It’s the only thing tha could pry my eyes from Ronin’s face. “What?”
“The blood supply is polluted, obviously, so we had to come up with another way to feed them. Vampires can drink the blood of animals, so I got to thinking. All sorts of ideas come about when your brother takes ill.”
“I’m so sorry Destino got sick.”
“Unavoidable. No one’s escaped the plague thus far.” He stretches his arms over his head and twists at the waist. “I started to wonder if Des could drink my blood if I’m in my wolf form. If it would sustain him.”
“What? Tha’s not a thing. Vampires have to feed on filtered fae blood or the blood of an animal.” But as I say this, I start to see the logic. “Did it work?”
Salem grins proudly. “Didn’t cure them, but it’s slowed their deterioration, tha’s for sure. Kept them from dying of starvation, which is something. Others who took ill after Ronin ended up dying before him, because I’ve been feeding Ronin my wolf’s blood.”
I marvel up at him. “I never would have thought of tha. I can’t believe it worked.”
“Aye.” He jerks his thumb toward the door. “I’m going to go see Lily. My wolf’s none too pleased she’s been away from me for this long.”
“If you’re expecting me to apologize for taking her across territories, I don’t have a good lie in me.”
Salem adjusts the comforter around us. “I know my mate. If I had to put money on it, Lily’s the one who talked ye into the trip in the first place. I’m glad ye went with her, kept her safe.”
Before I can respond, he turns and leaves, shutting the door behind him.
I mean to watch Ronin sleep, to listen to his breathing to make sure it stays steady, but Lalita is too content.
I’ll deal with the rest of the territory tomorrow. Tonight, the only two people in the world are Ronin and me, holding each other against all odds.
A few deep inhales of his scent, and finally, sleep takes me.
Chapter Fifteen
Steady Breaths
Ronin
The inhale that wakes me isn’t my own. I open my eyes and turn my head toward the sound. It’s the first time I’ve been able to do that without stiffness or pain in days. Am I finally dead?
The sight that greets me is surely from the clouds. If I am dead, then I’m glad for it, if we’re here together. Adeline’s breaths are loud and airy—the mark of her true exhaustion. I love that I know her breaths.
The little things about her are the secrets I treasure. I get to know her. I get to hold her nuances in my heart.
“Adeline?” I rasp, immediately knowing I can’t possibly be dead, because my throat hurts far too much. With death at least comes the bliss of numbness.
But I’ll take the pain if it means I get to lay beside this curly-haired angel. Emotion hits me hard, and I want to thank whatever mercy it is that brought her back to me. It’s all wrong when we’re apart.
What day is it? When did she return? How am I awake and not in pain? Was she able to find a cure, or did the sickness pass through me on its own?
Adeline is a vision, and far too stunning to belong next to me. She’s freshly showered and smells like a rose bush, her lips slightly parted and pouty, begging to be kissed the moment she wakes.
But I don’t want her to wake just yet. Watching her rest gives me such satisfaction. The steadiness of her breathing calms the thoughts that swirl like too many hurricanes in my mind.
She’s finally wearing one of the nightgowns I bought her. She’s a vision wrapped in golden silk. Because the garment matches my sheets, I can imagine she’s wearing nothing but my sheets.
Exactly how I want her.
It’s an effort to slide out of the bed without rousing her, but I manage the feat without disrupting those deep breaths she so badly must need. My body moves like the old man I pretend I’ll never be, but in these moments, I feel my age.
I don’t want her to see me like this. Though, since she sneaked in while I was out, she’s probably seen me worse off.
The shower is most welcome, though the short trip in the bathroom winds me and reminds me I’m not fully healed just yet.
The moment I step out of the tub, freshly scrubbed, I catch a glimpse of my reflection and gasp at the ghastly sight. Red spots all over my face are not a guarantee of good health, but when I touch them, at least they’re not raised and they don’t hurt. I know I probably shouldn’t shave, but I can’t bare for Adeline to see me so unkempt.
Who am I kidding? Adeline wouldn’t care. In fact, she snuggled up next to me in bed looking exactly like this and smelling far worse. The shave is for me, and I don’t begrudge myself the luxury, even though, by the end, I nearly drop the razor with my pitiful grip.
The small task of making myself presentable takes too much out of me, but I count the effort well worth it when I slide back into the bed beside the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. I don’t want her to remember me sick and rumpled. I want her to see me as the self-assured, determined man she’s proud to stand beside.
I’m being foolish.
Laying on my side is something I didn’t have the strength for a few hours ago, so I revel in the freedom that allows me to scoop my fiancée in my arms and press my stomach to hers.
“Ronin?” she whispers, her eyes still closed.
“I’m being selfish,” I admit, though I still don’t release her. “I shouldn’t have disturbed your slumber. I just wanted you in my arms. It’s been too long we’ve been apart, darling.”
“Ronin?” Just like that, she’s on her knees beside me, poking clumsily at my face and prying at my eyelids. “Are ye well? Are ye whole?”
“I don’t think I’ve lost anything important, other than pride and a few pounds. How about you? Are you well? Are you whole?”
“I was terrified!” she wails, sitting on her backside and facing me as I lay on my back. “Ye weren’t waking up! How long had ye slept? I couldn’t… I was afraid ye might be… I rode as fast as I could to get ye a cure, and when I got here, ye couldn’t lift your head!”
I shouldn’t have woken her. She’s got bags under her eyes. She looks so lost that I feel guilty for introducing too much drama to her first thing when she’s ill-prepared for coping with all that’s changed.
“Come lie back down.”
“I need to get a healer to look at ye, to make sure you’re on the mend. It could be a temporary improvement.”
“Are there any healers left to look after people?”
Her head hangs. “I don’t know. So many have died, Ronin. We rode as fast as the horses would take us. So much time wasted, interrogating the vampires along the supply chain.”
“What do you mean?”
“It wasn’t any of them. It was the fae. Well, not all the fae. It was King Fairbucks. He polluted the wells in Faveda with trumpet flowers, so everyone who drank the water and then donated blood passed the trumpet flower’s essence to the vampires through their blood supply. The fae didn’t know they were hurting us. Only King Fairbucks knew.”
I bristle, sitting up, though it takes much effort. “I highly doubt that. King Fairbucks moves with the urging of General Klein. Even though Lilya’s father is in jail, he can still pull strings from behind bars.”
My feet hit the floor, and though I want to march with confidence to the nearest guard, my body is still healing, so it takes more time than I’d like for me to finally make it into the hallway. “You, there. Send for Destino. There have been developments.”
I can tell the shifter guard is stunned to see me showered, shaved and on my feet, but he recovers quick enough, and trots down the hallway in the direction of Destino’s bedroom.
The guards loathe stepping foot in the hallway where Lilya’s bedroom lies. I think they’re afraid they’ll overhear sex noises.
Adeline’s at my side, her hand on my elbow. “Lie back down. I could have done tha.”
“Yes, but they fear me, sick as I am. I need Des
tino here quickly.”
Though I don’t like how unsteady she’s seeing me, I let her lead me back to the bed, so long as she lays back down beside me.
“Just like that,” I sigh, loving the way she fits in my arms. I tuck her head under my chin, inhaling the scent of the woman I love. “Were you injured on your trek? Best get all my important questions out of the way before I tell you how cross I am with you for leaving like that. A note? Honestly, Adeline.”
She shrinks in my arms under the covers, but she manages to hold her ground. “I knew ye wouldn’t want me to go, but I had to. Your plan was going to take too long. Ye all would’ve been dead if we’d waited for night travel and whatnot. Lilya and I had an advantage, so we took it.”
“Lucky for us that you did, really. Still, I worried about you endlessly. Of course, I pretended to everyone else that I had complete confidence in you taking your own path with no backup.”
“Lilya’s not bad backup, actually. But it didn’t come to tha. Ye know I wouldn’t stand for anything harming her.”
“I know. It’s the only thing that kept Destino and Salem partially sane, which truly is a generous assessment.”
I kiss her cheeks, then her nose, wanting to devour her, but knowing neither of us should indulge to the extent I would like, sluggish as we are.
Our lips meet in a slow, melting rhythm, as if we’re silently paying homage to the suffering the other’s been through during our time apart.
I love the taste of her, the plumpness of her lower lip that steals all my rules and chucks them into the sea.
My hands slide under the hem of her nightgown, my fingers rejoicing at the silky feel of her skin. The dramatic slope of her hip is womanly and so very enticing.
She brushes her nose across mine. “I was so scared for ye.”
I should wait for some sort of smooth line to come to me, but I’m too grateful to have her back. I dive back in and kiss the alluring swell of her bottom lip over and over. I’m not dexterous by any means, but she doesn’t seem put off by my slow fumbling.
I’ve got those nasty red splotches on my skin, but she doesn’t hesitate to tug my shirt over my head, her hands memorizing the thinned-out version of my torso. I don’t know how she manages to make me feel desirable, but my body hums for her, needing more of her touch.
“Oh, yes. Adeline, I’ve need you so badly.”
She rolls me onto my back and straddles me with her knees on either side of my hips. Her lips wake me up and scramble what little sense I have as she kisses her way down my sternum, teasing and stroking all my sensitive parts along the way.
Then she stops, her hand on my navel. “We should go slower. You’re not well yet.”
I growl at the notion that anything should stop us now. I’m in too deep. I want every part of her too badly to pull back. My hands fasten to her hips, positioning her body right where I want the most friction. She’s intent on riling me up, so I won’t begrudge her whatever she wants to take from me.
“I don’t think you want to go slow, Adeline. I think you’re hungry for me.”
Her lips kiss along my collarbone. “What would make ye say tha?” Her fingers reach between us, her nails tucking into the waist of my pajama pants. “Ye should probably get some rest.”
“I’ll show you exactly how tired I am.”
The kiss turns hard and unapologetic the second her hand dips all the way into my pants. Even though I do need more rest, that’s the furthest option from my mind.
Our movements are clumsy and harried, but that only seems to drive us both even more insane with need. Her gown slides up without hesitation, and I know there will never be a more perfect body than hers.
Finally.
“Ho! Lock the door next time, Ronin!”
Destino’s voice draws a yelp from Adeline as she drops down and glues her chest to mine. She slides her golden gown back into place. “I’m sorry, Destino! We forgot ourselves.”
My great-grandson’s turned all the way around, and no doubt his eyes are also closed. “The guard told me you needed to see me? Preferably with everyone fully clothed?”
“Aye, we just… I’m so sorry.”
“Not at all. I’m glad to see Ronin’s up and about. I didn’t expect to see so much of either of you, but it looks like you’re well.” Destino sniggers as Adeline climbs off my lap and covers me with the comforter as I sit up. My back rests against the headboard, and I run my hand through my hair to straighten it, though I do love the look of myself ruffled and ravished by her.
While I would gladly do that all over again, the small bout of excitement has me winded and tired all over again.
“There’s much to discuss concerning the plague,” I tell Destino, who finally turns around to face us, his eyes on the ceiling. “You can look at us now.”
“Oh sure, you say that, but do you mean it? You just invited me to your room, and I got quite the eyeful.”
Adeline buries her face in her hands. “I’m sorry! I wasn’t thinking.”
“I assume Lilya’s caught you up on the fact that King Fairbucks was behind the plague?” I fix my eyes on Destino, drawing the focus from Adeline’s chagrin.
“She did. I feel like I’m probably all caught up. The ivorum powder, the stomach sores.”
“The what?”
Destino explains the effect the tainted blood had on our stomachs once we ingested the tainted blood supply, and how Lilya knew of a way to treat extreme stomach lesions.
“Grinding up ivorum into powder? I must brush up on my medicinal history.”
Destino motions to me. “It worked, clearly. You were on death’s door, and now you’re inches away from banging your guard.”
“Who wants to have sex with me?” Benny’s voice greets us with confusion. “Not one of you do I fancy enough for that.”
“Hilarious,” I drone.
Benny crosses the room and stands near the window, crossing his arms over his chest as if he’s a fly on the wall, instead of a man who should be in bed, like the rest of us. His skin is also splotchy, and his face is thinned, but he carries himself as if he’s daring us to mention the maladies.
Benny’s voice is steady. “What did I miss?”
“Just caught Ronin up.”
“Yes. And now I’m catching you up. King Fairbucks isn’t the only one in on this, I guarantee. You need to have General Klein interrogated. Usually, when King Fairbucks makes a foul move, someone else is pulling his strings. It’s not spinelessness, but lack of direction the king suffers from. General Klein is often the one aiming the king wherever he’ll do the most damage. This is too grand a scale for King Fairbucks to have cooked this up on his own, and especially without Alexavier’s knowledge.”
Destino exhales. “I’m relieved to hear you say that. I agree that Alexavier had nothing to do with any of it.”
“Yes. That’s part of the problem. Genocide happened under his nose, and he had no knowledge of it. But we’ll deal with that later. For now, I need to make sure General Klein is tried for his crimes. I’d like to see if we can negotiate having the king and the general tried on our soil, since the crimes were carried out against our people, on our soil.”
Benny leans against the wall. “Alexavier’s not going to go for that.”
“He might. If he doesn’t, it is what it is, but I’m not about to go through this again. I want General Klein wiped off the face of this world. He tried to kill the queen twice, and he’s had a hand in slaughtering our people, I’m certain of it.”
“Allegedly,” Benny objects, though all his smart mouth does is earn him a glower from me, to which he shrugs, as if my temper doesn’t bother him in the slightest. “The fae would lose their minds if we hung one of their own. You know that’s not how it’s ever worked.”
Adeline dismounts from the bed, still in her low-cut golden slip, but looking like she’s ready to face whatever’s coming for us. “Ye might be surprised, Benny. The cure for the ailment King Fairbucks caused
was ivorum powder. Do ye know where we got tha much ivorum from on such short notice?”
Benny shrugs. “The fae palace is full of the stuff. The place hurts my eyes, it’s so white.”
Adeline shakes her head. “It didn’t all come from Alexavier. The fae rallied and went through their own possessions, donating their furniture, their jewelry, their trinkets, all so their treasures could be ground down into powder to heal the vampire people. They gave of their own wealth, of their own hearts.”
She crosses her arms over her breasts, as if that will cover them. “I’m sure the fae are none too thrilled with King Fairbucks right about now, since he’s the reason they’re without their treasures. I bet if we asked nicely, they’d let us do just about anything to the bastard.”
She moves to the nightstand and grabs up my discarded bowtie, using it to fasten her hair back from her face. “It’s Alexavier we’ll have trouble clearing it with, as the king is his da and all.”
In that small move, I’m transfixed. I know I want to marry this woman, and soon. It’s so cutely intimate, her using my tie to do her hair.
She catches my stare. “What? Ye don’t agree?”
I blink a few times, unable to stop the contentment from taking over, even though I know there are more pressing things to concern ourselves with. “You’re wearing my bowtie in your hair. I love it.”
Her neck shrinks. “Oh, sorry. Ye can have it back.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
When a coughing fit compromises her composure, I move to get up, but Destino beats me to the end table with her glass of water. “Here, Adeline. I can’t believe you’re upright. Lilya’s still in bed. Are you sure we’re not disturbing you?”
Adeline’s shoulders roll back, as if she’s not in her pajamas, but ready to defend the throne. She breezes past the question; so inconsequential are her own basic needs.
I must see to remedying that. She matters to me, and one day, I’ll spoil her so rotten that she’ll finally matter to herself.
Adeline’s chin is level to the floor, her hands tucked behind her back. “Drexdenberg needs blood. Lilya and I brought home a cure, sure, but the vampires will still starve since we had to trash the entire blood supply.”
Malicious King: A Paranormal Royal Romance (Territorial Mates Book 6) Page 11