Caelum took the first watch, cradling my head gently as he coaxed me to sleep with gentle fingers and murmured promises. My eyes fluttered open for a brief moment, finding his dark eyes staring down at me as if nothing else in his world mattered.
“If you keep searching for answers, my star, it’s likely you’ll find them,” he murmured as my eyes closed for the final time.
Sleep claimed me, those ominous words and the warning held in them carrying me into the depths of dreams better left untouched. I dreamt of the monsters of Faerie, of the beasts beyond the Veil crossing over the mist and making their new homes in the human realm. I dreamt of ruin, of Brann’s ashes in the wind, and the hulking form of a Fae male making his way toward me as he laid waste to the world.
I thrashed in my sleep, rolling from side to side until the cold press of dirt against my cheek jolted me awake. Caelum was gone from beneath me, the warmth of his body missing from my sleeping place. I pushed myself upright, peering into the darkness around me and counting the sleeping bodies of my companions surrounding the fire.
Melian. Beck. But no Caelum.
Rising to my feet, I looked around the wooded area where we’d made our camp for the night. The cold air kissed my cheek as I stepped out of the alcove of trees and onto the snow-covered grass beside them. Careful not to wake the others, I ventured farther into the woods in search of the man who’d left my side in the middle of the night.
“Caelum?” I called, my voice as loud as I dared in the quiet of the forest. Fear that something might have happened to him consumed me, and my hands trembled where I shoved them into the pockets sewn into my cloak. I spun, looking around the path for any signs of the man I so desperately needed to find. I’d never forgive myself if something had happened to him while I slept.
We were supposed to go together, despite my hesitation in trusting him. I couldn’t give myself to him wholeheartedly, not with whatever he didn’t want me to know looming between us, but I couldn’t let him go, either.
A figure stepped out from between the trees, shadows clinging to him like a second skin. He emerged into the clearing in front of me, the moon above chasing away the darkness until only Caelum remained.
He stared down at me, his chin tucked into his chest slightly and his eyes lighter than normal for a moment. “There you are,” I said, a semi-relieved sigh escaping me. He was alive. He was safe.
Even if he was fucking terrifying.
“Is everything alright?” I asked, tipping my head to the side as I smiled up at him innocently, as though I couldn’t sense the monster lurking beneath his skin’s surface: the beast the mate bond wanted to turn him into.
But I knew the man he really was. I knew how gentle he could be when he rocked himself into me, and how sweetly he caressed my skin when he thought I was sleeping, as if he couldn’t quite convince himself I was real.
And I was his.
“You should be sleeping,” he said, his deep voice rolling between us as he took a step toward me.
“So should you,” I remarked. I suspected we’d passed the time when it was supposed to be Beck’s turn to take watch, and yet the other man slept while Caelum stalked through the woods alone. “What are you doing?”
“Always so inquisitive,” he answered, tucking his fingers beneath my chin. “Are you ready for the answers to those questions yet, my star?”
“I don’t know,” I murmured, the words coming out far more hushed than I’d intended. I didn’t know how to cope with the man in front of me; the monster staring down at me like I’d hung the moon in his sky of shadows and he intended to devour me whole.
He grabbed my hand from my side, lifting it to rest against his chest, just over his heart. He hummed, the sound rumbling against my hand as he regarded me. “Why don’t I make you forget all about those questions dancing in your pretty little head, then?” he asked, laying out his cloak and drawing me down to the snow-covered ground with him. I followed, knowing I would follow him anywhere when he looked at me in that way.
He laid me down on top of his cloak, then unknotted the laces of my trousers, tugging them over my hips so that the cold air made me wince. He smiled, stripping them off my legs and depositing my boots along with them. Spreading my legs wide while I stared up at him in shock, he settled himself between my hips.
“Have you healed yet, Little One? Because I’m going to break you again,” he murmured, reaching down to unknot his own laces. The head of his cock dragged against me, bumping against my clit repeatedly and sending a jolt of pleasure through me.
Caelum terrified me, but I wanted him all the same.
Pushing inside of me slowly and spreading me open to his assault, he groaned the moment he filled me, his balls resting against my ass and his body leaning over mine. Cradling me in his grip, he slid an arm beneath my shoulders as he set a slow, hard pace.
Each drag of his cock through me echoed in my soul, drawing a pleasured whimper from my chest. “What will it take, Little One?” he asked, his glittering stare intent on mine. He held me captive, the intensity of the expression on his face making my lungs cease to function.
“What will what take?” I asked, wrapping my hands around to his back. My nails dug into his shirt, pleasure spreading through me with his possession.
“What will it take for you to admit that you are just as fucking in love with me as I am with you? For you to admit that your heart beats in tandem with mine?” he asked, touching his hand to the spot where my heart pounded in my chest.
He held me still, sinking his fingers into my skin until I knew they would bruise.
“Caelum,” I gasped, squeezing my eyes shut against his words. I didn’t want to give them, didn’t want to concede this last part of me.
What would happen when he owned it, too?
“Say it, my star,” he ordered, touching a finger to my clit. He circled it carefully, never giving me enough to send me spiraling into an orgasm, but driving me mad as he made deep, slow thrusts with his hips to work himself in and out of me.
Every ridge of his cock dragged through my flesh, every press of him against that elusive spot inside drove me wild. He lifted his other hand off my chest, pressing down on my lower stomach and sending the ache inside of me running rampant. “Gods,” I groaned.
“I’m your God,” he said with a smirk, mischief dancing across his face. “Now tell me you fucking love me.”
“I love you,” I sobbed, the words torn from a place inside me I hadn’t known existed. Like they’d always been meant to hang between us, out in the open for the world to know.
“I know you do, Little One,” he said gently, sympathy filling his gaze as he worked my clit harder and drove into me faster. “Now you come for your God.”
I saw stars, my vision filling with the blackness of night as my body followed his command. He owned it in that moment. My body. My heart.
Me.