Page 51 of Courting the Fae Captain
“Raithe,” I said again, my instincts were screaming at me to confess what I’d already guessed to be true.
“Say it,” he said. “Say the words I’ve been wanting to share since the moment I felt my shadows connect to you in thatapothecary, half-dead and on Ryvia’s door. The feelings I could only share on a soul-deep level with one other in this life.”
“You’re my…” I swallowed, because once I said this, it could never be taken back. He lifted a large, warm hand to my cheek in gentle encouragement. And those eyes … they looked at me with all the endless depths of the ocean, full of sorrow and rage and courage and chaos and pure, beautiful joy. Any fear or doubt I had melted away as our shadows once again embraced, and a shiver skittered down my spine. Tears glimmered in my eyes, and I smiled with unrestrained happiness. “You’re my mate.”
He closed his eyes, as if hearing those words had eased some suffering inside him. “My mate,” he repeated. “Those words from your lips could undo me entirely.”
“You’ve known since you were wounded?” I asked softly.
“I suspected. It is a rare and precious thing to find one’s mate even in our long lifetimes. I never thought I would find mine, especially under such circumstances. Truly, I wonder if it was the bond tethering me to this world—to you. The poison had long been in my veins … I should have died.”
The idea of Raithe dying … I blinked away the unwanted thought and wrapped my arms around him. “You can’t leave me. Not now.”
“Not ever,” he said. “There is nothing that could stop me from being with you. I would burn the world down for you and rip the very fabric of the realm apart from the seams if anything stood between us and forever. I am yours, Aeris. I always will be.”
Pure joy and wonder rippled through me. How had something so horrific as the Rite also brought me something so precious? So rare? I was fated to be this male. This beautiful, brave, kind,goodmale. Every part of me wanted this.Him.
“Then kiss me, Captain, because I can’t stand another moment where your lips aren’t on mine. I need you—all of you.”
He placed his hands on my waist and lifted me so I was straddling him. “Say that again,” he replied huskily.
“I.” A kiss on his cheek. “Need.” A kiss on the other.“You.”He claimed the next kiss for himself, hauling me in and tasting me greedily, like he couldn’t get enough. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get enough either as he curled a hand around the back of my neck, his fingers sliding up through my hair.The whimper that crawled up my throat was consumed, too, as his tongue twisted around mine in a reckless tangle of need. His cock pressed against me, nudging near my slick entrance as he shifted me and pressed kisses down my neck, my throat, my collar bones. I gasped as he then took my nipples in his mouth one after the other, his tongue flicking against their peaks.
“Please,” I groaned as one hand disappeared beneath the water to stroke me. The water jumped as he worked, the heat of the hot spring only adding to his touch. Then the hand was gone, lifting me up by the hips and seating me over his cock. I gasped at the sheer length of it as it slid home, the water’s embrace coaxing it fully inside me. “Oh gods,” I cried. “It’s—it’s too big. I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” he moaned, and the sound alone made me melt around him. I felt myself stretch and devour him as he pumped deeper and deeper until almost all of him was inside me. My body responded, moulding to him as if in urgent need to be filled. “See, you can and you will,” he commanded. “You said you wanted all of me. Take it.”
I moaned as he slid deeper, then squeezed my hips deliciously tight as he bobbed me up and down. It was … Fuck.Hewas everything. He gazed into my eyes, that damnable smile on his face as he watched my every move.I grinned back and took over, riding him slowly as I ground on his dick, eliciting another moan from him. Then he gathered my hair in one hand,holding it firm as he leaned back against the pool with half-lidded eyes.
“You are my fucking salvation, Aeris Lockhart,” he said with a groan.
“You are my mate,” I replied breathily, still a little in awe. Our shadows reared up, circling us in a protective barrier. A tendril of his dripped into the pool, sliding towards me to land upon my clit.Oh. “Oh, fuck.”
“The things I’m going to do to you, little lark,” he sighed. “So many wicked things.”
“Show me,” I whispered as I rode him harder, faster, the air coming in short, sharp gasps as his shadows increased, flicking against me not just on my pussy now but stroking between my ass cheeks, too. “Oh gods, Raithe. It’s too much. Too?—”
“You can take it, baby. I want to fill you with my cum. I want you to writhe on me until you’re so spent my shadows have to hold you.”
Oh my gods. My body shuddered, my legs weakening as sweat beaded over my forehead and over my lips. I tossed my head back and arched my back, giving him access to every part of me as I rode and rode and rode until that wave of pleasure crested, then crashed.
Just before I came, he leaned in and bit my throat, claiming me in one final act of primal possession, just like Sherai had said a male would when claiming his mate. I screamed his name, and we were plunged into ecstatic darkness. That last surge of pleasurable pain was enough to shatter me into a million pieces.As the glowworms gradually alighted once more, they looked like flickering stars on the ceiling, a blur beneath the haze of shadows that swarmed all around us, mine and his, his and mine … together as one. Fire ripped through my mind and down my body, tearing through me in a blaze so bright I could barelycontain the enormous power that shook our bodies and made the earth tremble at our feet.
When our shadows calmed and the fire stopped burning, there was only him, with his arms wrapped around me and my head buried in his chest. Because he was mine, and I was his, and he was…
“My mate.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
‘I’ve discovered the veil shrouding the adjacent island is not a natural phenomenon but that of Fae make. And whatever is Fae made can be unmade.’
Journal excerpt, Sherai Kiltain
Ismiled to myself a week later as I strode through the forest just beyond the castle gates. After Raithe and I had joined body and soul, we’d spent each night tangled in the comfort of each other’s arms and twisted in his bedsheets.It was relatively easy to keep from the rest of the castle occupants thanks to our shadow magic concealing us as one snuck through the halls to the other. We could afford to let our guard down or forget that the Rite was still very much happening and there were still 20 other females vying for his hand.
Tiredness and the ache of too much pleasure pulled at my bones and muscles as I searched the castle gardens, but I’d neverfelt lighter. Raithe and I had been each other’s comfort since seeing our mothers and the awful conditions they were subjected to. Despite the guilt of leaving them there, I’d never felt such hope for the future. My mother wasalive,and I was more determined than ever to get her out. Unfortunately, logistics meant we had to be clever and calculated with our next move, and planning took time. Raithe continued my training, while Sherai, Akira, and I spent a good portion of each day studying various texts on magical veils, or more specifically, how to dismantle them. That task would be monumental, but Sherai—that incredibly gifted mind—had presented an alternative, which had led to my foraging this morning. And I was looking for something specific indeed to ascertain if her theory was true.
It was all coming together. With Raithe by my side, as well as Sherai and Akira, we could be unstoppable. We could save our mothers. Save all the females.
