by Nashoda Rose
Zurina had been preparing for years to help Tarek as soon as he rose from Rest. When Keir had told us on the plane ride home, Waleron’s body had tensed and his hand in mine had tightened. He’d trusted her. Had known Zurina since he was a child, and she’d betrayed him, even if she hadn’t thought it was betrayal.
Waleron’s hand settled on the small of my back as he opened the front door of his house. A place no one else had ever been before, although it wasn’t that far from the Toronto Talde house. But it was hidden from the road and surrounded by willow trees. I’d never tell Waleron this, but it reminded me of a fairy tale as we drove up, with the weeping willow branches hanging over the driveway, their leaves caressing the roof of the car as we passed.
And then the house, sitting nestled amongst them, not massive or overbearing, but simple and yet beautiful with plenty of windows; the outside encased in gray stone.
In the empty foyer there was a wide staircase to the left and barren white walls. I peered into the open kitchen and living room and it was the same. Simple and clean. No frills, but then Waleron was never one to have flourishes.
Cold and sterile.
Like he lived his life.
Alone. No reminders. No comforts. Nothing.
I turned to him and he was watching me, jaw clamped and mouth pursed.
He was worried. His expression was unreadable, but it was in his eyes. He was worried I would turn around and walk out. But I didn’t care if he lived in a trailer; I was there for him, not a place or how he lived.
I half smiled and the muscles in his forearms flexed and then relaxed. “I hope you at least have a comfy bed where we can spend the next few days.”
His brows shot up.
Then the worry faded and desire swirled in the depths of his eyes. His hands linked with mine, fingers entwined.
A puzzle being put together—it fit. We fit.
“I have a bed.” He hooked my waist and pulled me up against him. His brows lowered. “But baby, once I take you, I won’t ever let you walk away again. Not ever.”
Xamien had once said that Waleron had always been in bed with us, and he was right. You could try and smother love, drown it, numb it out, but it didn’t die, it always fought back to lead you back where you belonged. I belonged here.
He cupped my jaw. “My Ink… it’s different than others. I can’t always control it.”
I’d seen his Ink react before, slithering over his skin with its red eyes blazing. He’d never talked about it before, but there was more to his Ink than other Scars. “I know.”
“The pills were to control it and me,” he said. “And sometimes even the pills weren’t enough.” He paused. “You will see that, Delara. When it happens, you need to see that part of me because it’s who I am now. It lives and breathes inside me.”
“If it’s part of you then I will love that part too, Waleron.”
His eyes closed briefly and when he opened them again the blue glimmered like the calm water in the fountain in the Realm. “If you leave me, it’ll erase any good I have left.”
“Leaving has never been an option for us, Waleron. We never really left one another.”
He groaned before his mouth slammed down on mine and I sagged in to him, into the warmth of his lips against mine, the familiar taste of him that I’d tried desperately to forget and never could.
It was starved and bruising yet comforting and sensual at the same time. It was us. How we always were, passionate and unforgiving in our love.
“Bed,” he said, then scooped me up in his arms and walked up the stairs, down a hallway. He kicked open the door to his bedroom.
In three strides he tossed me onto his bed, but he didn’t follow as he stood staring at me, his eyes burning with desire. My eyes trailed down his hard chest to his cargo pants and the bulge that strained against the material.
I was about to rip off my shirt when my gaze hit the large oil painting on his wall in front of the bed.
My breath hitched and I froze. It was me.
Holy shit, it was me leaning against a tree with a smile playing at my mouth—sexy, curious, and playful. And my eyes… the painter had captured the desire inflamed in their depths as I stared at something—no, it was someone.
Him. I stared at Waleron. The day we’d met. The first time he kissed me under the tree.
“How did you…. God, it’s stunning.” I climbed off the end of the bed and walked over to it, mesmerized and confused.
He’d kept this in his bedroom all these years? When he was driving me away? When he was desperate to put a barrier between us? But when he slept, he fell asleep to me every night.
“I had a photo of you taken sixteen years ago. I hired a painter and flew him to the UK to paint this under the same tree where we met.”
He came up behind me, his chest close but not touching until I leaned back against him and his arms wrapped me in a cocoon of warmth.
His breath tickled my neck and goose bumps popped across my skin. “This, maitagarri, is how I survived without you.”
I whirled around in his arms and our lips met in frenzied violence. His hands tore at my clothes, ripping my shirt off, then my bra. With his mouth locked on mine, we stumbled backward until we landed on the bed, his weight on top of mine.
His fingers undid my jeans, then he was up on his knees, dragging them off me, my panties going with them. His cargo pants came next as he yanked them off, his shirt following.
He straddled me. Naked. Staring at one another as if we both needed a moment to comprehend that this was real.
“Delara.” His voice caressed my name in a low husky whisper.
He slowly lowered. “You’re mine.”
“Yes,” I panted.
His hand cupped my breast, thumb grazing my erect nipple before the wet velvet touch of his tongue swept over the surface. Once. Twice.
I closed my eyes, tilting my head back as his teeth grazed the tip and then he drew it into his mouth and sucked.
“Oh God, Waleron.” My hands on either side of his head, I arched in to him. He teased one breast.
“Mmm,” he said, running his tongue between my breasts then kissing up my neck.
“I need you inside me.” I moaned, wrapping my legs around his waist and pulling him closer.
His hand slid up my thigh, to my hip, then waist. “Soon,” he murmured against my neck.
“Now,” I argued, lifting my hips. My body ached for him, pulsed. Throbbed. I couldn’t get close enough and I wanted his cock filling me,
He lifted, and his finger traced the line of my jaw, and then he leaned forward and placed a light kiss on my lips.
The gentle caress was unexpected from him. Even when we’d been together he’d been rough in bed. It was different today. The urgency was still there, but there was also a gentleness… as if he were savoring every moment.
“I loved you before we existed. It was preordained. It always was, maitagarri.” He rested his forehead against mine, our lips a breath away. Heat throbbed between us as he closed his eyes and just breathed. “That’s why it hurt so much. It’s why you cut. Why I became a man I hated. We’re unable to be apart. When we aren’t together, it wrecks us.”
It had. We’d self-destructed.
We’d wandered off the path that had been set for us and couldn’t find our way back. As if we’d been lost in the forest, searching for that tree we’d first met under, but unable to see clearly that it was right in front of us the entire time. We just had to stop running.
Our love was fire. Destructive and consuming.
But a burned city could be rebuilt as long as the foundation remained. Our love was the foundation; it couldn’t be dug up. It couldn’t be destroyed because it was part of the land. It was for eternity.
“I need you. I’ve always needed you,” I whispered. It was more than desire between us, it was an unbreakable bond.
Our love endured even when I’d thought he didn’t believe in love.
“Bab
y.” Waleron nuzzled my neck, the slight roughness of his scruff tickling my skin. “I’m going to make love to you first, and then we’re going to fuck for the rest of the night. You good with that?”
My sex clenched and wetness pooled between my legs, an intense ache that had been simmering for years, unable to be sated.
“Yeah. Can you put your cock inside me now, please?”
The corners of my mouth curved up at her words and then a light chuckle emerged. The sound was foreign to me and yet with her it was natural and easy.
Her arm wrapped around my neck. “Kiss me,” she begged.
But I needed a moment. Christ, I needed a thousand moments. I’d ached for Delara for so long. No, I’d anguished for her, and now she was beneath me. I’d give up my Taldeburu a thousand times over in order to have her here.
My emotions were all over the place. Desire. Love. Fear. They’d been diluted by the diazepam and now they were shooting off like fireworks. So much had been buried beneath a blanket of drugs—except anger. That had always been kept alive by my Ink.
But now—Jesus. She was here with me.
“Waleron? You okay?”
“Yeah, baby.” I lowered my head and took what was born to be mine.
Our mouths knitted in a slow, sensual kiss as I ran my hand up her thigh then down between us.
When my fingers slid through her wetness, I swore against her mouth and deepened the kiss. She moaned and arched her back when my fingers circled her clit.
“Waleron. Yes. God. Yes.”
Despite us having been apart, I could read her body like words were scrolled across her skin, and I used that to my advantage as I teased her with my fingers, slipping in and out, feeling her thighs clamp around me while she panted against my mouth.
Her body trembled and I sensed her at the edge and eased off again.
“Waleron.” Her eyes said it all, frustration mixed with a plea, but I needed to be inside her when she came. To feel her tighten around my cock, scream while I thrust inside her. I needed us together when we came because we’d been apart for too long; it had to be together this first time.
“Going to fuck you now, baby.” I held my cock and slid it up and down her folds, my precum mixing with her wetness.
“Okay,” she breathed.
Slowly, needing to feel every part of her, I slid my cock into her tight wetness. “Jesus,” I groaned, hovering above her as I tried to control my thrust.
She lifted her hips and I sank deeper. “Fuck me, Waleron.”
“Maitagarri. Language, please,” I murmured, and I felt her chest rumble beneath me. I grabbed her wrists and locked them down on either side of her head. “So tight.”
I kissed her again with my cock deep inside her, but I couldn’t stay still any longer and by the desperation in her eyes, she couldn’t either.
All control faltered after my first thrust. “Christ,” I growled.
Our bodies smacked into one another over and over again. Harsh. Hard. Helpless to deny what we’d lost for so long.
I groaned as I pumped in and out of her hard and fast. Slow and gentle, then rough and slow.
We were merged. Two people so woven together that we’d become one and the same. We existed without one another, but we’d never lived.
Her body tightened; she was close. “Now, baby.”
I shoved hard into her, my hips grinding against her. Our fingers interwove on the mattress and then she closed her eyes, head tilting back and her breathing stopped.
It was the most beautiful sight I’d seen in twenty years, as spasms racked her body around me. I drove hard twice more before I joined her.
“Yes. Jesus. Yes,” I growled as I came inside her. “Maitagarri. My beloved.”
Our tragic love had spanned over a century, but now it was just a love story with meandering paths that had led us to where we were now.
IT WAS TWO DAYS BEFORE we left the bedroom, neither of us able to be apart for longer than a few seconds.
He was lying on his back, eyes closed and arms above his head, breathing slow and even. I was wide awake, up on my elbow, tracing the tattoo on his side. It was new. Well, new as in I hadn’t seen it before, but it could’ve been twenty years old.
Half of it was hidden beneath him and I was curious to know what it was.
His cell phone rang and his eyes opened.
The corners of his lips curved upward and his hand curved around the back of my neck, bringing me in to him for a kiss. “Mmmm, baby. I’ll never get used to seeing you here.”
I laughed. “You should be, with that painting hanging in front of your bed.”
He snorted. “I never wanted to forget you. And it’s not the same thing.”
He ignored the phone as he trailed kisses down my neck then slid the sheet lower and his tongue circled my nipple, teeth grazing the surface before he sucked.
I arched in to him, hands curling around his biceps. The cell stopped, then rang again.
“Are you going to get that?” I asked, not wanting him to, but knowing it had to be important for someone to continuously call Waleron.
“Fuck no,” he said, and drew my other nipple into his mouth.
I moaned, my body heating and my bud throbbing. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to you swearing.”
“I always swore, baby. Just rarely out loud.” The phone went silent then started again. “It won’t stop, will it?”
“Maybe someone has heard from Damien or Abby?”
“Damien is with Jasper. He’s gone rogue, and Abby, I suspect, is already dead.” Waleron leaned over me and tagged his phone, lying on the floor beside the bed, and I caught the rest of the tattoo.
My breath hitched.
Etched on his side, amongst interwoven swirls of ink, was scrolled maitagarri.
Holy shit.
My eyes flew to his. He held the phone to his ear, listening, and yet all his focus was on me. “Don’t care,” he said into the phone, then paused. “Say it over the phone.”
He’d never let me go. He’d pushed me away, but he never stopped loving me.
He scowled, hand tightening around the cell. “Fine. But I choose who sits on the council with me.” He tossed the phone aside. “Need to go to the Realm.”
“Now?” I asked as he climbed out of bed.
“Yes. Tor is offering a formal apology, and we are choosing another Taldeburu to take Zurina’s place.”
“I didn’t realize the Wraiths called on a cell.”
Waleron smirked and it was such a rare sight that it stole my breath away. “I blocked everyone from my mind except you, maitagarri. And as you know, this house is unknown to all. Even the Wraiths.” He dressed in his black cargo pants and threw on a white T-shirt. “I’ll be back soon. I want you naked in my bed when I return.”
“I’ll be here.” I stretched like a cat, smiling, letting the sheet slip from my shoulders to reveal my breasts.
His eyes flared and he grunted before he Traced.
But I didn’t stay in bed naked. I showered and then Jedrik texted an hour later that the witch bitch Trinity had showed up at the Talde house insisting on seeing Waleron. I quickly dressed and stole Waleron’s car and drove to the Talde house.
She was the one sore spot and I was finally having my say with the bitch.
The gate was already open as I skidded around the corner. “Is she still here?”
Jedrik’s voice sounded rather amused. “Oh yeah. She’s talking to Keir about some vision she wants payment for.”
What? The only payment Trinity ever asked for was Waleron in her bed. That was so not happening ever again.
I parked and hopped out of the car, then took a few calming breaths before walking up to the house and down the hall to the library.
I threw open the door.
“He’ll want this vision, Keir. It’s about a girl, Max. I’m told she lives with Xamien. Tell him to meet me at my house tonight.”
Trinity stood with her back to me
, curved hips, slim waist, long legs. She leaned over the desk while she spoke to Keir, her palms resting on the smooth surface.
Keir noticed me enter the library, but didn’t acknowledge it, keeping his focus on Trinity. The witch was too arrogant to even care that someone had entered the library.
“Message will be given. Now, if you will excuse me, I have…,” Keir said.
The witch slowly straightened and turned with hands on her hips. She raised her thin dark brows and her white teeth gleamed as she smiled. A fake smile, of course. Trinity didn’t know how to smile for real. Every bone in her body was fake.
“Ah, Delara. How is Edan?” She raised her brows. “Oh, that’s right, you exchanged him for the vampire Liam. Now that he is dead, who is it this time? A CWO? Perhaps a disgusting Long Neck.”
I smiled. Normally, I’d be as angry as a raging bull with spears in its butt, but not this time. No, I was taking the witch bitch down. “Waleron, actually.”
Trinity’s fake smile dropped and she glowered at me. “I doubt that. But if you did, then be sure to tell him I’ll see him at my place tonight. We have a business agreement.”
Fuck that. Waleron was never doing “business” with the bitch again. “That’s not happening.”
Trinity smirked and leaned back on the desk. “We shall see.”
Last night Waleron had told me about Trinity. How he’d taken so many drugs in order to numb out Trinity’s touch.
“He told me he was so drugged when he fucked you that he can’t even remember it. And you know why he did that? Because he couldn’t stand the thought of you touching him.”
“Where is he?” Trinity glared at me, her fingers curled around the lip of the desk.
“At home in bed where I left him.” A small white lie, but damn it felt good to see Trinity speechless, because everyone knew Waleron’s home was a secret.
I licked my lips and seductively ran a hand over my hip.
Trinity inhaled several deep breaths as if she were trying—and failing—to get control of herself. Her long fingernails smoothed over her tight black pants before she walked slowly toward me. Her lips pursed so hard that her bright red lipstick smudged.