Ember and Eclipse (A Coven of Ruin Standalone), page 23
“Devdan?” she called out, but there was no reply.
Opening the front door, she peered into the night to find him pacing the length of the island.
“Come inside,” Rel said gently. “Have you tended to your wounds?”
But he didn’t stop.
“Devdan,” she said again to no avail. Finally, she moved toward him. When he turned to pace again, she blocked his path. He stiffened, inhaled, and then looked down. Pressing her hand over her heart, she said, “Stop ignoring me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
His jaw flexed. “I shouldn’t have come here, and I definitely shouldn’t have stayed when you made it clear that you weren’t ready for the bond or even wanted it. I’m not blaming you—I understand. I wasn’t even thinking that the soul of the pack could follow me, but I should have. It should have been something I took into consideration. If I wasn’t here, none of this would have happened. They could have…” His voice cracked as he shook his head, and his hands tightened into fists.
“But they didn’t. We are both alive, and the problem has been solved. We are both alive,” she repeated.
“I’ve been selfish. And I shouldn’t be anymore.”
“Stop,” she said, a sudden hurt coursing through her. “What are you saying?”
“I should leave. It would be better that way, for you.”
A tangled knot of emotions unfurled within her, but she seized hold of the safest one—anger. “How do you know what’s best for me? Who made you the Weaver of my fate? And what’s the gods damn point of having a mate if you can’t bear what life throws at you together? You said you’d fight for us.”
His eyes flashed to hers, searching. Hope was a star-like glimmer in his lunar gaze, extinguishing her irritation just as fast. His mouth worked silently. Finally, he said, “You claimed me as your mate tonight.”
“I did.”
“Why?” The question was so much more than that one syllable.
She stepped closer still. “I’ve never had anyone be mine before, but I find that I don’t like people threatening that which belongs to me.”
His inhale was sharp as his body tensed. She could tell that he was trying to gather armor—manage expectations, throw up last-minute shields around his heart.
“You said you would leave if I asked you to.” His hand curled around her hip and then tightened with her words.
“Yes.” It was barely a whisper.
“What if I asked you to stay?”
“I’d stay. For as long as you wanted me.”
“And if I wanted you to stay forever? Be mine for a lifetime and beyond that?”
“Yes.” His words were still brittle, just a reply on a hope-filled breath.
“Stay,” she whispered fiercely. “Stay and fight with me so I can tally up all my victories. Stay and laugh with me in the middle of the night. Stay and torment the crocs and scold our ornery plants. Just… stay. I can never go back to before you. To life without you. You’ve become my best friend, my confidant. I’ve spent a lifetime not being enough or being too much, having nothing of my own, belonging nowhere but out here alone in the middle of this swamp. And then, as fate would have it, you hunted me down. I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner, but if you stay, I’ll tell you every day. Just please stay.”
His eyes held tears on the brink of his lashes. “Are you certain you want me? As I am? After all, we both know you won’t win any of our fights.” Despite the joke, his voice was heavy with emotion.
She laughed, her own tears leaking from her eyes as she did. “I just poured my heart out to you, and you’re worried about who will win our fights?” Then, quieter, she said, “I am certain I want you, exactly as you are. Stay with me.”
Devdan didn’t need any further time to process her demands. His hand traveled to the nape of her neck, gently pulling her hair so that her chin tilted upward.
And then he kissed her.
When their lips met this time, it was full of something that no words could support. Only their shared need to taste and hold each other spoke what they could not.
“Inside,” she breathed, as if this was a delicate thing, and speaking normally would shatter it. Taking his hand, she led him back into the house and down the hall to her bedroom—their bedroom.
But when he pulled his hand from hers after only a couple of steps, she looked back at him.
“I don’t want to take advantage of the situation. No matter how much I need this, I need you to be sure even more. If we do this, our bond is confirmed. It means you accept it. It can’t be undone.”
Rel took his hand in hers again and pressed it to her chest. “I know you feel it. You are mine.” She pressed into him as his hand drifted to her waist. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she stood on her tiptoes. Against his lips, she said, “And I’m yours.”
Those three words were the spell that broke him. He let out a rough, primal noise against her mouth that tightened her core, as he grabbed her backside and effortlessly lifted her.
Wrapping her legs around his midsection, she kissed his lips, his jaw, his neck. Her hands delved into his hair at the nape of his neck, earning her a thick sound of pleasure.
In long strides, he moved them to the bedroom.
She wanted him, needed him. Their nights of being pressed together with only the bare skin of her arms and his torso were no longer enough. She needed to feel him everywhere, be with him in every way.
Devdan sat on the bed, leaving her to straddle him. And though she could feel the charge between them, the same way it felt right before lightning struck, he did not rip her slip from her. Instead, he kissed her reverently, holding tight to his control. His hand tangled in her hair, guiding her how he wanted her so that he could explore her thoroughly.
“Please,” she murmured when their lips parted, and she wasn’t even sure what she was asking for. Her hips rolled against him of their own accord, seeking out more of him. He was hard beneath her, but his pants separated her from fully experiencing the feeling.
“You don’t understand. I’ve waited”—he kissed her throat—“to be with you. To touch you in all the ways I’ve wanted to. To take you and give you everything,” he rasped. “I’m trying not to lose control.”
“I know you’ve been so patient,” she said breathily. But her patience was on the verge of breaking altogether. She’d been waiting an entire lifetime without realizing it and couldn’t wait a minute longer. “But I want you to lose control.”
He shook his head, his tongue trailing a path around the emerald and down to her collarbone. “Not this time.”
A wanton sound left her.
“Not this time,” he repeated quietly against her neck as if reminding himself.
They still had too many layers between them, though. She moved her hands down his tunic until she could grab the bottom in her fists, tugging on it impatiently. He leaned back just enough, reaching over his head to pull it off, only to move back to her throat, nibbling and kissing it. She ran her hands down his smooth chest, and his muscles reacted to her touch.
He’d bandaged his arm, the cloth knotted off around his bicep. In her haste to have him, she’d forgotten that he’d sustained injuries. A bruise was forming on his ribs from where Havenar kicked him, and his knuckles were raw and scabbing. But he didn’t seem to care either way.
“I just realized,” he murmured, pulling back to look her over, “you wore something similar to this out into the woods tonight. I should have killed all of them for witnessing you in such a thing.”
“I’m fully covered, which is exactly why you need to remove it.”
His hands trailed down her body, not quite touching her. Then, grabbing her high on her thighs beneath the slip, he pulled her against him, her center traveling the entire length of his erection.
A soft noise escaped her and brought a knowing smile to his lips. He lifted her slip, dangerously slow, but it was the hungry look as he exposed her that had her on the verge of ripping it off.
When the material was finally over her head, he leaned back, taking her in.
She let him look even though she felt like she would combust at any moment. Instead, she ran her fingers over his jaw, his bottom lip, and around his neck. His throat bobbed beneath her palm before he rumbled out a needy sound.
With a look of disbelief and awe, he stood up, lifting her only to set her down on the bed. She was completely naked while he was still in his pants. The disparity seemed wholly unjust.
“I need—” but the exact need seemed impossible to put into words.
“I know.” And he did because his fingers went to his pants after he kicked his boots off. She watched him, her eyes roving down his sculpted torso and tapered waist to follow the movement of his hands.
But his eyes were on her.
Mercifully, he revealed himself quicker than he had taken off her nightgown. He was a vision to take in, so much so that her mouth watered, and a pressure formed in her core. His muscled legs, the perfectly chiseled lines above his hips, the dusting of curls that went from his belly button all the way down to his considerable length.
She had seen two men naked in her lifetime, and neither of them had been as beautiful as the man before her. Not even close. It was almost unfair how perfect he was—like the gods themselves decided to mold him from their image.
“This is what you do to me,” he said as he wrapped his fist around the girth of his cock. He was hard with desire for her. Not her body, not to use her, but because he needed her. He chose her. In her entirety.
Rel reached for him, and he stepped into her touch, her fingers landing on his thigh. As he moved over her, she spread her legs to welcome him.
He paused, his attention blazing a path from her exposed center all the way to her eyes. When he almost settled against her, she rubbed her legs against his sides and hips.
“I’ve pictured you in nothing but this emerald on far too many occasions. You are more perfect than anything I could have come up with. Impossibly so.” He was looking down the length of her body appreciatively.
“Since when?”
He rumbled a sound against her throat. “Do you really want to know the answer to that?”
“What I want to know,” she said, her hands roaming over his shoulders and chest, “is if you actually bought it because it matched my eyes.”
“I did,” he said, his warm breath traveling over her breasts now, his confession causing her nipples to harden in anticipation.
“I knew it,” she said softly, just as his mouth enclosed over one, his tongue flicking against the sensitive flesh.
“No, you didn’t,” he grumbled as he palmed her other breast, his hand fitting around it perfectly. When he went to move further down, though, she stopped him.
“Devdan…” she said uncertainly, the feelings and desire within her almost unbearable. Even her magic hummed with eagerness. He could take his time and explore every part of her, but not right now. She reached for his face, forcing him to look at her. “I need you. Now.”
“I know, I feel it too,” he said, moving back up her body, his gaze taking in her bare skin. “But say it again.”
“I need you, Devdan.”
He reached down, his fingers swiping through her wetness and teasing before he pressed one inside. She arched against him, throwing her head back with a whine. It only relieved a bit of the burning desire.
“I need to make sure you’re ready for me.”
But gods, she was more than ready. And as she collected herself, she pulled at his arm. “I am,” she panted.
He brought his finger, glistening with her arousal, to his mouth and tasted it. His eyes closed in pleasure. “After,” he vowed, “I am going to devour you until you come all over my tongue.”
Before she could even think to respond to that promise, which held an entire future within it, he guided himself to her entrance. She gasped when he moved himself over her clit and down before pushing his head inside of her.
Devdan groaned while she simultaneously dug her nails into his arms with a breathy moan. “You feel so fucking good,” he breathed as he rested his forehead against hers.
A heartbeat passed before he moved again—the smallest of increments, filling her too slowly.
“You’re not going to break me. Give me more.”
“I know. You’re unbreakable. And you’re taking me so well already, but—”
She locked her legs around his waist, pulling him in while pushing her hips up. The feel of him stretching and filling her and pulsing deep within her all at once was enough to set every nerve alight. The hum in her chest sparked and sang at the connection, almost bringing tears to her eyes.
A shuddered breath against her neck let her know he felt the same overwhelming sensation. “You’re going to be my undoing,” he groaned out.
Any retort died on her tongue as he pulled almost completely back out and sunk in again, causing them both to moan.
He moved like that several more times. Each time he was fully seated within her, the fire in her core grew.
His body fit perfectly with hers. When he settled on the rhythm their bodies naturally desired, she moved with him effortlessly. They rocked against each other, their lips finding whatever flesh they could, her breasts pressed against his chest—heart to heart.
She had that experience again suddenly like she could see the Fates themselves working over their loom. How long had her lifeline been intertwined with Devdan’s? She felt it had been before she kissed him with a blade to his throat, before she made the Wolf of Romul dance with her in a tavern, and even long before he hunted her.
When his hand reached between them to rub against her clit, she trembled. She hadn’t realized how close she was until the pressure of his fingers worked her into a frenzy.
“I’m going to…” she panted, shutting her eyes.
“Look at me,” Devdan demanded. “Stay with me.”
She opened her eyes and focused on him. Her mate. Like most things, sex had never been a safe place for her. It was the same as anything Asear did—a way to use her, control her. And with the stable boy, well, they used each other. But she’d never orgasmed with either of them. She’d only brought herself such release, and even that was rare.
But with Devdan, she was safe. Protected. Cherished.
“Stay in your body,” he said between a breathy groan. “I want you to feel me, all of me.”
And she understood. Because it was more than him inside of her with his steady but gentle pace that left her to feel every inch of him. It was the bond. It was every point where their bodies touched. It was her fire and his wolf. It was the impossibility of having found each other—a witch and her hunter.
When she came, it was with his name on the breath of a moan, and he followed after her. The warmth of his climax spread through her as he rocked inside of her, her name a litany between them. Her full name.
“Esmerelda…”
Their bodies’ connection and their whispered names were a prayer and an offering. To them. To their bond heating and spreading through every part of them. To the thread of their life that had become so entangled that they seemingly shared the same lungs and heart.
She was his. And he was hers.
In this lifetime. In this realm. And all others.
They explored each other for hours until they were both so weak and sated they drifted off to sleep while the sky awoke in gold.
But only an hour later, she was awake again and wanting.
“Devdan,” she whispered, her hand wrapping around the base of him to wake him up. “I need you again.”
“Pleasantries,” he groaned but reached for her.
“No, Wolf,” she said, moving down his body, “you’re only job here is to take it.” She was already between his spread legs, and he was hardening in her grip. Slowly, she lowered her mouth to him and licked the underside of his length from base to tip.
He hissed with pleasure and pulsed beneath her palm. She swirled her tongue around his head, tasting him, admiring him. And then she closed her lips around him.
“Fuck,” he bit out in a half whimper before throwing his head back.
Rel wondered briefly as she moved her hand and head in unison if she would ever get used to this. Him reacting to her touch, how he tasted and felt. The hot and bright physical manifestation of their bond sitting in her chest.
Would she ever get used to him being hers?
She’d meant to be teasing him, but it was her own impatience and need that made her move over his hips and straddle him.
When she sank down on him, she held his gaze the entire time. She rode him slowly, taking her time with him, delighting in the feel of him filling her up as deep as he could. And in return, she was rewarded with his pleasure coming out in shuddering breaths and whispered curses. She reveled in the knowledge that she was bringing him so much ecstasy that he couldn’t help but voice it.
His head was lifted to watch where their bodies were joined, his brows furrowed and lips parted.
“Rel,” he warned.
But she wasn’t taking any prisoners—the carnal desire to make him come was the singular most important thing to her at that moment. She ground her hips down against him, and he hit the deepest part of her, causing her own moan to join his.
She felt his release. The heat of it and his hands on her hips, holding her down as he pumped shallowly inside her with a loss of control, was a sudden tide that pulled her into her own. Devdan sat up, and they rocked like that, chasing each other to the summit and, with their chests pressed together, over it into the ether.
Long after they had both come down, she was sprawled across him, drunk off her victory.
“You are an insatiable witch, a devastating enchantress. We need to eat and hydrate. Maybe sleep, but I’m willing to bypass that one.”
She groaned. “Fetch us dinner then.”
“It’s the morning.”
“Great, breakfast then,” she said with a yawn but didn’t move.
She didn’t remember falling asleep, but she was smiling when she did.
Chapter XLVI
