Page 53 of Bane of the Wild Hunt (Heart of the Tithriall #2)

Chapter fifty-two

I WANT YOU AS YOU ARE

Sage

I woke gradually to the thrilling sensation of Summer’s teeth tugging on my earlobe, her soft breath on my neck, and her hand sliding across my stomach. That gorgeous body that I’d been drooling over was completely naked and pressed up against the side of me. Her peaked nipples and ample breasts teased my bare chest, and one of her shapely legs had slipped over my hips.

I groaned, the sound wrenching out of me like I was in pain as I turned my head into her neck and gripped a handful of her ass. I traced my hand along her silky thigh slung across me and breathed in her scent like a drug.

I was already hard and straining desperately against the pants I’d insisted on wearing to bed for this exact reason.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself,” she mewled when I reached up to thread my fingers through her loosened hair. “You looked way too fucking sexy not to touch.”

And I was not complaining.

“Summer, you can wake me up like that every morning for the rest of my life if you want,” I assured her, but she snorted as her hand slid leisurely up my chest. I could feel her mapping me, learning my body the way I was aching to begin learning hers.

“I doubt I’ll ever be awake before you again.”

She had a point. I did not usually sleep past the rising of the sun, but I could tell by the colour of the tent canvas that it was likely late morning. It had been a long night of moving Aes Mirr to the settlement with my people, but I suspected that sleeping late had more to do with the naked female in my bed.

Especially since my father had had plans to go with Rian and Nuala to Mionlach in the early morning, so he was not in the tent with us. Rian was replenishing all the medicinal stores of my village since a lot of their supplies were depleted or lost during the attack. And some of those medicines took Ivie months or years to make. Once he had all that they needed, I would take my father home where he would be staying from now on with our teine .

As much as I was looking forward to having a tent to myself with Summer so we might begin to explore our relationship in new ways, I was going to miss him too.

Rian’s only expectation of us for the day was to regain our strength to move the Aes Rurrinn, and for Summer to write a letter to her witch friend in the Vale. The task of convincing King Riordan to meet with us and to pause all endeavours to form alliances with the traitorous fey kings and queens fell to my mate.

She had not seemed intimidated by it. She had absolute faith in her friend and the king to at least meet with us at which point it would be up to Rian to negotiate.

Rian needed to attend to his Seer who required clothes and other supplies, but then we would be moving the last two aes sídhe villages. Once our people were out of the path of any potential destruction, Rian would deal with the Fuath. Whether by deception or by flame and shadow. With Summer’s vicious people undoubtedly plotting to drag her back to Sumarra, and the Vale seeking to make alliances against us, our situation was becoming rather desperate. It was imperative that we started eliminating enemies or at least convert them into allies.

I was still skeptical of becoming friendly with griffins, but even Rian was influenced by Summer’s confidence in the Griffin King. So it was not off the table yet.

Summer’s hand began gliding slowly and sensually down my abdomen toward the rim of my breeches, but I caught her wrist to stop her with a reluctant groan.

“I will respect your desire to wait for as long as you need me to, but I beg you, Summer, please , do not make it any harder on me,” I breathed pleadingly into her neck.

She hesitated in surprise before leaning back so I could watch a wicked smile spreading across her full lips.

“It’s already pretty hard, Sage,” she teased and shifted her thigh suggestively down over my straining cock.

I caught her leg and blinked at her in disbelief that she could be so ruthless as to tease me this way, but after a moment her grin faded sheepishly.

“I could give you… relief—” she tried to offer.

I moved, flipping her off me and pinning her to the bed beneath me so fast she had no time to react.

After what you have told me of your previous lovers, rest assured that I will be the one devouring you , Summer. Over and over until you cannot even think anymore.

She gasped, those silvery-green eyes widening at me, her arms inert beneath my hands holding them down.

“You… how did you do that?” she demanded even as her cheeks heated from my promise to pleasure her.

I was learning quickly that my anam was especially provoked by my words. She had melted, shutting down almost entirely, every time that I said something remotely provocative to her. She couldn’t help it. Something I was going to thoroughly enjoy exploring with her.

“Do you mean how did I disadvantage you so easily?” I tutted at her playfully. Then I drew her attention to my hips as I tilted them rather suggestively against her pelvis in a way that fully incapacitated her.

“Sage,” she gasped as heat rose in a delicious flush to her cheeks again. Her lips parted, and her brows drew together in an expression of surprised exhilaration I could already tell would be addictive. Gods, I could not wait to see how she’d look at me when I was actually driving my cock inside her. Especially with my marks still covering her neck and chest in a stunning mosaic of mine .

“You should let me train you, Summer,” I goaded her, lowering my head to trace her pulse leaping erratically in her neck with my lips. “You were obviously well taught, but you require some refreshing.”

“You know that is not what I meant,” she growled, recovering enough to use her nose under my jaw to snap my head back up so she could glare at me. I grinned.

Careful . I am not opposed to playing rough.

She froze again, her thoughts a buzzing whirl behind the barrier of her mind, and her eyes on my mouth that was not moving. She’d never had someone in her mind, that was obvious from her reaction, and she seemed to find it a little unnerving.

“Sage, how are you doing that so easily?” she insisted, looking sincere, so I relented and eased down onto the bed beside her to have a serious conversation.

“I have shared a similar connection to my brothers for a long time. The moment you… opened the door to your own mind, so to speak, I could feel you.”

“Can you… Are my thoughts all visible to you now?” she asked in quiet alarm.

“No, they are not,” I assured her, brushing a soothing hand down her arm. “Which is actually quite impressive. Usually a new bond is like an open wound unconsciously bleeding all your thoughts and emotions. But it is taking an immense effort for me to project my thoughts to you.”

“Why is that? Is our bond not strong?” she asked me anxiously, and I repressed a smile at the irony of her both fearing and desiring such complete immersion with me.

“You need not ever question the strength of our bond. We established that connection for the very first time so far away from one another. That is unheard of.”

“Oh,” she breathed, looking relieved and pleased.

“Most fey can build shields around their mind to keep out influence and magic. But building shields within your mind to protect some parts of you from someone you wish to have inside is not something average fey need to learn. So opening a bond like this is often very raw, but I think after hundreds of years of suppressing what happened to you in Sumarra, you already sealed off much of yourself.”

She was quiet and thoughtful for a moment while she mulled over my words.

“So does that mean that I am… full of walls?”

A strange question, and one that I was not sure how to answer because I was not sure what she meant by it.

“You could think of it like shields have grown wild in your mind. You need only tame them.”

Summer nodded distractedly, her mind preoccupied, but although I could feel the hum of her thoughts, it was muffled like we were under water.

“You have a letter to write. I will go get us some food while you do that, and then perhaps we really should take this opportunity to train. Both physically and mentally.”

I had been mildly horrified by the pile of crumpled paper behind Summer when I returned to the tent with our food. I peered over her shoulder to see what was causing her to all but yank on her ears, forgetting I could not read the human language she and Rian agreed she should use.

English was a dialect my cousin had learned in order to read the human documents that came from Uile Breithà, so he would be able to understand these scribbles. But it was unlikely that Riordan or Amira would assume that about him. Rian was sure that if my mate was to use a written fey language or even one of the Celtic human ones descended from ours, then the griffins might just assume the letter was written under duress. This way, they should be less likely to question whether Summer had written it with genuine sentiment.

She took her food to my desk, leaving me to eat alone at the cold hearth while she finished the letter. When she was finally happy with it, Summer came to sink onto my lap with her legs wrapped around me while she fanned the page to help the ink dry faster. She looked strangely coy.

“What?” I asked her.

“Would you like me to read it to you?”

“I trust you, Summer. But Rian will certainly want to read it before he hands it off to his envoy,” I warned.

She hesitated and blushed before glancing at the page in uncertainty. My brows rose at her.

“What exactly have you written to her?”

“I… Well, obviously I wrote about the Rot and how the Wild Hunt is trying to stop it,” she defended herself, but then her face softened. “But she is my friend, so I also wrote about… I wrote about you .”

“About me?” I verified in confusion.

“Yes! Are you really surprised that I wanted my friend to know I met my mate? That you are good and kind and everything I need but far more than I deserve? That I am safer than I’ve ever been and so much happier than I ever thought was possible?”

My incredulous expression slackened, and I could feel the awe consuming my features as she pressed on with a worried glance at the paper.

“Maybe it is a bit too much. I thought some personal touches might make it more appealing but… She might not even believe this came from me!”

My smile was soft as I reached up to slowly brush my knuckles down her cheek and eased her nerves.

“Read it to me.”

Summer was not at all enthused to be training with me, but she knew it was necessary not only to experiment with our bond, but to learn to summon her own armour. I might have been content to let her wear mine to keep her warm during our recent flights, but she was going to need her own once we flew into battle.

The thought of which made me even more determined to help make sure that she was ready.

Thankfully, her complaints all grew rather quiet after we walked by the sparring ring where Ciaran whipped new recruits into shape. His brutal methods got the desired results, but I would not be subjecting her to him.

Yet .

We had gone down to a secluded area by the river with some practice swords and our vargr, who were growing more and more consumed with one another. It was similar to the way Pyrope had been with Rian’s vargr, éadrom. Like they were pair bonded.

We had spent a couple of hours going over her training and what she remembered of it for me to get an idea of where to begin training her. Now we were sitting across from one another. It was midafternoon, and the sun was blazingly hot, so it took a lot of stern discouragement to prevent Summer from stripping down naked. As much as I would have enjoyed admiring my claim displayed all over her, I would also feel inclined to kill someone else if they happened upon us and saw her fully nude.

I had a feeling that now that we were in a warmer part of the Autumn Court, keeping clothing on her in public was going to be a little trickier.

I caressed her mental shields again, trying to help her become aware of what she had constructed unconsciously in her mind, so she could take control of it. Her brows condensed in focus as she tried to examine these barriers that felt much like thorny walls.

I should have known that it would be a need to heal that would make you connect with me like this.

Her responding thoughts were a jumble of emotion and vague whispers.

Try again, I urged her.

“I am! I have no idea how you do this so easily. It feels like shouting at a wall,” she complained aloud.

Think clearly. Say the words deliberately in your mind the way you would say them aloud, I reminded her.

She heaved a sigh and closed her eyes. I felt her focus gathering behind that wall until she seemed to find some small opening through which to squeeze a response.

Prick .

I laughed at her, and her eyes widened in surprise and excitement that she had managed to push a word at me.

Good job, Summer. Even if it was rude. One more time, I insisted, and she sighed again as fresh sweat began to bead on her forehead and upper lip.

I. Am. Tired, she confessed at last, each word clipped, and I nodded quickly before any signs of my surprise at her could show.

She had expressed a vulnerability. Admitted to a need. It was much more in line with her character to get cranky and mouthy with me when she was done, but this time she had merely verbalized it.

Come sit with me, I invited, determined to reward her.

She was quick to abandon her cross-legged position and crawled over my knees to straddle my hips in what I knew was becoming her favourite position to sit with me. Her arms wound around me, and she buried her face into the crook of my neck and shoulder.

Right over her mark on me where our combined scent was the strongest.

I ran my hands soothingly over her back and kissed every love bite that I’d left on her neck that was still vibrant and gorgeous. She made a sound of approval and melted into me even harder while I began to wonder if she would ever consent to me marking her as permanently as she had marked me.

We sat like that for some time, just revelling in one another’s proximity, until I felt her clenching me tighter with a swell of potent anguish spreading through her.

Sage, she sent a tentative plea that she seemed unsure would reach me. I have lost everyone I ever loved.

I still remembered her slipping up and telling me that I was her sanctuary. And I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the heartfelt letter she had read to me earlier which we had dropped off for Rian to look over.

I am not going anywhere. I promise you that.

“You can’t make such a promise,” she protested aloud, lifting her head to look up at me with eyes that begged me to prove her wrong.

“I can,” I assured her as I tucked a few stray strands of her hair behind her furred ear, smiling when it flickered at my gentle touch. “I pity anyone who tries to part us.”

“Don’t say that,” she whispered, her hand rising to try and press against my lips and quiet me, but I took it and kissed her fingers in reassurance.

“I mean it, Summer. I will take this,” I said, giving the bond a little tug between us until she gasped and put a hand on her chest, “and hold on tight. Nothing could ever keep me away from you. Do you understand?”

“Sage,” she breathed, leaning her head against my jaw, and I felt her choke down a sob. “ Promise ?” she gritted.

“I promise. You are my anam . My beautiful mate. There is nothing that will keep me from you.”

She nodded, and I felt her tears dampening my jaw as she gave me the same tug in my chest. Except that it felt more like she was sinking teeth and claws into our bond to hold onto it with an uncompromising fury.

“I promise the same,” she whispered after a moment. “Nothing will keep me from you. Nothing .”

“Good,” I grunted, my voice gruff as I became rather emotional myself after her fierce promise.

I tipped her back to meet her eyes again only to find her cheeks streaked in so many tears that it made my heart leap in anguish.

“Please do not cry,” I begged her, leaning forward to kiss away the dampness of all her tears, and I could not help licking their saltiness off my lips.

She closed her eyes as she soaked in all my affection for a moment while even more tears fell before she took a breath and looked up at me. Those stunning silver-green eyes bounced back and forth between my own with such seriousness that it sobered me instantly.

I love you.

Her precious words took the breath out of my lungs with so much force that it felt like being kicked in the gut. Her eyes widened at my shocked reaction, and she looked wholly terrified before I remembered myself and reached up to cup her face. I kissed even more of her tears away, scattering the kisses across every inch of her face until she had finally relaxed again.

“I love you too, Summer,” I told her, and she released another harsh breath in relief before sinking against me hard as if she were hiding from something. I thought at first that she was merely hugging me and wrapped my own arms around her, but then her body began to shudder. The trembles became jolting, like she was trying to hold in the sobs, before they began to wrench out of her.

It reminded me of the moment after I’d rescued her from Ciaran when she sank into my arms in such utter relief to finally feel so physically safe. Except this was more of an emotional dam that was breaking this time.

Regardless, I understood that she was overwhelmed and held her as tightly as I could until she could get in enough breath to speak again.

“I am so sorry, Sage. I swear I am so happy right now! I’m not sure what is wrong with me!” she sobbed, but I merely squeezed her tighter.

“It’s alright. You feel any way you need to.”

A medley of gratefulness, relief, hope, pain, and fear all stormed through her, but I took in all of it through our bond. Absorbed it. Lived in it with her. Held her through every aching second of it as she evicted it from her heart.

It took many long moments until she finally seemed to have cried out all the sharp pieces of what had shattered, leaving her raw and torn up inside, but also unburdened. We remained quiet for some time while I continued to rub her back, murmuring sweet assurances, until I felt that it might be safe to pull her upright so I could look at her.

Her face was red and blotchy, her eyes bloodshot and swollen from her grief. But there was new softness in her expression. A brittle and raw vulnerability like her heart was wholly exposed to me now.

I could stare at her like that forever. Not because I had any love of seeing her hurt, but because I knew this was a new part of her that no one had ever had before.

“What?” she asked, her ears lowering self-consciously when she saw me staring, but I smiled in reassurance.

“You are beautiful. It makes my chest hurt,” I admitted as I rubbed a hand over my aching centre where my shirt was soaked from her tears. She looked at my hand and then back up at me like she thought I was mad before she began to nibble on her lower lip nervously. I waited.

“Tell me this is different,” she beseeched me finally.

“Different?” I prompted her, not sure what she meant or what she wanted to know exactly.

“From anything you have known before.”

I would have thought that was obvious after all that I had told her in the hot springs, but I did not bring that up now while she was still so raw with emotion. I would tell her how I felt again and again in a hundred different ways if that was what it took for her to understand.

“Of course . I meant it when I told you that I love you,” I assured her with a hint of a teasing smile.

“But you also loved Orlaith,” she insisted, sobering me instantly with the unexpected mention of my ex lover. “You even said you’d always care for her,” she added, lowering her eyes in shame when I blinked at her in further shock. “I am nothing like her. Not soft or kind—”

I grabbed her jaw, reacting much more strongly to her horrible words than I had intended, and I had to instantly soften my grip on her.

“Look at me and listen very carefully,” I advised her, all softness gone as I implored her. “I will not pretend that I have not loved before. Nor that I am so coldhearted and shortsighted as to have purged myself of all the goodness I was privileged to learn before you. I made very careful choices about who was in my life and who I allowed to help shape me. I will not pretend that I am not here with you now, loving you as I do, because of everything that came before. Or that all of it did not make me into the male you say you love.”

I saw the moment she understood. The astonishment in her eyes as she realized what I was telling her.

“As for the other part. I love you. I love absolutely everything about you. Even this snarky mouth that says the worst things about yourself sometimes. But I would not have you any other way, Ornella. Certainly not softer or quieter or lessened . I want you as you are.”

“Sage—”

“And if it is a matter of questioning my commitment, whether I am sure that you are all I will want for the rest of my life, then mark me,” I invited her.

Her objections sputtered out, and her eyes widened at me in shock.

“But I already forced the—”

“On the other side. A mark I want you to leave on me, so there can be no question about how I feel,” I insisted with utter conviction.

She was so shocked that she could not speak at first, but then her eyes fell to the shoulder I offered, and I could see the heat of want in her eyes. The craving to claim me, but this time in a way that meant I truly belonged to her. That I chose to belong to her.

Then hesitation clouded her eyes, and although it made me want to growl in frustration, I waited as patiently as I could for her to share her concerns with me.

“There is something you need to know about me first before I agree to do that.”

“Tell me,” I commanded her immediately, but she was silent for so long I was not sure if she would obey.

“How do you feel about having children?”

She could not have asked a more unexpected question. And after she’d brought up Orlaith, I was suspicious and had to do my best to control a horrified reaction.

“Have you been talking to someone?”

“No?” she answered, looking confused at my concern. “But I need to know whether they are something you will ever want because I… cannot have them. I made sure.”

I stared at her, uncertain where to even begin trying to dissect what she was telling me. What did it mean that she had “made sure” of it? Why would she do that?

“Is it… Are you… Does it change anything for you?” she blurted, fresh tears welling. “Because I would try and reverse it with blood magic if it really meant—”

“Hey,” I broke in, horrified beyond words at what she was about to say. “ No ,” I said sternly, cupping her face.

“No?”

“I never wanted them,” I explained, and she looked at first confused and then doubtful. “Is that shocking?”

“You just… You seem like you would be a good father. And your people seem to value that kind of thing.”

I forced a laugh at her words even when they scraped against something a little tender inside me.

“I am a good uncle , Summer. It is not the same thing. And I have never lived my life according to what others wanted for me. I chose the Wild Hunt before I knew you, and it was with full knowledge at the time that it meant I would never have a family. It is… That was one of the reasons it did not work out with Orlaith,” I admitted.

“She wanted children,” she guessed, and I nodded.

Summer was thoughtful for a moment, mulling over all that I had revealed, before she looked at my shoulder.

“So… does this mean that you would mark me too?” she asked me with the hint of a wicked smile.

I had wanted to ask her about what she revealed about how she had “made sure” she could not have children. But she wholly distracted me with this new suggestion, and it took everything in me not to grab her and sling her to the ground to claim her immediately.

“ Yes ,” I assured her roughly, and she giggled as her fingers threaded into my hair in the most delicious caress.

“Then do it,” she goaded, testing my restraint again.

“I will , but not here. I want to savour it,” I assured her, gritting my teeth against the impulse of her touch.

I could see it in her eyes when they dipped to my lips. She was asking herself if she wanted to take things all the way with me. And I could hardly breathe through my own impatience and anticipation for her.

“We should go back to the hot springs and—”

She stopped at the same time the hair on the back of my neck rose. My skin prickled in revulsion, the very air around us swelling with an awful dread that made me ill. Even the vargr had stopped grooming one another and whined at us with their ears erect and trembling slightly.

“What the fuck was that?” Summer hissed, breaking into my distraction, and I lifted her with me as I stood.

“It felt like something fractured,” I murmured, all my senses on high alert, but I could not perceive anything more than dread. The world was eerily silent, and yet it felt like there was something awful rushing toward us…

That was when we heard the screams at the camp.

“We have to go!” I urged my anam and our vargr, summoning my armour on my mate as I formed a portal. She tried to protest against it, but I ignored her.

What is happening? I thought to my brothers, but none of them seemed to have any answers yet either.

Summer and I stepped into the middle of the frantic camp where there were portals of every kind open while Spring Court fey ran through them. We narrowly missed being run over by a Carnauch Troll who came tromping through one gate, swinging part of a tree and knocking over orcs and tents as the creature fled in horror.

“What the fuck are they all doing here in Autumn?” cried my mate, but I did not answer her. I stared around at the chaos. At the fey all screaming, crying, and vomiting on the ground as I tried to find one that seemed coherent enough to speak to us.

“Hey!” I said to a selkie, grabbing her when she nearly stumbled to the ground. “What happened?” I demanded.

“He did it,” she wailed. “Balor abandoned us along with all his people! The Spring Court is lost. It is lost !”

Horror and disgust consumed me just before I heard Rian summon the Wild Hunt to ride for the Vale.