Queen of Blood and Vengeance (Secrets of the Faerie Crown #4)

17. Veyka

17

VEYKA

Arran did not answer me with words. What words could he give me that would possibly mean more than his vow?

He let his body tell me. His lips, his hands, his cock.

His mouth started on mine, his tongue plunging deep into my mouth with all the confidence of a male who knew my truth. I was his. Unconditionally.

His hands roamed my body, claiming every inch he touched with enough force to leave bruises. This would not be a gentle fucking. He lifted his mouth from mine to snarl, as if he’d heard the thoughts in my head. Maybe he had.

“When you look at yourself in the mirror, you will remember this,” he growled. “Every bruise, every mark—you are mine .” His teeth dragged along my collarbone, the sharp tips of his canines piercing my flesh and filling the air around us with the coppery tang of my blood.

His cock pressed against my belly, his trousers doing nothing to disguise the rigid outline as he rocked his hips against me. He lifted one hand from my body long enough to rip the fabric away, freeing himself against my bare midsection. He was already unbearably hot.

“Are you going to spill yourself all over my stomach?” I teased, my voice and pussy quivering in time.

“A beautiful fucking sight,” he said as he alternated bites and sucks on my shoulder. “That soft belly of yours, wobbling as you touch yourself, as I rain down my seed on you so that every male in this Ancestors’-damned kingdom knows you belong to me.”

Ancestors . I was going to come just from his words alone.

“Not yet,” he commanded, the wall between thoughts and words obliterated by the strength of the golden bond between us. “First you’re going to mark me.”

Arran dropped to his knees. I didn’t have a second to think. He’d hiked my skirt up, grabbed my leg and slung it over his shoulder, and drove his mouth into my pussy. He plunged his tongue between my folds with the same intensity he had my mouth, and just as much teeth.

He sucked my clit between his lips, then nipped at it with his canines. The sharp prick of pain mingled with pleasure as he drove his tongue deep inside of me, past my pussy lips and into my cunt itself. One hand held my leg in place, the other kneaded the soft flesh of my ass. I’d have marks there too. Fuck, I was going to be one big, sexually charged bruise by the time he was finished with me.

“Moan for me, Veyka,” Arran demanded, his voice muffled between my legs. “Let me hear that beautiful voice of yours while you ride my face. Let all of them hear you.”

There was no one here but us. But I understood what he did not say.

He was trying to remind me of what I had to live for.

I needed no reminding. I felt it with every breath—the love I bore for my friends, who I’d kept so carefully at a distance but had managed to worm their way into my heart anyway. My subjects, whose faces were written with awe and fear and adoration as I’d lead them through the mountains to safety.

And Arran.

A thousand years spent in his arms, even that would not be enough. Not when he was my world. He was everything.

He nipped at my clit again and I did exactly as he said. I tangled my fingers in his hair, pulling hard enough to tear, and threw back my head to the gray sky.

“I’m coming,” I moaned.

“Louder.”

“I’m coming. Ancestors, Arran, yes. I’m going to come all over your face, fuck. I need—”

I didn’t get to say it. He rammed two fingers inside of me, curled the tips, and I came in a flood of juice that covered his hand, his face, and splashed down onto the frosted ground. But he didn’t stop there. He sucked hard on my clit while his fingers went deeper, again, fingertips over that sensitive spot inside of me that I’d never been able to reach on my own, until another waterfall spilled from me, coating us both in my pleasure.

Arran lapped up every drop, licking the inside of my thighs, his fingers, the trembling lips of my pussy. “Good girl,” he murmured against my folds as he slicked his tongue along my slit one last time.

My thick thighs were powerful, but even they could not hold me after climaxes like that.

He rose, my skirt fisted in one hand and my glistening pussy bare to the cold. But he wasn’t gone for long, his body covering mine, his strong arms keeping me upright.

Pressed against my bare belly again, his cock was even hotter than before. I was desperate for him.

I closed my fingers around him, glorying in the thickness as I stroked from base to tip. He thrust into my hand, rewarding me with a moan of his own. His crown was already wet with the first droplets of seed. I smoothed it over his head, then lifted my thumb and sucked it into my mouth, savoring the salt-tinged sweetness on my tongue.

But before I could guide him inside, he shoved my hand away.

The hand that had kneaded my ass rose.

His fingers closed around my throat. “You will live, Veyka.”

Even now, I wanted to argue. I opened my mouth. His grip tightened.

“You will live, because I say so. Because I will not let you go.” The beast spoke now. The wolf. The primal part of Arran that had earned him the name Brutal Prince.

He squeezed tighter. I tried to suck in a breath, but he cut it off.

Arran was in control. He would not let me go.

Black clawed at the edges of my vision. Tears squeezed out from the corners of my eyes.

“You will live,” he said again. He held me too tight, there were no words I could say. My lips formed the word. Yes .

Arran slammed me down onto his cock.

The second he was fully sheathed inside of me, he released my throat. “Breathe.”

I sucked in a desperate breath as Arran exploded within me. My inhale became a scream as his seed flooded my pussy, searing hot against my core. I came with him, clung to him as I rode out the waves of my orgasm.

Tears flowed freely down my face as I buried my face in his throat. “I love you,” I heard myself say. Sob. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

He lowered us to our knees before either of us lost the ability to stand. I knew he had no capacity to speak, but I felt the beast’s deep rumble in my soul. You are mine.

Usually, I was content to stay wrapped in Arran’s arms forever. But the human realm was fucking cold.

No one expected us to return to that hilltop. Not that I would have felt any shame in going back, Arran’s scent coating my skin, a potent reminder of the vows he’d made. But I knew most of them well enough. They would not waste time waiting around for a decision.

I did not have an answer for them, anyway.

Arran wanted to go after the Sacred Trinity. I knew it was a fantasy.

We were co-rulers. We had to reach some sort of accord. But it was not going to happen today. Waiting another day would not change the reality. But I had felt the pain in Arran as he made that vow to me. I could give him a day to come to terms with the loss of that fickle hope that Gwen and Cyara had offered.

I wished I could give him more.

We were supposed to have a thousand years.

No . I would not flinch from my fate now.

I did not pull away when Arran tucked me in at his side.

We found what remained of our war council drinking hot tea in Sylva’s house. I opened a portal rift with half a thought. The growing power inside of me might have scared me once. But now, I allowed myself to revel in it. If mere weeks or months remained to me, then I deserved to enjoy them in any way I could.

I brought us to the edge of the lake. I’d have preferred to go directly to our quarters, but the residents of Eilean Gayl, old and new, needed to see us. High King and Queen of Annwyn. United, strong, competent, with our loyal Knights arrayed around us.

But as the terrestrial mountains took shape around us, so did something else. The turrets of Eilean Gayl were crowded; so was the bridge. A disturbance at the far end of the lake drew all eyes.

A massive orb made of water moved steadily across the lake. As it approached the castle, what appeared to be shimmers were revealed to be undulating ripples of water, moving in a steady motion to create the sphere.

I was dimly aware of Barkke drifting closer, taking up a place at Arran’s side.

“What is that?” he asked aloud, echoing the thoughts in a thousand fae heads.

I knew. I’d seen theatrics like this before; twice, in point of fact.

“It’s Merlin.”