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

78. Arran

78

ARRAN

It was nearly impossible to sneak up on someone with Veyka’s honed awareness. Being held against her will for twenty years had left scars deeper than any physical wound. Maybe she was more equipped than anyone to deal with the darkness of the succubus. She’d already survived torture. She’d grown up in darkness.

But as she shifted around on our bed platform, trying to find a comfortable position with both her arms and legs bound, it was hard to imagine her as a creature of darkness. She was so damned beautiful. Her long, pale limbs glowed in the torchlight, the muscles beneath her soft skin bunching and stretching as she turned and rolled. Her white hair was unbound, loose around her shoulders, brushing the tips of her breasts. Naked as she was, I could almost forget that the shackles were a matter of necessity rather than erotic play.

Ancestors. The female could be entirely taken by a monster, and I would still want her. My cock hardened in agreement.

She rolled to her side, back toward the front of the tent, and spotted me instantly. Her abdominals tensed beneath her soft stomach as she pulled herself up to sit, attempting to cross her legs under her and flashing that beautiful cunt of hers in the process before finally tucking her legs underneath her.

“They are ready?” she asked.

I nodded. “As ready as they can be.” This was not what I wanted to discuss.

I unsnapped my belt, tossing aside my battle axe and the swirled amorite weapons attached there. “How’d you manage to get undressed?” Leather vest. Then wool tunic. “Did Lyrena have to cut you out of your garments?”

Veyka licked her lips. “Jealous?”

“Maybe.”

“She unbound my hands so I could take off the dress. Then once those shackles were back on, she helped with my leggings.” She lifted her arms as she spoke, miming removing her dress, but really just showing off her breasts.

Boots. Trousers. I was as bare as she—except for the fucking shackles. Those would be coming off, too. Damn the succubus. Damn prophecies. I needed my wife, and I knew she needed me. This verbal sparring, this blatant avoidance of the real and the terrifying—we both needed it. We needed each other.

She rose up onto her knees to meet me. There was nothing of the succubus in her eyes. That lift of her brows—Veyka. The quirk of her mouth—Veyka. The ring of desire in her irises—it was black.

My hand froze just short of cupping her face.

Veyka rocked back onto her heels.

Veyka’s face. Veyka’s eyes. Veyka’s pain. And I’d caused it.

She turned away, maneuvering her arms and legs around those Ancestors’-damned shackles with the same grace that she moved in battle. She presented me with her perfect, unmarred back—miles of pale smooth, pale skin that gave way to soft rolls around her waist and hips that I needed to get my hands on.

But her shoulder blades moved up and down her back. A breath shuddered through her.

“You are scared of me.”

She might as well have shoved one of her daggers through my heart. And I deserved it. She’d put as much space between us as she could, climbing all the way to the other side of the bed. But that was not nearly far enough to escape me. I slid behind her, one knee on each side of her hips. My cock pressed urgently into the small of her back, but I ignored that for the moment. I couldn’t stop the groan that escaped my mouth as I fitted myself against her, pressing my chest to her back.

“You’ve hardly touched me,” she whispered. But I was touching her now. Even my argumentative mate could not argue with that. I skimmed my hands up her arms, tucked my mouth into the curve of her neck and let my breath warm her skin.

“I was afraid, but not of you. Never of you. I was afraid for you. I was afraid I would break you. That you wouldn’t be able to maintain control.” It was a mistake, I growled down the bond. There she was at the end of it. I could sense the darkness, the succubus. It never fully receded. Maybe it never would.

I didn’t care.

I pressed a kiss to the soft skin beneath her ear, sparkling with amorite. “I am so sorry, Princess.”

She didn’t turn into my caress. But she didn’t pull away. I firmed my hold on her arms, massaging the tired muscles from her shoulders to the crease of her elbows. I cupped the curve of her stomach with one hand, the sharper angle of her chin with the other. Just enough so that I could look into her eyes.

“I could never be scared of you, Veyka,” I said. “And this is you. I understand that, even if you don’t want to. This darkness has always been inside of you. And I want all of it. I always have.”

Her chin trembled in my hand. I stopped it with a kiss. There was no part of Veyka that I did not want. Maybe that made me a monster, as well. Good—I’d lived three hundred years trying to cage my beast. I’d learned only recently that it was impossible; he was me, and I him. And we both loved Veyka more than this world and any other in creation.

“Let me unbind you,” I said gently, easing her back into the center of the bed.

She let me guide her down to her back, but she shook her head against the pillow. “No. Arran—if it was just the two of us, then yes. Always yes.” She closed her eyes. Not to stymie the succubus, but the pain in her heart. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears when she opened them again. “But there is an entire camp out there. Thousands of our subjects. Allies. You cannot risk unleashing me on them.”

“I can make love to you just like this,” I promised. I would happily spend the whole night doing it.

“Good. I was counting on it,” she said through the tears that leaked down her cheeks. I kissed them away, one by one.

I lifted her hands above her head, pinning them between the pillows. The view of her breasts was magnificent—lifted, heavy, panting. “Perhaps I should have restrained you earlier.”

She laughed. Ancestors, that sound. What it did to my cock, already pressing eagerly at her entrance. And her breasts, bouncing like a fucking invitation. But that was nothing to what she did to my heart. I’d feed all the humans in Eldermist to the succubus horde in exchange for one of those honest, glorious laughs.

I was unable to resist the temptation any longer. I leaned forward, licking down from the center of her clavicle all the way to her belly button and beyond, to the tangle of curls at the apex of her thighs. She writhed beneath me, moaning in pleasure and twisting away from the sensation at the same time. But she couldn’t get away. She was bound. And bastard though it might make me, I was going to take full advantage and worship her exactly as I pleased.

My tongue traced the sensitive soft flesh above her cunt, but didn’t dip inside of it. No, not with those long legs stretching out beneath me. I tasted the seam of her hip, slightly salty from a day of exertion and struggle. Then the inside of her thigh, the scent of her pussy flooding my senses. Still, I continued on. I kissed her ankles—soft, featherlight touches where the metal of the shackles pressed against her skin.

You do not scare me , I told her with the swirl of my tongue.

I adore every part of you , my kisses said as they brushed against her restraints.

By the time I worked my way back up her body, her eyes were glassy with need. She trembled from the force of it. My entire existence narrowed to giving her exactly what she needed.

I settled between her legs, bracing my weight on my forearms, tucked into the curve of space by her shoulders created by lifting her arms overhead.

In the next breath, I sank into her fully. She couldn’t open as wide for me, couldn’t wrap her legs around my waist, not with the ankle restraints. But that only made her tighter, the sensation pitching even higher for both of us.

I watched her eyes shift and change as I took her, savoring the little sounds she made as she squirmed against me, working to get every fraction of an inch. I kept my movements slow, savoring all the places our bodies touched. My cock sheathed within her, the hard buds of her nipples against mine, scraping over each other.

Our coupling was almost always hard and fast. But not tonight. I savored the way the walls of her pussy clung to me, the delicious sucking sound her wet cunt made as I pulled out. She reached for me, but her hands were bound. I gave her my mouth instead, nibbling at her lower lip, sweeping my tongue inside in slow, languid perusal.

“You are torturing me,” she whimpered against my lips.

“I am worshipping you,” I corrected her.

I had to stop myself twice, holding my body taut above her to keep from spilling myself too soon. Only once I’d stoked the fire within her, erased all of her fears and replaced them with nothing but burning need, only then did I increase the speed and friction. Not fast, but just enough to push her over the edge. She cried out, demanding I take her faster, harder. But I was in control. I drove her to one orgasm. Then I slid my hand between us and fingered her to another. Only then did I sink my cock inside of her again and let go. One stroke, two. That was all it took. I belonged to her, utterly. I always had. Soul or no, she owned mine.

We were both drenched in sweat, but there was no discussion of washing. I tugged her against me, kissing her softly. I wanted to kiss her all night.

“Promise me you’ll come back,” I said between those kisses.

Her mouth remained open in invitation, but silent.

“Veyka.” I cupped her face, drawing back so I could see her clearly. “No hedging like you did before the Tower of Myda. Look at me and promise.”

She looked at me. My beautiful, courageous queen. “What if I can’t?”

I pressed my forehead to hers. “You can. The succubus will make you choose. This darkness inside of you—”

“This darkness inside is me. It always has been there.” Honesty. I’d given it to her, when I told her that I was not afraid. Now she gave it back.

I would give her everything. For Veyka, for my mate, I would beg. “And it belongs to me. With me. You belong with me. Even the dark parts. The succubus will make you choose. Choose life. Choose us.”

The words were soft. But she said them. “I promise.”

I buried my face in her neck, breathing in the scent of her. We would be apart on the battlefield tomorrow. But I refused to accept an after that did not include both of us.

“Sleep now. I’ll watch over you.” The succubus came in the night, when the mind was most vulnerable. But I would protect her. Always.