CHAPTER 20
Shaia felt no fear as Fuery stared at her neck, his pupils blowing wide to devour the purple that remained in his dark irises. She could feel the conflict in him, could see it mingling with the desire in his gaze, and deep in her heart she knew how difficult this was for him.
She knew the pain that beat inside him, the fear that gripped him whenever he was around her, and she had known it for a long time.
He wore the same look he had when she had gone to him in the garden at the grand ball, when he had believed himself unworthy of her.
That tore at her heart, and it always had.
She slipped her left hand up his chest, and he tensed as she gently curled it around the nape of his neck to lure him down to her.
“I shouldn’t.” He tried to pull back, but she tightened her grip and refused to let him go. His eyes darted between hers, confusion and pain dancing in them now. “I am not the male you deserve.”
His arms tensed, muscles rippling with strength as he attempted to push himself out of the water.
She gripped him harder, using her own limited strength to show him that she wasn’t going to let him push her away, and she was going to weather those attempts to create a crevasse between them that she could see forming in his eyes.
“All I care about is that it is you with me, Fuery,” she whispered, and his name on her lips seemed to work black magic on him, had his grip relaxing and the fight fading from him. Her pulse pounded, but she pushed through her nerves, and voiced the words in her heart as she held his gaze. “It is the male that I love.”
His dark eyes widened.
His shock rippled through her.
Swiftly followed by disbelief and blacker feelings, ones that seemed to rouse the darkness that lived within him.
“I still love you. It never faded… and it never will.” She reached up and stroked her fingers across the sharp contours of his cheek, feathering them down to his jaw, and he leaned into her touch for a heartbeat before pulling away and growling.
“I’ve changed though.”
She brought her hand back into contact with his face again, and skimmed her fingers along his jaw to his chin.
He shuddered when she swept her thumb across his lower lip, his eyes darkening with desire again, hunger that thrilled her.
“My love for you hasn’t,” she whispered and thumbed his lips, and that thrill became an intense shiver as they parted to reveal his fangs. “And I can see the male I fell in love with inside you.”
He turned away, but she refused to let him run. She caught his other cheek, framing his face, and forced him to look at her again. She could feel his need, his desire, and it was as fierce as her own.
“Don’t run from me, Fuery. I don’t want that.”
He blinked and his eyes were back on hers, his dark eyebrows drawing down above them. “What do you want?”
She opened her heart, her soul, baring them both to him and not holding anything back, because he needed to know she was speaking the truth. He needed to feel the love she spoke of through their bond so he would believe it was real.
“I want you to run to me.” She applied a little pressure to his cheeks, just enough to keep him looking at her when she could sense the battle rising inside him again, the need to shield her from the darker side of himself, the part he was ashamed of and feared.
She didn’t fear it. She didn’t despise it. It made him the Fuery he was now, and that was still the Fuery she loved. He wasn’t the only one who had changed in their years apart. He had grown darker, and she had grown stronger.
Strong enough to take what she wanted.
She held his gaze.
“I want you.”
Hartt had been right about Fuery. He could change in an instant.
One moment, he was pulling away from her, unwilling to succumb to his need and his desires. The next, his mouth was fused with hers and his arms were beneath her as he lifted her from the water and plastered her to his chest, his grip so fierce she couldn’t breathe as he kissed her.
She grasped his shoulders and loosed the moan that rolled up her throat as his tongue delved between her lips, demanding entrance that she all too willingly granted him. It was warm against hers, teased her in a way that maddened her and had her desire rising to steal control of her. She writhed against him, quickly losing herself in her need and the tiny flickers of pleasure that danced through her body as she kissed him, as she tasted him and breathed him in.
Her Fuery.
The only male she had ever loved, and would ever love.
The years without him had been cold. She felt that now as she burned for him, aflame from only his kiss and the thought of what was to come. He groaned as she rubbed against him, pressing her heels into the base of the bathtub. Her slick body slid along his, his hot rigid length scalding her belly as he lowered one hand and grabbed her backside in a bruising fierce grip to hold her against him. She quivered as he skimmed his hand up to her knee and pushed it aside, and pressed between them. His hand lowered to her backside again, fingertips digging into her flesh as he ground between her thighs, rubbing his length along her cleft.
She shuddered, a moan peeling from her lips as she felt him glide between her legs, the blunt head of his heavy shaft teasing her aching nub with each stroke.
“Fuery,” she husked against his lips and he growled and seized them again, his kiss harder now, claiming her mouth as he drove between her thighs.
He held her tighter, kissed her harder still, and she trembled in his strong arms.
He was so different to the gentle male she had given herself to all those centuries ago, rougher and more wicked, darker as he bent her to his will, devouring her mouth and tasting her cries, thrusting hard between her thighs.
She knew it should unsettle her, but gods, it thrilled her. It was exciting. Freeing.
It rekindled the spark he had lit in her millennia ago and this time it blazed like an inferno, one that burned away all her reservations and unchained her.
This was worth fighting for.
She was done with being told what to do. She was done with being controlled by others.
Fuery had made her stronger than that, both in life and in his apparent death. He had set her free, but she had been living in a cage since he had been gone, and it was time that she changed that. She wasn’t going to let tradition or her family dictate her life for her anymore.
She wanted Fuery. She had been given a second chance with him, and she was going to take it.
She was going to fight for it, and for Fuery, because he was everything she wanted.
All that she needed.
She slipped her hand around the back of his neck, tangled her fingers in his overlong hair, and held him to her as she delved her tongue into his mouth. He groaned and shuddered, gripped her tighter and rocked more fiercely against her as she stroked the tip of her tongue over the length of his fang.
His growl rumbled through her and sent a thrill chasing over her skin, the most erotic thing she had ever heard.
She went to stroke his fang again.
He abruptly pulled back and released her, dropping her into the water. She gasped as it swept over her, hit the sides of the tub and came back at her, hitting her in the face and getting in her mouth and her eyes. She rubbed at her face as she choked, wiping the water away, and looked up at Fuery.
He stared down at her, his arms tensed and trembling as he gripped the sides of the wooden tub, and his breathing ragged, causing his bare chest to heave. His fangs were long between his parted lips.
“Fuery?” She reached for him, and he jerked backwards. She withdrew her hand as the darkness in his eyes spread to devour the violet. “What is wrong?”
Didn’t he want her?
She tried to shake that thought away, but it stuck, refusing to leave her head. It tormented her as he stared at her, only darkness in his eyes, no trace of the desire that had been in them just seconds ago. Did he no longer feel the same spark he had for her all those centuries ago? Did he no longer have the same fire in him that blazed in her?
When his eyes darkened further, she risked it and probed the connection they shared. It was stronger now that he had taken her blood and she could easily feel his pain.
“Tell me what is wrong, Fuery.” She wanted to reach for him again, but remained still so she didn’t startle him, aware that he needed time to process whatever he was feeling and pushing him would get her nowhere.
He would bolt.
His eyes darted between hers, the violet in them gaining ground now, pushing back against the black. His heart thundered in her ears. His desire trickled through their bond, mingled with the pain.
It was strong, ran as deep as her own, but he was fighting it for some reason.
Sharp cold ran through her.
She severed the connection between them, a reaction she couldn’t stop from happening as fear of feeling the darkness inside him, coating her like an oily tide, rushed through her.
Fuery looked away from her.
“I can’t,” he rasped, his deep voice a broken whisper that had her heart breaking for him. “I don’t trust myself with you.”
Shaia wanted to press him, to tell him that he could trust himself, but she bit her tongue to silence herself, aware that saying such a thing would be selfish. She wanted the pleasure he had promised her with that kiss, craved that release they had been building towards together, but she wouldn’t risk Fuery to have it. So as much as she wanted to feel his hands on her again, as much as she needed him to satisfy the hunger burning in her veins, she would do as he wanted.
“We can take things slowly.” She managed a smile when his gaze slid back to her, hoping to show him that she meant those words, and she wanted it. “We have all the time in the world.”
His black eyebrows furrowed and he sagged on his backside in the tub opposite her, all the tension draining from him. The darkness in his eyes receded again, and when she opened their connection a little she found it was gone and only fear remained.
Fear that he needed time to overcome.
She would help him do that, little by little. She would prove to him that he could trust himself with her and he wasn’t going to hurt her. She would vanquish his fear for him, because she knew that fear stemmed from his heart, from his love for her.
He had always wanted to protect her.
“With you lay with me a while at least?” She didn’t have to ask twice.
He stood, scooped her up into his arms, and stepped out of the tub with her, dripping water all over the thick cloth she had put down to protect the wooden floor. When she pointed to another thick cloth she had left folded beside it, he set her down on her feet and stooped to pick it up, keeping one hand clamped around her wrist, as if he feared she might escape.
Or disappear.
She ached for him again as she realised the darkness was toying with him.
It had pushed and gained ground, and now he wasn’t sure whether she was real or not. She placed her hand on his and stroked her fingers over his warm damp skin, wanting to show him that she was here with him.
He glanced up at her, and the pain she could feel through their connection faded a little as relief lit his eyes, brightening the remaining violet in them.
He loosened his grip on her, but still refused to release her, even when he carefully started to dry her off from head to toe. It was torture. She had to bite back several moans whenever he innocently brushed her nipples with the towel. When he moved around behind her to rub the cloth across her backside, she bit down on her lower lip to stifle a groan, and barely supressed a shudder as his hip brushed hers and he moved closer.
She could feel his need, sensed it rising again inside him, as his eyes burned into her as he raked them down her back to her bottom. His panted breaths cut the silence, and her heart sped to match them as she waited to see what he would do.
He skimmed his hand across her bare backside as he rounded her, and she breathed faster, pulse accelerating and desire flooding her again as he came to stand in front of her, his heavy erection jutting proudly from its nest of dark curls.
She wanted to drop her hand and stroke that rigid length of velvet-sheathed-steel, ached to rub her thumb across the dark blunt tip and elicit a moan from him, but she held herself back.
She couldn’t push him.
If she pushed him, and he ended up hurting her by accident, he would despise himself and she would never be able to live with herself.
Slowly.
As painful as it was, she had to take things slowly with him.
He looked down at his cock and then averted his gaze as he teleported a pair of black trousers to his legs, covering himself. He didn’t need to be ashamed that he was hard for her. She needed him. It was her need as his mate, as his female, that had him primed for her, together with his desire for her, and that was beautiful.
She picked up her blue robe, slipped it on and covered herself, hoping it would help tame her wicked thoughts.
She took hold of his hand and led him towards the bed, and he hesitated when she knelt on the pale blue covers.
She looked back at him. “We will only lay together.”
Something they had never done before. There had been times before they were mated that they had lazed beside each other on the hills near her home, basking in the sunlight as they talked, or beneath the shade of a tree near the river, but they had never laid together like this—in a bed, in an intimate fashion.
She released his hand and settled herself on the bed, resting with her head on the pillows, giving him time to make a decision. It had to be his choice. He needed to be in control now. She could feel it in him.
After a tense few minutes, he pressed his right knee into the mattress, twisted and settled beside her.
She was about to risk rolling to face him when he grabbed her around the waist, hauled her against his side and wrapped his arms around her.
Shaia settled her cheek on his bare chest and listened to his heart beating steadily against her ear.
Gods, it felt good.
It struck her that this was enough for her.
If this was all she could ever have from him, it would be enough.
It felt so good being in his arms that she didn’t want him to leave, even when part of her knew that he would, because he was tense against her, and she could sense the battle he waged with himself, and that trickle of fear that ran through his blood.
She didn’t want to sleep, but Fuery was so warm against her, his heartbeat a melodic and soothing beat that had her eyelids feeling heavier by the second. Tiredness swept over her, the past few weeks suddenly rolling up on her and stealing her strength, and she lost her fight against it and fell asleep in Fuery’s arms for the first time.
Fearing it would also be the last time.