by Lizzy Ford
“You once said the war and my betrothed were between us. ‘Tis not the case now.” He’s mildly amused, his thumbs wiping away my tears.
I meet his gaze, every thought in my mind growing quiet at the intensity of his look. “Your last day on earth and you want sex.” For some reason, it strikes me as funny, and I begin a painful combination of sobbing and laughing, hiccupping and coughing.
After the embarrassing episode, I wipe my face and look up at him once more.
The corner of his lips turned up in a smile. “I would like to spend my last night with my queen.”
“I’m not your queen.”
“Do you wish to be?”
I stare at him, every hormone in my body jumping and screaming, while my brain seems to completely stop working. “Is this because I’m the only girl around?” I ask suspiciously, unable to process the idea of belonging to this man, of him belonging to me, even for one night.
“’Tis because no woman has ever touched my heart the way you have.”
I melt. His grip tightens around me, his arousal growing hard against my belly. My pulse is flying, desire so hot within me, I’m about to spontaneously combust.
Attraction, need, and despair sizzle in the air between us. His eyes are almost white, a sign of the intensity of his emotion, one that terrifies me as much as it thrills me. It’s more than physical attraction between us and probably always has been, even if I wasn’t ready to admit it before.
He was made for me in every way, from the incredible, muscular frame to the way he sees through the barriers I like to keep between the world and me. The first to believe in me, the last to give up hope, his sexy-as-hell dominance is tempered by thoughtfulness, insight, and the ability to love something so much, he’s fought to save it since he could lift a sword. Dedication has nothing on this man.
Almost since I’ve met him, I’ve wanted to know what it’s like to be the woman his world revolves around. I’ve also feared knowing. He will tolerate no barriers, nothing less than absolute surrender, from the woman he turns his heart over to, and in exchange, he will love with all the ferocity of the fires of hell, hot enough to consume them both and the realm around them.
Do I really want that woman to be me? To surrender every part of me?
He’s right. There’s nothing between us now, not the war, not his betrothed. It took his world ending for us to arrive here. One night can never be enough.
I opened the door to my soul yesterday and refused him entrance. But if we’ve got less than twenty-four hours left, what’s the harm in letting him in? In surrendering every part of me for one night in his muscular arms?
In taking the chance to live, feel, love, and be loved?
An eternity in darkness or one night with the light on?
“Yes,” I whisper, the tears forming once again. “But only if you swear we’ll try to find another way in the morning.”
“Agreed. The morning is yours. The night is mine.”
I nod. Am I really ready for this? For him?
“And I expect obedience in bed as well as on the battlefield, my queen,” he says, a slow smile crossing his features. “Absolute obedience.”
The hunger in his gaze makes my breath catch, his intensity already rocking my world before he’s even kissed me.
Tonight is going to be something I never forget.
Taking his cheeks in my hands, I rise up on my tiptoes and kiss him hard, sliding my tongue between his lips to taste him once more. His response is instant and he deepens the kiss, his velvety tongue moving expertly against my lips and inside my mouth. Any second thought fizzles and disappears, along with the emotions and barriers that have guarded me for years.
The feeling rising in their place is one of pure joy, happiness I’ve never experienced, a sense of being where I belong so intense, it anchors in my soul.
“My god,” I breathe, dropping onto my heels. The sense I experienced when I first saw the emerald hills is back, piercing me to the core.
Home. It’s not just the place – it’s the man.
“’Tis the bonding, I believe,” he whispers, temple against mine. “Did I not tell you to cease fighting your destiny?”
“You also threw me out of a tree,” I point out breathlessly. I can’t help it – I’m crying, laughing, aching so badly to feel his skin, I can’t think of anything but feeling him inside me as he claims me, running my hands over every inch of the warm, smooth, fragrant skin coating his incredible body. To smell, touch, devour . . . I need him in a way that goes much deeper than physical lust. I need him to be a part of me, to become one.
“I need you too much to be gentle,” he says huskily. His palms skim down my body, one hand going to my ass and pulling me hard against his straining cock. He’s long and thick.
“I don’t care,” I gasp, already lost to him. “Wreck me. I’m yours.”
With a growl that doesn’t sound human, he claims my lips. His touch grows rougher, commanding my body.
This can’t be the end. The thought quickly fades, burnt up in his passion, and I take the step I never thought I’d ever take.
I surrender. Every last part of me.
Chapter Twenty One
The Shadow Knight had never intended for his witch to be drawn into the final day of this curse. In his last moments alive, he wanted to be numb, to watch the world crumble from a place of neither emotion nor memory of how he had failed. He planned on being alone, on sequestering himself in the bedchamber that was supposed to become his when he was master of the castle.
He didn’t expect his witch to find him, especially once the Heart was destroyed.
By some miracle, she had, and he began to realize they were reliving the fate of his ancestor, the Shadow Knight whose death started the curse. Naia had predicted his death at the hands of Brown Sun Lake and they’d bonded the night before the final battle.
The only real difference: the world was ending this day and there was no Heart for Naia to use to cast another thousand-year spell.
His feelings and mind refused to give him peace and grant him the respite he hoped to have today. Pain so raw it caused physical pain made him touch his heart, and he rose from the bed where he had spent the entire night making love to his battle-witch, his queen, his Naia, who slept deeply after the long night.
She proved to be as intriguing in bed as she was during daylight, her complete submission making his sense of possessiveness roar in satisfaction. He had laid with her every way possible, unable to get enough of her, needing more despite the hours they spent with their skin pressed together.
Sweet, gentle, spirited, beautiful. His queen was not traditional, but she was his in every way, a woman with compassion greater than all the magic of the medallion she wore, whose tears for him and his world were genuine, and whose cries and sighs as she writhed beneath him made him want to do what he thought impossible.
He wanted . . . needed to save her. His soul quivered with the despair brought on by the thought of watching her die. One night with the woman who brought him back to life and gave him hope was not enough.
The Shadow Knight crossed to the window and braced his hands on either side. It was harder than usual to know what time of day it was; the black clouds above his castle shunted out even more sunlight than usual. It was lightening outside despite the fog, and he judged it to be around mid-morning.
He had dreamt since he was five of seeing the blue sky during his reign. Instead, the heavens had turned black because he was unable to stop it.
His eyes swept over the city. Tens of thousands of people waited for him to awaken them from their slumbers and revive their world. They, too, would perish before the sun set, along with every other person in the realm.
And Naia.
The pain was back.
He pushed away from the window and pulled on his breeches and boots, unable to think clearly whenever his mind went to her. He wanted to crawl into bed beside her and make love to her up until the very last
moment of their existence. He had swept them both into pleasure unknown before last night, and it was not enough.
Accustomed to solving his problems through battle, he stood and thought hard, pulling on his tunic. Never before was he willing to listen to Naia’s insistence there was more than one way to resolve the conflict between Black Moon Draw and Brown Sun Lake. Mayhap it was pride, arrogance, or desperation, but he wished now he had tried a different approach at least once. The reasoning that it never worked for his predecessors suddenly seemed foolish, especially when he considered that neither had battle.
Strapping on his weapons, he snatched up the boar’s head worn by every Shadow Knight for a thousand years and hesitated, gaze going to the woman sleeping in his bed.
Her face glowed, even in sleep. Naia was curled up on her side, clutching a pillow, her dark hair spilling over the pillow.
He did not deserve to touch her, not last night, not now. A victor deserved a queen.
A coward deserved death.
If he was not able to find another way to do the impossible and save the woman who held his heart, then he would die trying.
Placing the boar’s head over his own, he turned away and strode to the door, determined to find the Desert Knight of Brown Sun Lake among the changing maze of the castle.
Chapter Twenty Two
Totally. Worth. It. I had no idea sex could be so consuming and offer so much pleasure, both physically and mentally. Atreyu was more than I expected, almost too much to handle at points, reminding me in honeyed growls to trust him and submit, no matter what he asked me to do or what position he put my body in. He takes the word obedience to a whole new level.
I have absolutely no regrets. The moment my eyes open in the morning, I crave him with inhuman yearning.
Stretching luxuriously, my utter contentment is interrupted only by soreness in muscles I didn’t know existed before last night. It’s light outside, and a cold breeze sweeps into the bedchamber. With a delicious shiver, I pat the bed beside me, expecting to feel the warm skin coating his ripped body. I’m ready for another round of his voracious appetite to warm me up.
He’s not there.
I sit up, happiness turning to alarm. It’s the last day of this world. Reality returns and my chest grows tight.
He’s not anywhere, and the boar head is gone, along with his weapons. I can think of one reason for that – that he found a new battle to fight – but don’t have any idea what he might be planning to do after his utter desolation last night.
If I know men, it’s probably something really stupid. What happens if I don’t see him again before this is over? If we end up wandering lost through the mazes of the castle up until sunset?
Uncontrollable fear smashes into me. I scramble out of bed, dress clumsily, and quickly summon the outhouse. My inner thighs tremble too much for me to keep my thighs together and newly discovered muscles in my pelvis and abs making me yowl aloud at one point.
I won’t get far without stretching and take a few precious minutes to do a simple, ten-minute yoga routine, scowling and whimpering all the way. It’s like getting fat. It feels so good doing it, but man does it hurt when you’re trying to do things differently. Thank god I’m flexible or I’d have torn something last night.
I’d do it again every day for the rest of my life. My breath sticks in my throat. It’s not just my core that aches for him; it’s my heart, too. My stomach is twisting with fear and dread, the butterflies that have plagued me since we met are frenzied this time, terrified I met my true love, only for me never to see him again.
Spurred by such thoughts, I hurry to the door and open it, stopping in the doorway. It’s light outside with the sun ball in the middle of the sky, visible through the center window in the bank of seven along the far wall.
The hallways, however, remain dark, cold, foggy.
Dangerous.
I shudder and creep back into the room. “Anyone wanna turn on the lights for a lowly battle-witch?” I call softly into the scary hall.
Torches spring to life to my right. I frown. It’s not like I gave them directions on where to take me. Does that mean . . . what? I’m about to be dropped into a maze? Wandering blind? Trusting the curse – the one about to kill everyone – to guide me, since Atreyu made it clear he isn’t in charge of the magic that brought me to him?
“I don’t have a choice,” I whisper. “I need to find him. Don’t let it end like this, LF.”
Nothing changes. I instinctively check my hand only to find my palm blank.
’Tis because no woman has ever touched my heart the way you have.
I groan as I recall the fiercely whispered words. I’m panicking for a different reason – one tied to the idea I may have somehow lost him already. It’s a nauseating thought, one that spurs me to blast full force into becoming the woman I need to be.
No doubt, no hesitation, no holding back. Fiction or reality – this is my life, and I want him in it.
I sprint. “Take me to him!” I cry, not caring who or what is in charge of the maze at this point. I run through the hallways, one step behind the next torch that lights up. They lead me up and down stairs, through hallways with no doors and hallways with doors that reach the forty-foot ceilings, past windows I don’t stop to look out of and on and on.
Too soon, it’s difficult for me to breathe and even harder to lift my heavy legs.
I swear to god – after this adventure, I’m taking up some cardio. This is ridiculous. I was never meant to be in a land with no elevators or cars.
Assuming there is an after. At this point, I don’t need a happily-ever-after. I’ll settle for the sun rising tomorrow, no matter what kind of mess I have to clean up, so long as he’s alive.
Shit. I’m forced to slow, unable to breathe fast enough. Pausing in a hallway, I watch torches down the hall flare to life and rest my hand against the wall. I suck down deep breaths until I’m ready enough, and then take off again, chasing the torches, driven by the thought that the one man in any world who makes me want to live is in danger.
I don’t make it nearly as far before stopping again to breathe. “Holy . . . Hell!” I gasp and rest my forehead against the cool stone. “How big . . . is this . . . place!” Pushing away, I stumble, catch myself, and go as fast as I can.
Down another stairwell, this one at least three stories tall. I always thought going down stairs was easier than up, but by the time I reach the landing at the bottom, my thighs hurt too badly for me to view any direction of stairs favorably.
It’s then I hear it, a sound that pulls me out of my misery.
Metal-on-metal. Swords clashing.
Who the hell is fighting? I don’t have the lung capacity to say the words aloud and hurry forward at a quick walk. My legs are rubber and heavy, a combination that renders them unsteady at best; I’m afraid to go any faster.
The sound grows louder. Torches light up a narrow stairwell of less than twenty steps, leading to what appears to be a balcony, like in a theatre. Clutching a wooden handrail, I make it up the stairs to see a single row of leather chairs surrounding a central banquet hall. The sword fight comes from below. From this angle, I can’t see who’s fighting. Before I can lean over the railing, someone takes my arm.
I jump and yank away, looking up into the Red Knight’s face. “What’re you doing here?” I whisper.
“My sister told me what happened. I came to reason with Shadow. I wandered the entire night in this forsaken place before stumbling upon this place.” His gaze scours my features. “How did you find us?”
“I don’t really know. The castle likes me,” I reply. “Wait, who is us?” Peering around him, I spot two more forms in the shadows. “Oh. You brought them?”
“I brought your squire to assist me in negotiating with that brute. My sister’s . . . bonded found me here.”
My squire is on his feet, eyes wide and features hopeful. Westley, however, looks rough, like he’s spent the night walking through the
hold as well.
“Then who’s down there?” I ask, starting towards the railing.
“Mayhap you should not watch,” the Red Knight takes my arm.
I pull free and go to the railing, leaning over it.
Dancing atop rows of dusty tables are the Shadow Knight and the Desert Knight, both shirtless and sweating hard as they battle one another with swords and axes. The sight of Atreyu’s body ensnares my gaze, and I lean farther, needing to catch a whiff of his intoxicating scent. My thoughts explode with images of our lovemaking from last night. And then it hits me.
I’m witnessing the final battle with Brown Sun Lake.
The one where the Shadow Knight is supposed to die.
“No, no, no!” Whirling, I dart for the stairs, ready to put a stop to this. We’re doomed today anyway; I’m not going to watch him die.
“Wait!” the Red Knight calls.
Evading his attempt to grab me, I fly down the stairs and look around wildly for the torches to show me where to go.
All of them are lit. There’s no way to know which direction is the one that’ll lead me to the Shadow Knight.
“Halt!” the Red Knight snatches my arm hard and yanks me back to the stairwell. “You need listen to this, Naia.”
I look up at my name, urgency, yearning, and fear threatening to tear me apart.
“This battle is necessary. ‘Tis the only way we know to stop the curse.”
Staring at him, I can’t speak, my throat tight.
“The Desert Knight refused all reasoning,” he continues more softly. “But he agreed to a duel. The victor claims triumph over all the realm. The Shadow Knight has never been bested in combat.”
“Nor the Desert Knight,” my squire says from the top of the stairs.
“Did I not warn you about speaking out?” the Red Knight snaps at him.
“Aye, m’lord.” The squire’s gaze is on me.
“When I wish you to impart your news, I will direct you to do so.”
I can’t muster the smile I want to at the abashed squire. Genuinely happy to see him alive and well, not shoved under a bench seat in the Red Knight’s carriage, I’m also a blink away from exploding.