by Honor James
Rimi smiled and nodded. “Then I shall remain. I wish that you could get what you needed to understand where and when you are now from my mind, but I doubt that’s possible. I guess we will have to go with the old fall back, talking. Just ask me questions and I will you as well. I would very much like to know where this might go.”
“Thank you,” he murmured, touching her cheek gently. “But I think we should get more comfortable. I for one am not liking how tight modern pants are at this moment. It’s incredibly uncomfortable especially given how I am reacting to you. I need something a little more loose and forgiving,” he admitted honestly.
That had her smiling and she nodded. “All right. How about I go back to my room and get changed into something less constricting while you do the same? If you want, we can meet back here, or you can come to my rooms, your choice.”
“Back here, I think, just in case milady decides to check on you. She will likely just walk in.” Katherine wasn’t always big on knocking if she was determined. “She is a little more hesitant to just wander into one of the guard’s rooms. We tend to have extreme reflexes with extreme results,” he murmured quietly.
“Which if you are the Royal Guards makes sense.” She would imagine that anyone who had to guard a freaking Queen would have to be the best of the best, and even better. “All right. I will be back in like five minutes? That way I can change, brush my teeth, put up my hair and leave Kat a note telling her that I’m perfectly safe and with you.”
“The door will be open,” he said quietly with a smile. Pressing a kiss to her lips, Laighean helped her off his lap. “Go quick. I need to grab a shower, so I may not be out before you get back. I shouldn’t be long, but I wanted to let you know in case you hear water running.” He quite liked having hot water right at his fingertips. It was amazing.
“A shower does sound wonderful. All right, I will be back in more like fifteen, because now I want one, too.” After the day she had she needed one. “I will see you soon.” Rimi pulled back from Lee and looked at him, watching him carefully. “If you need me to leave at anytime though, you will tell me, won’t you?”
“I will,” he said, quietly watching her just as carefully, “if you promise the same thing. I don’t want to intrude in your life if you don’t want me there, Rimi.” Though he would try and change her mind. Not that he told her that part. Some weapons a man kept sheathed until it was necessary to draw.
“I want you there,” she admitted without even hesitating. “I’ve just met you, but I know that I need you in my life, Lee.” Reaching up, she touched her fingertips to his cheek and nodded. “Yep, I barely know a thing about you, but I know that I need you in my life. I know I want to learn more about you. I want to share with you my life as well. So I will see you in fifteen.”
“Fifteen,” he agreed quietly and stood still, watching her leave. Once the door was shut, he moved quickly, stripping down as he raced into the bathroom. Turning the water on, he adjusted it carefully before stepping under the flow. It was tempting to just stand there for hours soaking in the warmth of the water, but he didn’t want to waste any time he could have with his bond-mate.
Rimi went back to the rooms she had been assigned and stripped out of her clothing quickly. Rushing to the shower, she stepped in when the temperature was perfect, toothbrush and paste in hand so that she could accomplish both shower and teeth at the same time. As soon as she had her body washed up as well as her hair, she brushed her teeth and soon was stepping out.
Fourteen minutes later, Rimi was entering Lee’s room once again, her hair braided in a French braid and out of her face, a note taped to her door, and in actual night clothes instead of the naked she usually slept in. “Lee?” she called. “I’m back.” She warned him as she slid the door closed and then twisted the lock on the door to keep Kat out, hopefully.
Spitting out the too-tart paste, Laighean rinsed and pulled open the bathroom door as he wiped his face. “I’ll be right there,” he assured her, leaning over the sink to wash his face clean of any of the paste still there. Turning off the light, he padded out in a pair of loose pants and a soft, loose shirt. He preferred sleeping naked, but he had a guest he was trying to win over, so he was behaving. “Sorry, I’m still getting used to many modern things. The showers keep sucking me in for longer than I’m sure I should be in there for.”
“I can understand that completely, especially the showers in this place. Man, Kat went all out with this place.” The high-end shower heads were massage heads, and it had taken Rimi several minutes of just feeling the pulsing jets before she was able to shake herself out and get going so that she could get out and back to Lee.
“Having hot water just there is amazing,” he said, shutting off the overhead lights. The small bedside lamp was still on so there was a soft glow in the room. Sitting on the bed, he watched her. “In my time you had to wait for it to be heated up over a fire, and then it was only a few buckets mixed into the cold lake water, so it was tolerable for the briefest of times for a bath.”
“Oh wow.” Rimi watched him and took a seat at his side. “I would like to know more. I know you said you were in like a stasis or coma or whatever, but how in the world could your body still be so…” She looked him over. “Perfect. You are perfect, Lee, how?” She would have thought muscles would atrophy, bed sores or something.
“I’m not entirely sure I can explain it adequately but I will try,” he said. Taking a breath, he let it out slowly. “Many centuries ago a war was brewing in our world, the world of the Fae, changers, and the magic-users. Our Queen at that time was greatly distracted because of a relationship she had dissolved with a King who was less than pleased to be put aside. Rogue Dragon changers began to pick away at our borders, sneak attacks harming our people and the humans that lived within our borders. The Royal Guard split into groups and took other soldiers to try and track these rogues down in the hopes of either turning them over to their King for punishment or, if it was absolutely necessary, killing them before they could hurt others. It was a trick,” he murmured softly.
“It was designed to make us look like the aggressors, very skilled and subtle, but to the outside world and the Council, we were the ones attacking other races for no reason. Well, most assumed we were getting retribution for our Queen after some things her former King had said and done. Gaia, our Goddess, stopped the Fae race entirely when we were weakest, something our Queen of that time did to us but I am still unclear on just what it might have been. She terminated some of the Fae, others were taken out by Dragons and a few other races before we were put into suspended animation, a protective sleep in one of Gaia’s healing caves. It is supposed to be a dreamless sleep, where we are unaware of time passing, events, years, peoples, basically everything. For me it was until you were born.” Or so he’d figured out. “Then I began to dream, of you and, eventually, sharing dreams with you to learn you and to, I suppose, learn of this world through your eyes a little for when the awakening came.”
“Why would she have allowed us to share dreams? I always recall you being there in my dreams. I always would talk to you in my dreams when things would bother me. I got to the point where I would talk to you when I was awake as well. Not that you ever really answered, but the simple fact of the matter was that you were the backbone of my life. I lived and breathed for you,” she whispered. “And now you are here.”
“She allowed us to share dreams because we were meant to meet and be together,” he told her honestly. “She decided the moment you were conceived that you were to be mine,” Laighean said, watching her carefully. “For each of her children Gaia chooses one person that will be their perfect other half, their bond-mate.”
“And sometimes some people get three.” Rimi shivered. “I love Kat and I’m sure that her men are great, but I couldn’t imagine three husbands.” Shaking her head, she looked up at him and whispered, “I’m glad that she chose me for you.”
“So am I,” he told her honestly, reach
ing over to touch her cheek. Sliding his hand down her neck and arm, he lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her fingers. “While Kat was given three for a reason, I’ve never really understood the reasoning for multiple pairings like that. I’m glad that there is only you and I,” he said with a smile.
“I have to agree. It’s nice just being us.” She really rather liked being able to just have him there with her and not having to try to think about having other men to have to juggle or please. “In fact I think that you and I should curl up in the middle of this holy crap big bed, turn off the lights, and just talk until we are both ready for sleep. How does that sound to you?”
“That sounds like a good plan,” he said quietly. “And it’s not really that large, at least not when you consider that Katherine was buying in relation to what she needed to purchase for herself. It is nice to have all the additional room, though I haven’t yet managed to fill it all at one time. It is a challenge that I’m still attempting to figure out.” Shifting, he pulled the blankets back so they could climb under and waited until she was settled before he turned the lamp off. “What would you like to talk about, Rimi?” he asked curiously, instinctively finding her hand so he could lace his fingers with hers and just feel the heat of her skin to his.
Rimi moved so that she could curl up against him and sighed happily as she did so. “This is much better.” Their hands were still joined. She was heated by him and felt so very much better. “I just wanted an excuse to stay with you,” Rimi admitted softly. “Wanted an excuse to just be here with you, in bed with you.”
“Oh,” he murmured softly and wrapped his other arm around her shoulders, pulling her in closer to him. Resting his cheek to her hair, he breathed her in slowly. “Tell me about yourself, Rimi, everything. I want to know all about you, little one,” he said softly, running a finger up and down her back gently.
“My parents died when I was really very young. There was a burglary at my mother’s shop and the person who broke in killed both Mom and Dad. I don’t even recall them,” she admitted. “I have my godmother. She was there for me but didn’t raise me. I went from aunt and uncle to uncle and aunt and so on,” she told him. “At least until I was able to go to boarding school. Then I was pretty much raised by my teachers, professors.” She shrugged. “But it was a good life. I enjoyed myself and I always knew that I was loved.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, not sure what to say. “No one should have to lose a parent so early in life. Especially when they are needed to help us grow and blossom,” Laighean said quietly. “I was lucky. Mine were alive when I was put into stasis, but I found out they passed a few years later. I don’t even know where they were laid to rest. Maybe one day I’ll figure it out.”
“Wouldn’t they have been in stasis as well?” Rimi asked with a frown. “You are Fae. Weren’t your parents also Fae?” Lifting herself up and on her elbow, she looked at him. “Did they pass while in stasis and perhaps their bodies are still in the stasis whatevers?”
“My father was Fae. My mother was a Lynx changer,” he murmured. “Because mother couldn’t be forced into the stasis by the rules governing the Fae, I think that Gaia allowed my father to choose whose law to abide by. Looking to protect her as was his way, he likely would have chosen to remain with her and be under Lynx law. But without the Fae there to protect them and without actually getting approval from the Cats’ King, they would have been without a House to protect them. Or that is my best guess. I honestly don’t know. All I do know is they were not there when we woke. Believe me, I looked very carefully.”
“I’m so sorry, honey,” she whispered softly. “I’m so very sorry that you had to lose them and you didn’t even know that you had lost them. I can’t even fathom just how hard that could have been on you, was on you,” she admitted quietly. “But you have me in your life now. You also have Kat and her three men, and you can call us your family.”
“I will call you mine,” he murmured, drawing her in closer to him. Sliding a hand to her hip, he gently rubbed his thumb to the bare flesh he found just above her waistband. “Katherine is my Queen though, and while family, I am still getting to know her. Her men, though, I find I quite like. They are not all stuffy as some of the Royals can be, even through a marriage connection. They are rough-and-tumble sorts, odd senses of humor that I find rather refreshing and entertaining most of the time.”
“Katherine isn’t stuffy either, love. Believe me, that woman is as down to earth as you can get.” Which was one of the many things Rimi liked about her. Grinning, she laid her head on his chest once more and curled in tighter to him. “And I’m glad that you will take me as yours. I’m finding I really rather like you a great deal, Lee, and really do want to know if all we talked about and enjoyed while we dreamed is as good in reality.”
“I can only hope it is,” he murmured softly to her. “I worry though. I spoke very freely in the dreams. I didn’t really know who I was talking to. I didn’t know you truly existed. I just believed you were a figment of my mind, something to keep me occupied or to prove I was going crazy, not sure which. I only hope we can be as open now that I know you to be real.”
“I want that, Lee. I want us to be very free with each other. I never want to hide from you or have you hiding from me. We belong, you and I. We belong together, and because of that we need to ensure that we are always completely and fully open and honest with each other. I want to continue as we began, baring our souls to our other half,” Rimi whispered to him.
“I can definitely try,” he said, licking his lips. “It’s a little different with you actually here and not a figment of my imagination as I believed originally. It’s harder now that we’re actually face to face.” Laighean didn’t know if he was making his point or just circling around and around. “I’d hate for you to figure out I’m not as great as you seemed to believe I was when we spoke only in dreams.”
“And I would hate for you to find out that I’m not as great as you seem to think that I am,” Rimi shot back. “We will get through this together, Laighean. You and I. We will get through this, but that means that we actually have to talk and share parts of our lives with the other. We can’t be shy about anything, because we have already lived through each other’s lives in our dreams. I was fully and completely myself there. As long as you were, too, then there is nothing to worry about, darling.”
“Sometimes too much, I think,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her cheek. Rubbing his nose lightly to her skin, he breathed her in. “You smell amazing, your skin is softer than I could have ever imagined, and you are even more beautiful than you led me to believe.”
Rimi snorted. “Honey, haven’t you realized yet that no woman sees herself as a man sees her? I don’t see myself as beautiful, just me. I know I’m not ugly, and I don’t think I’m plain, but I would never label myself beautiful,” she said. “Pretty yes, not beautiful.”
“Gorgeous,” he told her. “Sexy, too. I would go so far as to call you a goddess even.” He smiled slightly when she blushed. He could feel the heat in her face. “I am slightly biased though, so you can ignore me if you wish.” It was an out so she wouldn’t feel too uncomfortable.
“I never want to ignore you,” Rimi told him with a grin. “But I really think that you kissing me, touching me will be so very nice. I think we should try that. What do you think?”
“I think that is a very good plan,” he murmured softly to her. “But I want to go slow. There’s no need to rush anything. We have all the time in the world to get to know one another and do everything we want.” Shifting, he tipped her face up and kissed her gently, slowly, tasting her and enjoying the feel of her mouth to his.
Rimi shivered and licked her lips when she pulled back from him. “Goodness you can certainly kiss,” she whispered softly to him. “I mean, like whoa. The way that you kiss me…” She could only shake her head with a dazed look.
“That’s a good thing, yes?” he asked, stroking his fingers down her
cheek lightly. Brushing his nose to hers, he smiled at her nod. “Good.” Cupping her face, he kissed her again, his hands roaming down her side to her shift and inched it up enough to find skin. Running his fingers around the band of flesh, he sucked on her tongue gently.
Rimi wanted him to touch more of her skin. She now wished she hadn’t put on so many clothes, but she did so. “I need you.” Dammit she needed him. She wasn’t ashamed to admit it either. “I need you. I want to be with you, honey,” she whispered.
Sliding his hand up her back, he pressed her in closer. “You have too many clothes on,” he murmured. “I want to feel you in my arms, skin to skin, pressed in close to me. I need to feel you against me, brushing against my skin, your breath on my body.”
“You have too many clothes on, too,” Rimi whispered against his lips and grinned. “How about we get naked so that we can be skin to skin with each other?” She looked forward to that actually. She couldn’t wait to have him skin to skin with her. Pulling back from him, she wiggled out of her bottoms and tossed them to the side and then tugged off her top. “Your turn.”
Watching her, he blinked when she waved a hand in front of his face. “Sorry.” He smiled. “I was distracted by the view,” he murmured softly. Sitting up, he pushed off his pants and then hauled off his shirt. Tossing everything off the bed, he lay back down facing her.
Her eyes were wide when she took him in, and she licked her lips. “Oh my.” She could only whisper because he had taken her breath away with just how good-looking he was, head to toe and every place in between. “I didn’t know that they had tattoos so long ago,” she whispered and ran her fingers along the bands that were at his arms that seemed to be of some type of vine. “That feels…” It almost felt real, not like a tattoo would feel. “What are these?”
“The Fae are a part of the earth, and depending on our place in our Queen’s world, we earn markings from Gaia for our positions. They change as we grow or as we retire and, should we be killed in the service to our Queen, they will permanently settle into our skin in a final homage to her,” he said, looking at the vines. “The initial seeding as it’s called hurts worse than anything most people can imagine, but it, too, is a test, a test of our resolve to be who we were chosen to be.”