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Chapter twenty-six

Aidan wasn’t gentle. If he had been, Rae would have stopped this madness.

His kiss was bruising, punishing, lips devouring hers, tongue sweeping in, not a moment of it tentative or tender.

It was exactly what she wanted, needed from him.

To get this out of her system. That was what she told herself as he backed her up against the workbench, one hand fisting in her hair and yanking her head back so he could continue claiming her mouth.

Everything about the way he moved, held her, kissed her, told her he knew exactly what she wanted.

For two days she’d avoided him, holing herself up in her studio. Two fucking days to think of the way he’d looked at her at the rutok kennel. She didn’t care, she told herself, if it was because of what he was. Only that she was tired of chasing her relief with her hand or her vibrator.

His eyes were molten silver, half-lidded and full of lust, of need as he pulled back to crush her hips against him, achingly hard and thick against his trousers.

Her hips moved with his, legs curling around him as he lifted her onto her bench.

Rae fumbled with the buckle of his belt to free him, but Aidan caught her hands, pinning her wrists together with one of his.

He slid her further back onto the workbench, tools falling and shattering across the floor.

“You’ll be replacing that,” she told him between breaths, his free hand like a brand along the bare skin of her thigh, tracing higher, higher.

A dark chuckle rumbled through him. “Maybe I should fuck that mouth of yours instead.”

A retort rose up, but she had long since shredded through the last of her resolve, everything she felt dancing along her skin, and she was past the point of trying to keep it under wraps.

Even if she’d been able to hide her lust, there was no hiding the scent of her desire from him, the liquid heat pooling between her thighs so close to where his fingers teased her flesh.

His hand cupped her wet centre, flipping her around and pinning her against the bench, an appraising sound rumbling in his chest where it pressed against her back, his other hand pulling her skirt up to her waist.

“Fuck, Farren,” he breathed into her neck, fingers teasing for a second longer, the thick, hard length of him pressed up against her ass. He pulled back to roll her underwear down, hands tracing her thighs, his breath hot against her legs, and Rae shivered with anticipation.

His belt fell to the floor, the zip of his fly sliding down, and with one hand, Aidan pushed Rae flat against the bench.

She panted breathlessly, every nerve ending alight as he pulled her ass high in the air, the hand that pressed her down caressing her spine, the tip of him brushing her entrance, and then he paused.

“Don’t go soft on me now, Vale,” Rae snapped, her body shivering beneath his featherlight touch.

He didn’t. There was no hesitation as he slammed himself in to the hilt, a hiss of air leaving them both as he pulled back and thrust again. Rae pushed against him as his hand fisted in her hair, arching her back towards him, his other hand at her throat, his hips never slowing.

Every sense, every nerve was overwhelmingly filled with him, his sandalwood and leather scent, his weight, his warmth, every deep thrust inside her, filling her almost to the point of pain as she panted against his grip, his own breaths short and sharp against the shell of her ear.

She’d expected to feel the scrape of his canines against her flesh, swallowing down her disappointment when they never came.

Her eyes fluttered shut at the feel of him, the fullness, the ecstasy building and building inside her.

She leaned away from him, bending further across the desk, biting back a cry at how the angle made him hit even deeper.

Pleasure tightened every muscle, but Rae would be damned if she’d give him the satisfaction of making her fall apart around him so easily.

“Is that all you’ve got?” she rasped against the desk, the force of his thrusts and the size of him lighting her up from the inside.

Aidan made a feral sound, pulling Rae up to her feet and turning her around to face him with one hand hooked around her waist, the other gripping under her knee to wrap her around him.

“Eyes on me, Witch,” he commanded before thrusting into her again.

His mouth was on hers, one hand slipping between them to touch her, fingers working her with just the right speed, just the right pressure—

“Fuck,” Rae breathed, her orgasm hitting her hard and fast, everything squeezing tighter around him as it shook through her.

Beautiful , Aidan murmured in her thoughts, or he might have said it out loud, or maybe he didn’t say it at all.

Rae wasn’t sure, her thoughts fractured and scattered, her heart hammering in her chest. His fingers slowed but didn’t stop, his hips maintaining their rhythm until the aftershocks diminished and Rae half gasped, half whimpered into his mouth.

For more or for him to stop, she didn’t fucking know, only that she wanted to chase this feeling again and again.

And only then did his thrusts quicken, his own release following, one hand tangling in her hair as he spilled into her, the other gripping her thigh tight enough to leave a bruise.

Rae’s head fell against his heaving chest as she caught her breath, breathing him in for a moment as his grip softened and his own breathing slowed.

Realisation swept over her far too quickly for Rae to smother it down, and as Aidan eased out of her, hands reaching to pull her skirt down, she pushed them away, smoothing the fabric herself.

“This changes nothing, Vampire,” she said a little too breathlessly, her voice lacking the conviction she’d hoped for. Aidan merely hummed, his eyes roving over her face, a glimmer of softness in them gone so quickly she thought she might have mistaken it.

“Next time, you don’t have to lure me up here by setting fire to my home,” he said dryly as he fixed his own clothing, taking a step back as if he were giving her space. Rae didn’t let herself latch onto the way his mouth tipped up at the corner, the way she wanted to kiss him again already.

“There won’t be a next time,” she told him, turning to take in the mess of tools that had fallen to the floor around them, locking down everything she felt so he wouldn’t.

Aidan took a step closer, his breath dancing along her neck as he said, “Keep telling yourself that when you touch yourself in your room.” Rae’s eyes snapped to Aidan’s at that, willing herself not to remember what it had felt like to be pressed flat beneath his weight as she looked up at him over her shoulder.

A knowing smile tugged at his mouth, his eyes darting to her lips and back up again.

“Like I told you, Farren, I can feel every space you occupy in this house, everything you touch.”

She spun to face him, anger flaring at his words as she shoved at his chest. “Like I told you , Vampire.” Stay out of my fucking head.

Aidan chuckled. We leave in an hour.

Two hours and a very long, very cold shower later, Rae sat beside Aidan on the way to meet what was left of the council. The shower hadn’t been enough. She’d hoped sleeping with him once would be enough to get him out of her head, but she fought to keep a lid on her desire-addled thoughts.

Something told her they could fuck for days and she’d still want more.

It had been hard and fast, just the right side of painful to chase the pleasure, but he’d made it her choice, her decision.

She frowned at the memory of him gently easing her skirt down, and that was the only part of it she didn’t know how to deal with.

She wanted his anger, his irritation. It was easier to fight him than it was to like him.

Safer. He’d showered too, the ends of his hair still wet, tight waves she wanted to drag her fingers through.

Rae swallowed. “Witch magic is complicated,” she said, studying the line of his jaw and trying to remember every Goddess-damned reason why she hated his kind. Hated him.

His grip tightened on the wheel. Good. Let him believe it was a lie. Let him be angry. “Complicated,” he echoed, waiting for her to continue.

“It needs directions, paths to follow, places it can be pulled from. It’s like a web over everything, connecting everything and everyone together.” She waved a hand through the air as if she could see every invisible strand before her. “Some spells… they’re slower than others, more complex.”

She heard Cillian’s voice in her thoughts as she said the words, words he’d told her when he’d first started teaching her. Before she’d met him, she’d been taught to believe magic was separate from her, something to be called on, handled. Commanded.

But Rae’s lack of command had been the reason her mother had beaten her so many times; it had been half the reason she’d left.

If she couldn’t control it, she was a danger, not just to herself, but to those around her.

And whilst she’d had no love for her mother, Rae had been desperate to protect her younger brother from her ineptitude.

“So what you’re saying is, you need more time.” Aidan pulled up outside a warehouse that looked a lot like one of her suppliers’. Irritation tightened his words, a muscle feathering in his jaw as he turned to look at her.

“I’m doing everything I can,” she told him, holding her head high, daring him to argue with her when she knew how desperately he wanted his abilities back.

“We want the same thing, Vale.” Not entirely.

He wanted answers about the testing, but Nim meant nothing to him.

Whether she lived or died wasn’t likely something he’d lose sleep over, but the Witch meant everything to her.

Aidan’s eyes darted to her mouth, and he shifted in his seat, a rumble of acknowledgement sounding from him. “Don’t wander off tonight. Cormac’s place is a maze down there.”

“Down?” Rae’s skin pebbled, a memory stealing her breath, but Aidan had already left the car. He came around to her side, opened the door, and frowned down at her, waiting.

More memories threatened to push to the surface, to pin her to her seat, but then two more cars pulled up beside theirs and Rae cleared her throat. She took Aidan’s outstretched hand, his fingers lacing through hers, and glanced up at him, her brow pinched in confusion.

Play nice, Witch. His lips twitched in an almost smile, but she could see the concern in his eyes as they flicked between hers.

Don’t I always?

A flare of warmth followed her reply, but this time Rae didn’t snap at him. This time she was grateful for his presence beside her, the weight of his hand in hers.

Lock it down, Farren, I’ll be right beside you all night . His thumb rubbed against the back of her hand, fingers squeezing once.

She didn’t answer him. He was right; she needed to smother her fear and push it down deep before the other Providents could sniff it out. Her mother’s punishments were varied, rarely the same reprimand delivered twice in a row.

By far the worst Rae had endured, and the last, was when her mother had locked her in their basement for four days, soaking wet from another near drowning, freezing cold and afraid.

No food or water. No air. No light. It was why she’d chosen to use the name Rae after she’d left.

So that she could be her own light, a reminder that only she could pull herself out of the dark.

It had been the first time she’d opened a lock with a spell, the first time she’d understood what it meant to have control of her magic. What it meant for her.

“My lord.” Orion approached them, his stern face cast in the harsh lights from the building’s facade, his black uniform showing off his muscled physique.

“Units Three and Five are surrounding us. Baelin’s cameras are feeding to your PADs,” the Vampire explained, smoky blue eyes darting between them both, talking to Rae with as much respect as he did Aidan.

They’d spoken very little, but she knew he’d been good to Baelin, to Reed, his high regard for Aidan obvious in his every movement.

The Vampire Lord had surrounded himself with a tight circle of Vampires, and at first, Rae had thought it was an arrogant abuse of his position, a way to assert himself as the new Lord after murdering his uncle.

But she realised now, perhaps even the night of the explosion at the facility, they weren’t with him because he commanded it.

They were there because they chose to be.

“Good work,” Aidan said at her side. “Let’s get this over with.”

Rae crushed her last tendrils of fear as she stepped into the warehouse, pulling strength from the way Aidan’s body pressed close to hers and prepared herself for the descent into the dark.