Her body is bruised from her shoulders to her feet, and out here, in the daylight, the black, blue, and purple marks look so much worse. “Let me care for you,” I say as I move to scoop her up into my arms. But she takes a step back, her hands raised.
“N-no. That’s what… He said that before he…bathed me. I was so confused then. I thought—for a few moments--that he was not a monster. He addled my mind.” A shudder runs through her entire body, and I curse myself for not doing something to stop her from making that bargain in the first place. It matters not that Crux and Valinor were holding me. I should have shifted, released my dragon, the Fae be damned.
I do not know what to say or do, but my mate is stronger than I ever suspected. She covers her face with her hands for a moment, then takes a deep breath. “I am sorry, Roarke. I know you are not him. Can we perhaps try this again?”
Wrapping my arms around her, I nuzzle her neck, the urge to bite her, to give her my mark and claim her as mine forever, so strong, I can barely stand it. But she is not ready yet. She may never be. Not after what she endured. And I will wait, by her side, or close, for as long as she needs.
“I love you,” she whispers.
“And I love you.” Hand in hand, we walk back inside, and I gesture to the shower. “Let me show you how to work this.”
I expect her to ask me to leave, despite the fact that we slept naked in each other’s arms all night, but as she steps under the spray, she holds out her hand. “Will you join me?”
“Aurelia, I would do anything for you.”
* * *
Three days pass,and we still have not mated. But Aurelia smiles often, laughs, and sleeps against me each night. We spend our time getting to know one another in every way. All the ways we should havebeforethese horrors. If only I had not been so afraid of the Fae noticing me, we could have been mated years ago.
On the third night, when we climb into bed, she pulls me close. “Roarke? I have never felt like this before. It is as if my heart beats only for you.”
“That is as it should be. As it always is for those who are fated to love one another,” I say.
“But how do you know this? Until a few days ago, I thought I was human. We do not…mate. We form partnerships. We marry. Sometimes, there is even love involved. But we do not simply ‘find our mate.’”
“This is the blessing of beingother. Shifters, Fae, even witches feel this pull, from what I have always been taught. My parents…their souls were intertwined. So much so that they died within minutes of one another.”
She covers her mouth with her hand, but I shake my head. “No, my love. That is how they wished it to be. They were never parted. Not even in death.”
Aurelia is silent for long moments, then, in the waning light, she leans up on an elbow so her hair hangs down and tickles my shoulder. “I have never…been with a man. But these past days, being so close to you, I want you, Roarke. I want you for the rest of my days. Ineedyou. And as ridiculous as this sounds, I need you to claim me.”
Carefully, I ease her on top of me so she can feel the hard length of my cock. It weeps for her, only for her, and Aurelia shifts her hips against me.
“Fuck, Aurelia. My love. My heart and soul.”
She peers down at me with hooded eyes. “Tell me what to do.”
“Lie back and let yourself feel.”
Making herself comfortable on the bed, she watches me as I part her legs and position myself between them.
“Roarke? What are you doing?”
“Oh, my love, there is so much more to sex than…the single act you have imagined.” I smile up at her, my hands caressing her creamy skin. “If you need me to stop, you have only to say.”
The dewy curls covering her mound beckon me, and I plant gentle kisses from her knee to the junction of her thighs, and with every one, she trembles.
Down the other leg, back up again, and her hips start to have a mind of their own.
“I am going to taste you now, my love.”
Aurelia tenses, but when my tongue parts her slick folds, she cries out in pleasure. “Roarke! What…? I…”
Crawling up her body, I silence her cries with a kiss, then once she is panting, her unbroken fingers digging into my back, I score my teeth over one dusky pink nipple, and she shudders, her back arching.
“I cannot be selfish,” I whisper against her other breast, and by the time I kiss my way back down her stomach and to her mound, she’s babbling incoherently. I catch the occasional word.
“Need.”
