Lorelei lifted her hand and held it toward them both, and the two men reached in, their blood flowing together, binding them to words she next spoke.
“Your lives before mine,” she said.
“Your lives before mine.” It was the first time since they met all three of them agreed so openly.
On the imaginary banks of Nua Duaan, the false moons the only light between them, she felt the tingling sensation of their blood mingling, bonding and tying them to each other’s fates. Maybe it was only her imagination, but there was magic in that act so real it terrified her.
She knew no matter what happened, no matter what they faced, until the end of their days their three fates would be entwined. They would never turn their backs on one another no matter what tried to come between them.
Maybe that was the one thing they’d been missing on all their other attempts—unity.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Finn fell asleep rather quickly for someone with death looming over him. He was worried after the three of them parted ways, actually upset to discover he really was supposed to die on their journey. Even though he felt it in his gut ever since Hodon spoke the words, “Only two will return.”
It became a game in his mind, one in which he attempted to convince himself that even though he was the most viable candidate, it couldn’t possibly be him.
He was Mad Finn the Reckless.
What were the odds someone with a name like that would walk away unscathed from such an epic undertaking? What was the likelihood he’d walk away at all?
And yet he fell asleep with ease, as if the confirmation of that knowledge lifted a tremendous burden from his shoulders. Drifting into untroubled dream only moments after his head hit the pillow, he did not wake again until her hand on his shoulder shook him from that comfortable place.
It was still dark, moonlight streaming through sheer curtains that danced like ghosts in the breeze. He lifted his head from the pillow, not sure at first why he was waking, and confused by his surroundings. He’d grown so accustomed to sleeping outside on the cold, hard ground the soft bed beneath his back made him feel like he was falling.
Eyes barely open, the furious rhythm of her frightened heart gripped him and he shot upward, panicked. Terror and excitement pumped through her; he could almost feel the knots twisting and tightening in her stomach.
“Lore…”
She didn’t answer in words, but with an almost aggressive hand. Pushing him onto his back again, she climbed up onto the bed beside him and nestled her bent knees alongside his torso. She sat back on her heels, fidgeting until she was as comfortable as she was going to get, and then she tilted her head to the right to look at him.
He had to be dreaming.
The moonlight filtering through the windows illuminated her completely, casting an ethereal glow around her. She wore a long, white sleeping gown, a gift from their Alvarii host, he presumed, as it was just a hint too large for her. Slipping off her shoulder and exposing the bare, freckled skin almost to her naked breast, he swallowed hard. The loose braid of her hair fell in to cover her just enough that the mystery of what lay behind it stirred the animal inside him.
Yep. Definitely dreaming.
The beast rose quickly to the surface of his skin when her hand came down to rest on his arm.
She trembled, every part of her body shaking as scattered emotions flitted through her mind so quickly he couldn’t pick them apart to make sense of them. Reaching across, he touched her and she nearly leaped out of her skin.
“Princess?”
He started lifting himself from the pillow, but she answered with an unexpected kiss. Her body surged forward, the hands on his shoulders shoving him back again. She lifted her leg over his waist, straddling his stomach and lowering her chest against his as she went on kissing him. Her lips shuddered nervously across his, tasting of inexperience, fear and the salted wind blowing off the false sea where they’d all three sworn to protect one another just hours before.
Ahuh. He was dreaming.
There was no way she’d come to him in the dark of night and throw herself at him. She told him she was not ready for commitment at least two dozen times, both verbally and with her body language every time he’d touched her over the last few weeks.
His entire body stiffened in answer, parts of him he couldn’t control tightening, rising, startling a gasp from her slightly parted lips as he lifted into her. His hand slid upward, fingers tightening along the curve of her spine as he met her advances. If it was just a dream, he was going to follow it straight through to the end because if he couldn’t have her while he was awake, at least he could have her in his dreams.
The movement dropped her downward, into his lap and she whimpered when she felt the urgency of his desire press hard against her. The sound was lost in kisses, increasing in desperation and vigor as she pushed her tongue through his lips in a wicked dance that drew a desirous moan from his throat. She brought one hand to his face, the fingers tickling across his jaw and cheek before tangling into the loose hair behind his ear and drawing him in deeper. The other hand she let fall down his shoulder, where she rested on his chest as though at any moment she might push him away again.
Inside the wolf was ready to take control, but the man gripped hard the strands of conscious awareness before they could slip away and he lost himself entirely. Dream or no dream, he couldn’t take the chance. If he hurt her in anyway, took advantage of her because he couldn’t control himself, he’d never forgive himself for it. He cared for her too much to risk binding her to him without her being truly ready.
“Princess,” he sighed across her lips, not exactly sure what to do with his own hands. The one on her back tightened, fingertips pressing into her skin, while the other dropped to cup the curve of her backside and squeeze her body closer. She moved slowly in his lap, instinct guiding her body in pleasurable motions that drew another husky moan from his throat.
His tenuous grip on self-control waning, desire ran rampant through Finn’s body, making every impulse impossible to control. The hands he wasn’t sure what to do with just seconds before were suddenly everywhere; squeezing her hips and pressing her harder into his lap, rising to grab her breast and squeeze as he nibbled kisses down her chin and into the crook of her neck. He gripped the flimsy nightgown in both hands, their bodies only parting long enough for him to yank it over her head and toss it into the tangle of sheets at his feet. Her bare chest came against his, the soft crush of her breasts warm and inviting as he sank deeper into her eager, hungry kisses.
It felt right and yet wrong on so many levels it made him uncomfortable. Somewhere deep down he wasn’t sure why she was doing it. She knew the consequences. More than just their bodies would merge, their souls would tangle together like the melted wax of two spent candles until she could no longer tell anymore where she began and he ended. The connection between them would become a distraction, their constant fear for one another getting them both killed.
He couldn’t believe how strong the impulse to stop felt, and though it was a small miracle he was able to grasp onto that part of himself and bring it to the surface long enough to grip her by the shoulders and draw her body away from his, he was proud of himself for doing it. The wolf, on the other hand, was more than just disappointed. It was enraged.
“Lorelei,” he managed to draw her away. She rushed back in, straining against the force of his grip to silence his protests, but he managed to tell her, “You don’t want this.”
“I do.” She seemed to melt and soften, her body easing into his again, lips tilting upward to kiss along the stubble on his neck and chin. “I want you, Finn.”
Gods, it was nice to hear that.
“I told you already this was what I wanted. I just wasn’t ready before, but I am now.”
“No,” he insisted, the greater part of him wishing he could hit himself and stop the stupidity flowing from his lips. “You don’t want this, Princess and you’re
not ready. You’re just…” He had to hold her back again because the tender nibbling of her lips across the sensitive hollow of his throat was driving him insane, making his every thought muddy and senseless in his head. “You’re just afraid I’m going to die.”
“That isn’t what this is about,” she insisted, stretching against the push of his hands to reach him again. The warm pulse of her breath across his ear as she whispered was so delicious, he nearly forgot again why he was trying to stop her. “I want you,” she told him again. “All of you. I want to be one with you.”
“Lorelei, no.” The stiffness of his voice, the tension in his body tightened her in his grip, and after a moment’s hesitation she jerked free from his hands and scrambled back onto the bed leaving him feeling hollow and cold.
“I don’t understand you,” she hissed. “One minute you’re telling me you want me more than anything, and the next you’re telling me no.”
“I’m not telling you no,” he muttered. He brought his hand up to the stubble on his chin, fingers itching through skin still damp from her kisses. “I’m telling you it’s not right, not yet. I don’t want you just because you think I’m going to die and this might be the only chance we get…”
“If not while we have this time together, when?” There was fear in her voice, a deep sorrow that made parts of him ache because he didn’t know how to calm the terrifying things she felt. “What if there isn’t another chance, Finn? What if…?”
He was scared too; she had to know that, to feel it. Scared that no matter how many pacts they made to protect one another, he wasn’t going to walk away from Great Sorrow’s Peak. That he was never going to know what it felt like to be completed by her. She scrambled further back, toward the far end of the bed and the moonlight made her look so forlorn his heart ached.
“I don’t want to live the rest of my life not knowing what it could have been like to feel connected to you.”
And he didn’t want to curse her to a life in which she ached for him so deeply, she could never know happiness again. He’d watched his mother die of that kind of heartache.
“Hey.” Leaning forward, she was almost out of reach so he scooted a little until his hand rested firmly on her shoulder. “I already told you that isn’t going to happen. We made a promise to each other, all three of us, and all three of us are coming back from that mountain with the Horns of Llorveth.”
“What if we don’t?”
“We will.”
“You can’t promise that, Finn. You can’t just…”
“I can,” he interrupted before she could finish her thought, “and I will. I do promise it, Lorelei. Come on.” He brought his hand to her cheek, the backs of his fingers stroking downward along her tear-moistened skin. “You’ve spent enough time with me in the last few weeks to know all there is to know about me. If someone tells me I’m supposed to die, and I’m not ready to do it, it’s not going to happen because I won’t let it.”
“But…”
“I won’t let it. I won’t ever let anything hurt you, most especially not me. And besides, I have something amazing to look forward to. I’ve got you to live for.”
Dropping her head down, she folded her hands in her lap and stared at them. Loose hair fell in around her face, a thin curtain wavering in the exhale of her frustrated breath. “I feel so stupid.”
“What? No… Why?”
“I don’t know, I just feel like such an idiot.” There was a slight hitch in her voice; stifled breath fluttered through her lips again. “Like some stupid little girl who wants to be a woman, but doesn’t know how.”
“Believe me when I tell you, you are all woman,” he assured her. He’d be aching later, kicking himself in the ass over pushing her away when he’d been so close to satisfying an itch no amount of personal scratching was able to soothe. “Come here.”
She hesitated, head lifting into the moonlight so he could finally see her face clearly. So sad, so beautiful. It broke his heart to see tears in her eyes, to feel the sorrow swelling in her heart. They were tears she shed for him, a great sadness and fear that she would lose him before she ever had him. Didn’t she know he was already hers in the most intimate way, he’d belonged to her since the moment he first caught her scent on the wind what felt like a lifetime ago?
“Will you let me hold you?” he asked. “It’s hard for me to sleep without you near me now.”
The barest hint of a smile quivered at the corners of her mouth, and then she rose up onto her knees, edging across the bed until she fell into his arms. They lay against the pillows and he brought the blankets up around them both. She was naked, save for the linen undergarments she wore, but she was so warm in his arms, all snuggled up against him with her head nestled into the crook of his shoulder and her hair tickling his cheek. Her breasts were soft and warm against his skin, and as her fingertip traced through the scant black hair across his chest the beast inside him brooded.
He could have had her. Just once she could have been his before death took him, and though he’d promised her he wasn’t going to die, that they would walk down the mountainside hand in hand when all was said and done, he wasn’t quite sure he actually believed it.
He wouldn’t curse her though, leave her feeling empty and filled with longing for him, and if he died never knowing the depth of the bond they were meant to share she would be heartbroken, yes, but it wouldn’t devastate her. She’d find a way to go on, give her heart to another when she was ready, and though it broke something inside him to even think of her with someone else, her happiness was all that really mattered to him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Vilnjar once looked forward to the changing seasons, most especially the coming of autumn. The colorful display of leaves alight in the trees, falling to the ground like a carpet that glittered with frost each morning. The aroma of decay was intoxicating, memory-inducing in its power.
But there were no trees, no brittle, brilliant leaves to stir in the swift wind. Only ash stretched for miles through the Edgelands, dampening the earthy scent until all he could smell was smoke. At night a mist of toxic rain swept in from the western sea, spilling in slow patters atop their tent and making it hard for him to sleep.
Even in Frigga’s arms, he shivered through the night, head always cocked, ears attuned to the world around them for sounds that might tell of predators. There were none. No life lingered there, and feeling utterly alone the despair pressed his shoulders further downward until it was as though he barely dragged himself through the ashen ruins of the place he’d once called home.
Despite the darkness he felt, Frigga thrived when the wind blew cold; it invigorated her and gave her hope in ways he couldn’t quite understand, but he was grateful for it in the end. Her hope sustained them both as they traveled further north through a desolate and ruined land.
As they lay together in the crude, sheltered hills below Drekne, Vilnjar took comfort in her arms and unyielding optimism. Despite the growing emptiness in their bellies and the endless destruction of the land around them, everything would be okay. They would find his sister; she was still alive. She had to be. Though how the three of them would get back to Dunvarak once they did find her, he had no idea, but he believed Frigga when she told him it would be all right.
They brought only enough food to see them through a handful of days, foolishly relying on the hope he would be able to hunt the land and forage for autumn nuts and berries when their pack was empty, but the scourging of the Edgelands sent the wildlife running into Leithe, and what nuts and berries might have remained burned to bitter ash along with endless miles of trees and crops.
Their horse was starving, and come morning he planned to end its misery and take advantage of what meat remained on its bones. It wouldn’t be much, but it would be something.
Beside her in the dark, he listened to the unrelenting silence of a night devoid of life save for the depth and continuity of her sleeping breath. Vilnjar’s arm draped across he
r chest, his hand curved around her bare shoulder as he buried his face into the soft waves of her loose hair. The overpowering scent of smoke was so prevalent he could barely smell her anymore, but that small, pure thread of her fragrance lingered beneath, and it comforted him as he closed his eyes and let troubled sleep draw him in.
It was a risk, allowing himself to give in to sleep. Their small tent was barely sheltered among the hills and with no tree cover they were hardly hidden at all. They traveled for days and saw no signs of life. There were no survivors, as he’d hoped to find. No animals dared return while smoke still clung to the air and hung like low veil of cloud as far as the eye could see.
Only the monstrous carrion birds swooped in from the skies on black wings to peck at charred bones littering the devastation. It sickened him when he found himself contemplating eating those birds, far more than the thought of eating their horse. He had no desire to feast on the flesh of creatures that sated themselves of on the corpses of his people, but a hungry man could not afford to be picky. And still he continued to stay Frigga’s hand each time she drew her bow from her back, shaking his head stiffly. His pride would only hold out for so long. Soon they would have no choice if they wanted to survive.
The level of destruction, the senselessness of so much death made him feel sick and anxious. His people, already so few, were all but gone from the world, and for what? He knew the reasons, but they didn’t make sense. The people of the Edgelands followed King Aelfric’s decree. They never broke the treaty. They lived peaceful lives, barely eking out a meager living and denying their own nature until they nearly forgot who and what they were.
He joined with the Council of the Nine in hopes of preserving the U’lfer, believing they could find a way to thrive and grow again. What a fool he’d been, falling into the trap of self-denial more deeply than anyone he knew. He’d learned to ignore the wolf inside, pushing it so far beneath the surface of his skin it almost cowered, but no more.
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