by D. Brumbley
Zara reached up and caressed the side of his face gently. “Come on, you need to get some rest. You haven’t been sleeping well at night. I can hear you tossing and turning even from my tent.”
“And you think I’m likely not to do that tonight?”
“I can sit outside your house.” She said in a voice that was so gentle and soothing, along with the concern in her violet eyes. “I can block out all the noise. Help you sleep, maybe.”
He put a hand up to her neck and kissed her with a touch as gentle as her voice, then nuzzled his face against hers as though they were wolves again for the moment. “You don’t have to stay outside.”
Zara held tighter still to him as she enjoyed the closeness between them, as well as his touch. The more their relationship deepened, the more she wanted. “After the Fulness you kept away, and so I thought that you didn’t want…me.”
“Don’t even try. You can read my mind.” Nick countered. As much as he didn’t trust her in the beginning, he had grown very fond of her since.
She looked down as if he’d struck her, fumbling with her necklace in a way that Nick was beginning to see was a nervous habit. “Just because I can read your mind doesn’t mean that I do it all the time. I know you like to keep your thoughts.”
He kissed her cheek again, whispering. Enticing. “Just this once, read all you like.”
She dove into his thoughts at his allowance, since she desperately wanted to hear what he was thinking. She wanted to feel him want her. More than want, she needed it to hear it. Feel it. The connection they had was her lifeblood.
He had imagined a great many things over the course of the Fulness that they’d spent mostly together, and he made sure he was thinking of all those things so that she could feel them loud and clear in his mind. He wanted her, mind, body, and all. I’m not the only one who tosses and turns every night. I know my excuse for not sleeping well, but what’s yours?
Zara gasped softly several times as she listened to all of his thoughts, then she kissed him so passionately that there was no gentleness to be found. She held onto him so tightly it was almost painful, but she refused to even think about letting go. I can’t stop thinking about you.
Well, I think you should stop thinking. He pulled away finally, and started walking backward toward his house.
“I just want you to be sure that this is what you want,” she asked desperately as they finally reached his home and the privacy of his room, “to be with me. I know it hasn’t been long since…and I know that you still…”
He silenced her with a kiss that was as forceful as it was almost pleading. When she was finally kissed into silence, he held her eyes for a moment. “You know as well as I do that you’ll never be my mate, Zara. That’s not your way or mine. But you’ve been the one who’s stood beside me this last month. And I know you’ll continue to do so.” He kissed her again with a growl deep in his throat. “I’m sure.”
Zara kissed him harder several more times and then the whole world seemed to crumble around them, until nothing else existed except for the two of them.
Nick, in his experience, had never even considered the possibility of being with anyone like Zara. Being with an Ironborn was certainly good for an Ironborn, but being with a Heartborn left no room for comparison. Everything he wanted, everything he felt was poured into her, and then she took that energy and put it back into him. As they became more intimate, the connection between them deepened, and in every way she could, Zara was everything he wanted. She wasn’t just in his arms, she was in his thoughts, his emotions, and it was beyond anything he could even imagine sharing with another person.
Being with her was refreshing in ways that he couldn’t have foreseen. The longer they spent together, the more powerful he could feel Zara become, and the more powerful she became, the more she poured right back into him. It was intoxicating in a way he had never experienced, and which he knew he would never really feel again with anyone else. A part of him wanted to feel like he was betraying Aura, but he couldn’t truly feel that way. Being with Aura had been a fight every moment of their lives together. This was so easy it was almost painful by comparison, and when he finally drifted off to sleep in her arms, it was into one of the sweetest slumbers he had ever known.
It took her a little while to fall asleep, but the entire time as she was drifting off, she was caressing his skin and kissing him gently even as he slept. Everything was turning out so perfectly that she couldn’t help but smile at the luck she had been handed. Whoever said something about the truth setting people free was right. Zara told Nick the truth about Aura, and here she was, in his bed snuggled together. She was someone who, even if he didn’t admit it out loud, he was really and truly was falling in love with. Even luck wasn’t the right word for it. Fate, perhaps.
After sleeping the entire rest of the night in each other’s arms, Zara woke up in the morning just as he did, because he was moving around a little bit. “Hey.” She said with a smile and a kiss. “Good morning.”
“Mmm.” He said as he stretched, holding her in close to him. “What time is it?”
She turned her head slightly to look at the clock and then she kissed him again before she responded. “Just after ten.” Zara enjoyed being held the way he had his arms wrapped around her, so it made her smile brighter. “We should probably get up.”
“Is anyone here to see us today?” He asked sleepily, with no sign of letting her go.
“No, no one here to see us yet.” She growled softly, contentedly, as she kissed the side of his neck. “I did get a message earlier about a small group of Oceanborn on their way. Well, you got a message, but you were asleep.” She giggled and then nuzzled the side of his neck. “I was thinking that I could go look at the area around the river and then get some people started on the area to accommodate them. You’ve got a lot to discuss with your guards now that we’ve got the Earthborn and Stoneborn forces to work with.”
“Ugh.” He groaned and ran his hands over his face, clearly not quite awake yet. “Okay, that’s…yeah, that sounds fine.” He put up a hand and ran his fingers through her hair with a kiss to her cheek. “Did you sleep alright?” He looked at the steel sheet he called a bed, which was currently wrapped around them like an unforgiving blanket.
Zara kissed his jaw and then his cheek before she whispered in his ear. “I haven’t slept that well in a very long time. I wish we didn’t have to move.”
“This would be about the time when being the Alpha would be useful, and I could just say we don’t have to.” He moved a little and shifted the steel beneath her to conform to her a little better. “That’s what I thought it would be like when I was a kid, anyway.”
“I’m sure it can still be like that. When this is over, when the world is less volatile.” She kissed him again with a soft moan. “I’ve never been with anyone like you.”
He leaned his head to the side a little to look at her. “What do you think of Ironborn now, then?”
“I think you’re stronger than anyone could ever imagine.” She kissed his neck again, teasing his skin with a nibble. “I think you’re also very kind and sweet. So full of passion. I think a lot of things that I never thought about before.” She sighed against his skin. “Do you think that your people will think less of you if they see me leaving here?”
“They know you’re here with me and under my protection. If they feel offended by that, then let them take a good look at some of our other new friends who are a lot less easy on the eyes.” He didn’t care what others thought regarding Zara.
Zara smiled brighter. “You really think I’m that beautiful?”
“You know I do. And you know you are.” He said teasingly, but with a slight smile anyway.
She moved slightly so that she was more on top of him than to the side just so she could look into his eyes again. The sheet of metal responded to her movements like water, and it made her smile as she kissed him again. “Something people don’t often know about Hear
tborn is that we cherish what people say more than what people think. It means more if you actually want to say it out loud.”
“I think I said a lot of things quite loudly last night, thank you very much.” Nick chuckled a little, but was unashamed.
Zara laughed against his lips. “I think I did too. It was…there aren’t even words. It was just wonderful.” Her fingers traced the tattoos on his skin until she was drawing lazy circles on his chest, around where his heart thumped in his chest. “What happens to you is important to me, you know. You’re important to me.”
“I know.” And he really did, because he could feel it from her. He could feel every emotion she had, and everything she felt from the night before still ringing through her in every kiss and every touch.
She kissed him once more, long and lingering and pouring every bit of emotion into it that she could. “I should get up before we really decide to let the day move along without us.”
He sighed. “I thought I was supposed to be the responsible one?” Even so, he unfolded the metal sheet from around her back, since he was sure she wouldn’t have been able to get up unless he let her.
Zara caressed his skin a little more. “I’ll be back before you even realize I’m gone.” She made the promise with her lips and with her eyes, a promise that told him she wanted so much more.
“Take Lea with you.” He said as he got up with her. Lea was one of the least judgmental of his guards, since she was also the only one who was friendly at all towards Orlando or Candra. “She knows the area, she can show you around.”
She nodded and went to grab her clothes, though she put them on slowly, reluctantly. “Okay.” Once she was dressed and had her pendant back in place, she gave him another hug, taking his hand and squeezing it gently before she turned to go. “I’ll be here waiting for you once you’re done with the guards.”
* * * * *
Zara passed by Nick’s chief guard after getting only a few paces from the house. “Lea, would you come with me? I’m going to the river to make sure we can accommodate some Oceanborn that are coming.”
Lea nodded and looked back at her Alpha’s house once, since she didn’t like being commanded by a Heartborn, but she knew that at this point, Nick wouldn’t want Zara to go anywhere unprotected. And Heartborn were useless when it came to a fight.
They both walked in silence for a while after they got out of the compound, and Zara was the one who finally broke the silence. “You still support him, even when he’s with me. That says a lot.”
Lea shrugged and avoided looking at Zara. “He’ll never take you to mate, so I don’t much care who he fucks in the privacy of his own house. He’s still my Alpha, and I’ll serve him until the Iron takes me.”
“You’re not insulted that he’s with a Heartborn, though? Instead of someone…like you?”
“Me?” Lea laughed and shook her head as they continued to make their way through the tall grasses and trees toward the river. “The Alpha likes his girls pretty. Not with a weapon in their hands.”
Zara looked out in the direction of the river, and she could already hear the water from where they were. “It wasn’t my looks that got his attention. I took the time to care about him. To be there for him. That’s all he ever wanted.”
“Well, isn’t it lucky that you can hear for yourself everything he wants before he even knows he wants it?” Lea rolled her eyes and then hacked away at some of the particularly annoying grasses and branches. “Why do you care what I think, anyway?”
Zara smiled as she looked back at Lea, stopping momentarily to meet the woman’s hazel eyes. “I’m a Heartborn. What you think matters to me more than you could ever imagine.” Just then there was a snap of something from behind Lea, and just as they walked under a tree, a louder crack sounded from above.
A branch came soaring down out of the trees, a massive hunk of foliage that fell right on top of Lea, with a Forestborn wolf standing on top of it as though it had been surfing the branch from the treetop. Lea screamed in pain just as one of the smaller branches from the piece of the tree smacked her so hard in the face that it left a wicked cut along the side and knocked her unconscious.
Zara looked at the Forestborn, particularly at the Council uniform it wore, then took off running toward the river as fast as she could.
There were another few dozen Council uniforms along her way as she ran, all of them up in the trees and buried in bushes as if the shrubbery was a blanket wrapped around their shoulders. They were all camouflaged perfectly with the woods around them, and they were far enough away from the compound itself that not even a Skyborn would hear her if she screamed. They didn’t attack, but they all smiled at her, seeming to enjoy her flight through their woods.
When she got to the river, it was at a point where the stream was only a dozen feet across, but it ran almost as deep as she was tall. There was no obvious way of crossing it at first sight, and there were more Forestborn on the opposite bank looking back at her.
Zara stared at the Forestborn for a moment and then did the only thing that she could think of doing. She dove into the water and let it take her. She was a good swimmer, and the current carried her downstream quickly, past the watching eyes of the Council fighters on both banks that watched her go with grins on their faces. She twisted and turned with the current as it swept past rocks, through submerged roots, and quickly around several bends before the river got suddenly shallower and she came up on a wide bank of gravel punctuated by smoothed stones.
At last, there were no Forestborn in sight.
Across the shallow pond, there was a man sitting on one of the stones just above the water wearing blue robes. He stood up casually as she came in sight and looked down at her from a few dozen feet away with eyes as deep a blue as the water he was standing in. “What a very, very pleasant surprise it is to see you, Zara.”
Slowly Zara stood and looked into the eyes of the man she once called master, his own element dripping down her face, her clothes clinging to her body, soaked and sending ribbons of water down her arms and legs. “Surprise?”
“I said pleasant surprise.” He grinned at her and took a step closer. “The emphasis, of course, is on the pleasant.”
“I wondered how long it would take before you came after me.” She dipped her hands back down into the water and then splashed across at Coren, leader of the Council, as though he was nothing but another person in the world. “It took longer than I thought.”
“I know what you thought.” He didn’t flinch as she splashed him, just enjoying the feel of the water on his skin. “Just like you know I didn’t think it would take you this long.”
Zara continued to stare at him as she walked slowly through the water to get to him. He was still standing on the rocks, and he towered over her. “Did you miss me?”
Unlike Nick, Coren knew just about everything there was to know about Heartborn. Including just how much they enjoyed hearing things said out loud. He stepped down off the rock and seemed to float down through the water as if it was semi-solid until he was finally just a step away from her. “Every moment.”
Almost harshly, she reached out for him and pulled him to her by his robes, and she kissed him so hard and so passionately that it was almost painful. There had been an ache inside of her that wouldn’t end for so long, until that moment. Until she felt his presence against her, she had felt incomplete.
The water around them swirled up and around her, drenching them both as it ran over every part of her. He knew she enjoyed it very nearly as much as he did, though she could never actually draw power from it directly.
How long before your toy Alpha comes looking for you?
A few hours at most. She wrapped her arms around him and moaned against his water and his touch. You’ll have to make it look like I was beaten, too. Like that useless piece of metal Ironborn your guards left twisted under a branch.
I had to borrow some of Avery’s men. They are effective, but utterly without tact. I
didn’t want anyone you might know intruding on our time together.
Nick will hate you even more for this, you know. She said with a smirk as she kissed him again.
So let him hate me. He laid her down in the water against the gravel just below the surface, so that she was just barely out of the water to breathe. The more he hates me and the more he loves you, the stronger you’ll become.
She placed a hand on the back of his neck to pull him in closer, since she couldn’t stand the thought of not touching him or being touched by him. Both of the packs you sent have been accepted. She slowly wrapped one of her legs around his back, pulling the rest of his body flush against hers. They hadn’t exactly planned for her to be knocked unconscious and taken back with the Ironborn, but they had planned for her to win over Nickel somehow. Things had worked out better than they had imagined. He’s throwing everything into this fight, but he has no idea the forces you have behind you. None whatsoever. Except for whatever Teresa is feeding him.
Very little in this world could make me lose my thirst for you, but mention her name again, and that might come close. He said playfully as he kissed her, the water she was submerged in moving over every piece of her in a caress that wrapped her whole body in its touch. I didn’t come here to talk about her. I came here for you.
Zara moaned at the caress, since nothing felt quite as amazing as Coren’s touch. It was the way it worked for people like them. No one would ever be quite the match he was to her. It’s hard to be so far from you…I need you so much.
Soon you won’t have to be. He kissed her neck under the water, his lips trailing down to her shoulder without coming up for the air his kind didn’t need. Soon Nickel, and the Shadowborn, and Alina and all the rest will be out of the way and forgotten. And then things are going to change.
She gripped harder against his skin, trembling in her desire for him. I thought about you during the Fulness. About the promise we made to start a family once this was all over.