Page 77

A while later, I tried reading. It didn’t help, so I picked up a blank scroll and I started to write. What the seer said. What Lyall said. What the Seelie Queen said, too.

And Rune. I wrote about Rune, and still the seconds crawled just like before.

It was a very long night, indeed.

I didn’t hear the door opening. I didn’t hear a single sound that would pull me out of sleep, yet my eyes opened all the same, and I knew he was here in the room with me. I knew it as clearly as I saw the weak sunlight chasing the night away beyond the windows at the side of the bed I slept in.

Rune.

With my heart in my throat, I sat up, wide awake within the second—and there he was.

Clean, his hair wet, his clothes untorn and without a speck of dirt on them.

He looked like a ghost in the dark room that was slowly lighting up with the rising sun, and I found myself praying, begging whoever would hear that he was real.

Then he came closer while shadows slipped out of his hands and moved to each corner of the doors, locking us in. He strode over to me like a man desperate, and I waited with my heart in my throat and my unblinking eyes on him.

He came to the bed, then crawled on it on all fours, stalked toward me with those wide dark eyes locked on mine.

Please, please, please be real…

My hands moved when he was close enough, and I touched his smooth cheeks, pushed strands of his wet hair away from his eyes.

His eyes. And his hair and his scent and his feel—Rune was real.

“You came back,” I whispered, but Rune didn’t make a single sound.

Instead, he leaned closer and pressed his lips to mine.

I let go of every bit of weight I’d been carrying on my shoulders, closed my eyes, and surrendered to him wholly. It was as easy as breathing to me.

Our kiss was slow at first. Desperate.

I pushed the cover off and rose to my knees, and he did the same. The nightgown I wore was similar to the one I had on when we met in the throne room that night, so when his hands moved down my neck and to my waist, I felt it all as if on naked skin.

God, I’d missed him so much it could be funny. I lived on his lips. The way he erased everything—the entire fucking world and all that was in it—was the realest, truest magic I had ever experienced.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him closer, sucked his lips in my mouth, pulled him down on the bed.

I needed to feel every inch of him against every inch of me, and Rune didn’t hesitate.

I fell back on the pillow and he lowered down with me, never breaking the kiss, though he was still on all fours.

We kissed like we needed to remember exactly how we felt when we were like this. Like it was the first and last time all rolled into one.

He kissed my face, the side of my neck and my collarbone. I whispered his name, completely delirious already, so high on the feel of him my panties were soaking wet.

“Rune, please,” I begged, trying to reach the button of his pants, to take him in my hands.

He growled low in his throat, kissing down my chin, bringing a hand to touch my breasts over the nightgown furiously.

“ Mine,” he said in that deep voice of his that my ears adored. He rose on his knees, looked down at my body with bloodshot eyes for a moment, touching me, digging his fingers into my ribs, into my hips, analyzing me like he was seeing me for the first time.

When he had enough, he gripped the V-neck of the nightgown and tore it all the way down.

A cross between a moan and a scream left my lips as Rune pushed the pieces of fabric to the sides to reveal my body, then continued to touch my naked skin with the same passion.

“You’re mine, wilding,” he said. “In life and in death, you’re mine.”

“Yes, ” I breathed, my eyes rolling in my skull when his thumb pressed on my clit over the panties, and he touched me like only he knew how.

Not for long, though. He was impatient, it seemed, because a few seconds in, he hooked his fingers on the sides of the panties, too, and ripped them to pieces with ease.

God, just the sound of it was so damn sexy that I screamed out his name again.

His fingers were inside me, pressing into me with just the right amount of pressure as he leaned down and kissed every part of me he could reach.

Tasted my skin like it was his medicine.

Like it kept him alive. And when he finally reached my clit with his mouth, he didn’t take his fingers out of me at all.

His tongue pressed on my wet folds brought me to the brink embarrassingly fast. His hair was in my fists and I rode his mouth and his fingers until I was on the very top of the world, looking down from the clouds. His name was on my lips and I chanted it like a fucking prayer.

It all happened so fast yet I felt every little detail as if for hours and committed it to memory. The way this man could play my body should have been a sin .

And when I was done riding the high, Rune didn’t come up until he licked me clean, slowly, taking his time, savoring the taste of me.

I whispered his name with every breath I took until he came up, kissing every inch of me again, then stopping there, his lips over my heart, like he wanted to kiss every beat.

“Did you feel that, Wildcat?” he whispered, his mouth still on my chest as he pushed his pants down his hips, and I unbuttoned his shirt with shaking hands.

“Yes,” I breathed, still full with the aftermath of the pleasure but so fucking ready for more.

“That’s what it feels like when a man worships,” he said, kissing the tip of my chin, then my lips.

A lazy smile spread my lips and my toes curled. “Looks like I’ve got a true believer in my bed,” I breathed, taking in his eyes, the spark in them, those silver lines. He was absolutely beautiful.

“You do. My faith is unwavering,” he said with a devilish grin that made me fucking melt.

“Fuck, Rune, you feel incredible,” I admitted, pushing his shirt down his shoulders, touching his smooth skin, the curves of his arms.

“Not as incredible as you taste, wilding. You were made for me.” He kissed the breath out of me. “I could eat you for days…”

Oh, God. “Rune, if someone comes?—”

“Let them.” He cut me off, grabbing my bottom lip between his teeth, sucking on it as he grabbed his hard cock in his hand and teased my clit with the tip of him.

Fucking hell, I loved when he got like this. It was different than usual, but at the same time so completely Rune .

“Let them come. I don’t care if the entire court burns— just say my name like that again,” he said and pushed himself inside me halfway.

I moaned, my hips rising to meet him automatically, and he felt even better than I remembered.

“God, Rune,” I choked, grabbing his face in my hands, lips parted as his tongue devoured me. He thrust his hips and came inside me deeper, and not just my mouth but every cell in me called out his name.

“That’s it, wildling. That’s it,” he said, teasing me, moving a little faster, a little deeper each time, that smile still on his face.

“Don’t fucking stop,” I said and kissed him with all of me.

He growled like an animal, fell on top of me all the way and chased the air out of my lungs, buried his cock all the way inside me.

Heaven. It was heaven.

My limbs locked around him tightly— mine, mine, he’s all mine.

Rune stayed there, moaning that perfect sound right into my ear, pushing himself deeper, easing himself in. Like that, I felt all of him, every little inch pulsating inside me.

Then Rune raised his head a little until we were face to face, lips touching, eyes locked.

“The way you got under my skin so fast,” he whispered, licking my lips slowly. “You’re in my blood, Nilah. You’re in my bones now. I couldn’t live without this.” His every word was full . Honest. Coming from his heart.

“You never have to,” I breathed. “Not ever. I’m with you to the end.” And that was a promise.

He heard it just fine because he knew me just like I knew him. And the next time he kissed me, it was slow and rough at the same time .

Our bodies knew how to move, how to pick the perfect rhythm, how to come undone together. Feeling him sliding in and out of me, whispering praise, kissing me like I really was his everything felt like the world was going to end soon—and we could build a new one right after.

We merged together, became one, touched the stars with our bare hands—and most importantly, we fell in each other’s arms again, whole.

The pieces of my nightgown and my panties ended up on the floor.

We were tangled in one another, lying in the middle of the bed by the time the sun rose fully in the sky.

I touched his face, played with his hair, and he kissed inside my wrist, right over my pulse.

A lazy, lingering kiss that made my lips jealous.

“What happened to you, Rune?” I asked eventually because the dreaded I-have-to-go-now loomed right over my head, and I couldn’t stand the pressure.

“I did it,” he whispered.

“You did what?”

He leaned back and looked at me. “I broke the seal.”

My stomach fell all the way to my heels. I froze in place when Rune let go of me and sat up, and in the sunlight, I could clearly see the tattoo that marked his neck, his shoulder, and his back, except…it wasn’t the same.

My God, the tattoo had changed, and I hadn’t even noticed when I took his shirt off. Half the shapes and the curves and the ink were gone now, disappeared, and they’d left no trace behind like they’d never even been there to begin with.

“Rune,” I choked, unsure of what to even think .

“It’s okay, wilding. Breathe,” he said, and he was right to look concerned because I was fucking panicking.

“But…but…Raja,” I choked because if someone had done this to him, it would have been her. There was nobody else in the world he’d trust.

“She’s okay, too,” he said with a soft smile, trailing his fingertips down the curve of my cheek.

“I stole the bones from the giant I killed. They were dragon bones, better at storing and amplifying magic than any gemstone. Raja broke the seal and she’s okay.

She didn’t die. She was only wounded, but she’s recovering well. ”

I swallowed hard, pushing myself to sit up, grabbed his face in my hands. “That’s…that was…” dangerous, I was going to say.

“Necessary,” Rune said instead. “I’m going to make sure you’re safe one way or the other, Wildcat. We just have to endure tonight.”

Wrapping my arms around his neck, I climbed on his lap and kissed him and hugged him, and I was crying even before I realized it. They were both happy tears and sad tears, and I was a mess a minute in, but it was okay.

Rune calmed me down eventually, and when he smiled, I smiled.

“We’re going to get out of here soon,” he promised me, and I believed him.

My God, I really believed him.

“We’re going to be okay.”

He nodded. “We will.”

His eyes. His entire face. “Rune?” My voice cracked. “I love you.”

The words snuck out of my lips like they were being chased, like if they didn’t come out of me this very moment, they never would again .

I held my breath, held onto his shoulders, and I waited with my heart in my throat…

Rune closed his eyes and every muscle in his body tightened. “Then I really am a lucky bastard,” he whispered and slammed his lips to mine.

He kissed me like it was the first time. He devoured me, crushed me to his chest until I felt all of him, until I couldn’t tell which heartbeat belonged to me, and which to him.

He lay us down again and eventually slowed the kiss. Eventually let go of me and leaned back, smiling as he looked at me—a brand new Rune. Like those words had unlocked him.

“I love you, my beautiful wilding. And I’m well aware that I am not worthy of you, but if you let me, I will spend the rest of my life trying to become the man you deserve.”

Fireworks exploded in my chest, in my mind, and I understood perfectly well why he looked so new.

It was exactly how I felt, too. Like all the worlds that ever existed and would ever exist were mine to claim.

“It’s happening. It’s finally happening. We really are going to Earth.” I was going back home—and with Rune.

There was absolutely nothing I could think of that was better than this, especially when he looked exactly like the image that mist over the river in the Illusion Game had shown me.

Carefree. Happy. Mine forever.

“We will. We can go and do anything you want just as soon as we’re away from here.”

My poor heart almost flew right out of me.

I nodded, touched his cheek, his lips. “There’s so much I need to talk to you about,” I whispered.

“And I with you—but there is no time. I have to go now before he comes looking for me. I have to keep up this game until the ceremony is over tonight.”

These words he spit angrily.

“Did he…was Lyall the one?—”

“Yes,” Rune said, sparing me the question. “He orchestrated the whole thing. He ordered his soldiers to push me into the Hollow before it closed.”

I swallowed the lump that formed in my throat. “Because of me.” That’s why he’d tried to get rid of Rune. Because of me .

“Yes. He wanted you for himself. He thought you’d be too afraid to do the unbinding ceremony if I died.

He knows there’s something about you, and he’s dying to figure it out.

He really wanted you to stay,” Rune whispered, and his lips curled into a small smile.

“Then you went and showed him how little he knows you.”

“I saw the bird you sent me. If it wasn’t for it, I’d have thought…” Again, I couldn’t say it.

“I know, Wildcat. It’s almost over,” he whispered, kissing my hand.

“Almost over.”

We stayed there in each other’s arms for a little while longer, and we came to terms with the fact that everything we still wanted to say to one another had to wait.

I didn’t mind, though. Not now. Not when we’d already said the most important thing we would ever utter out loud to one another.

Everything else came second.

So, when he put his clothes on and kissed me for the last time, I smiled. When he slipped out the door with a wink on his gorgeous face, I blew him a kiss.

Tomorrow, our new life would begin.