“I want to go to sleep,” I murmured softly, staring down into his dark eyes.
He smirked up at me, running those soothing thumbs over my skin. “Do you remember when I fucked you in the bathing chamber with everyone watching? You were shocked that I would want them to watch me fuck you into oblivion, when I don’t even like men staring at you for too long.”
“I remember,” I murmured, letting my eyes drift closed.
“Now Holt has seen you, min asteren. He’s seen you naked and not stuffed full of my cock. Worse yet, I lost you. For one fleeting moment, I felt the pain of this world without you in it,” Caldris said, his voice dropping low with his jealousy. “I need to be inside of you, and I need him to see it.”
I felt that need course through him; I couldn’t understand it, but I felt how genuine it was to him. I didn’t know that I had the energy to fight him, but I wasn’t certain I was capable of sex at the moment, either.
I just wanted to sleep.
“She was fucking dead,” Holt protested, rolling his eyes to the sky as he dropped down onto the stone, propping his elbow on his knee and cradling his head in his hands. “That was the last thing on my mind.”
“If you had a mate, you’d understand, but you don’t,” Caldris said harshly, his glare settling on his friend’s face as his nostrils flared. “Take off her cloak, Huntsman. Show me what’s mine.”
My eyes widened, my gaze snapping to Holt in shock. “Caelum,” I murmured,.
My mate smirked, his dark eyes shining with amusement as he trailed his hands higher up my legs. “He knows if he touches any part of you, I will remove that part of his body. As it stands, he’s fortunate I’m not carving out his eyes for seeing you this way.”
“I would have anyway, when you finally convince her to let you fuck her in front of the fire,” Holt said with a grimace, making his way over. He stepped up behind me, the coolness of his translucent body washing over me in a way that made me shiver.
“We both know that’s different,” Caldris said, his eyes narrowing on the place where Holt carefully reached around me. He didn’t touch me at all, his fingers grasping the clasp delicately and tugging it open until the fabric pooled at my feet.
Caldris reached up, grasping me around the thighs and pulling me forward. Wrapping his arms around me fully, he carried me and turned until we were in the center of the hot spring and he lowered my body down, sliding it against the length of his.
His cock was hard and ready by the time I settled with my feet on the stone bottom of the hot spring, a moment of panic sending me reeling.
I ran a hand over my arm and the tiny scratches along my body from where I’d thrashed and fought for breath. “You’re alright,” Caldris said, cupping my cheek in his hand. It brought me a small measure of comfort, knowing he was here to support me.
He waved a hand over my shackles, letting them fall away and drop into the hot spring where they clanked to the bottom. “You will never wear those again,” he murmured, the words sounding an echo of the anger he tried to hide from me. It was the worst of his rage, all that he hadn’t allowed himself to feel in the moments when I’d been a fury on the path of vengeance.
I nodded, not bothering to argue against the special treatment I hadn’t thought I wanted. It hadn’t made a damn bit of difference in their pursuit to kill me. I’d take the special treatment from my mate any day.
“I can’t believe I wanted to defend them. I wanted them to accept me so much that I didn’t care if the cost of if that was you.” I sighed, enjoying the moment of tenderness he showed me.
“They aren’t worth your loyalty,” Caldris said, touching his chin to the top of my head. He ran his hands over my skin, soothing the aches in my arms with warm water as he covered me in it. Washing any traces of dirt from my skin, he let me settle into the comfort of his embrace for a few moments. What he wanted to do in front of Holt never left the forefront of my mind, but I sank into my exhaustion and the need I felt to just feel loved for a moment.
This was my mate I knew, not the estranged male who didn’t seem to know what to do with the possible repercussions of my lineage.
I ran my hands over his skin, picking up a piece of linen from the ledge and using it to wash away the dirt. He did the same, offering me the care and affection I needed in that moment more than anything.
There had to be a purpose to all of this, and if Caldris and I couldn’t come out united on the other side…it would have all been for nothing.
Holt sat on the stone, his head held in his hands and watching the moment stretch between us. I tried not to think about what Caldris wanted him to watch—the coming sex that felt almost like a punishment.
I knew I hadn’t been the one to commit the crime, and that Caldris blamed Holt entirely for my near death experience. “The sooner we get to Alfheimr and complete the bond, the better. I don’t know how much longer I can stand the dangers that come with your humanity,” Caldris murmured, setting the linen on the edge of the spring when he’d finished cleaning my body. He took the strip of cloth from my hand as well, ringing it out and discarding it beside the other.
He studied me carefully, running a thumb over my cheek for a moment, then he lifted his other wrist from the water, letting the fluid drip off his gleaming, golden skin. Raising a finger, he allowed one black talon to replace the more human-like nails he donned in his less violent moments.
Slashing that nail across his wrist, he watched me as I watched his blood dripping into the spring, tinting the water between us pink. He raised his wrist to my mouth, pressing it against my lips as the warmth of him spread through me. I opened, letting the thick fluid coat my tongue before he pulled it away. That familiar feeling of him sank inside me, strengthening the mate bond that pulled between us, wrapping us in the threads of gold, consuming us entirely. I had to imagine the moments we shared like this were as close as we could come to being fully bonded before that event finally occurred.
Something in his gaze glinted with mischief, and he maneuvered himself to the edge of the spring. Putting his back to the ledge, he placed a hand on each side and lifted himself out. Water sluiced down his body, accentuating every line of muscle in his rigid frame. He spread his legs, his cock jutting up to the sky above.
“I want your mouth, min asteren,” he said, and something in the position reminded me of the rock carving not far away. Of the human women centuries ago who had shared his cock in the same way, in the same place.
There was none of the aloofness on his face that was depicted in that carving as I prowled toward him, jealousy burning in my veins. He smirked at me as if he knew it, and he probably felt what that possessiveness did to me.
In the same way he wanted Holt to watch me pleasure him, he knew that I wanted to stake my claim against the visual memory of those humans. Their faces were carved into the stone identical and somehow vague, as if their likenesses weren’t worth immortalizing. They were replaceable, and the God of the Dead had probably fucked so many he’d never remembered their names.
But I was his mate. I was the one whose face would be recorded in the books where I stood by his side; the one who would bear his name if we ever managed to complete the bond.