by Angel Payne
FOUR
*
Mishella
“Cassian.”
As soon as I lift my shaking hand to his rigid back, he plummets to his knees again.
This time, I fall with him.
Let him twist, crushing hard against me, grabbing me closer by fistfuls of my shirt, smashing his face into my neck. I wrap my other arm beneath, wrapping him tightly, gulping hard when the tidal wave of his anguish knocks into me like a storm wave, robbing my breath. Still, he does not make a sound. I wonder if he even allows himself to breathe. I wonder if he is afraid to.
But then he does. In tight rushes that feel like seizures, gripping at me just as violently. In spurts of just two seconds each, he breathes in pain and exhales grief, mourning the woman he could not save…the child he would never know…the fury he has stuffed down for so long.
So long.
“No longer.” The words are as much for him as me—for the thoughts I hear in him as well as me, for they are not a process of his mind. They are a cry from his soul—the light in him that fights to keep burning through the tears he refuses to shed. I clutch his nape with one hand and his waist with the other, lashing him to me before sending my spirit in to crouch over that flame…treasuring its strength and beauty. “Do not hide it any longer, Cassian. Any of it. You do not have to.”
Creator of ours, author of all the energy that binds us, please carry my words to his spirit. His flame…
But once again, his frame stiffens to utter stillness. Even his chest and shoulders seize, betraying his refusal to even let air in. I swallow hard, knowing he will eventually have to. Dreading the moment he does.
*
Cassian
I can’t breathe. I won’t. I refuse.
Why can’t I just subsist on her now?
Isn’t this all I need?
Her softness, making me forget all the shattered edges. Her scent, fresh jasmine, banishing the stigma of this old room, these forgotten books, these tired memories. Her voice, strong but silken, banishing the dirge of death that’s played for so long in my psyche.
No longer.
Her promise.
Isn’t it all I need? Why can’t it be all I need? The key to moving on…
But it isn’t.
Because I have to breathe again. Have to be reminded I’m still alive, dammit. That I lived on, and Lily didn’t.
My baby…didn’t.
Was murdered by the woman with my ring on her finger. Who couldn’t have looked at it, just once, and believed in what it represented. Chosen me. Chosen our child. Chosen our life.
Which turned life into a very different word for me, for so long—
until I journeyed halfway around the world, and walked into a reception hall in a tiny island’s palace—
and remembered what life was supposed to feel like.
Which means I now have a choice.
To dwell in the death that has turned living into simply existing, or to turn forward, into life…
Into letting Mishella all the way in?
I have to make the decision.
Now.
And I do.
FIVE
*
Mishella
Cassian Court is not a man known for his indecisive ways. I have known it since the night he scaled a trellis outside my bedroom balcony in to tilt my world’s axis with our first kiss. I likely knew it before then. I certainly have been reminded of it, in about a thousand different ways, since arriving in New York—
But never as vividly as in this moment. This instance, such a perfect crash of my body and spirit, that it will be imprinted on my mind forever.
Body. My legs still tingling, after he swept from our embrace to his feet, hauling me up too. My fingers still stinging from his conquering grip. My blood still pumping from our rush down from the turret.
Spirit. Whirling from trying to figure out his purpose. Rejoicing from realizing that it does not matter—that I would trust him if he dragged me down to the first floor, through the basement, and into the fires of hell. And now sobbing—when he slams his bedroom door shut, locks his gaze into mine, and gives me the full force of his trust.
And his tears.
Shining and heavy—as he frames my face with both his hands.
Hot and salty—as he angles my mouth higher then smashes his over it.
Then takes me harder.
And deeper.
And does not stop.
We sob and moan and tangle into each other, taking and giving grief and sorrow and loss…and hope and need and possibility. And life. Its pulse through us. Its power inside us.
Its magnificence because of us.
And suddenly, I understand more. I see the gift of this, of him. That I saw from the moment he first burst his light into my world. His beauty was only the beginning—how every woman in that Palais room was not a puddle from his princely-perfect features and godlike body is beyond my logic—there was the sheer power of his very presence. The fierce force of his will over the air molecules themselves…
So what has he ever seen in me that is worth forty million dollars?
What on Earth did Cassian crave from our “arrangement” that could add up to half of what he has brought to me?
Until now, the Creator has been cryptic about the answer.
Until now…in this moment when I see so much of this man. See into this man. See exactly why it was not just his choice but his need to keep the details about Lily from me. He was terrified of having to relive them all for himself—by himself—because he was sure of never finding someone willing to walk those memories with him. Someone to give the darkest part of himself to, who would still be there when he was done. Probably not knowing if he even could.
But loving me enough to try.
Trusting enough to let me in.
Once more, the magnitude of his gift slams me like a wave. No…a tsunami. It soars my adoration for him into galaxies I never dreamed…starscapes that give me the will to pull back from his lips, if only far enough to gaze again into the dark forests of his eyes. I sweep back the thick blonde strands from them, locking my gaze into his, and suck in his breath as my own before uttering words I have told him before—but never meant so deeply.
“Cassian. You are not alone.”
The shadows in the forests ignite. Blaze with fire so beautiful, it makes me gasp again. The flames grow swiftly, spreading across his face, igniting me with the intensity of a thousand feelings.
And I see more of the answer. So much more.
This was what he could not write into the contract. What he had to disguise behind a forty-million-dollar deal with my parents, that put them on the hook for new economic advantages on Arcadia and six months of access to my body. What I received from the whole thing was the one thing I longed for more than any other: freedom from being sold off into an arranged marriage.
Which makes the irony of this moment even more insane.
The last thing on my mind is freedom.
I can think of no other desire but a thousand tethers to him. They would be but physical markers of the bonds inside me, already twined into him like platinum cables. Enduring. Unending. Sealed by the surety of him in my soul…
A soul I throw open to him now, letting him in to learn it, know it, taste it, feel it—all the same ways I let his mouth reclaim mine. I open thoroughly, giving him the length of my tongue, the cavern of my mouth, every sigh in my throat. I hold nothing back, flowing it all to him, giving my gratitude in return for his anguish, my passion in answer to his pain, my hunger as a call to his lust.
And still, I want more.
He does too. I feel it in his tongue’s deepening thrusts, his chest’s violent moans, and then—oh yes—in the hands raking down, cupping my backside, commanding my body to slot perfectly against his. His throbbing shaft spreads my trembling core, even through our clothes. I break our kiss only to set my outcry free, afraid my arousal will make me bite through his lips. N
ot that it still isn’t a possibility…
Especially when he wheels around, still carrying me, and rams me against the door we have just walked through. Air leaves me in a stunned rush, captured again by his mouth’s dominant force, sucking everything from me but the need to hold him, the longing to let him in deeper…to be anything and everything he needs right now.
Even if all he needs is to lose himself in my body.
Maybe it is all I need right now, too. An excuse to abandon the anguish. To forget the loss. To celebrate life instead of mourn for it. To break free into perfection, connection, completion. Passion as perfect as the heart of a flame…
Our flame.
His shoulders flex as he hitches my thighs higher around his waist, angling my buttocks down…driving his groin the same direction. He plummets his mouth back in, forcing my tongue to accept his hot, ravenous licks. Our noses collide. Our foreheads crash. He rolls his hips, eliciting my shudder as his cock rubs new parts of me—echoed in the powerful quake overtaking his body. My tissues expand, softening as he grows against me…then pulls back to stare deeply into me.
And once more, it all bursts between us.
Magic.
Awareness.
Desire.
Revelation.
Everything that has always been so good and right for us—only better now. Drenched in a new light. Awash in a sunburst made possible only by razing the forest that has blocked it. The sorrow, pain, self-doubts, and fears left behind in the blood on a shattered windowpane, by a woman without the courage to live for her family instead of dying for her addiction.
Not anymore.
I lift my arms, gripping Cassian by his nape, sending those two words from my psyche into his. But his eyes slam shut anyway. I lift my fingers into his hair and twist. Hard.
“Cassian. Look. At. Me.”
He growls in protest. Digs his own grip in harder, making me wince—but I do not relent my own hold. A leaden gulp expands his throat.
He opens his eyes.
“She does not win anymore.” I may but whisper it, though will gladly proclaim it from the tops of the turrets if he demands. I promise it again with the grit in my teeth and determination in my eyes. “She does not get to win anymore, Cassian.”
His jaw compresses. The harsh lines in his face almost look like pain—but in every spike of green glass in his gaze, I behold the truth. In order to banish death, he has moved beyond pain—and now struggles with something more excruciating.
Redemption.
He tautens again, seized by the wraiths that would hold him back from it. So many ghosts—many of them dispatched from his own spirit.
“Ella.” He shudders, gripped by a motion bordering on a sob. If only the universe would be merciful and grant him that.
I wrap him closer. Bloody the lining of my soul to give him every layer of love it holds. “I am here.”
“I know.”
But does he? His voice is a grate, his body a coil. He is held back, caught in an invisible cage—and I cannot stretch far enough through the bars to reach him.
“I am here, Cassian.” I slant up, sliding against him. I lift my mouth, nearly pleading for his kiss—and that, at least, he heeds. His tongue lunges back inside, conquering and sliding and possessing, wrenching a moan up my throat. The need to serve him. To heal him.
To redeem him.
His mouth becomes insistent, never stopping. His body surges tighter, never relenting. Over and over he works his cock against my core, a groan consuming his chest as a sigh possesses mine.
“Ella.” He husks it against my lips. “Fuck. My beautiful Ella.”
“No,” I protest, voice sliding on sandpaper. “You are the beautiful one.” And I am overwhelmed by it…
Hands tangled in his thick, silky hair…
Skin on fire from his hard, straining muscles…
Eyes pierced by tears, from the crystalline truth in his. The purity of his freedom.
Surely he sees it now…recognizes what he has accomplished. The empire he has shaped, the spires he has built, the fortune he has amassed…none took half the courage of what he did tonight, in facing the ghost of Lily once more. In grieving everything she took right out that window with her.
He leans in. Kisses the drops from my cheeks. Takes their salt back to my lips, only kneading our mouths at first, but quickly demanding more. Then more. Parting me. Invading me. Filling me. Taking everything from me—
But then giving all of it back. As something new. Something more.
More.
A desire that shakes me. A craving that commands me.
Yes…
A lust that possesses me.
I feel the urgency in him too. In the buttocks beneath my heels, clenching to power the surges of his hips. In the urgency of his hands, cupping me below, spreading me…preparing me. And in the throb of his flesh, so huge that I wonder how he has not ripped through his track pants because of it.
We tear apart, if only to confirm our raging feelings on each other’s face. To validate this connection as reality, not some elysium of fables and fantasies, of dreams we cannot possibly be living. Of need we cannot possibly be feeling.
He is so real. And I am so damn glad.
I show him so—with my surrender. Widen my legs and crash my head back, submitting as openly as possible with my back against the door and my legs around his waist. In return, primitive thunder erupts from his chest—before he lunges his head, biting the side of my neck.
“Faisi vive Créacu.” It is the first time I have ever uttered the filthy Arcadian phrase—but it is also the first time my body has ever known such a fever. The jab of pain from his teeth becomes a javelin, stabbing down, embedding into the fruit of my sex. I fracture into a thousand slices of arousal—hot and wet, fervid and frantic, possessed and obsessed, swept by a force that drives my hands into new explorations over his body. I stab up under his shirt, exploring the striations of his back and spine and shoulders, before dipping again beneath his pants, clutching him by those perfect, muscled spheres…
Dear, sweet Creator.
And he calls me the sorceress? There is magic in his backside. It absorbs my attention to the exclusion of all else, especially as its taut muscles contract then expand beneath my touch…
I need him.
“I need this.”
Only one other trio of words have meant more from his sinfully curved lips. These three make mine smile as much, though not for long. In seconds, I am forming a wide O of new lust, as he twists at the drawstring of my black cotton capris hard enough to tear its mooring wider. Then again and again and again, until the front of the garment is not there anymore—and my naked flesh is instead exposed in the gap.
I gasp heavily.
Cassian snarls, heavier. Someone likes that I obeyed intuition and interpreted his order for “something more comfortable” to mean the exclusion of panties.
As the snarl sharpens to a grunt, he dips his hand in. Fully palms my mons.
“I need this.” The repetition is definitely not like its predecessor. He wields it now as conqueror, not requestor. “I need this, Ella. Here. Now. Like this.”
Liquid, delirious nod. I hope he does not demand something more verbal. I am usually eager for the “conversation,” reveling in what his filthy words do to every inch of my body, but right now, that ravaging wolf’s growl has me soaking the finger he pumps up into my intimate tunnel. The reason is clear. Though the bed is steps away, he wants to continue suspending time: to fuck me against the wall like a warrior of old, being welcomed home by his willing concubine.
Will the concubine in the room please moan in approval?
All too easily, the sound tumbles from me. Cassian responds by ramming his finger in deeper—before joining another to it. I cry out now, needy and mindless. By the Creator, the angels surely dipped the man’s fingers in an extra pool of magic. The things he does to me with them. The dark, perfect desires they elicit…
My throat twists on a frustrated sound. He cannot expect more. Not right now. Not with all the quivering, amazing sensations he keeps spreading through my body…the stars in my skin, the fire in my breaths, the lighting in my womb…the thunder in my thoughts. I can barely think, let alone speak.
“Ella.”
“Yes.” I finally force it out. “Yes, dammit. I need you like this too.”
His mouth finds mine again. The rolling movement makes me open, expecting a tender expression of his thanks, but that is when he reminds me of one key fact.
Warriors do not care about etiquette.
The thought crashes in as his lips do. He plunges brutally, takes thoroughly—claims every doubt from my mind about what his soul needs, as well as his body. A return to control. A renewal of power. A reaffirmation of life. A rededication to the magic we have together. The power we make together.
“Oh.” The revelation strikes in a rush, rushing the word up from my heart despite the fuzz in my head. “Oh…Cassian.” I re-anchor my hands to the sculpted mounds of his shoulders. The motion is more than just physical. I need him to see—to know—that now more than ever, he is my strength. My inspiration. My beacon, illuminating the path out of the cynicism and distrust with which I have lived so long. In helping him heal, I am finding a new way to live. To love.
“Yes.”
The new whisper is not just for him. It is an affirmation to the truth in my heart. “Yes…please…”
“Ella.” His rasp vibrates through him. He has heard the change in my voice. Understands it.
“Take me.” I stab his biceps with my nails. “And let me take you too.”
He re-latches his hold to my buttocks. Secures me higher against the wall, pinning me in place…preparing me to receive the full force of his pleasure. I shiver and let him feel it. Gasp and let him hear it. Level my head so he can see fully into my eyes—and know how he can claim every inch of my body—but in return, I want every ounce of his pain.
Because together, we shall turn it into something beautiful.