“I think... It’s done,” he said, tilting the empty vial. “Please don’t worry about the one we left behind.” He’d do enough worrying for both of them. Either his living world would change forever, or his eternity would.
She nodded, but her attention had drifted back to the woods.
“Don’t think about him,” Jesstin said.
“I don’t know why I didn’t just come to you.” Elloven’s face crumpled. “I’m safe with you. I know that.”
Jesstin moved back to the bench. He pressed his forehead to hers. “Do you remember offering safety to me? When I was little, after my mom had died?”
Elloven went quiet. She’d forgotten, of course. What were a few moments with a child to another child?
“The garden,” she said with a touch of surprise in her voice. “And the frogs!”
He exhaled in joyful relief. “The family of busy, working frogs, yeah.”
“You see?” She made a soft, happy sound. “Our union was fated.”
“It was,” he said distantly. He saw her wiggling her fingers in the garden, speaking of magic. He saw her doing it again, many years later in the Night Soul, speaking of fate. “I see that now.”
“Before you came, I had this sleeping draught, which got me through the long nights. It’s gone now.”
“You’ll sleep very well tonight, just like you did last night.” He peeled her hair away from her ear and kissed the edges. “Do you know why?”
Elloven pursed a grin, her body lighting up. “I might.”
“Stand up.”
“Why?”
“Go on.” He nudged her shoulder.
With a skeptical frown, she did.
“Now turn and face the woods.”
“What?”
“Do as I say, Elloven.”
He hadn’t intended the command in his tone, but the way she responded to it, snapping her posture straight and dragging her teeth against her bottom lip as she dutifully complied, made him hard as a rock.
Jesstin worked the stays of her dress until it was loose enough to tug it down around her shoulders. She swathed her arms around her nudity, but he tsk-tsked her until she lowered them reluctantly to her sides. He dotted kisses down her spine as he wriggled the dress over her magnificent hips, and he didn’t stop until she puffed in offense at his overfamiliarity with a certain tender area. He chuckled to himself but went no further. Some women liked it, but he’d only ever do for Elloven what Elloven loved.
“Hold onto the beam,” he ordered. He felt her obey, but his eyes were fixed on the fiend who still believed he held all the power.
Jesstin would correct that misunderstanding.
Elloven shivered, though the night was warm. He knew she was thinking both of what Jesstin intended for her and also of her fear of whatever was left of Fabrien Quinlanden, but Elloven had taught him that the only way to truly kill a nightmare was to replace it with a dream.
It didn’t matter anymore what he wanted. But she... She deserved the world. He’d thought loving her was selfish, when it was the most unselfish thing he’d ever done. Certainly the most pure. She’d never known intimacy without pain, and though he’d leave her with some in the end, if she also walked away knowing what it was to be truly revered, she’d find it again.
“He’s still there,” she said. “Watching.”
“I know.” Jesstin tenderly gathered her hair and set it over one shoulder. Her neck bare, he breathed her in and kissed her through his exhale. He loved the way she lifted into the affection. “Let him.” Let him see how completely he’s lost.
Elloven wound her arms farther up the beam, lengthening. Jesstin rewarded her with more gentle kisses along her velvety flesh, relishing every twitch of her muscles. He folded one arm around the front of her and claimed her belly in his palm, whispering, “I’ve got you,” and with the other, he removed his trousers. His affection traveled with him as he stepped one foot out, then the other, then went to work on his shirt.
When it was only flesh against flesh, he reached for her face and turned it sideways so he could hold her attention. The touch of fear in her eyes held no candle to the longing flushing her cheeks.
