by SM Reine
It was obvious by the way she was looking at Seth, letting her emotions fill her eyes. She’d been looking at him like that to some degree ever since she’d wandered into his hospital that first time.
That didn’t remove the uncertainty.
It was a familiar, sickening feeling. He’d promised himself that he wouldn’t feel that kind of doubt again.
“Do you know how I learned that love isn’t always enough?” Seth asked.
Marion’s brow crimped. “Rylie never loved you as I do.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t need to know what happened with her. It’s irrelevant. Mortals are tiny, fragile things—as fragile in heart as they are in body.”
Seth’s hands gently cuffed her arms. “Speaking of tiny and fragile.”
“I’m much more than either of those things. I will leave Konig if a way presents itself, Seth, but I can make you no breathless promises that I will excise him for my life, nor can I swear physical exclusivity to you. I can only promise that you are different.” Her fingers curled over his chest, feeling the lines of bone and ash underneath the illusion of Raven Knight armor. “I never loved Konig. I don’t think I loved anyone…before you.”
God, Seth wanted to be convinced.
“He hits me, and he hurts me, and he will one day kill me to be replaced by someone more compliant. I know.” Marion stepped closer, blocking a sliver of the wind with her narrow body. “I want you to trust that I’m honest when I say that I will love you, and only you, regardless of whose bed I sleep in at night.”
She peeled her gloves off. The marks that Seth had unintentionally left on her knuckles were stark against her skin.
Then Marion’s arms twisted behind her back, and she tugged at the strings of her dress. It had taken help from her mother to lace it up. She needed to only give one yank to undo it.
“I won’t be in his bed tonight,” she said.
Her dress parted like curtains allowing dawn to penetrate. The light shining from Alfheimr’s ongoing dinner party shined through the cloth, outlining the shape of her waist.
She wasn’t wearing anything underneath. She exposed her skin to him, inch by inch, from the hollow of her collarbone down to the gentle concave curve below her ribs, and…lower.
Which Seth didn’t look at.
“Marion,” he said, “we can’t do this.”
“Why?” she asked.
He turned away. And then turned back. Because his resolve not to look was not all that strong, and Marion had an absolutely unreal body—an evaluation that should have spoken volumes coming from a god. As bored pubescent werewolf hunters, Seth and Abel used to steal magazines from gas stations and masturbate to models who looked like that.
Abel would have been disgusted Seth was even looking.
But Jesus Christ, this woman was a queen, the offspring of an angel, sister to God. She was offering herself to him like a sacrificial tribute.
“I’ll do a lot for you, Marion,” he said. “But not this.”
She let the dress slip from her shoulders. She was entirely bare. Her nipples tightened from the cold, gooseflesh rising on her shoulders, a flush on her chest. “Then do it for yourself.”
He didn’t move when she pressed herself against him, pressing her forehead to his, holding his shoulders tightly.
Seth’s imagined heart was beating so hard that he thought it would shatter his wooden breastbone.
Marion tipped her head back an inch, and her lips brushed against his.
“No,” he said.
“Why not?” she asked.
The only answer for that question was the most honest of them—deep below the layers of denial about how she was married, which he didn’t care about, or that he was never going to love again, because obviously he did. “I don’t know if I can trust you.”
She jerked back.
“Oh,” she said.
Marion looked completely shattered as she drew away. Her arms folded around herself.
“I thought you were different,” she said.
The words were a punch to the gut. “Marion…”
“Do you love me?”
“Yeah,” Seth said. Nothing but honesty now. Nothing left between them but hideous truth.
“If you don’t trust me, then trust that. Trust what your heart tells you to do.”
“That’s a problem. My heart’s a selfish asshole who wants all of you.” And he wanted her forever—not for some shitty mortal lifespan, and not on the nights when she could get away from Konig.
Her expression didn’t even flicker at his words. She picked up the dress. “Things will change after the Genesis warp closes.” She turned the cloth in her hands, searching for its neck as if she couldn’t make sense of the folds of filmy silk. “My life and needs will be different, and…perhaps yours will too.” She gave up trying to figure out how it was oriented and hugged it to her chest. “The witching hour nears.”
The army would move out soon, and it seemed unimportant. All of it was so goddamn trivial. The wars, the conquering, the politics. All those dead milling throughout the Summer Court waiting for Seth to turn his attention toward them.
The Genesis warp wasn’t trivial.
Seth didn’t know what to do about Marion, but he knew that Benjamin needed to get to the warp by the fifth of November in order for the world to continue to exist.
“I’m going to go help Benjamin,” he said. “Promise me that you’ll stay in the Summer Court. It’s warm here. You’ll be safe.” She wouldn’t die if she didn’t go anywhere cold.
She turned away and nodded. He couldn’t make out her expression in the darkness, but it didn’t matter. If he couldn’t trust Marion, he wouldn’t be able to trust her even if she collapsed in tears over him.
Seth left the garden like that. He left Marion alone.
Seth fully intended to leave Marion. He decided to go to the nearest ley line, use its energy to carry him back to Earth, and catch up with Abel and Benjamin.
He got as far as the edge of the forest before changing his mind.
Instead, he hung over the Summer Court for another few minutes to watch Marion. He watched from above like the god he was meant to be, incorporeal and unseen, despite the way that such power gnawed at his heart of ash.
He watched when Marion dressed herself with Wintersong’s help. He kept watching when the Raven Knight took her back to Alfheimr, and when he reassured her that he’d protect her door while she took a nap. Aoife would watch her balcony, according to Wintersong.
Marion was so calm until the door closed behind her. Calm enough that Seth felt validated in leaving, and he began to turn his attention to California.
In the instant before he left, he saw her mood shift.
He hadn’t really expected Marion to collapse in tears, so the sight of her face down in bed, arms over her head, legs curled to her chest… It punched him right where it could cause the most pain.
By all rights, Marion was as safe as she could have been. She was warm. She was secure. She was about to be with a few hundred members of an army that would do whatever she commanded. She didn’t need Seth to protect her in that moment.
But she was miserable in her safety.
Red-faced, wracked with sobs, and miserable.
“Screw it,” Seth said.
An eternity was a long time for whatever regrets came out of his behavior. A very long goddamn time. But regret was going to happen either way, whereas only one of his paths would take away Marion’s lonely pain for a few breathless minutes.
Seth embraced regret.
He embraced Marion.
When he returned, settling at the foot of her bed, his chest was hurting from his moments suspended outside of time. The ash heart was another inch shorter. His time in the mortal worlds had dwindled.
And when Marion lifted her head from her arms to look at him with teary eyes, he felt like years with her wouldn’t have been enough.
“Seth?” she asked.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and he kissed her. He kissed the sweat from her forehead and the tears from her cheeks. When he kissed her lips, she tasted like sidhe wine, and he kept kissing her until that flavor faded and nothing was left but Marion.
Marion.
She tasted like the smoke that rolled off of a beachside bonfire. She was hope smashed into pieces, its fragments heaped atop each other, and set alight.
For a moment, he thought that they were both going to end up burning to death at the core of it.
But then Marion pulled away from him. She was wearing her mask. The one that made it look like she wasn’t invested in this, like she didn’t care he’d come back. “Why are you here? You don’t trust me.”
“You told me to trust what I feel,” he said, “and this is what I feel.”
“But this can’t last. It’s not enough.”
“I don’t have much time anyway.” Seth took her hand and pressed it to his heart, letting her feel the ridges of wood, and where they dissolved into bone.
Marion’s mask stayed in place. But it didn’t extend down to her wandering fingertips, which trembled as they slipped down to the hem of his shirt. Her hand found its way underneath, creeping up to his ribs. He wasn’t whole there. She easily found the places where skin turned ragged, exposing the energy that barely remained within him.
She lifted the shirt. Pulled it off over his head.
It wasn’t Marion exposed this time, but Seth. His vulnerability. His waning time.
“Do you know how much time this is?” she asked, measuring its size between finger and thumb.
“It’ll last tonight.”
He pushed her back to the bed, and she pulled him down with her, her hair spreading over the pillow. This was the former queen’s bed. It was probably where Titania had spent the last night before she died, observed by the unicorns painted on the walls, the delicate gold flowers hanging on chains from the ceiling, and the mirrored walls with gilt frames.
Even knowing that there wasn’t enough time, Seth couldn’t make himself hurry. He undressed Marion. He exposed every inch of her and explored her skin with his lips, in part to enjoy how she tasted, and in part so that he could search for injuries.
If this was the only time he’d get to touch her, then he was going to touch her thoroughly. He was going to memorize the pattern of freckles on the small of her back so that he could remember them in centuries to come. He’d memorize the odd crook to the pinky toe on her right foot, and the way the curve of her ankle fit into his hands.
He would remember how the hair at the apex of her thighs smelled, and how her belly tensed when he drew lines there with his tongue. He dedicated her little gasps and groans to memory.
Marion’s skin was flawless. The sanctuary healers had done their jobs well. The only physical signs of harm were the cuts from the Godslayer’s blades under her chin.
But there were other signs of harm.
Her motions were simultaneously too cautious and too relenting, as though she was opening herself to be taken, without any expectation for what that meant. She opened her legs wider to permit him access and encouraged him to fit his body against her. She tipped her head back so that he could kiss her throat, and her pulse was racing.
She wasn’t looking at him. She wasn’t there.
He leaned over her on his elbows, making her look at him. Making her see who he was. Reminding her who she was. “Be here,” he said. “Right now, Marion.” It was hard to get out complete sentences.
Marion looked at him, and it seemed to hurt her, making eye contact. “I’m here.”
“Tell me what you want,” he said.
Her jaw went tight, and he traced his lips along the flexing tendons in front of her ears, inhaling the sweat along her hairline.
“What do you want?” Seth asked while Marion’s knee slid up his ribcage, soft skin stroking along exposed bone. He cradled the curve of her lower back so that belly pressed against belly.
She moved his hand between her legs so that he would feel her, swollen and wet. “What do you think I want?” she asked, nipping at his chin hard. “Read my mind. Or something else.” She pushed his fingers inside of her.
He stroked her slowly. She was already wet, and her gaze unfocused when he curved his fingers upward and pressed harder.
Her eyes shifted toward the ceiling. Seth was watching closely enough to see the moment where she focused on the mural, and she remembered where she was. It wasn’t perfect. It was so much worse than perfect.
But this was all that they had.
“Don’t go away,” he said, resting his forehead against hers.
“It’s hard.” Marion’s fingernails dug into the back of his neck along the spine. “It’s become habit.”
“I don’t want to hurt you. If you don’t like it…”
“I do,” she said.
He shifted the angle of his hand, pushed deeper. To the knuckles. And he tugged gently on her hair. Not hard enough to hurt, but to remind her of the moment, and to help her focus on him.
“Keep your eyes open. Keep watching me.” He laid a brief kiss on her lips, and when he lifted up, she strained toward him.
She kept her eyes open. Even when her mouth was opening, and her breath was catching in her chest. Her legs were twitching on either side of him. She was close.
Seth extracted his fingers and tasted her. She was sweet, smoky Marion, fragrant and feminine. She’d acquired no flavors from the Middle Worlds. She dressed like a sidhe, acted like a sidhe, but she was a creature of ether within.
She pushed him back. Up onto his knees. She climbed into his lap so that she could be taller than him, straddling his thighs, looking down at him. There was no way to see the mural that way. Her hair was haloed by the golden light from the lanterns. The faint smattering of freckles on her face had taken on a glitter shine, much like the sheen of mingled saliva on her swollen bottom lip.
Marion was rumpled. Undone.
He lifted her hips and pulled her against the tip of him. Seth cradled her back in both arms, his hands crossing on her back.
She was looking at his exposed heart again. His was racing as fast as hers, but only Seth’s could fill the room with pulsing light. And only Marion could look at that with wonder, hooking her fingers on exposed ribcage to give herself leverage.
She cried out when she sank onto him. He caught the sound in his mouth, swallowing it down.
Marion was liquid heat. She burned like a wildfire, hot and tight, and her back muscles rippled under his palms when she began to move.
“Gods,” she breathed against his forehead.
Seth moved through her body, and through the inside places where nobody was ever meant to touch or see. He leaned back so that he could catch her eyes. So that he could keep her gaze and her attention. So that she would be paying attention only to him, and not the taboos they broke, or the graveyard where they made love.
And it meant that when Marion lost control, he saw that too. He saw her always-composed features twist into shameless bliss. He saw the flush rising on her chest to her forehead and the ruddy skin and the sweat…and it was good.
22
The sanctuary’s private jet sliced silently through the night. A thick sheet of clouds blanketed the lower elevations, shining silken gray in the light of the moon.
“What’s taking so long?” Nathaniel was leaning back in his chair, head resting on a fist, looking deeply annoyed. The expression was hilariously pathetic on Benjamin’s face. Benjamin had to wonder if he looked that lame when he was being sullen. “A nonstop flight is only five hours from coast to coast.”
Benjamin tried not to roll his eyes. He’d spent all day rolling his eyes at Nathaniel and just didn’t have the ghostly energy to do it anymore. “Were you listening to the flight attendant when she talked to Abel?”
“Obviously not,” Nathaniel said.
“They had to reroute because
of the balefire. The OPA’s seized all of the local airports to move in resources, so we’re going to be landing on a private airstrip further north and then driving down.”
“Meaning the Alpha can’t land somewhere the OPA has seized?”
“Not without Mom finding out about it,” Benjamin said. “If I’m bored, I should go talk to Dad. He’s worried.” Abel was sitting on the opposite end of the cabin, near the door to the cockpit. It wasn’t unusual for him to isolate himself from his family. Even his kids. What was weird was how still Abel had become. He only sat frozen like that when he was thinking really hard—probably Abel’s least favorite activity, which he usually saved for emergencies.
Nathaniel didn’t even glance in his direction. “Who cares if he’s worried?”
“I care because I could easily make him feel better. I’ll narrate the right words for it. I can always make Dad laugh.”
His hand dropped and he sat up straight. “Why the fuck would I want to make the Alpha mate feel better? He’s not related to me.”
“But he is my dad,” Benjamin said. “He raised me.”
“Fuck him,” Nathaniel said.
Gods, what a pain in the ass.
Nathaniel opened up the cabinet under the coffee table and shuffled around in it. “Where are the in-flight magazines?”
“No magazines. Not a lot of disposable stuff gets printed anymore. I bet someone born before Genesis would find that weird but—”
“I don’t care,” he snapped.
He found a tablet. When he turned it on and logged into his account with Benjamin’s thumbprint, an alert for a new message popped up immediately. The beautiful forty-something woman in the avatar had the exact same smile as Benjamin. She was his oldest sister, Summer.
Benjamin leaned over Nathaniel’s shoulder. “‘Hey Sport,’” he read out loud. “‘Secretary wants you to…’ What’s that say?”
Nathaniel didn’t care that Benjamin was trying to read. He unlocked the tablet.
“Just look, man,” Benjamin said. “Please?”
To his surprise, Nathaniel opened the message from Summer. It said that the secretary wanted him to check his email because of tax forms. The message ended with about twenty hearts and kissy-face symbols. The explosion of graphical love was nothing compared to how scarily affectionate Summer was in person.