“You’ve gained control of your magic?” It’s not a question, really; she wouldn’t dare try to use it on someone so frivolously if she had not. She answers with a smile that doesn’t show her teeth. Her tongue juts out to lick her bottom lip as she stands over me and drops the dark green dress from her shoulder. She catches the fabric before it reveals the skin of her breasts, but I feel myself growing hard nonetheless. Keeping her eyes locked with mine, she shimmies the silky fabric just a few inches lower, and I grind my teeth at her boldness. Fire builds behind glowing moonsin her eyes, then she drops the dress altogether, letting it pool at her heel-clad feet.
She moves to straddle my legs and sinks us deeper into the cushions of the settee. Her breasts are bare; the only thing covering her is the undergarment that barely covers anything of her ass and those damn heels. I lean back as though it will move me further from her. My tongue rolls out over my bottom lip as I try hard not to lean forward to take one of her hardened nipples into my mouth. I don’t move my hands from my sides, even though I ache to touch her.
“Did you not tell me a long time ago that you would never hurt me? Are your shadows not, but only an extension of you? They would not hurt me just as you wouldn’t.” I’m shaking my head before she even finishes the sentence. She’s wrong. I can’t say that my shadows wouldn't hurt her. My parents or anyone I love. I never wanted anything bad to happen to my parents. My pulse is ramping up, and it’s not just from Raelle sending my mind into overdrive with her near-naked proximity or the lustful need nearly soaking my lap right now. I close my eyes, trying to calm the chaotic magic raging within me.
The warmth of her hands presses into either side of my face, and her breath brushes over me feather soft as she speaks again, “You will not hurt me, Dax Fornax-Ravendene, King of Aldramani. You pledged yourself to me, your body and soul. Your shadows will not hurt me; of that, I'm certain.” I’m not as confident in them. If she knew the truth, she wouldn't be either. I don’t open my eyes. I know that if I do, I will see the evidence of my loss of control. I will see the shadows as they fill the room, causing the most important Fae in my life, in all of Aldramani, to be in the most danger she has ever been in. Instead, I clamp my eyes shut like a coward.
Raelle grinds her hips against me, letting out a little whimper of need when the friction of the fabric between us rubs her just right. Even though I grow painfully harder at the noise, I keep my eyes locked tight. Not ready to see what surrounds us. Not ready to be without her presence. Greedy to keep her near, regardless of my fear.
Raelle leans in further, her nipples brushing over the leather of the strap of my baldric and her lips brushing the shell of my ear as she whispers, “Open your eyes and touch what's yours, my dark king.” The command in her voice has me buckling. My eyes drift open and immediately lock to her as she sits nose to nose with me. All within the same breath, I'm wrapping my arms around her. My hands sliding up her spine, gripping the back of her neck, and claiming her mouth with mine.
Her fingers spread and push into my hair, and she pulls me closer as our mouths clash with passionate strokes of our tongues. She leans back just enough to work her hands around me, unbuckling the leather strap across my chest, and she tugs my tunic from the waistband of my breeches and is pulling it over my head within the next moment. We are as chaotic as my shadows have been lately. Wandering hands cover every inch of exposed skin. Every nerve ending feels alive… with an electric sort of energy. All at once, I notice our surroundings and the way that Raelle is arched in my lap. The bend of her back as she leans away from me. She presses her breasts up, and my breath catches in my throat as I notice a necklace of darkness holding her there.
Panic seizes me. I sit there frozen as I watch the tendrils move on their own accord, expanding but keeping her tied in the revealing position. They move down her neck. Slithering like a snake across her breasts, circling her pert nipples. Each swirl and flick theymake, she arches a little more. Pressing down on my cock a little harder. Then I realize, as her lips part and a small moan escapes her, they aren’t hurting her.I’mnot hurting her. They are giving her pleasure. Working her over just the way she wants.
She must notice my frozen hands have stopped wondering; the breath I sucked in at the sight of my shadows around her throat, lodged, still unable to release. Her eyes flutter open, and she smiles. The magic of the moon is nothing to the smile on her face. With just that, my breath releases through my parted lips just before she leans in and steals it from me again in an achingly slow kiss. My shadows still collared around her neck.
“You told me a long time ago that you would never hurt me, Dax. I believed you then; you need to believe it for yourself now.” Her voice comes out husky and needy. I watch her mouth as she speaks each word, the roll of her tongue over her teeth, and the needy twitches of her bottom lip when movement causes friction at her wet core.
I don’t move to leave, anchored in place by my need to have her be right, and it’s all she needs to continue the beautiful torture she’s putting me through. I also told myself long ago that Raelle was either going to make me or break me, and I feel like today she aims to make that thought come true, because as I take her beauty in, wrapped in a soft caress of the shadows I only thought possible of death, I feel like she’s transformed my entire world. Making me a new man.
She lifts from my lap and drops between my legs. She removes my boots and begins pulling at the buttons of my breeches. She tugs them down, letting my proud cock spring free of its constraint. Her soft hands glide from my knees up to my hips. Brushing over all the scars and tattoos that mark up my flesh. I watchwith awe and heavy eyes as my shadows continue to caress her body as she kneels between my legs. The sun is setting, lighting the room in a deep amber hue, and the way my body is heating… I feel like I’m living within a flame.
I suck in a sharp breath as she grips me at the base, bringing the weeping tip of my length to her lips. Her tongue unfurls, flicking out and tasting the moisture beaded there, before she closes her lips around me. The warmth of her mouth causes a groan to come from deep within my chest, unabated. I can’t look at anything but her as she works her mouth over my cock.
Her eyes flick up and meet mine, the green bright in the growing darkness as night begins to fall over the kingdom. One hand still gripped at the base of my cock, she sucks me down to the back of her throat, and I grind my teeth to hold myself back from spilling there right away. As though she notices the tension building at the base of my spine, she pushes her other hand up, brushing through the dusting of hair on my stomach. Stopping at the center of my chest, she pushes me to lean back, pushing my cock deeper. She moans around me, and I lift my hips, pressing further into her mouth and down her throat.
She releases me from her mouth and moans again as I push my hands toward the air behind her, my shadows bending to my will, and they tickle the sensitive skin between her legs. She tips her head back and her lips let out a beautiful moan attached to my name. My shadows aid me in guiding her body to the floor in front of the settee, and before she touches down, they’ve pulled the fur from in front of the fire beneath her too.
Kneeling between her legs, I watch, gripping my hard cock in one hand, as my shadows move masterfully through her wetness. Seeing me pump my cock, her back arches, and she reaches out forme, but I’m just beyond where she can touch me. A grin spreads across my face as she gives up her pursuit as her body shudders, pulses, and bends in pleasure. I feel all of it through my magic and the connection we share, as she comes hard from the touch of my shadows. I continue to slowly pump my cock as I watch her writhe from their torturous pleasure.
Her eyes meet mine once more, and a smile spreads wide on her face as she sees the look on my face and that I controlled my shadows to give her release. I gave in to the magic, and it worked for me the way that I wanted it to. She was right.
I smile back at her just before I slap my cock down hard on her swollen clit. The shock of pleasure causes her to arch once more, and she gasps. I take advantage of the angle it puts her body at, and I slide the tip of my cock through her slick center slowly before sinking into her. I rear back and push in again. She moans my name, and I use my shadows to tilt her head back, wrapping them around her neck with enough pressure to redden her pale face and placing her body at an incline. I push in hard, deep, hitting that perfect angle, causing her knees to clamp around my body and her breath to suck in past the shadow necklace constricting her breath. I sit there for a moment, allowing her to pulse around me. She hisses as I push a bit further, easing out, then slamming back in to the hilt. Her screams echo through the room as she takes it.
“Good girl,” I growl the words as I continue the slow retreat and quick thrusts in for a few times, but she curses. “Fuck, Dax… Gods. I need more.” Spreading her legs wide, I move myself in and out, relishing in the noises our bodies make. The whimpers and moans that escape her lips make me curse as I try to extend every bit of pleasure. I coerce my shadows into working for me again, and more come alive between us, pinning her clit as I begin to slam intoher, relentlessly punishing her pussy until sweat is dripping from my body. The moon is high in the sky now, and she's got a sheen of sweat coating her skin too. As the moonlight filters through the window, Raelle sucks in a sharp breath. Her moon’s magic stronger under its light; she glows with power, and my shadows grow frenzied, flicking over her clit as we continue to build and build on the tension between our bodies. I pull her up, bracing her back with my arm, and she straddles my hips as I continue to kneel.
Her breasts press up, bouncing in my face, and I take the salty bud into my mouth, biting down lightly, causing a pleasured yelp to rip from her as her magic flares, and she breaks. Her entire body quakes in my arms as she continues grinding her hips in succession to my thrusts. I squeeze my arms around her tight as I follow her into oblivion. Biting down hard on the skin between her neck and shoulder to muffle my groans, I mark her flesh with my teeth. Both of us are panting hard as she continues to milk me. I spill everything I have into her.
Her head tilts back down, snaring me in the moon-glowing depths, and that's the moment I truly realize that no matter what happens… Raelle will be my reason for living, for dying, and for everything in between. As though our magic senses my coming to peace with the shadows I’ve feared for so long, there is a spark of magic that works around our still-joined bodies before the moon glow in Raelle’s eyes dulls and my shadows dissipate, leaving us alone with only our ragged breaths and the pounding of our hearts.
Chapter thirty-six
The cool night airdoes nothing to calm me. I didn't see this coming. After everything that I’ve done in my life, I never had any clue that my birth father was tied to the Ravendenes’—no, not just tied. He was a Ravendene. Making me a Ravendene also.Fuck. Just the thought has me teeming with questions. How could my mother keep something like this from me? Thinking back, I wonder how many times my path crossed my father’s without me even knowing. Did he know?
The sky is lit up orange and red, and as the sun sinks below the tree line, the tops of them look like jagged teeth aimed to consume it. It's almost as though the realm senses the infernoof turmoil building within my chest and decided to paint the sky with it. I thought the flight would help ease my mind, but the frenzy has only increased. My heart is running wild, and my mind has gone with it.
I land at the beach in the strip of sand near the cliffs, harder than I was meaning to. Sand sprays out around me like it was a comet falling to the ground. My legs threaten to buckle from the speed and impact with the dense ground. The tide is low, making the waterlogged sand much harder than the drier beach up the way. My boots dig into the sand, and I jerk forward from the momentum and throw my hands out to steady myself with a growl.
“Smooth landing. Did youjustlearn how to fly?” The female’s sarcastic voice cuts through the roaring in my ears and my landing issues caused by my distracted mind, and I tilt my head to look in the direction of it. Kait sits just up the beach on a dried, sun-bleached tree that juts from the sand like the claw of a raven’s foot. Kicking sand as I walk toward her, I watch as it sprays out in front of me, but I don’t respond. My normal smart mouth feels as dried up as the tree she sits on.
“Damn, that bad, huh?” Her gaze only brushing over me for a moment before she continues, taking in the view of the crashing surf and fiery sky. Her question has me thinking so far back that it hurts, though she wouldn't know. Thinking of all the ways that my life would have been different if I had grown up as a Ravendene. I don’t know what I feel more—anger or hurt.
“What are you doing here?” I grumble as I shuffle my feet to where she is, slowly gripping one of the branches that strike out just above my head. She’s perched on one of the highest arms, so I have to look up to meet her gaze, but her legs hang to my shoulder level,snagging my attention. The smooth lines and curves bare as she swings them back and forth, where they hang. She’s only wearing a damn tunic. The sight of her causes all the rushing blood from one head straight to another.Fuck, its been too long since I had a female warm my bed.
“Same thing you’re doing, I suppose. Getting away—hiding—whatever you want to call it.” I huff out my agreeance and turn to face the sea too, because looking at her is doing things. Things she may notice even with the night darkening the sky as we speak. Things I don't want to admit she's doing. “Being a Ravendene wasn’t in your plans, huh?” She kicks her bare foot out, nudging me in the shoulder, and I bite out a laugh, raking my hand through my hair.
“Fucking right, it wasn’t.” I sneak a look at her out of the corner of my eye. She doesn’t even seem like the same girl I met all those weeks ago at the tavern. Those sinful lips I stole that venomous kiss from… She hasn’t mentioned it—neither have I, but I know she knows it was me that night. I don’t know what I was thinking that night. I knew who she was. Who she was close to.
