Empire of Storms

by Sarah J. Maas

  His tongue flicked against her nipple, and her head tipped back, her fingers digging into his shoulders, urging him to take more, take harder.

  Rowan growled his approval, her breast still in his mouth, on his tongue, his hand making lazy strokes from her ribs down her waist, down her thighs, then back up. She arched in silent demand—

  A phantom touch, like the northern wind given form, flicked over her bare breast.

  Aelin burst into flames.

  Rowan laughed darkly at the reds and golds and blues that erupted around them, illumining the palms that towered over the edge of the beach, the waves breaking behind him. She might have panicked, might have been mortified, had he not lifted his mouth to hers, had those phantom hands of ice-kissed wind not kept working her breasts, had his own hand not continued stroking, closer and closer to where she needed him. “You’re magnificent,” he murmured onto her lips, his tongue sliding into her mouth.

  The hardness of him pushed against her, and she bucked her hips, needing to grind herself against him, to do anything to ease the building ache between her legs. Rowan groaned, and she wondered if there was any other male in the world who would be so naked and prone with a woman on fire, who would not look at those flames with any ounce of fear.

  She slid her hand between them, and when she closed her fingers around him, marveling at the velvet-wrapped steel, Rowan groaned again, pushing into her hand. She pulled her mouth from his, staring into those pine-green eyes as she slid her hand along him. He lowered his head—not to kiss her, but to watch where she stroked him.

  A roaring wind full of ice and snow blasted around them. And it was her turn to huff a laugh. But Rowan gripped her wrist, drawing her hand away. She opened her mouth in protest, wanting to touch more, taste more. “Let me,” Rowan growled onto the sea-slick skin between her breasts. “Let me touch you.” His voice trembled enough that Aelin lifted his chin with her thumb and forefinger.

  A flicker of fear and relief shone beneath the glazed lust. As if doing this, touching her, was as much to remind him that she had made it today, that she was safe, as it was to pleasure her. She leaned up, brushing her mouth against his. “Do your worst, Prince.”

  Rowan’s smile was nothing short of wicked as he pulled away to run a broad hand from her throat down to the juncture of her thighs. She shuddered at the sheer possession in the touch, her breath coming in tight pants as he gripped either thigh and spread her legs, baring her fully for him.

  Another wave crashed, parting around them, the cool water like a thousand kisses along her skin. Rowan kissed her navel, then her hip.

  Aelin couldn’t take her eyes from his silver hair shining with salt water and moonlight, from the hands holding her wide for him as his head dipped between her legs.

  And as Rowan tasted her on that beach, as he laughed against her slick skin while her hoarse cries of his name shattered across palm trees and sand and water, Aelin let go of all pretense at reason.

  She moved, hips undulating, begging him to go, go, go. So Rowan did, sliding a finger into her as his tongue flicked that one spot, and oh, gods, she was going to explode into starfire—

  “Aelin,” he growled, her name a plea.

  “Please,” she moaned. “Please.”

  The word was his undoing. Rowan rose over her again, and she let out a sound that might have been a whimper, might have been his name.

  Then Rowan had a hand braced in the sand beside her head, fingers twining in her hair, while the other guided himself into her. At the first nudge of him, she forgot her own name. And as he slid in with gentle, rolling thrusts, filling her inch by inch, she forgot that she was queen and that she had a separate body and a kingdom and a world to look after.

  When Rowan was seated deep in her, trembling with restraint as he let her adjust, she lifted her burning hands to his face, wind and ice tumbling and roaring around them, dancing across the waves with ribbons of flame. There were no words in his eyes; none in hers, either.

  Words did not do it justice. Not in any language, in any world.

  He leaned in, claiming her mouth as he began to move, and they let go entirely.

  She might have been crying, or it might have been his tears on her face, turning to steam amid her flames.

  She dragged her hands down his powerful, muscled back, over scars from battles and terrors long since past. And as his thrusts turned deeper, she dug in her fingers, dragging her nails across his back, claiming him, marking him. His hips slammed home at the blood she drew, and she arched, baring her throat to him. For him—only him.

  Rowan’s magic went wild, though his mouth on her neck was so careful, even as his canines dragged along her skin. And at the touch of those lethal teeth against her, the death that hovered nearby and the hands that would always be gentle with her, always love her—

  Release blasted through her like wildfire. And though she could not remember her name, she remembered Rowan’s as she cried it while he kept moving, wringing every last ounce of pleasure from her, fire searing the sand around them to glass.

  Rowan’s own release barreled through him at the sight of it, and he groaned her name so that she remembered it at last, lightning joining wind and ice over the water.

  Aelin held him through it, sending the fire-opal of her magic to twine with his power. On and on, as he spilled himself in her, lightning and flame danced on the sea.

  The lightning continued to strike, silent and lovely, even after he stilled. The sounds of the world came pouring back in, his breathing as ragged as the hiss of the crashing waves while he brushed lazy kisses to her temple, her nose, her mouth. Aelin drew her eyes away from the beauty of their magic, the beauty of them, and found his face to be the most beautiful of all.

  She was trembling—and so was Rowan as he remained in her. He buried his face in the crook of her neck and shoulder, his uneven breath warming her skin. “I never … ,” he tried, voice hoarse. “I didn’t know it could be…”

  She ran her fingers down his scarred back, over and over. “I know,” she breathed. “I know.”

  Already, she wanted more, already she was calculating how long she’d have to wait. “You once told me that you don’t bite the females of other males.” Rowan stiffened a bit. But she went on coyly, “Does that mean … you’ll bite your own female, then?”

  Understanding flashed in those green eyes as he raised his head from her neck to study the spot where those canines had once pierced her skin. “That was the first time I really lost control around you, you know. I wanted to chuck you off a cliff, yet I bit you before I knew what I was doing. I think my body knew, my magic knew. And you tasted…” Rowan loosed a jagged breath. “So good. I hated you for it. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I’d wake up at night with that taste on my tongue—wake up thinking about your foul, beautiful mouth.” He traced his thumb over her lips. “You don’t want to know the depraved things I’ve thought about this mouth.”

  “Hmmm, likewise, but you didn’t answer my question,” Aelin said, even as her toes curled in the wet sand and warm water.

  “Yes,” Rowan said thickly. “Some males enjoy doing it. To mark territory, for pleasure…”

  “Do females bite males?”

  He began to harden again inside her as the question lingered. Oh, gods—Fae lovers. Everyone should be so damn lucky to have one. Rowan rasped, “Do you want to bite me?”

  Aelin eyed his throat, his glorious body, and the face she had once so fiercely hated. And she wondered if it were possible to love someone enough to die from it. If it were possible to love someone enough that time and distance and death were of no concern. “Am I limited to your neck?”

  Rowan’s eyes flared, and his answering thrust was answer enough.

  They moved together, undulating like the sea before them, and when Rowan roared her name again into the star-flecked black, Aelin hoped the gods themselves heard it and knew their days were now numbered.

  39

  Rowan d
idn’t know whether to be amused, thrilled, or slightly terrified that he’d been blessed with a queen and lover who had so little care for public decency. He’d taken her three times on that beach—twice in the sand, then a third out in the warm waters. And yet his very blood was still electrified. And yet he still wanted more.

  They’d swum into the shallows to wash off the sand crusted on them, but Aelin had wrapped her legs around his waist, kissed his neck, then licked his ear the way he’d nibbled hers, and he was buried in her again. She knew why he needed the contact, why he’d needed to taste her on his tongue, and then with the rest of his body. She’d needed the same.

  He still needed it. When they’d finished after that first time, he’d been left reeling, to pull his sanity back together after the joining that had … unleashed him. Broken and remade him. His magic had been a song, and she had been…

  He’d never had anything like her. Everything he’d given her, she’d given right back to him. And when she had bit him during that second coupling in the sand … His magic had left six nearby palm trees in splinters as he’d climaxed hard enough that he thought his body would shatter.

  But once they were finished, when she’d actually made to walk back to Skull’s Bay in nothing but her flames, he’d given her his shirt and belt. Which did little to cover her up, especially those beautiful legs, but at least it was less likely to start a riot.

  Barely, though. And it’d be obvious what they’d done on that beach the moment they stepped within scenting range of anyone with a preternatural sense of smell.

  He’d marked her—richer than the scent that had clung to her before. Marked her deep and true, and there was no undoing it, no washing it away. She’d claimed him, and he’d claimed her, and he knew she was well aware of what that claiming meant—just as he knew … He knew it had been a choice on her part. A final decision regarding the matter of who would be in her royal bed.

  He would try to live up to that honor—try to find some way to prove he deserved it. That she hadn’t bet on the wrong horse. Somehow. He’d earn it. Even with so little to offer beyond his own magic and heart.

  But he also knew his queen. And knew that despite the enormity of what they’d done, Aelin had also kept him on that beach to avoid the others. Avoid answering their questions and demands. But he made it one foot inside the Ocean Rose, saw the light in Aedion’s room, and knew their friends would not be so easily deterred.

  Indeed, Aelin was scowling up at the light—though worry quickly replaced it as she remembered the shifter who had been so thoroughly unconscious. Her bare feet were silent on the stairs and hallway as she hurried for the room, not bothering to knock before flinging open the door.

  Rowan loosed a sharp breath, trying to draw up his magic to cool the fire still in his blood. To calm the instincts roaring and raging at him. Not to take her—but to eliminate any other threat.

  A dangerous time, for any Fae male, when they first took a lover. Worse, when it meant something more.

  Dorian and Aedion sat in the two armchairs before the darkened fireplace, arms crossed.

  And her cousin’s face went pale with what might have been terror as he scented Aelin—the markings both seen and invisible on them.

  Lysandra sat in bed, face drawn but eyes narrowed at the queen. It was the shifter who purred, “Enjoy your ride?”

  Aedion didn’t dare move and was giving Dorian a warning look to do the same. Rowan bit down against the rage at the sight of other males near his queen, reminding himself that they were his friends, but—

  That primal rage stumbled as he felt Aelin’s shuddering relief upon finding the shifter mostly healed and lucid. But his queen only shrugged. “Isn’t that all these Fae males are good for?”

  Rowan raised his brows, chuckling as he debated reminding her how she’d begged him throughout, how she’d said words like please, and oh, gods, and then a few extra pleases thrown in for good measure. He’d enjoy wringing those rarely seen manners from her again.

  Aelin shot him a glare, daring him to say it. And despite just having her, despite the fact that he could still taste her, Rowan knew that whenever they found their bed again, she would not get the rest she wanted. Color stained Aelin’s cheeks, as if she saw his plans unfold, but she lifted the amulet from around her neck, dropped it onto the low-lying table between Aedion and Dorian, and said, “I learned that this was the third Wyrdkey when I was still in Wendlyn.”

  Silence.

  Then, as if she hadn’t shattered any sense of safety they still possessed, Aelin withdrew the mangled Eye of Elena from her pack, chucked it once in the air, and jerked her chin at the King of Adarlan. “I think it’s time you met your ancestor.”

  Dorian listened to Aelin’s story.

  About the Wyrdkey she’d secretly carried, about what had happened today in the bay, about how she’d tricked Lorcan and how it would eventually lead the warrior back to them—hopefully with the other two keys in his hands. And, if they were lucky, they would have already found this Lock she had been ordered twice now to retrieve from the Stone Marshes—the only thing capable of binding the Wyrdkeys back into the gate from which they’d been hewn and ending the threat of Erawan forever.

  No number of allies would make a difference if they could not stop Erawan from using those keys to unleash the Valg hordes from his own realm upon Erilea. His possession of two keys had already led to such darkness. If he gained the third, gained mastery over the Wyrdgate and could open it to any world at will, use it to summon any conquering army … They had to find that Lock to nullify those keys.

  When the queen was done, Aedion was silently fuming, Lysandra was frowning, and Aelin was now snuffing out the candles in the room with hardly a wave of her hand. Two ancient tomes, withdrawn from Aedion’s crammed saddlebags, lay open on the table. He knew those books—he had no idea she’d taken them from Rifthold. The warped metal of the Eye of Elena amulet sat atop one of them as Aelin double-checked the markings on an age-spotted page.

  Darkness fell as she used her own blood to etch those markings on the wooden floor.

  “Looks like our bill of damages to this city is going to rise,” Lysandra muttered.

  Aelin snorted. “We’ll just move the rug to cover it.” She finished making a mark—a Wyrdmark, Dorian realized with a chill, and stepped back, plucking up the Eye in her fist.

  “Now what?” Aedion said.

  “Now we keep our mouths shut,” Aelin said sweetly.

  The moonlight spread on the floor, devoured by the dark lines she’d etched. Aelin drifted over to where Rowan sat on the edge of the bed, still shirtless thanks to the queen currently wearing his shirt, and took up a spot beside him, a hand on his knee.

  Lysandra was the first to notice.

  She sat up in the bed, green eyes glowing with animal brightness as the moonlight on the blood-marks seemed to shimmer. Aelin and Rowan jerked to their feet. Dorian just stared at the marks, at the moonlight, at the beam of it shining through the open balcony doors.

  As if the light itself were a doorway, the shaft of moonlight turned into a humanoid figure.

  It flickered, its form barely there. Like a figment of a dream.

  The hair on Dorian’s arms rose. And he had the good sense to slide out of his chair and onto a knee as he bowed his head.

  He was the only one who did so. The only one, he realized, who had spoken to Elena’s mate, Gavin. Long ago—another lifetime ago. He tried not to consider what it meant that he now carried Gavin’s sword, Damaris. Aelin had not asked for it back—did not seem inclined to do so.

  A muffled female voice, as if it were calling from far away, flickered in and out with the image. “Too—far,” a light, young voice said.

  Aelin stepped forward and shut those ancient spellbooks before stacking them with a thump. “Well, Rifthold isn’t exactly available, and your tomb is trashed, so tough luck.”

  Dorian’s head lifted as he glanced between the flickering figure of mo
onlight and the young queen of flesh and blood.

  Elena’s roughly formed body vanished, then reappeared, as if the wind itself disturbed her. “Can’t—hold—”

  “Then I’ll make it quick.” Aelin’s voice was sharp as a blade. “No more games. No more half-truths. Why did Deanna arrive today? I get it: finding the Lock is important. But what is it? And tell me what she meant by calling me the Queen Who Was Promised.”

  As if the words jolted the dead queen like lightning, his ancestor appeared, fully corporeal.

  She was exquisite: her face young and grave, her hair long and silvery-white—like Manon’s—and her eyes … Startling, dazzling blue. They now fixed on him, the pale gown she wore fluttering on a phantom breeze. “Rise, young king.”

  Aelin snorted. “Can we not play the holier-than-thou-ancient-spirit game?”

  But Elena surveyed Rowan, Aedion. Her slender, fair neck bobbed.

  And Aelin, gods above, snapped her fingers at the queen—once, twice—drawing her attention back to her. “Hello, Elena,” she drawled, “so nice to see you. It’s been a while. Care to answer some questions?”

  Irritation flickered in the dead queen’s eyes. But Elena’s chin remained high, her slender shoulders back. “I do not have much time. The connection is too hard to maintain so far from Rifthold.”

  “What a surprise.”

  The two queens stared each other down.

  Elena, Wyrd damn him, broke first. “Deanna is a god. She does not have rules and morals and codes the way we do. Time does not exist for her the way it does for us. You let your magic touch the key, the key opened a door, and Deanna happened to be watching at that exact moment. That she spoke to you at all is a gift. That you managed to shove her out before she was ready … She will not soon forget that insult, Majesty.”

  “She can get in line,” Aelin said.

  Elena shook her head. “There is … there is so much I did not get to tell you.”

  “Like the fact that you and Gavin never killed Erawan, lied to everyone about it, and then left him for us to deal with?”