CHAPTER ELEVEN

Wren’s world was pain.

The last thing he remembered was the anguished eyes of a great black wolf looking down at him, and the scent of his own blood, hot and somehow tainted, while the corrosive burn of silver ate into his veins.

Everything else…he knew nothing but a reddened darkness, agony, faint impressions of people around him. His body was on fire, and deep in the black he heard screaming and realized it was his own. Someone was holding him—holding him down, holding him close, whispering his name again and again; now and then the pain would ease as someone tipped something to his lips, and he almost came to, almost regained consciousness, only to fall down deep again.

The Echo whispered to him. The voice from the north.

Let go, it said. Come to me, and let go.

But he did not let go, because someone was holding him fast.

Someone was tethering him to life, and through suffering that felt like eternity, that person kept him close, refusing to let him go. That person was the reason why he had to wake up.

To see him again.

To see his mate, and beg him not to let Wren go ever again.

He didn’t know how long he stayed this way. Only that slowly, the pain began to ebb; that over time—years, centuries, days, seconds—his blood no longer felt like acid in his veins, calming to a slow and steady pulse. Smells filtered in, sounds, warmth. The weight of a blanket over his body. The coolness of something on his brow. The drenching of his own sweat, making fabric cling to him.

And the scent of warm fur and the sea, clinging to the heavy weight draped across his body.

He groaned softly, struggling to speak, to open his eyes, but his body didn’t want to respond. With a wince he tried again, managing to crack one eyelid open only to flinch and shut it again as firelight stabbed into his sight, too bright. Everything was too bright, the smells too strong, and he felt far too weak to do anything about it.

But he had to wake up, because…

Because Ero was here, and he needed Ero more than life.

“E-Ero…?” he managed to croak, opening one eye again.

Ero was sound asleep, settled in a chair next to their bed in the hotel room, his head pillowed on Wren’s stomach and his arms locked tightly around him. Even in his sleep he looked so haggard, so worried, that Wren wouldn’t be surprised if this was the first time he’d slept in a short forever, finally passing out from sheer exhaustion. It would be just like Ero, he thought with tired fondness. Just like his mate.

“Ero,” he whispered once more, and Ero stiffened, his head snapping up.

For a single lost moment Ero just stared at him, those calm, glacial blue eyes no longer calm or glacial; they were hot with emotion, wet, stark, almost frantic as Ero stared at Wren as if he didn’t believe what he was seeing.

“Wren…?” he breathed—before suddenly he was gathering Wren up, colossal strength lifting him as if he weighed barely more than a feather as Ero crushed Wren against him with a hoarse, aching sob, a sound Wren never thought he would hear from the stoic wolf’s throat. “Wren,” he repeated reverently, burying his face in Wren’s hair while Wren clutched at him with what little strength he had, clinging as tight as he could as his heart leaped with a bittersweet and longing ache. “Oh thank god, Wren.”

T

Ero Wake had never seen anything more beautiful than the sight of Wren opening his eyes.

Nearly a thousand years of existence…and he’d never endured three days worse than the ones that had passed as he’d watched Wren suffer, kept unconscious by the teas and medications the apothecary gave him to help purge the poison from his body by sweating it out. The pretty little omega had tossed and turned in agony, not even aware that Ero was there, holding his hand, pleading with him to survive.

Pleading with him to come back, so Ero could make up for being such a stubborn asshole and show Wren…show him…

He loved him.

He didn’t know how, but he did. He loved that curious spirit, that sweet naivete, that pride, that bravery. He loved him for being fool enough to try to protect Ero when Ero meant to protect him; he loved the way he threw himself into learning new things with such wholehearted eagerness, sweetness. The way he wanted to stand on his own and yet wasn’t afraid to reach for Ero, even when Ero kept shoving him away.

It had been so long he’d forgotten this feeling. This rightness. He’d shut it out, while the wolf inside him had known.

Somehow—through fate, through happenstance, through the strangest of chance—he had found the one thing that could give a thousand years of life true meaning, and free him from his self-imposed purgatory.

And he had almost been fool enough to let it go.

But he held fast to Wren’s hand, now, as Wren began to stir with a low sound, his scent better, cleaner than it had been for days, the sweat just the sweat from the heat of the blankets piled on him rather than silver-tainted poison Ero had wiped away from his body for days. His color was looking better, too, and over the past twenty-four hours the hole over his shoulder had finally started to knit, smooth skin sealing it off in a thin layer.

His lashes fluttered open, looking up at the ceiling of their hotel room hazily; his lips worked soundlessly, before he straggled out, “Wh-what…?”

He choked off, his throat rasping, and Ero quickly caught up the flask of tea from the nightstand and tipped it to his lips. “Here, love. Here. Drink.”

Wren sipped obediently, then coughed, lifting a shaking hand to wipe at his mouth. “What happened?” he rasped. “Connaught…?”

“Is dead,” Ero said grimly, and not without some sorrow. “You’re safe. Although I’d like to have words with you about throwing yourself in front of a silver arrow.”

Wren tilted his head back against the pillow, smiling hazily. “You didn’t move,” he said, unrepentant little wretch that he was…then frowned, gaze darting around the room. “How long have I been out?”

“About three days. How are you feeling?”

“A little less dead than I did three days ago.” Wren closed his eyes, slumping against the bed—then made a soft, upset sound. “…we missed the last boat, didn’t we. We won’t make it to the Silk Islands.”

“I don’t care about the Silk Islands,” Ero said, clasping Wren’s hand tight. “I don’t care about anything but you.”

Wren’s eyes snapped open, looking up at Ero in confusion; sweat and illness masked his scent, but a touch of doubt crept through. “Ero…?”

Ero bowed his head, pressing his cheek to that warm, soft hand in his own. “I’m sorry. I’m not making any sense. I haven’t slept in three days, sitting here begging you to come back to me, and it shouldn’t have taken this to make me realize I wanted you to stay with me. Whether we go to the Silk Islands, or somewhere else…it doesn’t matter. We can stay here. We can run away to the north. I’d go if you were there, Wren. I’d go anywhere.”

The sound of Wren’s startled heartbeat and racing pulse were like music—beautiful, emotive, and so very very strong. “I…what are you saying…?”

“What you’ve been trying to say to me for days, and I wouldn’t listen.” Ero pressed his lips to the back of Wren’s palm, his eyes burning, blurring. “You’re my mate. I knew the second I saw you standing on that wall, looking down at me…and I wouldn’t see it. I dragged you away with me and wouldn’t even acknowledge why, and you still put up with me and gave yourself to me and trusted me.” He took a shaky breath. “I’m really bad at this.”

Wren smiled faintly, yet it was nearly alight with so many subtle interplays of emotion, laden in his scent. Joy, desire…love. “Just say you love me, Ero,” he said, and Ero laughed breathlessly.

“I love you, Wren.”

Wren’s smile strengthened. “Don’t make me say it back.”

“Why not?”

“I took a silver arrow for you. I don’t think you need to hear it.”

Ero growled in the back of his throat. “I need to hear it.”

Those green eyes flicked over him, so strange, so bright, full of so many unspoken dreams and possibilities that Ero would give anything to make real. For so long he had seen his future as nothing but an endless march of days without any purpose other than to survive…

…but having Wren in his life for just these few short days, electrifying and giving him meaning, said that there was nothing to surviving if it wasn’t about living.

He hadn’t lived, since the death of his pack. He’d simply been a wandering corpse, no different from the howling dead.

But Wren brought him back to life as he breathed “I love you, Ero Wake,” and reached up with one slender arm to tug him down, toward soft rosebud lips that Ero had yet to taste.

He rectified that now, as he pressed his mouth to Wren’s and kissed him—soft at first, just feeling his heat and the slickness and sweetness of his lips, the way they parted for Ero on the most deliciously inviting sigh. Then deeper, as those luscious lips invited him in, let him taste, let him explore until he knew every breathless crevice of Wren’s mouth and only sought deeper, wanting to leave his mark, wanting to claim, and with every stroke of their tongues Wren arched up toward him, his body trembling, his scent thick with the raw musk of desire.

“Ero,” he breathed, slick lips moving almost lewdly against Ero’s mouth. “Ero, please…”

The wet-hot scent in the air, the pressure of Wren’s cock against the blankets, left no secret as to what he begged for, and the slightest spark of his desire ignited Ero’s until his cock throbbed to life, craving, desperate to seal this, to make this real and true, to make Wren as his mate. But with a groan, Ero pulled back, looking down at his pale little omega and brushing the wild tangle of his hair back, the inky river sheeting over the bed.

“…Wren. Love, you’re too weak.”

“I’m not.” A soft hand curled against his cheek, and Wren pushed himself up, the blankets sheeting down over his naked body, the hole in his shoulder just a soft pucker of healed skin. He stroked his fingers into Ero’s beard, then leaned closer and brushed his mouth to Ero’s in a sweetly intoxicating, begging little kiss. “I need you. Please,” he whispered, as the blankets slid aside to bare naked thighs, pink folds, glistening flesh that made Ero’s mouth water. “Remind me that I’m here. Remind me I’m alive.” Another kiss, trailing fingertips drifting down onto his throat, over Ero’s throbbing pulse. “Remind me I have you.”

Even when his common sense cried no, Ero’s wolf howled yes, leashed and bound and mated to the beautiful creature begging for his touch. With a rough growl he bore Wren back to the bed, sinking that lovely, pale body down beneath him, pinning him, capturing his wrists. Wren arched for him, gasped for him, moaned for him, begged for him as Ero tasted every inch of his body, licking the sweat from his skin and following every contour, every dip, every hollow until he was drunk on Wren’s flavor, his scent, his cries. Lower, drawn by that enticingly erotic aroma, until he could take Wren’s pink and straining cock into his mouth, licking the precum away, letting it roll salty on his tongue only to counter it with sweet as he licked his way along the fluttering length of glistening soft folds. Wren thrashed, tossing his head back, breathing shallowly, almost fighting him as Ero licked him again and again and again, sating himself, pushing Wren until his scent screamed he was going to break…

Only to pull back, flowing up his body to capture his mouth again, kissing him deeply and giving him his own taste, mingling it wetly between their mouths as Ero spread Wren’s legs. His little omega quivered for him, so open and ready, as Ero shed his trousers, baring his cock, sliding it along wet flesh and smearing his own dripping pre-come to rub his scent possessively into Wren’s skin. He couldn’t wait a moment longer. Couldn’t hold back.

And he drank Wren’s throaty, gasping scream of pleasure from his lips as he pressed his cock-head to dripping folds and thrust inside, claiming his mate fully as he drove himself to the hilt.

Molten tight wetness enveloped him as he let himself go wild, convulsing flesh drawing him deep; Wren clung to him with gripping thighs as Ero bit his mouth with hungry teeth, rocked his hips, poured his strength into claiming his mate. Deeper, deeper, never deep enough, searching out the most sacred depths of Wren’s body and making them his as he demanded more and more, gave as much as he took. Wren was breathtaking beneath him—flushed, surrendering with such wholehearted abandon, throwing his head back to bare that vulnerable throat.

And as Ero felt it building up inside him, as he hovered on that trembling thread, ready to snap…

He bit down on Wren’s throat, marking him, claiming him, sinking his teeth deep until he tasted the hot salt of mating blood.

And as Wren’s orgasm exploded around him, crushing him tight, that lovely voice rising to the rafters, Ero lost himself completely in the torrent of pulsing, throbbing, ripping need that tore his mind and body apart, reshaped him, made him someone new.

Someone worthy of loving Wren, and of being his mate.