Chapter 33

CHAPTER 33

FINN

The darkness was everywhere, within him, shrouding his mind and clogging his veins, crushing his heart. And Finn didn’t care. How could he care? He belonged here. He had always belonged here. The shadows of the Nox were all there was and his life with anything or anyone else was over. Any dreams he might have clung to, any hopes he might have cherished – they were nothing now. They had petrified and crumbled in that treasure-filled cave, where the Nox had showed him his lineage, and their past, and all the terrible things they had done.

The blood of the Nox’s child was on his hands as surely as it had stained those of his ancestors. That was how it worked. No generation was untainted by that action. It had bound them to power and they had all benefited, becoming stronger, faster, chosen and blessed by the shadows. But it was the revenge of the Nox as well. She was hungry, and determined, and oh so cunning, his goddess.

And now she had him. There was no choice, no free will. All that he lived for was to defend her. And…and Wren…somehow.

But she was still Wren. Or would be. Her soft, seductive voice told him that, promised him. Shadow kin whispered in his ears, keeping him still and quiet until the need for violence presented itself again. He had only to obey. His body was theirs, his mind just a toy really, a plaything to torment. The armour enclosed him, locked him away, and made him stronger and faster, and so much more deadly. Nothing could harm her when he wore that armour and stood at her side. That was the key thing. He would allow nothing and no one to harm her.

Not even if they wore the face of a friend. Not even if they looked like Roland.

Or Anselm. Or Olivier…

Come back to yourself, my friend…

For a moment, that brief moment, a light had touched him. He’d seen it so far overhead that it was like a star in the night’s sky. But it was distant and unreachable. And he was lost.

He had to accept that, the shadow whispered and the Nox murmured sweet reassurances. This was right. This was his place, where he belonged, and he believed it.

He had failed in every other way. Here he could keep her safe. He owed her everything and had so much he needed to make amends for.

The Nox… Wren…

‘What would you do with me, Finn?’

It was her voice, reaching out to him. Her touch against his skin. He breathed in her scent and his mind spun. What would he do with her?

Whatever she wanted…

The Nox purred with the idea and part of him recoiled again.

‘Your will is your own, do you understand?’

No. That wasn’t right. It couldn’t be right. And yet, she was saying it. Wren was saying it, and whatever his lady said, that was his only desire. Except…except…

A growl rippled through him. It didn’t come from him, but from the Nox. It knew what she was trying to do and it didn’t like it.

‘I release you,’ Wren said.

What did he want? What would he do with her? Protect her, cherish her. Love her.

He would love her. That was what he wanted. That was all he wanted.

She was in his arms, her body pressed to his and he kissed her like a drowning man seeking air.

And Wren kissed him back, returned his passion in equal measure, just as she had always done. Right from the start, right from the first time he held her and kissed her and had lost his mind with desire for her. This was what he wanted. Her in his arms, his lips on her skin.

The gown tore under his hands, the fabric ripping with a noise that was drowned out a moment later by her moan of need, which tangled with his name. Her head fell back, exposing the long line of her throat and he kissed her there, his mouth exploring her, his tongue on her flesh until she writhed against him.

She surrendered to him.

It wasn’t meant to be this way. Something deeply ingrained in him told him that. He belonged to her, hers to command, hers to do with as she wished. He had given himself to her body and soul, to the Nox and to Wren and…

But Wren was not the Nox. Not really.

She was his beloved, his light, his dream. She was the one thing that kept him sane. She was his everything.

His hands cupped her breasts, thumbs caressing the nipples until they hardened to peaks, which he captured in his mouth. She arched, her hips pressing to his as if urging him onwards. Lowering her back onto the bed, he tormented her body, every noise she made spearing through him, making his desire climb higher.

He wanted to hear her pleasure, to make her cry out. He wanted her shaking and desperate against him. He wanted her body to ache for him until she couldn’t stand it any longer. That was the way he felt all the time.

‘What would you do with me?’

He would love her. He would protect her. He would try in every way to make her happy, to make her fulfilled, to keep her safe and let her be…let her be whoever she would be. Not the Nox, not a queen, not a princess or a goddess.

She was Wren. Just Wren.

And she was everything.

Wren opened to him, her body his, his name on her lips. He sank into her, filling her, and stilled, just marvelling.

She lay beneath him, her hair spilling all around them on the bedclothes, her eyes wide with need, pupils huge as her desire consumed her. One hand gripped his shoulder, and then fell back beside her head, the long elegant fingers curling. Strands of her hair wound about her wrist and her palm. Finn felt her fingertips trace patterns along his side, where the scars of the shadow kin bite still marked him, and then she released him entirely.

Wren arched her hips to him and he began to thrust into her, each movement a torture of the utmost pleasure.

His. She was his.

Completely.

He wanted to savour this, to cherish each and every moment, to fix it eternally in his memory, that she was his, that she gave herself to him without any conditions or complications. That he didn’t have to obey her, or worship her.

That it was something he wanted. She was what he wanted. It wasn’t an obligation but a wonder.

The dark and endless shades tangled in her hair moved, drawing the shadows around them into its lengths, absorbing the magic of the Nox and making it part of her. Wren opened her mouth, his name the only sound she could make.

His body tightened, a tingling in the base of his spine warning him that any moment now he’d lose that control he clung to and then?—

He didn’t know where the light came from. There shouldn’t have been any light left in him. The Aurum was trapped and he’d given himself over to the Nox.

But suddenly everything was made of light. It roared through his body like a firestorm, blinding him, light which came from everywhere, bright and brilliant, every colour and every hue, all of it sparking along his nerves and rippling beneath his skin.

Finn threw back his head and cried out.

All around them the ground shook, the walls trembling. Lightning arced in the air and Finn knew none of that. He knew only that all-consuming, blazing glory.