by Ophelia Bell
His mouth went dry and he licked his lips, unable to shake the warm, silken sensation of her lips against his, the heat of that involuntary exhale that had passed through her and into him. His cock was completely hard again, and fuck if he didn’t love that he was turned on so damn much.
He sat back and guzzled the rest of his wine. When he set the glass down, he hazarded a look across the table at her. She stared back at him, her lips parted and her eyebrows raised expectantly.
“It was delicious,” he said, ignoring the mostly uneaten second serving.
Aurum smiled, her cheeks flushing prettily as she dipped her head. “There’s plenty left. If you like it, eat as much as you can—the magic will help.”
“Magic or no magic, it’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life.” It was far from a lie, but when he dug back into his food, he closed his eyes, savoring every bite like it was his last, because it tasted like her. This food and that kiss would probably be the closest he ever got to her.
After polishing off the entire dish of lasagna, the loaf of bread, and the side salad she’d served him, plus two bottles of wine, he helped her clean up.
“Are you tired?” she asked, seeming eager to fill the silence that had reigned since the end of supper. Every time their tasks brought him near her, she moved away as though repelled by some unseen force. Now that her place was clean she stood on the far side of the table again, watching him warily.
“I could sleep, I guess,” he said, shrugging. The truth was he was wired and edgy. Her magic had certainly had an effect, but he wasn’t sure if it was what she’d intended. He’d lost that aching weight in his chest, but it’d been replaced by a keen, burning curiosity. Her magic had provided him with a hint of what it might feel like to know her, yet left him wanting more instead of allowing him to feel it fully.
“I made you a room,” she said, gesturing toward the other side of the house, then rounding the table toward him. He stood back to let her pass, but she took the long way around through the kitchen, rather than go near him again. He followed, keeping his distance, then stopped and let out an appreciative whistle when she slid a wooden screen aside to reveal a room he was pretty sure hadn’t even existed earlier in the day.
“Did you literally make this while I was gone?” he asked, awestruck by the comfortable details of the space, from the huge, sturdy carved bed, down to the straw-colored woven rug on the floor.
With a wave of her hand, glowing lamps illuminated on tables that flanked the bed. The room was next to hers in an area he was certain had been part of the wide veranda along the front of her house earlier in the day. She waved her arm again and another screen opened onto that very porch, and a line of small lights lit up along a path through the Glade in the direction of the pool.
“I conjured it while supper was cooking,” she said. “I figured you would want privacy while you were here, and short of setting you up in Gavra or Aodh’s house, it made sense. It’s better if you’re close.”
Nicholas stared at the bed, then at the wall that separated his headboard from hers. Better if he was close, but not too close, he guessed.
“Thank you,” he said, positive that his most honest response wouldn’t be appreciated.
“I’ll … ah … leave you now,” she said, taking an awkward step back out of the room. “Just call if you need anything. Make yourself at home, okay, Nicholas?”
He watched her turn and go into her own room, a tangle of unspoken words caught in his throat. “Don’t go,” was the first thing on his mind, which was absurd to think because she was only a few feet away. “Thank you,” would have been repetitive. “Let me taste you for real,” would most definitely have been out of line.
“Fuck me,” he cursed under his breath, then chuckled to himself because wasn’t that what he wanted most? Well, her and Calder together, really … He still couldn’t shake the vivid images his own mind had fabricated of being with the two of them at the same time.
Throwing himself on the bed, he grabbed one of the pillows and buried his face in it. Gaia, everything smelled like her. But shouldn’t it, if she’d used her magic to create it all?
For a long time he simply lay there, staring out into the night at the little line of lights that bordered the footpath, at the warm wood structure he was sheltered within. It was a far cry from all the prison cells he’d lived in before, first constructed from solid rock, then brick, then cinderblock, and then finally at the end, steel disguised with plaster to make it seem more homey.
He’d had a television in his last cell, encased in the wall behind a layer of glass. So for the last few decades he’d had that small connection with the human world, but it didn’t change the fact that his home was still a prison cell, with four walls, a ceiling almost too low to stand upright in, and a thick glass door too sturdy for him to bust through even with his considerable strength.
Here, he wasn’t quite free yet, but he could stretch his legs, he could move around—could come and go, at least to a degree. He had no idea how to get back out of the Glade, though, even if he wanted to.
And he realized that he didn’t really want to. Sure, he had the Sanctuary to go to, where he knew he’d be taken in and kept safe by his family, but “kept safe” wasn’t a state he felt an unbearable need to achieve.
He tilted his head back toward the wall behind the bed, listening for some sign of Aurum. Soft rustling sounds met his ears and he closed his eyes, placing his hand flat against the wall and imagining he could feel her through it.
In this magical place, surrounded on all sides by sky, he’d never been more terrified of falling, but Aurum was wrong about one thing … at least in the real world if you fell, you knew there would be an end to it eventually.
What Nicholas feared most right now was that he’d already started falling, and that he would never stop.
Chapter 11
Aurum
Aurum couldn’t sleep. She lay awake for hours, knowing that if she closed her eyes, the dreams would come in all their infuriating intensity. She wasn’t in the mood to be taunted by the images of Calder and her mysterious, dark-haired ursa any more than she was in the mood to crave the man who lay in bed in the room on the other side of her wall.
After she left Nicholas and closed his door behind her, she could sense his tangled emotions pulsing like a steady beat through her house. Part of what she sensed was arousal, but she was pleased to note a diminishing of his hurt.
At least helping him had distracted her from her own sense of abandonment, but the ache between her thighs was not the kind of distraction she needed. She brushed her fingers over her lips, still feeling the hot, smooth press of his mouth against hers in that impulsive moment when they’d kissed, leaving her breathless and confused. Sighing into the darkness, she slid her hand down her torso and between her legs, dipping fingers into the wet heat of her core and stroking softly over her swollen clit. Just one tiny stroke with thoughts of Nicholas’s mouth on hers, and her body lit up.
She stopped abruptly. This was a bad idea with him in the next room. Her power was too strong, her craving too acute, and the magic of the Glade far too dispersed now for her to be able to contain herself if he was drawn to her magic in the night and offered himself to her. Her energy was waning as it was. If she intended to last until she was reunited with Calder, she couldn’t tempt another man by inadvertently getting him drunk with her magic, even if it was a contact high.
Silently, she slipped out of bed and made her way to her moonlit balcony, carefully slid her screens closed behind her, and launched herself off the ledge.
As she fell into the starlit emptiness beyond, she let her instincts take over and her body shifted, wings manifesting first before the rest of her true shape emerged and she was soaring up into the velvet night.
She flew until she was exhausted, circling the mountain peaks that bordered the Glade, unwilling to fly farther away lest she lose sight of the tiny, pulsing bubble of Nicholas’s a
ura that glowed like a beacon from the corner of her home. The light eventually dimmed enough to signal he slept, and Aurum finally glided back onto her balcony, shifting silently and crawling into her own bed, where she slept fitfully in the last few hours before dawn.
Consciousness came sluggishly the next morning and she burrowed beneath the covers, trying to shake the deep longing she’d awoken with. Memories of her dreams flashed through her mind like always, accompanied by longing for the man who had run from her. The same need she’d had every morning since Calder left settled into her belly like a stone, and she contemplated staying in bed and letting Nicholas fend for himself. He’d have some relief in the water of the pool, but if the emotional damage his soul had suffered flared again, she should be there to help.
With a sigh, Aurum opened her eyes and threw off the covers, conjuring clothes with a quick breath and sorting out her appearance in front of her looking glass before heading out of her room.
Nicholas wasn’t in his room, nor was he anywhere else in the house. She found remnants of food he’d pilfered from her kitchen, including a couple cores from more fresh fruit he’d plucked from her trees. He’d left a dim trail of emotional energy behind, which she followed out her door, quickly discerning his state of mind as she went. He’d woken up hungry and horny, and beneath those very distinct and potent physical feelings was the dark purple energy of deep depression, leaving a dripping trail like a fresh wound. The contradiction of emotions had to be driving him mad.
Letting out a long breath, she went out the door, preparing herself for the worst. She should have expected one joy-infused meal wouldn’t be enough to see him through more than a night. Tonight she’d have to plan ahead. Perhaps an afternoon of baking was in order—she couldn’t go wrong with pastries, where true joy was concerned.
As she approached the center of the Glade, the sunlight caught the silvery tangle of his wet hair and the droplets of water clinging to his back. He was hunched over at the edge of the island in the center of the pool, naked, with his back toward her. His head was bowed over the water, fingers tangled in his hair and his shoulders shook gently. The soft, deep sobs that reached her broke her heart.
Aurum stopped at the edge of the pool, remaining silent while she tried to decide what to do. He was too far away for her breath to reach and remain potent enough to help. To ease such a deep hurt, he needed to ingest her power directly.
She chewed her lip, chest tight with the need to do something for him and feeling ridiculous for her frivolous enjoyment of the baking plans she’d made on the walk down here.
“Nicholas?” she called out. “Nicholas, can I come and talk to you?”
The hunched, naked form stilled, his hands falling to the lip of the platform. His wide shoulders and thick arms flexed as he gripped the stone, his back moving with the deep breaths he took to calm his crying.
“Leave me alone,” he called back to her.
“I can help you, if you let me,” she said. “You need my breath, but you have to let me give it to you directly. Putting the magic in your food isn’t going to be enough.”
“Why does it hurt so much?” he asked, turning his head and giving Aurum a view of his reddened, tear-streaked cheek. Pale stubble had grown in, leaving his chin looking like it had been dipped in silver shavings. “Do all ursa have to go through this? How do they deal with it?”
“No, Nicholas. Most of your kind have the support of others. At the very least, a partner committed to share the burden with you. I know I’m a poor substitute, but I can help.”
She took a chance and manifested her wings to fly across the breadth of the pool to the other side of the platform where he sat. She crouched beside him and he hunched over more, hugging his knees and burying his face in his hands.
Tentatively, she reached out and stroked his head, combing her fingertips through his wet hair. Nicholas shuddered under her touch and seemed to relax incrementally.
“Will you look at me, please?” she urged, sliding her hand down to squeeze his shoulder.
He shook his head vigorously, then turned to glare at her. “How the fuck can you help me? Your magic’s just a fucking Band-Aid on top of the fucking spike he shoved into my heart. It won’t fix me, will it? Tell me the truth, Goldilocks—will it actually make the pain go away for good?”
Aurum opened her mouth to speak, but stopped, her brow furrowed. She couldn’t lie to him. The magic was just a palliative to help him come to terms with his loss until he could find another partner to take Calder’s place, but she knew even that was no guarantee he’d be rid of the pain.
His wild, trapped-animal expression turned into an angry sneer.
“Nicholas, please …”
“You can’t tell me that, can you? What the fuck does it matter what you do, then? Why bother?”
He lunged off the edge of the platform, plunging beneath the water. His arms and legs tucked in and he curled into a ball, sinking to the bottom of the crystal-clear pool. Through the water she could see his silvery hair drifting like a halo around his head and little bubbles floating to the surface. Around him, his aura pulsed wildly, betraying the hurt inside him.
She could ease that hurt easily if he would only let her, and now that she fully understood the reason for it, she ached to be able to do something for the young ursa. She couldn’t give him back the love he lost, but perhaps she could see him through to the other side of it.
His endurance was impressive, though, and she wondered whether she should be worried when he still hadn’t resurfaced after several minutes. He’d grown too still, the bubbles of his breath coming in longer intervals. When they ceased entirely, a rush of panic hit her. She dove into the water, frantically swimming down to him, the gown she’d worn dissolving in the magic that infused the pool.
She reached Nicholas and placed her hands on his shoulders, gripping him and shaking him. She yelled his name into the water, the sound coming out in a burst of bubbles and muffled sound.
Suicide was not a fucking option. What did the foolish man think he was doing? She swam around to face him, gripping at his cheeks and tilting his head up. She hadn’t planned on forcing her breath on him this way, but if he was going to behave like such a self-destructive idiot, she had no choice.
She pressed her mouth to his, prying his lips apart and making a solid seal with her own before pushing the power out of her lungs and into his. In spite of her fear of losing him so soon, she managed to infuse the power with all the joy and positive emotions in her being. Every good feeling she could muster went into that breath, and into his lungs.
It wasn’t until the startling sweep of his warm tongue hit hers that the contact of bare skin registered. His was hot in spite of the cool water, and even though she knew it was his affliction that caused it, the heat felt insanely good to press against.
His arms went around her hips, then slid up her back, his mouth greedily kissing her while her breath continued to flow into him. And Sweet Mother, did the contact feel wonderful. He pulled her tight against him, the water making her drift weightlessly into his embrace and slide down his chest. She wrapped her legs around him to hold on, only too aware of the hard length of his cock jutting up between them.
He didn’t seem the least bit inclined to break and swim to the surface for a breath of air. Aurum didn’t care, either, because the true life-giving substance she needed was inside him, sparking through his cells and flashing in his aura. The culmination of desire was what fueled her kind, and Nicholas was swiftly filling with it.
His pheronesis was surging again, and it was probably all her fault for simply touching him. While the gift of her breath was meant to sustain him and ease his suffering, she’d forgotten that she had no way to control his physical reactions to that level of intimacy.
Nicholas groaned into her mouth and pushed his hips urgently against her, driving the length of his cock up along the mound of her pelvis so the hot tip seared her belly.
This was no
t part of the plan to help him. She knew as much, but only a small part of her mind registered that detail. The rest of her came alive under his touch. His large hands roamed wildly all over her body. One slid down and grabbed one cheek of her ass, squeezing and spreading her open while simultaneously pulling her hips harder against him. The movement opened her just enough for her clit to come into contact with the underside of his cock.
When her sensitive flesh brushed along his skin, he pushed harder against her until sparks of pleasure shot through her, drenching her core with slickness that made the water around her seem dry by comparison. His other hand clutched her breast, pinching her nipple and drawing rough groans from her in response.
She shouldn’t let herself fuck him. Not like this. It would just confuse the issue too much if she did. She was here to help him with a particular issue. The physical aspect of it wasn’t her problem, after all. Not when the waters of the Glade and his own hand could do the job.
But the idea of such potent Nirvana going to waste made her second-guess that plan, not to mention the way his lips moved down her throat while he shifted one hand between them. He gripped his cock and lifted her hips at the same time.
Blood pounded in her temples at the understanding of what he was after, and at the raw denial of the logic that told her not to let it happen. Her pussy ached for him, and the water made it so easy for her to just float up a little bit in his grasp until the tip of his cock was pressed right at her hot, hungry entrance.
She froze there, warring with herself over the consequences. Her legs clutched tightly at his waist, one arm around his neck and the other hand cupping his cheek as she gazed down at him through the water. Little silver-gold bubbles floated up from his mouth, bits of her breath exhaled along with his own.
It occurred to her that her earlier panic had been premature. He could survive without air as well as she could, if necessary … probably could survive even longer. The ursa were close cousins of the nymphaea, and Gaia’s waters were kind to them in a way they weren’t to the wind and fire races. But as an immortal, Aurum could last forever down here if she wanted to.