“Lavinia gifted my father a shadow hand to replace the one you took from him,” Darius replied darkly and I growled angrily at that revelation.
“Oh, fuck him,” I snapped angrily. “He’s such a fucking dick. Why couldn’t he just be off crying over his lost hand and feeling sorry for himself in a hole somewhere? I bet he was so fucking smug about it too.”
“He didn’t look so smug when I was tearing him open with tooth and claw. He got lucky with this one.” Darius’s hand landed over mine on his scars. “But I fucking had him, Roxy. I was so close to ripping his miserable head off.”
I smiled at the fire in his eyes even though I knew there was a but coming.
“Lavinia?” I guessed and he nodded.
“Yeah. The UnFae piece of shit had her save his ass again,” he grunted.
“Well, let’s hope he’s off licking his wounds and having nightmares over the way you beat his ass,” I said, trying to focus on the positives because that really was something. If we could only get Lavinia out of the fucking picture then maybe we could win this war and end Lionel’s reign for good.
“I really did.” He smiled savagely and I fucking loved that bloodthirsty look in his dark eyes.
“Are you going to show me how to heal this then?” I asked, shifting my fingers over his scars. “Because when I was healing your other wounds this one didn’t respond the same way.”
“You just have to use a lot more power,” he sighed. “The shadows taint the wound and make it resist Fae magic. But I’m fine. I’ll do it myself once I’m replenished.” He ran his fingers through the gold he was sitting on and I shook my head.
“No chance of that,” I said, looking into his eyes as I pushed my magic into his skin and worked to continue the healing process on the scars. They resisted like he’d said and I frowned as I forced more and more magic into him, the fire at my back topping up my magic as I used it and slowly, the scars smoothed out until there was nothing left of them at all and I was left trembling a little from the exertion of using so much magic at once.
Darius pushed himself up so that he was sitting beneath me, his lips brushing mine as he looked me in the eyes and tightened his hold on my waist.
“I still don’t deserve you,” he said. “But I love you with all my wretched heart has to offer and I’m going to keep proving that to you with every moment gifted to me on this earth until my dying breath. So no, Roxy, I don’t want to sleep. Because I refuse to waste a single second that I’ve been gifted with you. I want to claim each and every one and work to make them good enough for you.”
My heart lodged in my throat at the sincerity of those words and as he kissed me with a soft and unyielding form of possessiveness, I felt like my entire being was falling apart for him.
His tongue pressed between my lips and I moaned softly, unbuckling his belt with shaking fingers as I tried to accept the weight of his love despite my natural inclination to feel unworthy of it. Because when Darius Acrux looked at me like I was his entire world, it felt like a whole lot of pressure for a jaded, guarded girl to live up to and yet his faith in my worth was so fierce that it was impossible to deny.
We peeled each other’s clothes off with slow, intense, and deliberate moves, which had my chest heaving between the kisses which locked us together and threatened to drown me.
Darius held me like I was the most precious thing he’d ever owned and as I sank down onto the hard length of his cock, our magic spilled between our skin, merging together and stealing my breath completely.
The feeling of being possessed by Darius, body, heart, magic and soul consumed me as his dick sank in inch by delicious inch until I was finally filled by him in every way.
Our kiss broke and we fell still as we looked at each other, every part of us united as one while his power and body took hold of me, and I willingly fell prey to his demands while claiming him right back in return.
When we started moving, every single fragment of my soul came alive for him and as he drove me into a climax which stole the air from my lungs and dominated every fibre of my flesh, I knew there was never going to be any turning back from this. From us.
Darius Acrux had taken full ownership of my heart. And I was claiming his right back in return.
“H oly guacamole, what a magnificent day to marry into a family of Dragoons!” I cried as I flung my bedding asunder, smacking a rather startled looking Angelica in the face with it as I leapt out of bed as bare as the day I’d been born, breasts bouncing and Lady Petunia airing in the wind of this most joyous of days. Honestly, sometimes that girl looked like she needed a good shake in a basil bush to banish the dander from her ears. “Well don’t just sit there gawping, you nilly Nelly, we have much to do and only eighteen hours to do it. Don your heavy duty attire, my dear - tonight will be a night to remember. Nothing on heaven nor earth will be able to set these most mighty of plans adrift. So avast, my hot-blooded reptilian friend for we haven’t the time for your waffling!"