Aviva
“I can’t–you’re in heat. It’s my beast. It wants you bred, and I’m–” He starts to pull out, but I stop him, writhing in a way I know he loves. “Fuck, Aviva. Goddess, you’re making this–impossible.”
“I’m going to come,” I whimper, begging him not to stop. “Please, don’t stop–”
“You’re not on contraceptives,” he groans, sounding like himself for the first time since I led him out to dance. “I’ll get you pregnant. Right now, Aviva. It’ll happen now.”
“Please?” Something in my voice breaks. It’s like… like I’m letting go of something, something that I let myself bury. A fear of mine only he has ever seen.
But I trust him. Whatever comes. He’ll be beside me. I meet his eyes over my shoulder. His lips part, and his gaze is depthless, full of emotion I can’t name.
He pulls me close, pressing me into the sheets, and bites down on my shoulder blade so hard he breaks the skin. My vision goes white with blinding light, with what has to be actual stars, as pleasure explodes through my entire body. I scream his name to the ceiling as his teeth sink into my skin, drawing blood, and then I feel… pressure. An intense, almost painful stretch. He grunts, crushing me to his body and rolls us onto our sides with his cock still buried deep inside of me and growing… larger at the base. I can’t move. We’re locked together, and he’s trembling, lacing his fingers in mine as he presses a shaky, tender kiss to the mark he just left on my skin.
He’s knotting me. I’ve heard about this act. This ancient act between mates. Only between mates, and not even all mates can do it.
I draw in a sharp breath when the pain becomes too much. He slides a hand between my legs, drawing circles over my clit until that pain turns to pleasure.
“What a good girl,” he rasps, gently rocking his hips against my ass. I start panting, losing my breath entirely. It’s impossible that I’m about to come again, right? “Come for me one more time, Baby. I want to feel you come on my knot.” His voice is deep and strained, like he’s in pain or the deepest throes of pleasure, I’m not entirely sure which. I think it’s the latter based on the way he trembles.
I lean into him, my back flush with his chest. We’re slick with sweat, and my brain is in shambles as his fingers work me into another full-body stupor. My inner walls clench around him, and I cry out from the mingled pain and pleasure of it. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before, and I’m drowning in ecstasy when I finally fall back into my body.
Ryan is beside himself as I slump against him, trembling like I’m fevered. He gathers me closer, if that’s even possible, hooking his arms around my chest and burying his face in my hair.
I watch the curtains sway in the warm summer breeze. The stars are bright, and ribbons of purple lace through the air, the moon nearly full again. Has that much time passed since our wedding already? Exhaustion sweeps over my spent body. I fall asleep with his cock still buried inside of me and wake up several hours later to him curled around me, both of us totally naked on top of the duvet cover in the same positions we’d fallen asleep in.
It’s raining. Sharp pinging sounds fill the room, creating the coziest setting. The colors of the opulent room are muted now in the first hours of the morning, but there’s some light coming through the windows, enough for me to know we’d slept, at least for a little while.
Ryan’s hand is splayed over my naked stomach. I move experimentally, not wanting to sacrifice any of his warmth, but wanting to know if he’s still inside of me, stuck there, hours later. He’s not.
My skin pebbles from the wet, rainy chill in the room. His hand tightens for a moment.
“Are you cold?” he whispers against my skin.
“Did I wake you up?”
“No, I don’t think I’ve been totally asleep.” He rises up on an elbow as I sit up, allowing him to shift our positions so we’re under the covers instead of on top of them. Tucked up beside him in the warm sheets, I roll to face him, nestling my face in the crook of his shoulder.
But our hands are moving like we can’t stop touching each other. He’s hard again, his cock pressed against my belly. His mouth finds mine in a slow, tender kiss as he guides his cock through my folds. My breath catches in my throat. I’m sore and bruised, but he’s slow and gentle this time. There’s no blinding lust guiding our movements. He’s not peppering me with praise. This… isn’t because of our bond. We’re not being driven by biology and other feelings neither of us can explain. This is just for us.
He rolls on top of me, moving his hips over mine in slow, deliberate thrusts honed to my pleasure. His eyes are heavy and hooded with sleep, but he’s watching me with an expression so tender it nearly brings tears to my eyes. Another stroke of his cock has my muscles tightening and heat coiling through the base of my spine. When I arch into an orgasm, it’s not blinding. It’s soft and warm, making me feel relaxed all over. I’m not seeing stars this time as I come down from the clouds. I’m seeing him smiling sleepily down at me, his cheeks ruddy and eyes full of… full of…
“I love you, Aviva,” he whispers, dipping his head to steal my moan with a kiss.
“I love–love you,” I echo, tangling my fingers in his hair. He trembles as the words fall from my tongue. “I love you. I want to–to mark you.”
Still moving inside of me, savoring me riding out my orgasm on his cock, he nods, his breath hitching as he starts to tremble with his own impending release.
I press gentle kisses to his neck and shoulder, dragging my teeth across his skin. I feel my canines lengthen. Later, I’ll probably think back on the moment and wonder about the logistics of our bond, and how my body knows exactly what to do, but right the only thing taking up space in my mind is how he rasps my name as I break the skin just below his collarbone, biting and sucking a half moon scar while he comes inside of me.
He doesn’t knot me. I don’t think I could handle it again, not right now, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want it. I remind myself that we have time.
We have our entire lives.
We fall asleep again in each other’s arms, and we don’t wake until half of the day has passed, the world outside our bedroom moving on without us.
* * *
Ryan draws circles on my thigh. I’m sprawled over his lap in his uncle Ryatt’s office, and Maeve is asleep on my chest. I’m not sure how we ended up in this position, but I’m nodding off to the conversation taking place in low, serious tones nearby, my head propped on the armrest.
Ryan’s touch moves down to my ankles. I’m lying on him, in front of his family, but no one is paying me any mind, honestly. Plus, he was the one who decided to sit here after I’d claimed the couch, and Kenna had plopped an exhausted Maeve in my lap before leaving the room. He simply lifted up my legs, sat down, and righted them again.
He’s watching Ryatt, Isaac, Granger, Sydney, and Evander stand in various positions around Ryatt’s desk, where Ryatt is leaning, his hands braced on the dark wood as they look down at two huge maps.
“Sydney is first in line, obviously,” Isaac says, drawing a finger over what I think is a map of Crescent Falls. “Blake is second in line to the throne, then Liam, and whatever children come next. Ryan still has a claim if the three of them, and any future children born to Sarah, step down.”
“Liam will inherit Shadowcrest,” Sydney says, and Isaac nods.
“Misty has no territory as it stands,” Isaac says almost absently. “She hasn't shown interest yet.”
“We don’t need to worry about that until she marries,” Ryatt replies, and apparently Isaac agrees.
The conversation moves on to Brie and Aris.
Ryatt seems conflicted about Brie, but Aris is being called the “Shadow Prince,” which means little to me. I’ve never been to Veiled Valley and can barely comprehend the powers Ryatt and Kenna share, but it’s obvious that Aris will inherit the secretive pack tucked far away in the mountains, cut off from the rest of Eastonia.
Ryatt seems keen to not talk about Brie quite yet. I watch the men begin to move away from the desk, mentioning something about dinner starting, that they’ll continue this conversation there, but Ryan doesn’t make any moves to join them.
Evander gently lifts Maeve off my chest. She doesn’t wake up and slumps against his shoulder as he gives me a tight but thankful smile for my help.
I glance at Ryan and notice him holding Ryatt’s gaze. Within seconds, it’s just the three of us in the room.
“Obviously your future kids will rule the Deadlands,” Ryatt says with a wave of his hand toward where we’re sitting on the couch.
I straighten into a seated position, swinging my legs off my mate's lap.
Ryatt clears his throat as he moves to the front of his desk, leaning his hip against it as he crosses his arms. He checks his watch, glancing at the door as the knob turns, and Ella walks in, flipping her dark hair over her shoulder. She’s wearing a nice outfit–pants and a sleeveless shirt in emerald green that brings out the stunning shade of her eyes. The same eyes Maeve has. A Firestone trait.
“Sorry I’m late,” she rushes out, throwing us an apologetic smile before giving Ryatt a quick kiss on the cheek, but Ryatt and Ryan are still staring at each other like they’re having a conversation through the mind-link.
Ryatt blinks, nods, and shrugs. I wonder if Ryan told him about everything happening between the tribal packs, not that Ryatt would see the need to intervene. It’s not like our infighting affects his kingdom at all.
But my gaze sweeps from them to Ella. During dinner two nights ago, I’d noticed the fine, pale scars across her forehead. Now they seem to glow, giving me a better idea of what they are.
I can speak the old Firestone language, of course. Most people in the Deadlands can. Reading and writing it is a different story. It’s complicated, and a lot of the symbols have been lost to time, but I made an effort to learn so I could be better than Mercy in something, anything, when it came to our schooling.
“The Firestone mask,” I say out loud, then quickly pinch my lips shut.
Ella whips her head toward me, and I want nothing more than to run out of the room. “Yes.” She runs her fingers over her forehead, looking slightly embarrassed.
My stupid mouth won’t stop moving. “The divine system of charting.”
She arches a brow. “What?”
“The symbols,” I say, my voice breaking. I can feel Ryan looking at me. Ryatt, too, straightens. “Uh, on your forehead. It’s a… map, kind of.”
Ella looks at Ryatt with a confused but slightly excited expression before turning back to me. “You can read these symbols?”
“Yeah. Can’t you?”
She shakes her head. Even Ryatt looks perplexed as he takes a step in my direction. “No one, not even our historians and mystics, knows what they mean. How do you?”
“We–We speak the old tongue in my village.” Why won’t I just shut up? “I’m not the best at reading the old language, but those symbols are obviously the numerical values of the Seven Forges. The entire Firestone numerical system is based on the… on the latitudinal and longitudinal locations of the forges… from the legends,” I quickly add, wondering if they believe me. I’m not sure I believe in the forges, the mythical cauldrons where the early gods made their weapons and divine gifts.
“The forges?” Ella is stunned. “There're… seven?”
“I doubt there are anymore,” I say with a nervous laugh. “They disappeared when the Firestone empire fell….” I feel everyone’s gazes raking over my face. I look to Ryan, who seems stunned, and slightly… suspicious. “What? How do you all not know this and you rule? Does anyone in the Roguelands and Moonrise know how to read the old tongue?”
“No,” Ryatt says gravely. “The previous Alpha Kings made sure of that.”
I gape, unsure what to say.
“What do the symbols mean?” Ella asks politely, but I can feel the buzzing, nervous energy flooding off of her.
“Well… it’s about the Divine Seven, the templars of the Goddess. One forge for each object. The Firestone Mask. The Diadem of Starlight. The Blade of Time. The… Shadow Sword.” My eyes meet Ryatt’s as he stiffens. “Then there’s the Book of Whispers and the Gilded Bow, but not much is known about those. Uhm…”
“The seventh?” Ryatt holds my gaze.
“The Baetyl.” The old tongue slides from my tongue. I swallow the word back. We’re not even supposed to say the word out loud.
Ryatt doesn’t even blink. His eyes hold mine. “The Gate of the Gods?”
I nod.
Ella looks at her mate in confusion. Ryatt rolls his lower lip between his teeth, pondering something.
Ryan looks from them, to me, and back to them. “What the fuck is happening right now?”