“Is that why you snuck out of the room you insisted we share in the dead of night? To make me feel like this?” I asked, taking a step back and putting more space between us as I wrapped my arms around myself. The warm air felt too cool against my sweatslicked skin, drawing Caelum’s attention as he stared at me inquisitively.
“Did you consider that perhaps I like your jealousy because it’s the only way you show me you care for me the way I do you?” he asked, dropping his hand to his side finally. “You’ve made no attempt to claim me as yours. In fact, you’ve denied this at every opportunity when I’ve made my intentions toward you very clear. I want you in a way that should terrify me, that consumes my every thought. I want you in a way that I know I will slaughter anyone who dares to hurt you, to touch you,” he said, pausing to run a hand through his hair. He took a small step toward me, hesitating to close the rest of the gap. “I will not watch you with other men. I will not watch you deny what is between us in every moment that my mouth is not on yours, and still act the part of a jealous lover.”
“Caelum,” I murmured, my face pinching with his words. He was right; I knew it as well as he did. My fear of being hurt stopped me from taking the plunge with him, from accepting what my heart already knew.
“I would burn the world to the ground and lay it at your feet if you so much as asked it of me, and yet you give me nothing. You’ve never once told me that you feel the same way I do.” He closed the distance between us, stepping into my space until he could trail his knuckles over my cheek. He leaned over me, his body enveloping mine and forcing me to look up into his piercing eyes as the first tear fell down to touch his fingers. He brushed it away, curling his knuckles down my jawline until he grasped my chin gently and held me still. “All you need is to say the word, and I am yours. So tell me, my star. Do you want me?”
My ears rang in the silence that stretched between us, his glimmering eyes waiting for my response.
“Yes,” I whispered, the word feeling torn from my soul, as if it splintered me inside to admit it, cleaving who I’d been in half. Half of me belonged to the mate hunting me across the Kingdom, but the half that I knew, the half that was Estrella Barlowe of Mistfell—she belonged to Caelum.
Mate be damned.
He curled his free hand around the back of my head, pulling me toward him at the same time he lunged. His mouth crashed down onto mine, his lips parting as he shared his breath with me. He entwined us, his arms surrounding me and his body backing mine into the stone wall of the tunnel.
My head pressed against the unforgiving wall, causing Caelum to pull his lips from mine. His breath came in deep, controlled sighs as he trailed his mouth over my jaw and laid kisses to the side of my neck. The pinch of his teeth came at the skin there as he sank them into my skin, squeezing in a bruising grip as bindings inside me slackened.
My body gave in, the space between my legs throbbing and begging for his touch as his hands skimmed over my waist, and he explored the body he’d conquered. “You’re going to break me,” I whispered, not having meant to speak the words out loud, but there was no boundary between us, no part of me that wanted to take back the words I should have kept to myself.
He pulled back from my neck, my skin throbbing where he’d bruised me. He stared at it for a moment before finally turning his attention to my face, his clenched jaw fading into something so tender it made my heart stall in my chest, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was always like this. Did falling in love always come with the knowledge that we were no longer alone? Was it always more than stolen kisses in the night and two bodies coming together for a few moments?
“No, Little One. I’m going to love you,” he said, touching his forehead to mine. His dark eyes glimmered, tiny specks of light shining in the obsidian, like the stars that had become my namesake. “Until you forget what it is to hurt and then long after that. Until the scars you wear like armor have faded from memory, and only we remain.”
27
I woke wrapped in his arms the next morning, his heat surrounding me and enveloping me in a cocoon of sheer comfort. Even the bedroll beneath my body seemed more comfortable than the lumpy, straw-stuffed mattress I slept on in my home. It was the bed that had belonged to my parents, before my father died and my mother spent her nights sleeping in her chair.
Caelum’s stomach was pressed into my spine, his long, muscular arm draped over my waist and stretching up toward my neck, nestled into the valley between my breasts, shoving my dress against my skin to get there. His hand rested against my heart, feeling it beat against him as he held me tightly to his body.
I sighed, letting my eyes drift closed once more and enjoying the rare comfort of waking up next to him. He’d always been up and moving before me, letting me have a few more moments of precious sleep while he got ready for the day’s travel and found us food.
There was no need for that in the tunnels, though; not with food only a short walk away and the lodging more permanent than the caves we’d sought refuge in.
He pressed himself tighter to me in his sleep, his fingers splaying out over my chest and the tips of them brushing over the base of my throat. The bite he’d left me with the night before seemed to throb in awareness, tingling alongside the Fae Mark that contradicted the claiming mark he’d given me.
He groaned, the deep sound bringing a flush to my cheeks as the length of him pressed into my ass in time with that near-growl. “Good morning, my star,” he said, using his nose to brush the hair away from the side of my neck. He lingered over the bruise, drawing in a deep breath of me as he moved his hand closer to my face. His fingers curled around the front of my throat, tipping my head back so he could get a better angle to lick my bruise. “Aren’t you going to say good morning?” His lips tipped up against my skin, the arrogance of his voice sending a shiver through me.
The man knew damn well how much he was tormenting me, even while he barely touched me. Even with layers of clothing between us, I clenched my thighs together to stop the burn he created so easily.
“Good morning, Caelum,” I sighed, my voice coming out far breathier than I’d intended. I’d given in to what I wanted, admitted that the feelings between us stretched both ways, but still I felt the need to hide just how far that want went.
I still didn’t know how to walk the line between being a lady and being the new me; between embracing all that had been forbidden and being too forward. Nothing in my life had prepared me for Caelum.