Bloodguard

chapter 55

Leith

Time stops, as does my heartbeat.

Maeve looks up from stroking Knight, and her gaze meets mine.

She may start running first. I don’t know. I only feel the ground beneath me rip apart as I race around the lake toward her.

It’s not a gentle reunion. We collide in desperation, kissing, touching, and afraid to let go.

Her hands sink into my hair, mine into hers, feeling the soft strands as the wind whips them around me.

Her familiar warmth takes me home. Every doubt, every fear, every bit of anger and rage melt away. There’s only her touch, her taste, the feel of her skin.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

Her hold on me tightens, her fathomless blue eyes filled with pain. “I came to honor my family.”

I stroke away her tears with my thumbs and cover her mouth with mine.

We kiss for what could be seconds or hours, but time has no meaning. Maeve commands my everything.

“I thought I lost you.” I breathe her in.

“Never,” she whispers. “Not until the sun casts its last ray and the moon bids the sky farewell.”

It seems the world has done everything in its power to tear us apart, but we refuse to let go. I kiss my way from her lips down her throat, pulling the neckline of her dress to lick and suck her breasts until I hear seams tear, granting me access to even more of her.

I lose myself in her taste, her scent, in the breathy little way she says my name over and over again.

She’s real and alive and in my arms. Her skin is warm beneath my hands. I never thought I’d have the chance to touch her again.

“Leith, I…”

I know.

I think I’ve always known. With Maeve, there is a depth of emotion—of connection—that I feel down to my bones. I kiss her like these might be our last moments on Erth, and she echoes the motions, her mouth and body following mine like she’s afraid to let go.

Desire, ache, and endless need take control.

The way her eager hands tear at my pants and stroke over the length of me makes me want to explode.

Her eyes widen to meet mine as she falls to her knees and takes me deep into her mouth. I curse, then curse some more, moving in and out as her nails dig into my hips, encouraging my rhythm and accelerating speed.

I tear my shirt off and toss it aside. As I fall back into a sitting position, she hefts her skirt and climbs my body.

Then there’s bliss.

She sinks down on me, and we’re one. It’s only the two of us in this world and the pleasure we create. There is a second to savor the connection, and then our bodies are moving. Gripping, thrusting, barreling toward release.

It’s hot and fast and hard. Mindless. An escape from the pain, because we’ve both lost… everything .

No. No, I won’t let the pain intrude. Not in this moment.

She is alive and in my arms.

She moans against my mouth, her hips jerking as tiny tremors ripple through her body. I treasure every pulse, my own body flushing and growing harder still, the forerunners of ecstasy stirring at the base of my spine.

I fuck her through it, her cries of pleasure echoing across the lake.

When she comes, I follow her over the edge, cursing and claiming her as mine before we fall to our sides, living, feeling, breathing as one.

Tented by a willow, its thin branches laden with pink-and-white flowers, we make our bed entwined in each other’s arms, resting softly upon her cape.

It’s a while before our breathing slows. And even longer before we stop kissing. When we do, the lust that warmed her features has cooled, replaced by a sadness that makes my chest ache.

“I’m sorry I kept your family’s passing from you,” she says, running her fingers gently across the tattoo on my forearm that now includes a recently inked rose. “I never wanted you to discover what happened the way that you did. I planned to tell you after you won Bloodguard, once I knew you were safe and their death would not kill you in that wicked arena. But I was wrong, and I’m so sorry for that.”

I pull her closer. Her eyes scrunch shut, and several tears slide along her bruised nose.

She tells me about the aviary and the shifter she cut to pieces. Ordering the place to be burned down? That’s something I would do—except instead of an order, I would have lit the match and personally added more wood.

Across the lake, a moonlight dove sings her mournful tune. Another joins, and their brethren throughout the forest follow their lead. Tucked away beneath the canopy of sweet, fragrant flowers, the world feels perfect. Spread those branches, step out, and we’d quickly discover that it’s not. There’s so much wrong. And aside from the murder spree I’m planning to unleash, there aren’t many ways to make it right.

“You were wrong for not telling me,” I say. “I should have known. Their loss would have fueled my drive and made me stronger.”

She stiffens in my hold. “Leith, I’m sorry—”

The slow shake of my head might as well be a soak in the cold lake with how much Maeve pales. I lift her chin with my thumb and kiss her. “That’s what I want to believe, at least, Maeve,” I say quietly against her mouth. “But I can’t be sure. Not when I see this place— feel what it has done to me.” I trail my gaze in the direction of where the manor once stood as tall and proud as the family who lived there. “You, like me, lost everything, and now we’re here, damaged spirits that may never be whole.”

Each tear that Maeve spills is a knife wound to my soul. “You’ll find someone to fill that void,” she says. “Someday.”

I gently cup her face, growling my words. “You’re the only one who can do that. Do you hear me?” Her breath hitches, and I continue. “I love you. I always have. There will never be another.”

She sits up and hugs her knees, her voice cracking with each syllable. “I’m not worthy of love.” She takes a shuddering breath. “I’m the one who killed my grandmother.”

I push to a sitting position. “That’s not true. You could never.”

“And yet I did.” She sniffs, the breeze fluttering over the lake blowing auburn strands across her face. “I used to think I was a good person. Not perfect, by any means, but kind and determined to heal, not harm. But I’ve hurt so many, and I continue to fail those who suffer.”

I don’t believe her. I can’t. My jaw clamps, and I shake my head. “Maeve…”

“I caused Grandmother’s death,” she says, “and my papa’s emotional collapse.”

I put my arm around her and pull her close.

Maeve’s shoulders rise and fall several times before she begins. “I didn’t stop Grandmother from killing innocents, Leith. I didn’t get Vitor to end the games. I didn’t protect Papa, who lost his mind protecting me .” She pauses and takes several breaths. “And despite being someone whose sole purpose is to be queen and protect all citizens of Arrow, I can’t stop Soro from feeding Aurora my people’s blood.”

“Maeve…who is Aurora?”

And then she tells me the sordid tale of the phoenix.

Fuck the aviary.

I’m ready to burn the Erth down.

Sullivan, and everyone before and after him, died and bled for a fucking bird—a creature who never should have been caught in the first place? What kind of hell did we wake up in?

I stand abruptly and yank on my pants. Maeve slips back into her gown, her movements rote and gaze haunted. They broke her.

Those motherfuckers broke the most beautiful person I know.

“We’re getting out of here. We’ll regroup with Giselle and Caelen, find your papa, and get the hell out.”

Maeve’s head jerks up, confusion creating two delicate lines between her eyebrows. “I can’t.”

“Like hell.”

She jerks her head to the side. I think she hears something. As she reaches for my hands and glances briefly behind her, I know we’re no longer alone. But Maeve simply clutches my hands and brings them to her chest, the silk of her fine gray gown rising and falling along my knuckles with each breath.

Shit. She’s a fucking mess. I’m no better.

“I need you to live,” she says. Her voice quivers, but not with grief or fear—it’s the steadfast determination this woman has demonstrated from the start, even as her blue eyes well and shimmer beneath the moonlight. “I need to know that I’ve done something right, that I’ve helped more than I’ve harmed. And I need that something to be you.” She releases a breath. “I love you, Leith. If you hear nothing else tonight, know that my heart will only continue to beat because of you.”

I haul her to me, my voice more beast than man despite the gentle way my forehead presses to hers. “I fucking love you, Maeve. Don’t you dare leave me, too.”

I shove Maeve behind me as someone approaches, causing Hilltop and Knight to whinny in challenge. They’re gunning for a fight.

And so am I.

An ogre on massive horseback reaches for his axe when he sees my sword in my hand. “You said you’d only come to mourn your dead,” the ogre says.

I don’t take my eyes off him as Maeve speaks beside me.

“Leith…take care of Papa and Giselle, even though she won’t let you. Find a wife, build a family… Most of all, be happy.” There’s a rustle of fabric as she draws closer, and misery drenches her voice. “That’s no longer an option for me.”

She strokes what feels to be a scrap of soft material behind my ear.

I turn at her touch—and the familiar aroma of belladom.

“No,” I say, dread rising at the sickly sweet odor.

The way she looks at me parallels the agony I felt when I saw her promise to be Soro’s bride.

Tears shimmer in her eyes as a small scrap of white fabric escapes her fingers and flutters to the ground. “I’m sorry,” she says. “My stars, I’m so sorry.”

It takes me falling to the ground to fully accept what has happened.

The steady stomp of heavy hooves expunges all surrounding noise. The moonlight doves no longer sing, the starlight sparrows no longer call, and the waterfall dissolves into silence.

I surrender to Maeve’s potion. There’s no fighting it. There’s no escaping it. There never was.

“Maeve.”

It’s the same name I call when I wake in the morning, alone at the shore of our hidden lake. It’s the only name I need.

She thinks she should surrender to fate.

Fate can fuck off.

I’m not done fighting yet.

And if I know Maeve, neither is she.