Chapter Nine

 

Cleo gasped, her eyes going hot with what I suggested, and I fought the urge to push her down on the bed myself.

Everything Anubis had explained rattled inside my mind. Bomani’s faith followed by his treachery, Cleo’s stubborn sacrifice, the handmaidens immortal, the betwixt… it was all twisting and contorting into something unfathomable. But a single phrase was clear in my mind.

One night.

I had one night to make things right with my meren. One night to have her fully, show her my heart, how it was both strong and weak for her.

Give her my future.

I had one night to ensure she’d be mine forevermore.

And I knew how.

Cleo moved to the bed and I followed her over, stalking too close the entire way. I didn’t want even an inch of air between us. Going to my knees at the edge of the mattress, I stared down her body, taking note of the way the ratted scraps of fabric strategically covered all her hidden places. She wouldn’t be needing those anymore.

But just as I was thinking of ripping them from her body, something strange happened. The wraps shimmered, seeming almost iridescent, the jewels within glowing. Reaching out to touch them, I grazed the ancient fabric over her chest and it dissolved beneath my fingers. Like fine sand eroding everywhere I touched, and the jewels fell to the bed.

Cleo sucked in a breath, eyes wide, as her wraps melted away to finally reveal her body to me. Her skin was smooth bronze, and filled in with curves I wanted to devour. Rounded breasts tipped with darker nipples. Narrow waist that flared to perfect hips that could hold me easily between them. Long legs I would soon have around my waist. And that soft secret slit between them…

Mine, my mind roared inside. My meren. “My goddess,” I whispered out loud.

Her gaze darted away and a blush formed on her cheeks. I’d noticed it earlier. It was new, this color to her face. Like before, when we lived. I liked it a lot.

But Cleo was right. We were changing.

The magic of the curse was fading, but I still had time to show her my heart.

One night.

She reached forward, touching the wrap at my neck and the heavy jewel she’d placed there, fell loose. I straightened my shoulders as my cloth dissolved to dust from neck to toe and I was bared to my meren.

I was proud as her eyes roamed my body, touching over my chest, then lower, and stopping where my manhood stood hard and tall for her.

“Wow,” she breathed, and by the gods, the thing jerked forward, wanting her touch. She licked her lips like she was considering touching it with those. And while that would have been a pleasure indescribable, I couldn’t let her. Not when the mere thought of her mouth upon me was about to send me over the edge.

“What now?” she asked, her eyes finding mine again. I looked deep into hers, and it was like falling into a dark hole, tipping my stomach in an exciting yet frightening way. There was a certain truth to them. No looking away, no denying like she’d done so many times in the past.

She was all the way here with me, right now.

“You know what, meren. We shall join in every way possible. Until the sun rises or your eyes close in sleep. Come morning, we start our new lives. Together. And I dare all the demons in Duat to prevent it. I’ll conquer them all,” I promised, wrapping an arm around her waist to drag her body to mine.  “No one will ever keep you from me again.”

I took her lips hard, to seal the promise, tasting of her mouth once more. My meren was sweeter than the honey at Pharaoh’s table. Her tongue was a soft, wanting little thing, lapping and licking feverishly against mine. And a lusty growl rose in my chest at the way she writhed against me, tight tipped breasts abrading my chest as my hardness prodded her belly.

My meren was just as desperate as I was to become one.

I kissed her down to the bed, caging her with my arms and nudging her legs open with my knee. “No escaping,” I murmured between nibbles to her chin, her jaw.

“I never want to,” she moaned into my ear.

“Thank the gods.”

In my back, I could feel her nails digging deep as I moved lower to her neck, making my way down to the first perfect breast. I sucked her nipple between my lips, lapping at it with my tongue.

Ra, she was sweet all over, my meren. I couldn’t wait to taste her sex. I would lick her until she was blind with pleasure. I wanted her delirious with it. Crazed for me.

Because when I took her for the first time, it was going to be hard and furious.

The second time, it might be sweeter. Perhaps. But at first, I needed to own her. Prove myself. I was her kha, her mate, who died for her, who would protect her. Forever and always.

Her fingers moved to dig into my scalp as I sucked her good and then moved to her other breast, ravaging it as well.

“Yesss,” she moaned. “Yes, prince.”

Sliding my hand under her hips, I held her still while I nipped and kissed down her belly, inching closer and closer to the treasure she offered. Jewels and gold, I’d never cared for. But this, Cleo’s body, her heart… it was the only treasure I wanted to keep with me. In death. In life. It didn’t matter.

I licked along the ridge of her ribs, her hipbone, the dip of her naval, until I was cradled between her thighs and face to face with the wet flesh of her opening. Her breath panted, or maybe it was mine. Her spicy scent invaded my lungs until I was drunk on it, and every instinct within me was demanding I devour.

“Mine. Your body is mine, meren. Only mine. Always. Say it. Say it before I lose all sense.”

“My body is yours, kha,” she choked out. “Always, only yours.”

It was all I needed to hear.

I licked her silken crease, pressing my tongue inside. Cleo’s hips jerked at the contact, but I held her steady and plunged forward, drinking her in like she was the last drop of water in Egypt, until she writhed against my face. I sucked and kissed her shivering flesh, drawing out her pleasure as long as I could. But she was so responsive to my efforts it didn’t take long for her to find pleasure.

My eager little meren. She was a siren. A wickedly wanton thing.

She let out a scream as she came apart beneath my mouth and I furiously thrust my hardness into the bed, aching for relief.

When she began to settle, I couldn’t wait any longer. I lunged up, positioning myself at her entrance and then found her eyes. They were glossy and tender and it gave me a moment’s pause.

“Meren?”

“Do it,” she whispered. “Take me. I want to feel you.”

I nodded once, never taking my gaze from hers, and pushed into her with a solid thrust.

Her eyes went wide at the invasion, and I swallowed hard, trying to give her body time to adjust to me. But my Cleo squeezed me so tight, it was better than my fist ever was.

With one hand, I cradled her cheek so I could kiss her again. Trying hard this time to make it sweet, to speak to her kha. Love wasn’t a strong enough word for what Cleo was to me. I prayed to the gods she could feel it.

She moved her hips, pressing upward, urging me to move, and I knew it was time.

Breaking the kiss, I stared down at her face, and swung my hips into a pounding rhythm. The drag and pull of my meren’s body on mine was better than I ever could have imagined, better than any dream I’d had while waiting for her in the betwixt.

“Yes, kha,” Cleo moaned low. “Wanted you for so long. So damn long. Used to imagine us like this. So many times.”

I slowed to listen. I didn’t want to miss a word she said.

“I would imagine finally waking you with my kiss.”

“Like you did earlier.”

Cleo nodded, her eyes fluttering shut. “I would tell you I loved you, and we were free of the Sorceress, and that we could be together.”

I stopped moving. This was familiar.

“Like in my dreams,” I whispered.

“Then we would go to our bed… our bed, Ravi… and you would take me just like this. Just like this.”

By the gods..

“Cleo, I think you were closer to me than you thought the entire time.”

She opened her eyes again to look at me and her expression focused into a frown.

“Anubis said time moved strangely in the betwixt. And I experienced what you describe, meren. Nights with nothing but our bodies between us. Nights where I worked you over so good, wanting it to be real. Wishing for it so.” Admitting it to her out loud was harder than it should have been.

“The nightmares you mentioned in the elevator?”

Her face turned sad and I gave another stroke to her insides, letting her know I was still there.

“Only nightmares because I lost you in the end.” My voice shook, but I couldn’t stop it. And I wouldn’t be ashamed of emotion before my meren. A man could feel things and be bare before his mate. Save his hardness for battle. “I would blink and be back in the dark. Without you. Over and over again. Pleasure became torture.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her hand soft on my cheek.

“Now it matters not. I have you. And I had you back then, I am sure. We were close for moments before we were lost again. But no longer, Cleo. Now it’s forever. For good.”

I pulled back and plunged forward again, holding her sweet gaze as I drilled into her. Quickening my speed, I felt her body contract, holding me so tight. I could feel my own body building to release, tingling and sparking like I was trying to set fire to her.

Cleo groaned loud, pressing her head back into the bed, as her hot slit fluttered around me in a delicious ripple.

And it was all I could take.

I roared my release, spilling everything into her in a thunderous victory that I hoped the gods could hear. I hoped Anubis could hear. I hoped the Sorceress, wherever she was, could hear.

“Miiiiine.”

My beloved, my meren, was mine. And no curse, no god, no hate could keep me from her ever again.