I leaned forward as I shifted my fingers to the side, running them over the smooth skin of his square jaw. He held my gaze as I touched my lips to his, a soft, barely-there whisper of a kiss that gently caressed him. He didn’t move as I kissed him, and I knew without a doubt he felt the goodbye in that touch. He felt the farewell in my kiss as I twisted my grip on the hilt, digging the blade closer to him and swallowing the sharp intake of his breath that followed.
I pulled away, slowly, staring down at him as his eyes drifted closed, waiting for the death he thought was coming. But it wasn’t his death The Fates demanded from me as the golden thread between us sparkled brighter, shimmering despite the lack of light within our tent.
A single tear dropped, splashing against his cheek as I watched. I dropped the dagger, letting it fall to the bedroll beside my mate as his eyes flung open.
It was the death of Estrella Barlowe of Mistfell that The Fates claimed. The death of all I had been before the fall of the Veil.
I sank back, kneeling as Caldris sat up slowly. I couldn’t tear my eyes off the dagger that lay discarded at his side. The weapon I’d held in my hand had given me a way to end it. I could have bought my freedom with his death, and yet I couldn’t do it.
I couldn’t kill the very being who had brought me my first moments of real happiness. I couldn’t end the only male I’d ever loved, even if he was a monster.
He snagged my chin between thumb and finger, dragging my gaze off the dagger. My eyes snagged on the tiny wound above his heart where the flesh slowly mended itself, only the small trickle of blood remaining upon his skin. He swiped a fingertip through it, pressing it to my lips. They parted for him in my daze, allowing him to glide his essence on top of my tongue.
I’d betrayed my people, I realized as he slid that part of himself inside of me. I’d disobeyed my brother. I’d abandoned the Fae Marked who wanted to be free, choosing my own happiness over their liberty, but wouldn’t they have done the same? Did this make me worse than them somehow?
“Are you alright?” Caldris asked, shifting his hand to hold my cheek. He gazed at me as if I’d already died, and the throbbing ache in my chest felt as if that might be true. I could no longer hate him for the choices he’d made that led us here or for the horrors of the Wild Hunt.
The weight of those decisions from this point forward would be mine to bear.
“Make me forget,” I said, biting the corner of my lip. It was too much, threatening to consume me even if it changed nothing. Our lives would continue on as they had, as if he were the one forcing me to be in a place where I did not belong. Only he and I would know the difference, but that was enough.
“And what if I do not want you to forget that you have chosen me?” he asked, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. “I have waited a very long time for this moment, my star. Would you blame me?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head sadly. Thinking he wouldn’t give me the blessed numbness that came from the pleasure he provided. Nothing existed beyond the all-consuming nature of his lovemaking in those moments, and I craved that nothing more than anything.
Come morning, I would be alright. Come morning, I would sink into the routine and pretend that I hadn’t completely changed the course of my life and our relationship. I’d pretend I hadn’t felt The Fates working in the background, knitting their threads and binding us closer together.
“But,” Caldris said, leaning forward to touch his mouth gently to mine. He held my gaze as he kissed me, pulling back only slightly so his words murmured against my lips. His fingers slid down over my neck, caressing his mark on my skin as they went to the laces at the top of my tunic. He pulled them loose slowly, agonizingly, as he held my stare. “I do intend to make love to my mate.”
He tugged my tunic off over my head, tossing it to the side as he revealed my nude torso. My nipples pebbled in the cold air as Caldris kissed me. Teasing the seam of my lips with his tongue, he closed his eyes as I opened for him. All I could do was take what he gave, something in me knowing he would not allow me to create a feeling of urgency in his claim.
Not in this moment or the next.
His mouth trailed kisses down the side of my neck, stopping above my heart and kissing the spot where it beat intimately in tune with his. His eyes held mine as he dropped even lower, wrapping his lips around the peak of my breast and drawing it into his mouth. He kneaded the flesh of the other as his free hand worked my trouser laces open, and then he released me entirely to yank them down my legs.
Pulling them off and leaving me naked, he tossed them to the side and made quick work of stripping off his own trousers. He spread my legs as he settled his weight between them, touching the flesh of his shaft to that heated, greedy part of me that couldn’t get enough of him. His mouth came down on mine and he kissed me tenderly. Soft, slow, and in time with the rolling of his hips as he thrust himself against me. Rubbing over my fevered flesh, coaxing himself through me as my arousal built and built.
I’d never known he could make love to me without sinking inside of me, or that he could make me feel so surrounded and wrapped in his embrace. He shifted his hips, gliding through the wetness he’d created between my legs to finally notch the head of his cock against my entrance.
I angled my hips, accepting my mate as he slid inside of me. My body clenched tight, fighting against the feel of him moving through me. He opened me to him with slow thrusts, carefully dragging himself over my flesh until I couldn’t help the pleasured whimper that he pulled from my throat. He brought his mouth back to mine once more, devouring the sound as if it was his to own. As if he didn’t want anyone else to hear it.
This was just us, without a single care or thought for anyone else. This was a private moment between lovers in the night, a fusing of souls that I didn’t think either of us understood just yet.
He seated himself fully inside of me, pausing with his groin flush against mine to pull back from our kiss. He stared down, brushing a hand over the wispy hair that clung to the side of my face despite the cold surrounding me.
“Mine,” he murmured, and then he pulled his hips back and he began to move. Slow thrusts, slow drags over me and inside of me, I found myself raising my hips to meet his drives. We moved in tandem, a dance between us as he held my gaze and shared my breath.
This was not just sex. This was the physical manifestation of our love, and tears stung my eyes as I denied the urge to twist it into something filled with hatred. I’d let it go. I’d consumed it for myself.
How could I hate the male who would have let me kill him to take my freedom?
“I love you, min asteren,” he murmured, reaching between our bodies. He stroked my flesh as he moved inside me, bringing me back to him and the moment and driving me closer to an orgasm that would unravel me.
There was no torrent of pleasure, no rough assault of river waters barreling me toward the falls. It was only the languid flow of gentle waves lapping against the shore, driving me closer to that which would overwhelm me.
I knew I would never be the same.
“I love you, my mate,” I whispered back, wrapping my arm around his back and pulling him tighter. My other hand went to the back of his neck, holding him pinned as he brought me to the edge of an orgasm and then sent me tumbling over the side.