Page 26 of A Story of Mates and Temptation

“You sure?” he asks. Like he needs to hear me say it. Hear me confirm my choices.

“Husband, there was never a moment I wasn’t sure about us.” We press our hands together at the same time, our blood mixing, and in that moment, something feral takes over him.

He pulls me to him in a way that screams mine. There is nothing short of a passionate kiss as his lips devour me, as he digs his hands into my hair—not roughly, not enough to hurt me, but enough to show me that I’m his, that I’ve always been his. I couldn’t be more certain of anything else in the world, other than I love him. If this world is going down in flames and blood, I will be at his side. Ziven pushes me down on the bed, kneelingbetween my legs as I watch him. Without saying a word, without even touching me right now, the way he looks at my body sets me alight. He slowly undoes the buttons of his shirt, too slowly for my liking. But there’s a smirk on his perfect lips, a smirk that tells me he knows exactly what he’s doing, as he does each and every button, my heart racing at the darkness of his eyes, the way he looks down at me, at the outline of him that I can see in his trousers. His moon ear piercings catch the light of the flames from the fire, but throughout the smoke, all I can smell is his scent. The oakwood and moss, mixed with the scent of a rider. Fire. It makes every drop of my blood buzz for him. I want to touch his soft, short dark hair and the shadow of a beard growing through, which makes him look slightly older in looks, at least. Are the fae from the mansion aging now? I assume so, and it means we could grow old together in this world and die in it too. As long as he is with me, death doesn’t scare me one bit.

Watching him as he pulls off his shirt is devilish, his chest is not soft anywhere. In fact, not much of him is. There is nothing but chiseled muscles, and his new markings swirling around every inch of tight skin. The dragons move slowly, so slowly if I look at them I can see it; otherwise, it just looks like he has hundreds of markings of so many dragons. I find myself tracing him over the musculature of his forearms up to his muscled shoulders, down his chest past his pecs to the deep V-line and the ripples of muscles that disappear into his trousers, along with a light graze of hair that I want to see all the way down.

He undoes his belt and makes me watch as he slowly pushes them off, standing up off the bed to take them off completely until there’s no clothing between us, but yet he’s still so far away. I curl a finger in the air. “Come here, husband.”

“I used to like the name Ziv,” he murmurs, kneeling back onto the bed, kneeling before me. Deities, I like it when he kneels before me, especially now. I can see every inch of him and I see that a brilliant, proud man who has done everything for me is overwhelming. I love him so much. “But I think I enjoy the title husband far more,” he murmurs, his deep voice promising pleasure only he can give me, sends shivers down my spine. He lifts my leg onto his shoulder and his lips twitch. All amusement is gone when he drifts his eyes down my body, past my breasts and to my core. He kisses down to my knee and then to my inner thigh, and my heart races harder, louder, even more as he pushes my thighs apart. Ziven looks down at me in a way that’s nothing short of hungry. The groan that leaves his lips as he’s down kissing my thigh is music to my ears. There is something about hearing his pleasure, even when he isn’t inside me, that I need to hear. one torturous kiss at a time until he finds my core, and he presses a kiss there that sends electric buzzing all the way through my body. I gasp as he parts me, and slowly rolls his tongue around my clit. More torture, more teasing and it feels like he’s savoring every moment. It’s a game I’m happy to play because we both win at the end. “I’m going to very much enjoy calling you mate.” He swirls his tongue more. The vibration of him speaking against me is just getting me close to—“Or wife.” I moan as he swirls his tongue faster this time. His hands grip my thighs tightly, locking me in place. “But perhaps, knowing that our souls are bonded... it doesn’t matter what I call you anymore, Storm. Just that you’re mine.”

He doesn’t make me wait any longer as he glides two fingers into me, finding me completely soaked for him and swirls his tongue faster, sucking and nibbling at the same time, sending me into a frenzy. I grip the headboard of the flimsy bed, holding onto it tightly as I moan, as I crash into an orgasm that feels like itburns my body from the inside out. My back arches, and he’s ferocious, pulling out every inch of pleasure from me before he sits up, still on his knees, and picks me up to him. Ziven sits on the bed, pulling me against him, and his hard cock runs right up against me. His head drops back and there’s something so sexy about sitting on the lap of my mate, even when we’re not joined, and seeing him nearly loosing it.

“Ziv,” I whisper, brushing my fingers down his cheek. I lift my hips, kneeling over him. He watches me, looking deep into my eyes as I slowly drop down an inch at a time onto his cock until he’s fully inside me, until I feel full in a way that’s the best way possible to be. His hands slide down my back slowly, while grabbing my ass and pulling me up and slamming me back down again and again and again as he looses all control and I enjoy every second of it. I moan as the sound of us fills the room until I can see he’s splitting with the control that he’s trying so hard not to let go. “Tell me what to say to be your mate,” I moan, unable to help myself.

Ziven, my husband, grips the back of my neck, my nipples rubbing against his chest every time I slam up and down on his cock. “Take me as your mate, in front of the deities. Let all that are listening entwine our souls.”

I repeat his words, breathless, moans escaping through every word that escapes me. A connection like nothing else building within my soul, burning and binding me to him. His eyes seem to glow with it too, as he kisses me, deeply absorbing every moan as I ride him. Harder, faster, both of us chasing our pleasure, but I need this never to end. Like we will never end. Our souls are one, in front of the deities, and I dare them to try to part us now. My orgasm burns through me like a fire, touching every inch of me until I’m blinded by it. Gripping my hips tightly, Zivengroans as he finds his own release. We breathlessly both come down from the moment together, his forehead resting against mine. “You’re mine.”

His soft laugh sends shivers across my skin. “You’re my mate, but I’ve always been yours. Doesn’t matter what titles are between us. Everything I am is yours.” He softly brushes his lips across mine. “I’ve loved you for so long, Story. But it doesn’t feel like long enough. I want an endless future with you. One where it’s just me and you.”

“We’ll have that,” I say, raising my hand to stroke his cheek. He leans into my hand. “Tonight is ours and we face tomorrow, and the war, when the sun rises.” I whisper.

“When the sun rises.” He vows. I grin as he kisses me again, pushing me down onto the bed and he makes every minute of the night count. Once I thought I wasn’t beautiful because I was scarred, because it wasn’t just the outside scars, it was what was rotting on the inside. I thought the vampyres tainted me, they changed who I was deep below. But Ziven showed me that nothing can change who you are—no one can scar your soul enough that it warps it into something unbeautiful. No. My husband showed me that there’s always something worth living for.

Chapter Fourteen

Page Fourteen. He is gone, and this book…how can I show her the failures of her father?

Itoss and turn in the sheets, rolling over and over again until I realise that I’m lying on the ground, deep within the forest, right before the mansion, and there are the brightest yellow and silver flowers blooming right in front of my face. I turn over, staring up at the mansion in the brightness of the moonlight shining down on it. The glass top shimmers in the light, and it is stunning like this. It stands so tall, towering above me—not derelict, not broken, not burnt down like I imagine it is now. No, the towering mansion looks as if it has been freshly built. The bricks shine, the gates rise tall behind me as I stand up. Rows of perfect flower and garden formations line the pathway to the steps, to the door, with dragon statues perched along the path.

My heart races as I see a woman tending to the flowers, and something about her makes me stare, as goose bumps prickle my skin. She is pale, her skin like pure ice, and her hair matches the same, falling in wispy strands all the way to the floor, buther hands are painted red, along with a strange red mark on her right cheek. When she lifts her eyes, I freeze. Her eyes are white, no pupil or iris, just white and all-seeing. She looks so familiar, and I know why. She is the deity I’ve prayed to, begged for help, asked to save me. I know it in my blood, and she looks like Ziven.

“It’s about time we saw one another,” she whispers, her voice as soft as lullabies sung to babies in the dead of the night.

“Who are you?” I whisper. My voice echoes, sounding odd—like it doesn’t belong to me in this strange place. I’m dreaming, I have to be, but it’s more than that. This place is alive with magic, tempting and pushing, and I simply don’t exist here.

“You pray to me. Many do, even when my sisters are locked away and my power is not—not at my strength without them. You chose to walk away, and that was not your choice, Story Dehana.” She looks up at the moon. “I do not have a name that fae like you can pronounce or call me. I am simply one of the three.” Her eyes look like the moon, so bright in the night. “I am not a being, not a thing to be named. I am a deity. A magic bound into a form that comforts you. I have blessed your birth, watched your life, and lent you my power. Your magic is mine.”

“My name has changed. I am married now,” I correct her because I don’t know what else to say to that claim of hers. Suddenly, she is in front of me. I jump back, but her hands grab onto my arms. She doesn’t hurt me like I’d expect her to; instead, she simply stands there, making it hard to look away from her. Her sisters would have hurt me by now, and I learnt from them never to trust a deity.

She closes her eyes. “They were once kinder than even myself.” When she opens her eyes, her lips are pressed into a thin line. “When you wake, do make the right choice,” she warns. “You’replaying in a game of power that is much stronger—much more than you can possibly understand. I set things in place when the curse was set. I wove my power into the land to make your soul exist and be bound to the sun and moon heirs. United. My sisters are locked away from me, and I chose you to change it. The sun, the moon, the stars. Light, dark, and the shadowy grey between them—it’s all the same. All three. Only one can undo the errors of the past.” She touches my hair, and a single strand turns the brightest of white. “When you wake, make the right choice and make a future of peace for us to bless again.”

She pushes me back, and I gasp as I wake up, reaching for Ziven, for him to chase away my nightmare and remind me what is real, but my fingers find nothing but cold stone lined with dirt. My eyes widen as I look up to see the book—the deity book—right in front of my face, hovering above a puddle. Next to it, a box floats in the air with its sister held inside. The box and this room were laced with protective spells, and this shouldn’t be happening. My mouth is dry as I crawl backward, shaking my head as I look for a door, but there isn’t one to be found. There’s no way out. Eventually I know I don’t have a choice but to speak to it. “How did you break the spells and get me here? Are you the reason for the dream of the deity?”

“My sister’s power overtakes the sun and moon,” the book answers in that female voice. “My sister cannot touch us. The one that’s always been free and not tainted by any of this has left you before us to make the right choice and set us free, to be with her in the skies once more.”

“No,” I snap. That is not happening.

I’m surprised when the voice that speaks to me is different, and my eyes drift to the box, to the book that is somehow speaking to me. “When you beg us deities for help, does it come?”

I think of all those who have prayed, of all the horrors I have seen, a million times over—including ones done to myself.

No, because we are not free. “She cannot alter our path, cannot change it. If she did, she would be no better than the vampyres we want to overthrow. We deserve to be free,” I whisper. “Every single one of us, and it’s what I fight for, alongside my mate. We want a world where my life isn’t on repeat for thousands of blood slaves, for all the slaves. It has to stop.”

I’m not sure which one of the books speaks, their voices are similar now. I know it’s not what they sound like; they are using the voice for me. “And what is it you believe you deserve?”

“My life with Ziven. I fought for us.” I rise to my feet, but I do not want to fight with them anymore. Because, despite everything, I actually pity them, both of them, because they are like this and it’s clearly sent them mad. They are trapped within the pages of a simple book—powerful deities that we once worshipped. “You once loved us fae and helped us. I was told about how fae loved you all.”

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