A Crown of Cursed Hearts (Kingdom of Blighted Thorns #3)

54. Tempest

54

TEMPEST

“ T hat’s a horrible thing to do to someone you love,” I said. “Why do you want me to do it?”

“I want you to see and know everything. I’m vulnerable and wide open to you, but for trust to exist between us, I need you to sort through my thoughts and memories. Then you’ll see all I am and all I’ll ever be.”

“You expected me to kill him, knowing you’d die as well. It was wrong to keep that from me.”

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to do it if you knew,” he said.

“Did it ever occur to you that killing you would destroy me? How can you think I’d be able to go on without you?” My eyes bled from my heart, and each word I barked at him made my throat swell tighter. It was all I could do to suck in air. “I never want to go on without you.” I poked his chest with rising fury. He’d named me well, and I was lashing my storm upon him. I poked again. “You had no right to keep me out of that decision. ”

“You’re right.” He nodded as if his verbal agreement wasn’t enough. “Walk through my mind.”

My lips twisted. “Is that a command?”

“A plea.”

I slumped against his chest, and his arms went around me where they belonged. “You have nothing else to hide?”

“Nothing. This I swear.”

“Then I don’t need to do it. I believe you.”

He lifted my chin with one finger, making me meet his eyes. “Do it, Fury. Only then can we walk forward together.”

I didn’t harbor doubts. Nearly losing him again had swept them away. I didn’t need to sort through his memories or his thoughts to know he was being completely honest with me.

But I did as he asked.

If I said no, a thin wall would remain between us, and I wanted all our barriers down. Only then could our souls entwine. Only then could we feel the full love we were destined to find together.

“Alright,” I whispered, closing my eyes.

With magic similar to traveling, I stepped into his mind.

Everything about this man was charged, suffused with something vibrant and undeniably loving. I could feel his warmth drift around me, enfold me in the tenderest caress. His adoration washed over me, tugging me down into his never-ending embrace. I stepped into the memory of when he first saw me. How much he’d craved me even then. How frightened he was of the feelings inside him that were already beyond his control. How desperate he was to feel my love but how equally desperate he was to make sure I didn’t fall for him only to have to kill him.

I could feel the weight of my name lingering on his tongue, like it had been there before time began. It would be there when time ceased to exist.

Each of his heartbeats reverberated through me, syncopated to moments we’d shared—silent glances that spoke louder than words ever could. The lingering touch of his hand. His almost feral need to protect me and love me as no one else ever could.

His thoughts wove around mine in swirls of passion and joy. They didn’t just accommodate, they welcomed me as if they'd always reserved this space for us. Indelible marks left by our fleeting touches had been etched within him. Seeing all of him was both raw and undeniably perfect. He loved me deeply, desperately so.

I touched each of his memories with my mind, weeping as one torturous thing after another was done to him. If only I could reach out to the boy he’d been and hold him, whisper to him that things would get better, that there would come a time when my boundless love would enfold him.

I took on the thrill surging through his heart when we first made love. He’d loved me with an almost reverent joy that was so big and throbbing that it pulsed through me.

I stepped past it to when he strode through the sandy ether with only one goal in mind: to reach me even if he’d die trying. I saw a building there, plus a huge, gleaming onyx altar with words inscribed along the top .

Whispers will reveal what shadows keep.

To lose all hope or dare to take the leap.

The words swirled around me, through me.

Then I drifted away, moving on through his mind.

Each word he’d spoken to me had been as honest as he’d dared make them. He’d traveled a path with no room for me to walk beside him, but at all times, he’d been thinking of the best way to keep me safe in his shadow.

Within his subconscious whispers, I found an undeniable truth. I was etched into the marrow of his soul. All his fear centered on losing what we had. Pure happiness radiated from every touch between us. In his intimate mind space, I found irrefutable proof that I was loved profoundly and irrevocably by this man alone.

Above all others, even himself.

I was his sole reason for existing.

I also saw he wasn’t hiding anything from me.

I was about to pull myself out when I came to a door.

What’s this? I rattled the knob. Locked, it wouldn’t allow me entry.

“I . . . I don’t know what that is,” he said. “Open it. Walk through. See it all. Please.”

I was being ripped in two and not because the door still wouldn’t open. His quiet desperation, his determination to expose everything he was or would ever be was a throbbing pain inside him .

He worried that I’d never fully trust him again, and that gouged deep.

Open the door, he barked. Force it if you have to.

Maybe it’s not meant to be opened. Mist swirled from beneath the panel, choking in the back of my throat.

A spell. Who had cast it on him?

You need to open it, he said.

I gathered power and plunged it into the lock. It snapped, and when the panel opened, I stepped inside.

Opening my eyes, I pulled myself out of his mind and looked up at him. “There was nothing behind the door. Absolutely nothing, as if everything there had been wiped clean.”

He frowned. Even now, his fingertips worried up and down my spine. “How can there be nothing there? It must be a memory.”

“I found nothing but a vast, white space. There was nothing left of whatever memory you locked behind the door.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s gone.” I stroked his chest. “But we’re here now. Together.” I kissed along his scars, each and every one of them before looking up to find his warm eyes gazing down at me. “Thank you.”

There was nothing between us any longer. He was free. We were free.

“Fury,” he growled.

His mouth claimed mine in a kiss that was sweetness and fire. Light and dark and every color of the rainbow.

Leaving my mouth, he kissed across my damp skin, each touch sending liquid fire licking through me .

I rocked against his stiffening cock, overcome with an insane desire only this man could ever satisfy. We might’ve parted from all the lies and the near betrayal, but we’d found each other again. We were both wide open and raw, but from what was left, we could build anew.

His hands were feverish on my body while his mouth drank from my very soul with each of his kisses. He stroked my thighs in circles that slowly made their way to my core. He found my clit and rubbed while his threads plunged inside me.

I panted and whimpered his name, bucking against his touch I thought I’d never feel again.

He was everything to me. All I could see and feel, and I couldn’t wait to come undone in his arms.

Loving him wasn’t a choice, though I embraced it with all of my heart. It was an unyielding force that drove me every single moment. He brought me peace and every dream I'd dared to hope for. I’d taken his love and wove it into every part of my soul. I couldn’t fathom a life without his love, his touch, his presence by my side.

He anchored me while setting my soul free; an exquisite contradiction that left me both shattered and whole every single day.

You crave me, Fury, he purred in my mind, starting to lift me off his threads. Let me show you.

I braced his shoulders and glared up at him—as much as I could. How could I host even a snarl when he was driving me to the edge? I am in control of this.

His breath caught, and he lifted his hands, smirking down at me. So you are. Take me, love. I’m already yours .

That’s right. Don’t forget.

Never.

I latched onto his cock and milked it with the tight squeeze of my hand, sliding from the base to the top where I ran my thumb across it. He was velvet wrapped steel, and I couldn’t wait to feel him impale me.

Why not now?

I was on fire; I was going to combust.

Rising, I centered the head of his cock at my opening and plunged down, driving him deep within me.

“Yes,” he breathed by my ear. “Love me. Show me I’m yours.”

Control was this man’s weapon, his sanity, and the only thing he’d been able to call his own for too long. Knowing that he relinquished himself to me made me want to weep.

Instead, I rose and dropped back down on him.

“Threads?” he hummed by my ear.

At my nod, he released them again. While he held my hips, lifting me up and pushing me down when I dropped, his threads stroked my nipples into hard peaks while others teased across my clit.

My fury was rising inside me, and nothing was going to hold it back. It would blast across this world and into the one beyond.

He was deep; I swear he touched my soul.

But it still wasn’t enough.

“More,” I growled. “Give me more. Everything you are and everything you’ll ever be.”

“Take it. Claim it,” he growled by my ear .

I rode him hard, but he drove himself even harder.

And when we crashed, when that exquisite wonder we’d found only with each other finally came, we let it devour us.

He washed and dried us before flitting us to our bed. We lay together like spoons beneath the blankets, snuggling like we used to back at Weldsbane. It was sweet and special, and I’d hold moments like this within my heart.

“Marry me,” he whispered by my ear.

I rolled around to face him. “Do you mean that?”

“Marry me.” A smile twitched across his lips.

“That’s why you wanted me to walk in your mind. You wanted me to know you were holding nothing else back.”

He nodded. “Marry me, please?”

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“I believe you heard me, oh, mighty high lord of Weldsbane.”

Fury, he growled in my mind. I love you.

And he showed me.

Oh, how he showed me.

After, I fell asleep with his kissed promise still warm on my mouth.

I woke partway through the night to . . .