Page 37

Thea

A s promised, Hector returned an hour before dinner. Without so much as a word, he sailed up to his study and spent a minute or so shuffling through the drawers of his desk while I lingered by the door, curious, confused, and a little frustrated.

“So what was the meeting about?” I asked.

At last, he bent over his desk and signed at the bottom of a mysterious document. His hands were steady, full of conviction as he folded the paper down the middle and slipped it inside an envelope. Then, with a short exhale, he leaned against the edge of the desk and finally met my gaze.

“I think we should move,” he announced.

My bewilderment peaked. “The Castle?”

“Ourselves. To Thaloria. So you can finish your studies, and I can fix whatever damage Arawn has done there. I’ll assume his duties and appoint someone new Lord of Lumia. Roan, most likely. He and Tieran certainly deserve the honor.” He glanced over his shoulder at the still unsealed envelope atop his desk. “A property I’ve wished to acquire in the past has become available.”

“A property,” I echoed, unsurpassably dumbfounded.

“A cottage,” he clarified. “Like the one we always talked about. It only has three bedrooms, but the garden is beautiful, and it is a short hour from the Academy. A mere minute if I were to get you there.”

I felt my insides clutch in dismay as I began to understand what he was actually saying. “But the Castle…”

“I think it’s time the Castle became something else.”

“Hector,” I sighed, stumbling into the room, “I know you’re in pain, I’m in pain too, but we cannot abandon the Castle.”

Hector, to my further astonishment, laughed . I’d almost forgotten the sound of it. Rich and low and a little rough, like the rustle of autumn leaves.

“Of course we won’t abandon it.” Closing the distance, he cupped my face with his palms. “The Castle will always, always be with us, wherever that might be. But the Castle is also a sacred space. A place of knowledge, of magic and wisdom, and I think we should share that with the world. It taught my mother everything she needed to learn. It showed her a world of infinite possibility. And it can do that for others too. Not just creatures of the night but anyone who feels just as alone and lost as she felt when she found it.”

Perhaps it was the beauty of his vision, the hopefulness of his smile, or his warm fingers tracing gentle lines over my cheeks, but suddenly, all of my worries dissolved like mist in the sun. I felt polished, green as new grass. To this day, I still believe having a purpose is one of the greatest blessings of life.

I wrapped my arms around his waist, yearning for his closeness. “A school.”

“A sanctuary.”

“You will teach, like you’ve always wanted.”

“I will… assist. When my assistance is required.”

“Perhaps the Queen will make me one of her emissaries.”

“Emissary?” Hector challenged. “With your magical talent, you can become the most fearsome and sought-after seer in the history of the Asteria Realm. Temples will be raised in your honor. I will make sure of it.”

I chuckled, holding the starry image of the Castle’s heart in my mind. I pictured it pulsing wildly, reshaping and reforming itself. “And the Castle will never be alone again.”

Hector’s smile was brighter than my hope. “Exactly.”

I got on my toes, dangling my lips a breath from his. “I can’t believe you arranged all of this behind my back. I don’t know if I ought to be impressed or mad at you.”

He shook his head. “I just didn’t want to overwhelm you. I’ve been so absent these past few weeks…”

“You were grieving. You needed time.”

“You were grieving too, and I made you worry, and I hate myself for it. From now on, I’ll take care of everything, okay?” he said, pressing a tiny kiss at the tip of my nose.

I let my fingers wander up the valley of his back until I was met with resistance, my wristlet tangling on one of the two buttons that cinched the waist of his coat. It surprised me. I’d grown so used to wearing it, I had stopped feeling its weight.

As I drew back, my eyes slipped to Hector’s wrist. His coat sleeves were set perfectly at the top of his hands, so I couldn’t see if he was still wearing his.

“I should probably take it off now,” I murmured, running a finger along the cool, glossy band and feeling stupidly disheartened at the thought of being separated from it.

Hector hooked two fingers under my chin, tilting up my head. He had that look on his face. That dark, sleepy-eyed look he always had when he was on the cusp of kissing me. “Don’t take it off,” he whispered, lowering his mouth to my jaw. My heart exploded as I waited for the sweet shock of his lips on mine. “In fact, it’s the only thing I don’t want you to take off.”

He whirled us around, and the backs of my thighs pressed against the edge of the desk, his hands roaming over my body with the same urgency and sparkle of discovery as the first time we touched. Every squeeze, every trace, every tug sent a new pang of want through me, making my fingers shake as they tore over his coat. I wanted nothing between us. No clothes. No space. Not even air. Except for the one he breathed into me as he caught my lips with his. Quick, messy kisses dotted over my mouth, my jaw, my throat, all while his hands worked through the layers of my clothes until I felt the living warmth of the room dancing across my bare shoulders.

He let my dress fall down my hips but did not relieve me of my underclothes. Instead, he pressed closer, molding his body to mine, his fingers in my hair keeping my neck wide open. His kisses fell over me like stars, hot and dazzling.

When he found the hem of my chemise, he did not lift it up but let his hand slip under to trace the edge of my undergarment. For a few tantalizing moments, the sensation of the silky fabric gliding down my damp thighs was the only thing I knew. I was still. Breathless. Brimmed with anticipation. Then the liquid fire of his touch knocked me off balance. We fell back against the desk. He stepped between my parted knees, bracing his palms on the wooden surface around my thighs.

“Do you want to slow down?” he asked, breathing hard in that tiny sliver of space from his mouth to mine.

My legs inched up the sides of his hips and nudged him closer so I could feel the heaviness of his hardness against the melting softness of my body. “Not unless you want to.”

He nearly laughed. “If you only knew how much I want this. How much I need you.” His mouth descended over the base of my throat, and his fangs scraped my skin, then soothed it over with the slow lapping of his tongue. “Only when I’m with you do I recognize myself. Only when you touch me do I no longer wonder where I belong. I know I’m yours and yours alone.”

Moon-struck, I cupped his face and echoed, “Yours and yours alone.”

The words were cast like a spell—a spell that had him instantly undone, lifting me up in his arms and dashing out of the room. The world around us spun into a whirlwind of colors before he put me down on my feet again, my windblown chemise swishing around my ankles.

The bedroom was warm and dark save for the few streaks of moonlight shining through the window. It was a spring moon. Full and pink. I would never forget it.

When my eyes darted to the bed, the most unexpected prickle of fear mixed with my desire. Not of him, but of the moment itself. We waited so long for this. Suddenly, I was terrified to ruin it.

“Now?” I asked, anxious and at the same time shaking with eagerness.

Hector began unlacing the collar of his shirt, and as his eyes held mine, my desire grew stronger than my apprehension. I realized how silly it was to be afraid of making love to him. He and I made love every time our eyes touched.

“Now would be preferable,” he said, letting the garment fall to the floor, “but as always, I’m open to your schedule.”

Emboldened, I went to help him with his trousers. “Such an obliging friend you are, Lord Aventine.”

He wound an arm around my waist, and I went spinning, my back colliding with his chest. I let my head fall against the curve of his shoulder and felt his fingers dance between my thighs. “Do you get this wet for all of your friends , Lady Aventine?”

“You’re special,” I sighed. “Despite your foul mouth.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he drawled. “Please, allow me to put my mouth to better use.”

His hands dipped low on my waist, and my feet were in the air again. He carried me to the bed, then stripped out of the last of his clothes. I waited for him, open like a dayflower in the sun, but he hesitated by the bedpost as if he too was harboring a sprout of nervousness.

Standing there, fully undressed, he looked ethereal, verging on divine. The silver beams illuminated his body alone—the crescents of his arms, the sculpted valley of his chest and abdomen, the base of his hardness. The rest was shadow. The only thing I could make of his face was the otherworldly gleam of his eyes, watching me, wanting me with the passion of a god, something ancient and immortal. Something that could remain in this state of burning worship forever.

He climbed onto the bed with his unmatched grace, bringing his body over mine. His fingers skimmed my ankles, taking the hem of my chemise with them. Up my calves, my knees, my damp thighs. Up my waist and over my head until we both lay the same. Naked, moonlit, and yielding with desire.

He braced one hand on the bed next to my head, and with the other took mine and guided it to his chest. “I think my heart is going to break,” he murmured.

Breathless, I mirrored the motion, nudging his hand to my galloping breastbone. “I know what you mean.”

His fingers escaped mine, restless, curious. He traced every line and curve of my breasts only to rediscover them with his mouth a moment later. He kissed me low, and lower, and at the first hot sweep of his tongue between my thighs, I was lost. I was sensation only. Wet. Taut. Ecstatic. Something tightened and expanded inside me. Something gathered and built.

“Please,” I whimpered.

With a flick of his tongue, he glanced up. “Please what?”

“More.”

“More of this? Or more of me?”

“You.”

He hummed against my skin in an almost thoughtful manner. My eyes opened, searching for him, but he was a mere shadow in the dim. “I want you to say it,” he said. I felt his unsteady breath against my skin as he uttered these words. I felt the longing in them. I felt everything he felt.

“I want you,” I breathed out. “Always. Forever.”

He crawled over me, peppering my skin with kisses along the way, until his body covered mine completely. Finally, his hands fell on either side of my face. I could see him perfectly now. The way the moonlight fitted the line of his cheek. The way his eyes had grown fully black with only the tiniest glimpses of gold peering through the darkness.

The muscles of his abdomen pulled taut as my hands slid down his sides. I wrapped my fingers around him and felt him stir, ripen. His skin was petal-soft, his eyelids were silver, his scent like rain and thunder. I stroked him over and over until I found the exact rhythm he liked. Then I just watched his pleasure, his breath quickening, his lips parting for a hoarse cry. He shifted his hips, pressing himself further into my palm. I shuddered, imagining it was me he was thrusting into, and as though he read my mind, he replaced my hand with his and stroked himself against me, spreading my wetness up and down his length.

We went on like this, making each other half-insane until the wait became unbearable. Before we knew it, half of him disappeared inside me. My breath hitched at the sudden fullness, but the rest of me melted down to nothing.

“I’m sorry,” Hector panted, shaking as he tried to keep himself still. “I meant to ask—”

“Don’t stop,” I sighed, locking my ankles behind his back.

A low, inarticulate sound leapt from him. I took it in my body with the same ease I’d taken him. “Yes?”

“Yes.”

He took hold of my thighs and wielded them open and down, down until my knees touched the mattress. The depth of our connection shifted from pleasurable to divine.

That first thrust, that moment of one part intimacy and one part surrender, was a thing of destiny. I knew he did not believe in such things, but gods, there had to be something fateful about the way our bodies connected.

“Hector,” I cried, my eyes falling shut.

We stayed like this for a moment, wonderfully intertwined, our bodies aching with love, our souls a single existence within the tiny universe of the Castle.

“Thea,” he rasped. “Look at us.”

I did. First at us, then at him.

He was in ecstasy. Skin flushed. Mouth open. A droplet of sweat trickling down his brow bone. “Feels good?”

“Good is not a good enough word for this,” I sighed as I pulled my body up so our lips could touch. “But I want…”

“Tell me,” he urged when I lost my breath, his mouth moving right up against mine. “Ask me anything.”

“Tonight, call me Lady Aventine.”

I felt what these words did to him. I felt the last of his restraint slipping. “Lady Aventine,” he whispered as he began to move in earnest. My vision blurred, the cohesion between thought and stimulation tilting. Each hard thrust was like a promise. Lady Aventine. Lady Aventine.

His dark eyes burned suns in my heart. I was filled with light and warmth and pleasure. And in that moment, I knew I would never run away from him again. That for the rest of my life, I would only ever run to him.

It was less of a release than an eruptive second of connection, for it happened at the exact same moment, at the exact same outcry and breath and chant of each other’s names. For a while I only soared, luxuriating in the warm safety of his arms, the sweet pressure of our entangled limbs, until I found my voice again, “Hector?”

He unburied his face from the crook of my neck and gazed down at me in an amorous, acquiescent way. “Yes?”

I tried shifting beneath him, but he was as immovable as a mountain. And still inside me. Still wanting me. “You’re hard.”

“I’m not done with you,” he said, his lips rediscovering the path from my earlobe to my clavicle. “Far from it.”

My body felt tender, rose-petal thin. Still, I arched into his mouth. “But didn’t you just… finish?”

His fangs dragged over my throat as if to remind me that he was no ordinary man. “I know no end to desiring you, Dorothea,” he said, and want rose in my blood once more. “But if you wish me to stop—”

“I said no such thing,” I protested, feeling myself clench around him, pulling him deeper.

In a flash of movement, he flipped me onto my stomach. I gasped into the pillow as he lowered his body to mine. The pressure of his chest against my back was the most wonderful weight I’d felt in my life. I never wanted to be relieved by it.

Slowly, he brushed the mass of my curls to the side, then guided my arms up, letting them stretch over my head and under the pillows until my fingers touched the intricate carvings of the headboard. “Hold on to this,” he hummed, dragging tingles along my spine, first with his fingers, then with his lips. I heard his breath turn labored as his mouth found the nape of my neck, his kisses growing desperate.

I know no end to desiring you, Dorothea. He’d ruined me with these words. Now, all I could think about was the enormity of his desire. How much I wanted to explore it. How much I wanted to challenge it.

“Do you want to bite me?” I asked.

A rough sound rumbled deep in his throat. I felt his fangs drawing nearer. “Do you want me to bite you?”

I recalled what it’d felt like to have that single drop of venom in my body. How it had trickled through my veins and grown into an ocean of the most ineffable euphoria. I couldn’t help but wonder how it would feel to have both him and his venom inside me at the same time.

“Will you draw blood?” I asked.

Hector shifted his weight so we could look at each other. “I will never drink from you.”

“Why not?”

“Because I want you to always know that I love you for you and not your blood.”

We were still for a moment, basking in that living silence. I wondered if in his mind he could only see me now, the way I could only see him.

“You know I love you too, right?” I said.

I heard the smile in his voice before his lips formed it. “I know. But it’s nice to hear it every now and then.”

He slipped over me again, parting my thighs with his knees before angling his hips in a way that allowed me to feel the full weight of his hardness as it slipped back inside me.

My breath split into a moan, my fingers curling into the carvings of the headboard. He kept me pinned under him for a torturously long moment without doing anything at all but feeling me feel him. “I will ask you again,” he rasped. His hand threaded through my hair and pulled back my head, making me moan from the sudden shock of pleasure. “Do you want me to bite you?”

“Yes,” I relented. “Please. Yes.”

I had the urge to bury my face in the pillows, to hide the vastness of my desire from him, but his fingers were firm on the underside of my jaw. He bent me further back until my neck was completely open to him. “Close your eyes,” he whispered. “Let go. I got you.”

Thrill and a comfortable sense of surrender buzzed through me. I felt safe and reassured as his mouth clamped down on that tenderest spot. The prickle of his fangs was swift, but the influence of his venom was swifter, sparkling like magic in my blood.

I could only recall one other moment of my life in which I’d felt such effortless, wondrous abandon. I was twelve years old and lost in an enchanted forest, but I was not afraid, for a girl lost in the woods was a feral, fearsome creature. I wandered around for a while until I stumbled upon a shrub of red roses. How magnificent they were in size and color amid the dark witchery of the changed autumn trees. I could not resist them. I bent over the shrub and tried to pluck one out only for the thorns to clutch my cloak and sting my unprotected hands. I was trapped and started to panic until a boy appeared—pale, strange, pretty as a star. He grumbled something about my carelessness, but I did not listen. Above, the clouds released the sun, and the forest was bathed in the most ethereal yellow light. Everything sparkled. Everything opened. My heart was filled with uncanny joy for how beautiful the world was, how simple and magical and unexpected.

Only the sun had ever come this close to bringing me such bliss. Only the sun.