
“No,” Morden bit out.
“He wants me to use the dagger you created for me for menial work.” I snatched the rabbits from Morden, glaring at him even as shock rippled across his face.
Because I was on to him and wasn’t afraid to say it?
He had a lot to learn about me. The Saphira Harper that was sold to a fae king was not the same Saphira Harper that had come back from Lucia to save her pack and kill her fated mate.
I gave him a pointed look. “Which is not going to happen.”
“It happened before. How many rabbits and birds have you let me prepare with that precious dagger of yours?”
He was pushing it.
“Because we had no other means of preparing them.” I rested my empty hand on my dagger.
“And we do now?” Morden tensed when Kaeleron disappeared in a swirl of black mist laced with glittering golden motes, and almost leaped out of his skin when he reappeared in the same manner, clutching a black leather satchel.
He rummaged through it, pulled a knife in a leather sheath out and tossed it at Morden.
Who snatched it out of the air with a scowl.
“Gut the meagre rabbits for yourself.” Kaeleron turned from him to me and dipped his hand into the bag again, and when he pulled it out, I wanted to plant a kiss on his lips.
My mouth watered at the neatly wrapped package he offered me.
“Jerky!” I grabbed it, hugging it to my chest, the scent of the dried meat filling my nostrils and pulling a dreamy sigh from me.
I needed it. Barely held the urge to do a little dance in check as I tore the pack open and shoved a small piece into my mouth, and moaned, uncaring of the way the two males looked at me.
“Oh my gods. It’s as good as I remember. ”
It was salty, and rich, and as tough as boot leather, but it was delicious.
I devoured another piece and when Kaeleron teasingly reached for one, I growled and twisted my upper body away from him, earning a husky chuckle.
“Such a ravenous little thing. You do so love the taste of meat.” His lips curled into a slow, salacious smile. “I do so love feeding it to you. Do you recall that night in the cottage when—”
My eyes widened and I launched at him, shoving a piece of jerky into his mouth to silence him.
Morden skinned the rabbits with darkness in his eyes. “Make yourself useful, fae. Light the fire.”
Kaeleron chewed and swallowed. “I am afraid I do not answer to you.”
“Can you light a fire, please?” I rolled a log towards the clearing with my foot, munching on the jerky at the same time.
“As you wish, my little wolf.” He glanced at the stack of sticks and broken branches and flames licked over them, and then he slid a look at Morden. “Fire can be so very easy to summon. All it takes is something combustible, and so much in this world is combustible.”
“Stop threatening to set Morden on fire and help me with this.” I shoved the log with my booted foot.
Shadows swept it up off the ground and set it down near the fire.
“I could make you a seat more suited to you.” He stole a piece of meat as he passed me, fingers so fast I didn’t have a chance to bite them off before he was gone, brushing against my back like a shadow and whispering in my ear. “A throne fit for a queen.”
I stilled. Heart thundering. Blood rushing. Mind blanking.
A queen?
Like a queen of an unseelie court?
His queen?
“Does my little wolf like that idea?” he purred against my ear, his hands skimming down my sides, his power pressing against me.
I liked it far too much, but I was far too aware of Morden watching us, of what he wanted to say, to say anything because I feared it would be the truth—that Kaeleron was only saying such things to provoke him.
Kaeleron lingered a moment longer, and then he released me and I wanted to take hold of his wrist and make him look at me again. I wanted to tell him that I liked the idea of being his queen a hell of a lot, but I wasn’t brave enough.
Not yet.
One day.
“Do you think we’re any closer to the pack?” I spotted another log that would make a good seat and went to it, kicked it and grimaced as it rolled forwards to reveal a rotten underside swarming with bugs. Nope. I set it back in the position it had been and looked for another.
Kaeleron had summoned several to the clearing for me.
Not one of them a throne fit for a queen.
“No,” Morden muttered and cast stringy guts onto the fire, his eyes never leaving the rabbit he cleaned.
I slumped onto one of the logs Kaeleron had found. He came to sit beside me and wrapped his arm around my back, and I sighed as I pitched to my right, towards him, and rested my head on his chest.
“I know where the… other pack… is and can teleport us there. I will even promise to return for Morden. Not that he deserves it.” He had stopped himself from mentioning the barn where we had first met, where he had bought me from Lucas at that terrible auction, and Lucas had made me watch him with another female, and I appreciated that.
I shook my head.
“It is no bother.” He leaned forwards slightly, so he could see my face.
I shot to my feet and paced across the glade, my throat tight as I struggled to breathe, as a whirlwind of emotions hit me and my fingers flexed at my sides. “It’s fine. Really. You don’t need to.”
He slowly rose to his feet. “No. You do not want me to. Why?”
I shook my hands out, trying to release the tension building inside me, battling the overwhelming rush of nerves as I thought about going back there, as I thought about seeing that place again, my pack again, in the next few seconds.
I couldn’t do it.
I couldn’t breathe.
I paced, taking desperate, agitated strides across the clearing, mind whirling and heart beating so fast I feared it might give out.
I wasn’t ready yet.
Just a few days ago, I had thought I would be in the Shadow Court for years to come, had been enjoying my time there and the freedom I had, and now it felt as if the bars of my cage were closing in around me again and I was suffocating.
I was suffocating.
I clawed at my throat.
Kaeleron appeared before me, wrapped me in his arms and just held me as he whispered, “Saphi. Breathe. Breathe, Saphi.”
He gently rubbed my back, his touch black magic, easing the tension from my body and the tightness from my throat, and the bars of that imagined cage turned to shadows and dissipated.
“Breathe, my little wolf,” he murmured against my hair.
I drew down a slow, deep breath. Held it for a moment. And let it go.
“I shall not teleport us to that place.”
“Why not?” Morden put in, his tone harsh as he pushed to his feet.
“We’ve delayed enough. If there’s a way to get to our pack faster, before anything happens to them, we should take it.
We can go to the barn. Scout the pack. See what the deal is there.
Saphi can stay at camp. We could end this tonight. ”
I tensed at the mention of the barn, so casually tossed out there. It struck my chest like a dagger, lodging deep.
“I am not going anywhere near that wolf without Saphira.” Kaeleron slowly released me, his bright silver gaze edged with crimson as he stared at Morden, and his words warmed the deepest reaches of my soul. “This is her vengeance, her battle to fight, not ours.”
Morden growled, “I have a stake in this too.”
“I’m fine. It’s fine.” I smoothed my blouse, fingers trembling, and fought my nerves as I looked from Morden to Kaeleron.
“I just need time to prepare. I need time to think and plan. I just… I’m not ready yet.
I don’t want to rush in there when I’m not ready.
I’m sorry, Morden. I know you want to make sure your sister is safe. I’m sorry.”
I hadn’t realised the depths of my fears until the offer to just leap straight to the end of this journey had been presented to me. I hadn’t seen the part of me that was secretly glad we had ended up so far away from my pack—from Lucas—giving me more time before I had to face them.
More time to face my fears.
To conquer them.
“Is that the real reason you want to go to the Ryland Pack?” Morden studied me, the rabbits forgotten. “So you have more time to get your head straight before you see your mate again?”
I turned on him on a snarl as white fur rippled over my skin. “Lucas is not my mate. He will never be my mate.”
Morden didn’t look convinced.
Kaeleron exuded darkness as he came to stand beside me, as shadows twined around his legs and caressed his shoulders, fluttering like wings from his back.
“Saphira is right. The wolf will never be her mate, because he will be dead as soon as your pack’s safety is secured, and so will anyone who has allied with him. ”
Morden paled a little.
Dropped the rabbits.
Turned his back on us and stormed into the darkening forest as he growled.
“We’re wasting time here.”