by Callie Hart
My pulse slows. No one has ever looked at me the way he’s looking at me right now: so proud, so fierce, hopeful and determined. I understand why he’s asking me this question. It has occurred to me that it might be true—that Lazlo managed to bend me to his will, not just me but the both of us, and that the fire and the undeniable draw I felt toward Pasha was merely my body’s response to the dangerous, terrible situation I found myself in, because I needed him. Because I needed someone to lean on, and Pasha was the strongest person I’d ever fucking come across in my whole life.
“Earlier this evening, for a fraction of a second, I’d allowed myself to believe it was true,” I admit. “I waited, expecting to feel relieved, because if this thing between us wasn’t real, then I could go back to my life and dismiss this all out of hand as nothing more than some sort of survival tactic.”
Pasha’s eyes harden. A small muscle flexes in his jaw. I brush my fingers against it, smoothing the tension away. “But the relief never came. The only thing I felt was a harrowing, deep, crushing sense of loss. I already knew it. Despite everything, I’ve always known this was real. Lazlo might have tried to pull our strings, but he didn’t make me fall in love with you, Pasha. You’re the reason my heart belongs to you.”
He searches my face. It’s the same fierce study he carried out the night he was a hair’s breadth away from crashing into me outside Shelta’s tent at the Midnight Fair, but I don’t feel pinned to the spot, violated by his inspection this time. I study him back, and it comes to me, the reason why he stared at me so fiercely back then, because I feel it, too—a desperate need to capture and catalogue every tiny aspect of his face. To commit every part of him to my memory, the most important, urgent task in the world, because there’s no way he’s real. He can’t be. This contradiction of a man shouldn’t even be possible, like he’s some sort of supernatural anomaly and I’m the luckiest person in the universe to be lying here, permitted to witness his unlikely existence even for a split second in time.
“I wouldn’t have let you go,” he says. “If you decided we weren’t supposed to be…” He shakes his head, changing tack. “I would have fucking fought for you, Zara. I would have made sure you knew that, for me, this isn’t just real. This is the only thing that’s real. The only thing that matters. Everything else is just white noise.” He slides his hand underneath me, and then he’s lifting me from the couch, placing me on my feet, and he’s kissing me like our very lives depend on it.
The fear, and the hurt, and all of the worry of the past few weeks melts away. The pieces of me that were blown apart by Lazlo’s hatred and sickness all coalesce, united once more, and I’m made whole, not by the satisfaction of aiming a gun at an enemy and pulling the trigger, but by the vital touch of this miraculous man.
When the kiss pauses—because it will continue, there’s no doubt about that—Pasha carefully cups my face in his hands and leans his forehead against mine. “Zara?”
“Yes.”
Our bodies are so close that I feel his heart punching against the wall of his ribcage. “I love you, too,” he whispers.
Epilogue
ZARA
The valley looks like it’s wreathed in flames. Drums rumble like thunder in the distance, and the chilled breeze seems determined to tease the flowers from my hair, but I’m too distracted to mind the cold, or the riot of noise that churns and pounds just on the other side of the ridgeline. My attention’s solely focused on the man standing in front of me, stripped to the waist. His torso is stacked with muscle, and a cartographer’s map of tattoos seems to shift over his skin, alive, as he holds up a shirt and considers it.
“Don’t you dare put that on,” I command.
A scandalous smile spreads across his face, his eyes sparking with lust-filled amusement as he turns to me. His dark hair falls in waves around his face, so much longer than it was three months ago in the depths of winter. With the spring thaw now over and the glen gripped in the throes of spring, Pasha Rivin seems to have transformed into a creature entirely different to the one I met at the Midnight Fair.
He refused to let me come to the cage fights. He stopped doing them altogether when he came home with a split lip and black eye one night and he saw the look on my face. I would never have asked him to surrender that part of his life, no matter how much it upset me; when I asked him why he was throwing in the towel, he told me, “I fought because I was angry. I’m not angry anymore, Firefly,” and that was it. Since then, he’s been working out like a fiend, training with Partin every day of the week, and the two of them are fucking huge now.
The ever-present tension that seemed to shroud him like a cloak is long gone. He’s…freer now. We’ve been living together for months, sharing a bed, no matter where we find ourselves. We split our time between my apartment at the Bakersfield, Pasha’s loft overlooking the city, and we also spend a good amount of our time with the Clan, too. I’m no longer ‘the gadje.’ I’ve been dubbed ‘Ves’ or ‘Ves ‘tacha’ instead.
Shireen heard Pasha whispering that little sweet nothing to me during a very private moment, and then proceeded to tease him mercilessly by letting everyone know it was his pet name for me. Not only am I his ‘beloved,’ but I’m everyone else’s too, especially when they want to take a playful dig at him. Apparently, it’s very out of character for Pasha to bestow such a weighty term of endearment on anyone, and it’s been providing the Clan elders and youth alike with hours of entertainment.
Pasha’s eyes are practically dancing as he prowls toward me, dropping the shirt he was holding at his feet. He’s one hundred percent predator, and he’s obviously hungry. Biting back a smile, I consider making a run for it, knowing he’ll chase and catch me in four seconds flat, but there are still people loitering around the camp, getting ready for the ceremony, and we’ll never live it down if we’re seen running, screaming, between the vardos like sex-mad fucking teenagers. That’s what we are, though: sex-mad. No couple in the history of mankind has fucked as much as Pasha and me have over the past three months. It’s as if we’re making up for all the time we only got to ravish each other in our sleep.
“You nervous?” I ask, trying to distract him.
“No. Are you?”
“Why would I be nervous? You’re the one being crowned.” I know perfectly well that he wasn’t talking about his coronation, though. He was referring to something else entirely. He’s only three feet away from me now, and he looks like he’s trying to figure out which part of me he’s going to devour first. “Pasha. Pash, no,” I say, laughing. “Patrin’s coming to get us in a second. Do you want him to find us naked, fucking up against a tree?”
“I don’t care how he finds us fucking. Although the tree does sound like a good idea.”
He’s in front of me, then, hands reaching for the straps of the flowing Irish green dress Shireen loaned to me that I cinched in at the waist with a length of purple silk. Not strictly a very Roma-looking dress, but very pretty all the same, and the colors compliment my hair like crazy. Pasha’s eyes feast on my bare shoulders and the column of my neck, and a heat begins to rise in my stomach, spreading outward, pooling at the apex of my thighs and making me squirm.
“Last chance to fuck a prince,” Pasha rumbles.
“Oh yeah? I’m pretty sure fucking a king will be much the same.”
“Hell no. Fucking a king is way worse. They’re super entitled. They know they’ve reached the top of their game, so they don’t even try any more. Things are only gonna go downhill from here, Firefly.”
I have a hard time feigning horror when all I want to do is smile. “Sounds miserable. Maybe I’d better take you up on that offer.”
The straps are down, over my shoulders in seconds, and the dress is slipping down my body, gathering at my feet. Pasha catches his bottom lip between his teeth, eyes dipping down to travel the length of my very naked body. “No underwear,” he muses. “Are you trying to give me a fucking heart attack?”
His voice is
like a rough caress; it sends a violent shiver up the length of my back, pins and needles prickling at the skin between my shoulder blades. “It was supposed to be your post-coronation surprise. But you are the most impatient man I’ve ever met. So…”
His calloused hands, even rougher now from working outside with Patrin, are strong and powerful as they take hold of me at the hips and pull me to him. He’s a delicious wall of heat and muscle. My breasts crush up against his defined, inked chest, and a surge of need hits me like an electric current.
“You want me?” he growls, voice coarse and thick with his own lust.
I tilt my head back, lifting my face to his, wetting my lips in a way that I know drives him absolutely fucking crazy. “Yes, your highness. I sure do.”
“Good girl.”
He goes to unbuckle the belt at his waist, but I get to it before he can. “One of these days, I’m gonna give this to you to bite down on.” I rip the length of soft, supple leather from the loops of his pants, flushing a little when I realize I can actually see my own teeth marks imprinted in it.
Pasha’s mouth curls up at one side. Dangerous. God, he is so fucking dangerous. “I’ll look forward to that day. But for now…”
“Time is of the essence,” I finish for him. My hands might have fumbled trying to undress this man at the beginning of our relationship, but I’ve had a hell of a lot of practice since then. I have his pants off his body in three seconds flat, right along with his shoes and socks.
Pasha’s body is the stuff of myths and legends. He easily puts every single one of the Greek gods to shame; Zeus himself didn’t look this good naked. The low V that dips into his groin is enough to make me dig my fingernails into my own palms hard enough to draw blood. Fuck, he is beyond perfect. The tattoos that form a shield across his chest, the kings of his people, snaking down his defined, strong arms, and creeping up his neck make my head spin. His washboard stomach, muscular thighs, and the curve of his extraordinarily toned ass are all the stuff of a woman’s daydreamed fantasies, but it’s the finer details of the man that I appreciate the most. His full, bitable lips. The cut of his collarbone; the fine, downy hairs on the back of his neck; the deep dimple that forms in his cheek whenever he’s really, really smiling.
I slip my hand down between our bodies, taking hold of his cock and squeezing, and his eyelids flutter. The stuttered sigh he releases kicks my heartrate up a gear. With steady, sure movements, I begin to stroke him, and Pasha hisses under his breath. “Fuck. Firefly, you’re far too fucking good at that.”
He makes his own move, then, palming my left breast and kneading at my flesh, pinching and rolling the swollen bud of my nipple between his fingers, before cursing and bowing himself over me so he can fasten it between his teeth. The pain is intense. The pleasure is unbearable. “Ahh! Fuck, Pasha!”
He doesn’t relent. He switches to my other breast, giving my left nipple the same treatment, and I grab a fistful of his hair, yanking his head back and pushing him away. “Bad boy,” I chide. I’m biting into his pec a second later, and I feel his flesh give way against my teeth.
“Jesus!” Pasha grunts as I bite down even harder. Next thing I know, I’m being lifted into the air, and he’s roughly lying me on the ground, ripping my hands from him and pinning my arms high over my head by my wrists. “You’re in the mood to draw blood, huh?” he pants. “All right, then.”
And so begins a war of attrition that neither one of us has any hope of winning. He bites my neck, grinding himself on top of me, shoving my legs open to make room for himself. I claim his mouth, kissing him deeply, teasing and tasting him with my tongue, pulling frustrated sweet nothings out of him, only to clamp my teeth around his bottom lip a second later, tugging on it until his hand grips tight around my neck, pushing me back into the grass.
“Careful, Firefly. Careful,” he warns.
But I’m not careful. I rock my hips up against him, creating a heady, unbearable pressure between us, and Pasha loosens his hold on me. I use my elbow to take out the arm that’s supporting his weight, and he tumbles sideways. A moment and a twist of my body later, and the world is spinning as I climb up on top of him, seating myself directly on top of his rock-solid cock. I plant my hand on his stomach and drive my fingernails into his sides as I rock against him, taunting him with the proximity of my pussy, and Pasha loses his shit. His back arches away from the ground, his head thrown back, neck exposed, and he growls through gritted teeth. “Fuuuuck. Last warning, Firefly.”
“What are you gonna do about it, pretty boy?” I tease. I shouldn’t. I should know better…and the truth is I do know better. I want him to take control. I want him to man-handle me. I want to feel his fingers pressing into my skin hard enough to leave a bruise. My stomach backflips as Pasha grabs me, roaring, and puts me on my back. My wrists are pinned over my head again in no time at all. He shoves his free hand down between our bodies and forces his fingers between my legs, snarling.
“So wet. You’re fucking primed for me already, mmm?” I writhe, trying to get out from underneath him, but he holds on fast. “Where are you trying to wriggle off to?”
He crushes his mouth against mine, and stars explode behind my eyes. The kiss is a ransacking. He pushes his fingers inside me, fucking me with them, and my vision blurs. I rip my mouth away from his, trying to catch my breath, trying to sink my teeth in his shoulder, but he angles his body, moving out of the way. “Ahhh! Pasha! God…”
“I never knew fireflies had such sharp claws,” he huffs. “I never knew they liked to bite.”
“This firefly does,” I volley back. Pasha unleashes a brilliant smile, laughing breathlessly, and my heart swells in my chest. It feels like it’s just doubled in size as he releases my wrists, freeing me, but then takes me by the chin, holding my head in place as he licks my top lip, then running his tongue along the seam of my mouth. “You taste like sunlight and honey, you reprobate,” he informs me. “I’m going to take you now. I’m going to slide myself into this wet, hot little pussy of yours, and I’m gonna make you come. It’s going to be the end of you. Any last words?” He grinds his hips against me, and the tip of his cock rubs up against my pussy, giving me a taste of my own medicine.
God, I need him. I need him inside me so fucking badly. If he doesn’t push into me right now, I’m going to lose my goddamn mind. I shake my head, stubbornly biting down on the plea that’s struggling to slip free from my mouth. Pasha’s open-mouthed smirk tells me he sees right through me, though.
“Can you feel how badly I want you, Zara? Can you?” He drives his hips forward, grinding his erection against me so hard that it actually hurts my pubic bone. “I’m as hard as reinforced concrete right now. Your pussy’s slicker than a fucking slip and slide. Tell me you want me.”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Tell me.”
“No.”
“Admit it, and I can give you what you need.”
I try to shake my head one last time, but Pasha tightens his grip on my jaw, holding me still. I try to cheat him out of his confession by angling my hips up underneath him, trying to slide him inside me all on my own, but Pasha hinges back enough to keep himself from me. His eyes widen with reproach. “Tut tut. You want my dick inside you, the least you can do is ask for it nicely.”
Fucking hell, I feel like I’m going to implode. “Pasha!”
“Pasha what?”
“Just…fucking…”
“Just fucking fuck me? Please?” He sinks his head down, grazing his teeth over the hypersensitive skin at the base of my neck, and I can’t take it anymore.
“Yes! My god, yes, please. For fuck’s sake. I want you. I need you inside me. Please!”
It’s within his power to torture me further. If he really wanted me to suffer, he could tease his cock between my legs again, pinning me down until I’m panting and moaning for him, desperate enough to say absolutely anything he tells me to, just so long as he puts me out of my misery. He stays his hand, t
hough.
With one sharp, upward thrust, he slams himself inside me, and we freeze at the same time, mouths open, sharing breath, lips brushing as we try and come to terms with the sudden, blinding wall of pleasure that’s come crashing down on the both of us.
“Holy…shit…” Pasha breathes. “God, Zara. God, I’m gonna come so fucking hard inside you.”
I wrap my arms around him, clinging onto him as though my life depends on it. On him. I don’t gouge my nails into his skin this time. The need to fight him, to battle with him, the frantic, desperate need to consume him in some way…it’s gone now. Vanished, like someone flicked a switch, and the only urge that’s eating away at me now is the urge to get closer, to make this moment last.
He begins to move against me, torturously slow. He brushes my hair back, gathering it together into one thick rope, then slides his hand underneath me, supporting my head as he stares down at me, sheer amazement on his face. “Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine…you.”
“Liar,” I whisper. “That’s the very first place we met.”
The climax that swells in us not long after—first me, then Pasha following right after—is one for the record books. We’re soaked with sweat and out of breath when the soon to be king of the Roma holds me to his chest and tells me that he loves me.
“Oh my god, what is that on your neck? A bite mark?”
I slap a hand over the offending injury, ruffling my hair to hide it from sight. “No. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Don’t be ridiculous.”
Shireen gives me a knowing look, both eyebrows hiked up her forehead. “Please, girl. I know a sex bite when I see one. And…” She pauses, inspecting the back of my head. “Seriously? There’s grass and twigs in your hair. You two are fucking animals.”
There’s no point denying it. We really are. Thankfully, our clothes, back on our bodies now, are covering the other numerous grazes, nail gouges, and hand prints we decorated each other with. Shireen would flip out if she caught sight of those. She plucks a blade of grass out of my hair, showing it to me like I’m a misbehaving child caught in a lie, and then she straightens me out a little, tucking a few more flowers behind my ears and into the braid she’s just woven into a circlet around my head.