Sewn & Scarred (The Fated Creations Trilogy #3)

Chapter Seventy-FourSage

Chapter Seventy-Four

Sage

M y skin still tingled on my neck where the Vasi had bitten me. But I tried to hide it, the best I could.

The horror, that consumed me.

As I waited in the castle, with the others as the Kova helped the humans below and Evaline swept for more Vasi.

As we bid our goodbyes, and I portaled us all back in small groups.

As Evaline wrapped her arms around me, the soft light of the early morning sun brightened her features.

Until it was just Dean and I, standing outside the loft.

He didn’t speak, only closed his hand over mine gently, and pulled me inside. He was quiet as he ran me a bath, I was covered in dirt and grime and blood. Some of it, my own. I was exhausted and hungry, and when I finished cleaning, I saw that he’d made me dinner.

I ate as he washed the blood and battle off before he finally joined me at the table.

And once I felt like myself again, once I pushed away the feel of the fangs in my skin and the pull of my blood through my veins, I turned to him.

So much had happened today, that it was difficult to process it all.

Evaline forgave me.

Dean saved me.

And I made a decision.

I knew I had to tell him—had to ask him—but for now I only wanted to be with him. To exist near him. To feel safe.

We were both tired, and he’d been staying nights here, so as soon as we finished eating, we prepared for bed.

After I’d changed into pajamas, and he’d donned his pajama pants and shirt, he headed for the couch.

“No,” I said, and he turned toward me. “I don’t want to be alone. And if you sleep down here, I might as well be,” I said, then looked up at him. “Will you stay in the bed with me?”

My heart hammered against my chest even as I said the words. I truly only meant for us to sleep, but even the thought of us in bed together raised my pulse and sent a wave of heat over my heart.

A look flashed over his eyes and he nodded, sending a few of his brown curls falling into his face.

I walked up the stairs to the bedroom, and felt him directly behind me.

I hadn’t realized I would invite him to bed until the moment I saw him walk to the couch, and now I was very much regretting the pajamas I’d picked out. A soft, but short, pair of linen shorts and a matching linen short sleeved top. I’d cut the hem of it because I didn’t like how long it had been, and now it rested barely kissing the waistline of my shorts.

When we got upstairs I went to the left side of the bed, my side, and he rounded to the other side. We caught eyes as we pulled the blanket back, and I had to force my gaze away. Seeing him in this soft light, the hue of the near morning sky coming through the windows behind the bed was too much. He looked ethereal, beautiful.

I sank down onto the bed and tucked my legs into the blanket, while he turned on his side to face me.

“If you decide against it, just tell me to get out and I’ll go sleep on the couch. I don’t mind.”

I nodded, but could barely hear what he said. To lay here, head tilted to face him, and his cheek pressed against the pillow. To see the way his hair rested against his face and hear the low vibration of his voice as he spoke so that I was the only person in the world who could possibly hear him, it muddled everything around me.

I only nodded, and he faced the ceiling again. We both lay there for a few minutes in silence, when I realized that I had to face away from him if I was ever going to get any sleep.

“Goodnight,” I whispered and turned on my side. “Thank you, again.”

“Always,” his voice croaked. “Goodnight Sage.”

The sound of my name on his lips caused a little shiver of thrill to run up my spine.

I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t to lay there staring at a wall for hours.

Sleep evaded me. It was impossible to rest when I could feel him behind me. After all that had happened between us, culminating in his request tonight, in Neomaeros, I could barely breathe around him.

I’d felt unwelcome most of my life. I felt alone and at times, unsafe. But he made all of that disappear. He made me feel wanted at his side. He made me feel appreciated, and secure.

To have him here, in my bed, after the words he’d spoken earlier—I was coming undone.

“Just don’t ever let me know life after the still of your heart.”

Even then, my heart had shivered. But now, thinking back on the plea, I couldn’t quiet the way his words affected me.

We weren’t touching, I couldn’t feel his actual body, but I could feel his presence. And the bond beat in my head as if begging me to get closer to him. As if pulling me back.

I didn’t think that he slept, either. Because his breaths hadn’t softened and slowed, they were just as quick as mine.

And maybe it was the events of the day, maybe it was delirium from being so tired, I didn’t know. But I gathered my confidence, and I spoke.

“Dean?” I whispered but didn’t dare turn around.

I felt the bed move. “Yes?”

I swallowed, made sure I wanted to ask—or to hear the answer for that matter—and spoke.

“What did you mean earlier?” I whispered.

His response was immediate and unyielding. “I think that you know,” he said softly. There was a shift behind me, and I could tell he’d turned to face me.

I bit my lip, and tried to control the beat of my heart, but did not turn.

My breath shook through me as tears tried to steal my voice, but I persisted.

“I’m afraid I won’t know how to do it right. I’m new at this.”

“At what?” he asked, his voice so soft I hardly heard it.

I swallowed. “Being loved.”

I nearly jumped when I felt his hand wrap around my arm.

“Then let me show you,” he whispered, his voice light and heavy all at once. “Let me show you what you deserve. To be loved, and cherished, and awed. To know every day that there is someone in this world who would do anything for you. To know that there is a chest with a heart that beats only for you.”

I trembled and clutched the blanket below my chin, tears falling down the sides of my eyes, over the bridge of my nose, and onto the pillow beneath me.

For a moment, there was only the sound of my shuddered breaths.

He seemed to take that as a response on its own, a rejection, because he spoke, his voice guarded.

“And if you don’t want to be—” He cut himself off. There was a pause, and I held my breath. “If you don’t want to be mates, I would still care for you.”

I shook my head against the pillow it rested on. “I don’t understand why.”

His hand on my arm squeezed, and I knew he wanted me to turn around, but I didn’t.

“I don’t know how to be any more clear, Sage,” he whispered and I could feel his breath move my hair.

“No,” I whispered, then squeezed my eyes shut, and turned onto my back, tilting my head to face him. His hand that had been on my arm hadn’t lifted, just slid along my body until I settled so it rested on my belly. The hem of my shirt had ridden up as it usually did at night, leaving his hand half spread out over my skin.

That’s where his eyes were when I looked to him, and while I took a breath to steady myself from the pulse in my veins, he slowly dragged his eyes up my body to meet mine.

“I meant that I don’t understand why it took me so long to see that you cared. I don’t know why it took me so long to see how Lauden and my father didn’t .” His brows furrowed as he looked at me. “Mostly I don’t understand—after everything I’ve done—why the Gods would give me you.”

I whispered the last part so low that I knew he’d need his immortal senses to hear it.

But the words must have affected him, because he took a deep, shuddering breath, and raised onto an elbow until he was propped above me.

“Sage,” he said, my name rolling off his tongue like a poem and not a single syllable. “I’ve asked the Gods the same question, about you.” My brows furrowed as I looked up at him, but he continued. “Do you know what it was like to watch you go through that portal with Evaline?” he whispered, and I pursed my lips, ready for another lecture from someone about my betrayal.

“I felt your portal, felt the quake it caused, and immediately understood what had happened. What that shake meant, I knew in that moment it related to our abduction.”

He tilted his head.

“And I didn’t care,” he whispered, shaking his head. “Sage, I didn’t care because in that moment all I knew was that I cared for you, and I knew that you and Evaline going through that portal meant that you would both end up in Mortithev. I knew what you were doing, knew I was going to have to report it back to Wyott, to Maddox. Knew that Vasier having Evaline meant she was in danger. I was in Correnti to protect her,” he whispered, brows furrowing until he looked pained. “But the fear in my body, the devastation in my heart, wasn’t for her. It was for you.”

I swallowed as I looked up at him, and felt the tears prick my eyes.

I opened my mouth to speak but realized that there weren’t any words.

In the entire language, there weren’t enough words to tell him how much his care, his loyalty, meant to me. How much this confession, meant to me. For once, in my entire life, someone chose me. And I’d cherish that until the day I died.

Before he could speak again, I raised a hand to tangle in his hair. His eyes widened and fell to my lips.

My stomach flipped as his hand slid to my side, landed on the bare skin of my waist, and tugged me toward him. My skin was on fire everywhere he touched, and I reveled in it.

After the horrors we’d seen and the fear of my own attack, all I wanted was to feel safe. And there was no place I felt more protected than in his arms.

I slid myself closer until my body was against his.

And his lips found mine, lighting my chest on fire. My stomach flipped as my mouth opened enough to let his tongue slip against mine.

But it only lasted a moment, because then he was pulling his mouth away to trail kisses down my jaw, below my ear, and down my neck. Pausing to give special, soft, kisses to where the Vasi’s fangs had entered.

I gasped for air over his shoulder and wound my fingers tighter through his hair.

His moan reverberated through my throat, and I shivered.

My fingers found the collar of his shirt and I tugged, trying to pull it off of him.

He paused, but quickly rose off of me, pulling away only long enough to tug it off of his frame and throw it on the floor behind him.

Dean lowered his lips back to mine, and snuck the hand of the arm propping him up underneath my neck, to hold the back of my head there gently.

His other hand landed on my hip, pulling me against him as I wriggled my body against his.

He groaned my name against my lips, and to hear it, to hear it said with a breathlessness and know that it was because he felt it too, this connection, emboldened me.

I pushed against his shoulders at the same time that I turned into him until he fell back against the bed and pulled me along with him, until I laid on his chest, down the length of his body.

I widened my legs until I had a knee planted on either side of his hips, propped myself above him as we kissed. He groaned against me and raised his hands onto my back and up my shirt.

He shivered and I knew it was from feeling the bare skin there, knowing I wasn’t wearing anything underneath this short shirt.

I lowered my lips down his jaw, down his neck, and planted a few kisses down his chest when I lowered far enough that my core slid along his pelvis. I gave an involuntary moan at the feel of sliding along him, how hard and ready he was for me. And Gods even through the cloth covering both of us, it caused a tingle to shoot through me.

I left another kiss on his chest, and ground my hips against him, needing more.

I gasped again, and he groaned so deep I felt the sound through my lips.

“Gods,” he croaked, and moved his hands to my hips, to guide them to do it again.

I gasped at the contact, his steering drawing out the movement, our touch longer and more precise, sliding me up and down the length of him.

I raised my head back up to his, to connect our lips, and saw his closed eyes, the way his head tilted back into the pillow behind him, and loved that I was the one causing that reaction. I lowered my lips over his, bit the bottom one, and he growled, sliding me along him again.

I gasped out his name at that contact, as it grazed my clit and sent a wave of pleasure down my frame.

His hands stilled at my hips and his lips stilled on mine.

“Sage,” he whispered against them.

I pulled away only slightly and looked down at him.

His brows were furrowed and his chest rose and fell rapidly.

“We have to stop.”

My face fell as I pulled away from him completely until I was sitting up.

“Why?” I asked, then horror washed over me. “You didn’t like it?” I asked, mortification raging a blush over my cheeks as I tried to rise off of him to flee the room.

His hands locked down over both of my legs and pulled me back down over him.

“No,” he gasped as our hips connected again for a brief moment. “That’s not it. Of course I liked it, Sage,” he said, his eyes looking up at me and darkening as he looked to my lips and then shook his head and tore them away until he looked back up at me. “I loved it,” he whispered when our eyes met. “And Gods know I’d give anything to keep going,” he said, and the words sent a thrill through my body. “But we can’t.”

I planted my hands on his chest, leaning toward him.

“Of course we can,” I whispered. “I want to.”

He swallowed and clenched his eyes shut, before opening them again to meet mine.

“I don’t want you to make this decision tonight. Not when you’re beyond exhausted, not after that scare with the Vasi.” His jaw clenched, as if even thinking of the event angered him all over again. “I don’t want your judgment clouded, even a little bit.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but he shook his head.

“Not tonight, my fate,” he whispered the nickname so lovingly that my heart gave a painful lurch in my chest, and I could only nod as he adjusted us so that I was tucked into his side. He pulled my upper body up until my head rested on his shoulder, and grasped a hand on the knee I’d hiked up over his torso.

“Goodnight, Sage,” he said, kissing my forehead.

“Goodnight,” I whispered back.

Some moments later, I heard him whisper. So soft that I don’t think he expected a reply, and realized he’d thought I’d already fallen asleep.

But nonetheless, the words made my stomach flip and sent my magic tingling through my blood.

“Thank you for coming back to me. And thank you for not leaving me today.”

I’d fallen asleep shortly after I heard those words, and my dreams were filled with light and color. With safety and happiness.

With power.

And I knew the cause wasn’t his kiss, or his arms wrapped around me.

It was from the decision I’d made after my attack.

The decision that had only seemed to solidify further in my mind, the longer I thought about it. And after we woke, I knew what I had to do.

I turned on my side and Dean smiled at me. My heart swelled at the way the mid-day sun cast beams through the room, and I spoke.

“I want you to turn me.”

His eyes widened and his smile fell. “What?”

We both knew he heard me, but I repeated it for him anyway.

He shook his head and moved forward, grasping my hands.

“Do you even know what you’re asking?”

“Yes. It’s what I want.”

He searched my eyes, then shook his head.

“If this is because of last night, of what I said after I healed you, I never meant for you to turn. I wasn’t trying to pressure you.”

My lips tugged up into a small smile at his words. At this man who was so genuinely good and pure and kind, so much so that he feared manipulating me at all.

I shook my head. “It’s not because of that,” I said softly.

“Then why? We’ve just been through a battle, and you’ve only just got moved back to Rominia, you don’t need to make this decision now. Wait until everything has settled until you’ve recovered from all of it.”

“No,” I said, looking up at him and keeping my jaw strong. “I want to turn. Last night, he wasn’t the first Vasi to ever bite me.”

Dean’s throat moved with a swallow and his jaw clenched as he looked down at me.

“I don’t ever want to feel that weak ever again. I don’t ever want to fear for my life, just because I’m not strong enough to fight off my opponent. I don’t want to have to be saved all the time. I want to be able to protect myself.”

I’d never dared turn ever before, because I’d been stuck with Vasier. But Vasi had bitten me one too many times. The last time, I would’ve died if Broderick hadn’t stopped it, and this time, I nearly had before Dean interjected.

I could be thankful for Dean, and love the safety I felt in his presence, and still want to be that for myself, too.

He let out a long breath and raised his hands to cup my face.

“What about your magic? You’d be risking all of it. The portals, everything.”

I pursed my lips as I met his eyes. I had thought about this.

“For my entire life, my magic has meant my freedom. It has meant an escape from whatever situation I was in. It meant a way out.” He nodded, but I continued. “But it was also my prison. It was a tool that I was used for. It bound me to Vasier, it’s why he was forced to keep me close. It’s why he forced Lauden to be with me.”

I said the words so fast that I let them slip before I could stop them, and Dean’s eyes widened in surprise, his head pulling back.

“What?” he asked, his chest heaving.

I shook my head and moved away but caught his hands in mine.

“I want to turn. And you’re the one I trust most in this world. I want you to turn me,” I repeated again, my voice a whisper.

He closed his eyes and took a long breath, then opened them again. “If this is truly what you want, then I will help you.”

I threw my arms around his neck and my heart hummed with happiness as he curled around me and pulled me to his chest.

When we pulled apart, I started to pull my hair back from my neck.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

I turned, my brow cocked. “Getting ready to begin.”

He only shook his head slowly. “No.”

I scoffed. “Dean, you just said—”

He tugged my hand until I was pressed against his chest again.

“Not yet. If you’re going to give it all up, your magic and your humanity, then you at least need one last day with it all, before it’s gone.”