Chapter 22

CHAPTER 22

WREN

His kiss robbed Wren of all rational thought. Apart from one.

Finn…it was really Finn…

Finn who loved her, who had always come to her rescue, who had been there for her, Finn who she loved in return, beyond reason, beyond everything.

He was still tied up, his wrists bound together with a coarse rope, and then lashed to his ankles, a demeaning and uncomfortable position. He couldn’t touch her or caress her but that didn’t seem to matter. He kissed her, his mouth capturing hers and casting that spell it always did, lips moving as if he was trying to speak but couldn’t form words, his tongue dancing against hers. She whimpered in recognition but couldn’t do anything more but kiss him back. Slowly, she lifted her hands to frame his face, almost collapsing on top of him with relief.

His poor bruised and beaten face. What had they done to him? Light, was she hurting him?

There was no doubt in her mind now that this was Finn and not the shadow of him that had tormented her since they had arrived here. No trace of Leander remained in him, none of that cruel arrogance.

Just Finn. It was just Finn.

Her blood surged in recognition of the light in him and she felt it fill her veins. Darkness and shadows might coil around her but that didn’t matter now. Her hair wrapped itself around his body, pulling him closer, binding him to her, and he gasped in raw pleasure, a desperate gleam in his dark blue eyes, hungry and ready for her.

His body was naked and there was no disguising his need for her, the ache in his flesh. His cock was a hard length, like iron wrapped in velvet, displayed like an offering. Wren longed to drop to her knees and take him in her mouth, or to push him down and wrap her legs around him, taking him deep inside her, letting him fill her. But there wasn’t time. There couldn’t be.

Common sense didn’t matter. She couldn’t tear herself away from him. Couldn’t stop touching him and feeling him respond. Her Finn, her love, her everything.

‘We have to get out of here,’ she told him, her lips fumbling against his.

He jerked on the ropes, but couldn’t free himself. ‘This is a trap,’ he said. ‘You know it is. Leave me here. I’ll work something out.’

‘I’m not leaving you anywhere,’ she replied. ‘Not again. Not ever.’

‘I’m nothing but bait to bring you here. That was what Leander said. I’m her sacrifice. They want you to give in to your power, to become her . And this is her place. He thinks once the Nox is in control, he can control her.’

The thought was laughable. And the laughter ringing around the back of her mind was not Wren’s own. Even the Nox found Leander’s machinations mockable. He knew nothing. Not about magic, not about her, and certainly not about the goddess he claimed to serve but desired to control.

This was the Nox’s place of power, Wren knew that. She could feel it. Blood had soaked so deeply into the stone all around them, ancient and ageless, so many deaths for her. Wren should have been helpless here. But at the same time…she had made it this far, faced the other caves and come through them. She was still herself.

And also she wasn’t. She was something more. Darkness swirled along her veins and threaded through her hair.

I was their queen once, and they stole that from me. They stole my blood and made it their own. They bound me when they crowned me.

Wren released Finn as the voice rang through her mind, plaintive and still so angry. But there was loss and longing tangled in it. The Nox was remembering something, something old and heartbreaking. Just by dint of Wren being here.

Finn slumped down before her, confusion and resolve warring with the desire in his face, and she tried to smile for him, to reassure him.

This was her place. Hers .

‘Don’t be afraid,’ she told him and her voice hardly sounded like her own anymore. Perhaps it wasn’t.

The colour fled from him and his eyes glistened, but he still stared up at her in a combination of adoration and trepidation.

Leander would have kept Finn from her if he thought that would serve him better. And he might have been right. But now Finn was here and she was never letting him go again. The light in him drew her and she was like a moth attracted to that flame. Not just her. The Nox as well.

The Nox might hate the Aurum, but it needed it as well.

Balance, she thought, remembering what Hestia had told her, what Elodie had said. It’s all about balance.

Join with him , the Nox said. In life or in death, it matters not. Join with him here, in my place. Make him yours and I will protect him. We will protect him. I will show you how.

Could it be a trick? Of course it could. But right now Wren didn’t have any choices left.

I will lead you both out of here. I will lead you to everything you need. If you let me. But…

But there will be a price, Wren thought. And I will be that price.

I will not be controlled and commanded again. I will not be made into a monster.

But the Nox was a monster. Wren knew that. Perhaps they both were now. She wasn’t a fool.

Leander was no fool either. And he had told Finn that he was no more than bait. They would be coming for her. They would find another way to bind her power and use her.

Never , the Nox hissed, the bloodlust rising again. I will never allow that again. Sidon betrayed me. I was his queen and he stole my power. I will protect you. Let me help.

Wren’s consciousness spread out, testing the limits of the chamber, and she found them, soldiers, closing in. She almost smiled. They weren’t even stealthy about it.

And with the Nox coiling around her, all it took was a thought.

Shadow kin swarmed around the entrances. There were some brief screams, cut off far too quickly, and then that deep and endless silence again.

‘No one can touch us here,’ she told Finn. ‘No one can enter until I allow it. Do you trust me?’

He nodded firmly, though his teeth worried at his lower lip.

She pressed her hands to his head and sent a pulse of healing energy through him, wiping away pain. He cried out softly, more in surprise than anything else, a groan, and the sound sent a jolt of need through her.

‘You’re safe,’ she told him firmly. ‘I will always keep you safe, Finn, just as you tried to do for me. But I’ve changed. I had to. I needed to embrace what I am. Do you understand?’

Again, he nodded, just a simple dip of his head. A tear slid from his left eye and she felt the wave of grief as if it was her own. Did he think he had lost her?

Wren brushed her mouth against his again, trying to reassure him, her lips taking his gently but with determination.

She shrugged off the gown, letting it fall to the floor, and stripped off her undergarments until she stood before him as naked as he was.

‘My lady,’ he tried to say but she just kissed him again, until his reason seemed to slip away to whatever place she had relegated hers.

‘We belong together, my love. We always will. And here, in this place, we will seal that promise. I’m not going to kill you, Finn. Never. But there are other sacrifices. So I need you to trust me. I need you to make love to me, here and now. I need you to be mine and to swear it, and I need you to mean it.’

She ran her lips along his jaw, biting the skin softly as she did so, grazing against flesh and stubble, and he gave another of those bewitching groans, rising up on his aching knees as she poured more strength into him. He leaned back, his whole body exposed to her.

‘Wren…’ Her name was a prayer on his lips and she lived to hear it there. ‘I am yours. Body and soul. Yours to command. I always have been, from the first moment I saw you.’

Wren slid her arms around his neck and settled herself astride his hips until she could sheathe his cock with her body, sinking down on him with a moan of desperate want. Finn didn’t pause to let her adjust this time. He thrust, fast and desperate, but that was what she needed. Just him, just his body and his will. He leaned back to give himself leverage, drawing her with him, his mouth seeking hers. They devoured each other and she moaned deep into his kiss as all control slipped away.

Nothing mattered. Nothing but this, nothing but the two of them in the darkness, his fullness inside her and the growing wave of light and dark combined which engulfed her. Her body tightened, ready for release, and for a moment she felt herself changing, pulsing with darkness and light, until she hardly knew what she was anymore. Magic. It was magic, old and powerful. She had never felt anything like this. It was in her, threaded through her, and in him as well. Like called to like. They had always been meant to be together. Balanced on the edge of a heedless orgasm she suddenly understood, just for that moment, understood everything, before tipping over the edge, crying out words of othertongue and his name, weaving the two of them together in some deep and fundamental way. It was the voice of the Nox speaking through her, she understood that in a distant part of herself. She wouldn’t have been able to dredge up any words right now, let alone magical ones.

The chamber was illuminated in a kaleidoscope of light, bouncing off minerals threaded through the rock face and revealing the countless intricate carvings all around them. It was beautiful, more than beautiful. This chamber of sacrifice transformed as she cried out, her back arching, her head thrown back, until she couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore.

‘Stay with me, Wren,’ he begged. ‘Please, stay with me, my love, my heart. Don’t change…don’t vanish…don’t…don’t…’

His voice twisted to an inarticulate gasp and he thrust up into her in a helpless rhythm, so deeply she felt like he was making himself part of her forever. Her conscious mind swam with relief and Finn’s head fell back, his throat exposed to her teeth if she wanted to tear it open. He would let her. He would let her do anything.

Slowly, light and shadows eddied around them, drifting in elegant swirls, and she felt that pulsing magic still rippling through her. Different, this was different. And so much more powerful in its willingness.

Dark and light, deity and sacrifice, her and Finn…

She barely knew which was which anymore. She just clung to him, wrapping herself around him in the hopes this moment wouldn’t end.

Whispered words of release in othertongue echoed around them and the ropes unravelled at his wrists and ankles.

He surged forward and she couldn’t move in time to stop him. He caught the back of her head in one hand and wrapped the other around her waist, sweeping her up and then lowering her to the ground beneath him. So there he was, hanging over her, still inside her. Slowly, he lifted his head, his expression dazed and wondering as it rose to take in the transformation of the chamber of sacrifice, and finally came to rest on her once more.

He smiled. Actually smiled. The tenderness of that look almost destroyed her.

‘Wren, what have you done?’

Slowly he withdrew and then took her hands, raising her to her feet. As they touched, she let her magic sweep through him to heal him and strengthen him. He almost dropped to his knees before her again, this time in deference, but she pressed her hand to his chest, stopping him.

‘That was both of us,’ she told him. ‘Not just me. And now, I think, it’s time to leave.’

‘They’ll be waiting for us. I can’t defend you like this.’

As if she needed defence. But she knew he would try all the same. He was her Paladin and there was nothing else he could do.

‘Not that way,’ she replied. ‘We aren’t going that way. Not now.’

Don’t go any deeper, Hestia had said. But that was then. And that was something she had told just Wren. Now, everything had changed. The Nox drew her deeper into the caves, to the dark and secret places long forgotten by anyone else. It would protect them, help them. That was what it had promised. And now she had nothing else to trust.

Without another word of explanation, Wren took his hands. Darkness closed around them as silent and as complete as the night itself and they vanished.