Chapter 15

F or a time which cannot be measured, we simply lay together in silence, in the snow. Wind howls, sending snow billowing over us. I do not feel the cold.

I slit open one eye—blue sky, cloudless. A jagged peak stabs the blue.

Caleb sits up with me—he's still inside me. His eyes, amber and glowing, brim with pride.

"You did it," he murmurs.

" We did it," I answer. "Together."

His cock hardens inside me and heat floods through me.

"Already?" I whisper, reaching back to fondle the soft tight silk of his balls.

"Always." He palms my breasts, lifting them, letting them fall, rolling a thumb over my nipples. "With you? Always."

"You can't always be hard for me, Caleb. Even you have to have some refractory period."

"I've been celibate for twenty years." He wraps my hair around his fist and jerks my head back to lick my throat. The rough confidence of the move has my pussy spasming with need. "I could spend the next twenty fucking you without ever stopping."

"We just did," I whisper, protesting even as he begins moving inside me.

"That wasn't fucking." He tips me to my back, and I lose him, whimpering.

He pries open my sex and watches his essence leak out of me, and then his tongue hits my clit and takes me to heaven—a short trip, since we are on top of the world and so close to the sky I could touch the blue.

"No?" I whisper, digging my fingers into his hair. "What was it?"

"Magic."

"Fucking can be magic."

"Not that kind of magic, and not this kind of fucking." He devours me until my hips lift and my spine curves, and an orgasm blasts through me.

"Then what is this?" I ask, when I have my breath back.

"Mating. The Waking bond must be complete."

"I thought you did? You clawed me."

"We weren't in The Waking, then. We were in between." His voice is quiet, muffled by my sex.

"We did it, Caleb," I whisper, holding his face close, knotting my fingers in his hair and thrusting against his mouth. "We fucking did it."

"We did it fucking." He snarls in response, and tongue-lashes my clit until I come yet again, and it's too much, too much.

"Caleb? No more, no more. I can't take any more."

"You can."

The stars swirl and stutter behind my eyes, and I scream as he makes me come yet again, and the scream becomes a sob because it hurts, it hurts, fuck, everything in me is shaking and spasming and quaking and coming apart as he thrashes my clit with his tongue, nips it with his teeth, suckles it with his lips, and he holds me down with his powerful hands and makes me come and makes me come and makes me come, ravenous, feasting on me, unleashing twenty years' worth of animal need upon my sex.

"Please, please, please," I whimper, "Caleb, please, no more."

He releases me, then, and kneels astride my belly. His cock stands up huge and hard and straight, an organ so massive and impressive it makes me wonder how I accommodated him at all without being torn apart.

He is brutally beautiful, my Caleb.

"Yes," he growls. "Yours." He plants a fist in the snow beside my cheek, bending over me, and he kisses me. It's a slow, hot, intense kiss, one of claiming. "And you, Sparrow, are mine." He gathers my hair in his hands. "Look."

My hair is entirely white, glowing with a golden light, and splays around my head and shoulders in a thick glossy pile, longer than it was before it burned away.

It moves, swirls, and flicks as if with life of its own, or as if in a wind not of this realm.

His hand slips beneath my head, and he lifts me. Brings my face closer to his hardness.

"Show me I am yours, Maeve. Show me you are mine."

I meet his eyes, let him see my boldness, my willingness, my desire. "How? Tell me what you want, my mate."

His eyes pulse brilliant amber—eager joy and hot need and depthless love. "Your mouth. Take me with your mouth, Sparrow. Taste me. Taste us."

"Anything for you," I whisper, meaning it.

I relax into his hold, letting him support my head and neck, let him draw me to him. His cock glistens with dew, the shimmering essence of our lovemaking, the slippery juices of our magical mating. I open my mouth and hold his eyes and take him between my lips.

"Fuck," he snarls. "Fuck! By the Blood, Maeve, your mouth. Gods, your mouth."

I show him.

Without rush, without a thought but for his pleasure I give him my mouth, cupping the hard marble muscle of his ass with both hands. I slowly glide down his length, swallowing around him as he fills my throat, and I do not need to breathe, so I can take more and more of him until my nose brushes his belly.

I gaze up at him as I take him like that, every huge, delicious, throbbing inch of him.

"Maeve, gods," he grunts. "Fuck, I…fuck."

His eyes betray him—he is overcome, emotionally. Something about this act is what he needed in a way I cannot comprehend, and I renew my efforts to give him everything he wants, everything he needs.

I feel him in my spirit, the roaring hot pulse of magic pounding between us, through The Dreaming and into The Waking, joining us on every plane of existence, in every realm.

He pants, whispering my name. I clutch his hard ass and pull him against me, encouraging him to move, to let go. To give me all of himself. I tell him with my eyes that I want him to stop holding back, to show me his wildness.

And oh, gods and Blood, he does.

When I feel him pulse thicker and harder against my lips and his thrusts become staccato and his grunts rough and his eyes glassy, I keep one hand on his ass and cup his balls with the other, and massage a finger along his taint and look up to hold his eyes.

He explodes upon my tongue, and I drink his release, swallow it down, taste each rush after rush and it tastes like his prana, tangy with the wildness of faraway forests and musky with the heat of a pack of hungry wolves, and it tastes like his blood, primal and potent and glittering in my soul with the essence of his being.

He roars as he comes, the sound pure wolf, and amber light flares, and for a moment he is wolf and man at once, and then the light dims and fades and it's just Caleb in the snow, towering over me, as timeless and rugged as the mountains around us.

He pulls free of my mouth with a guttural rumble of pleasure and descends upon me. Levers over me, pinning me to the snow and the bare bones of the mountain peak, and he slides inside me, still hard or hard again.

He fills me, pushing deep. I curl my legs around him and hook them at his ass and pull him closer, and his mouth finds mine, and he eagerly tastes himself, and I taste my pussy on his lips and it's wild and hot, and I'm sore all over and never want this to stop.

I feel him in my very soul, woven into the fibers of my being, and with each thrust of his cock into me, the mark on my back pulses with heat and flares with power. My climax rises with each thrust, and the pulsing of power at my back burns brighter and hotter, and I feel snow melting my back and ass and shoulders, running away as water.

The glow becomes blinding.

His mouth is furious and unrelenting on mine, his tongue savaging mine, kissing me as if it is instant death to stop, and he fucks me with raw, ravaging, brutal, animal power, so hard my whole body shakes and jerks with the force of his thrusts, and I only scream his name and clench him harder with my thighs, clinging to his neck with my arms, and I sink my fangs into his throat, breaking the kiss so I can taste his blood and his vitality here in The Waking, and I draw them into me with the rhythm of our mating.

Pressure builds inside me, the welling volcanic power of a nascent climax, yes, but something more, something far more powerful than a mere physical release.

Caleb nears his climax, and rises to his knees, hooking my thighs over his shoulders and gripping my hips in his massive hands, holding me where he wants me so he can power into me with every ounce of primeval, predatory power.

I press my fingers to my clit and his eyes flare amber with savage joy as he watches me toy with myself. I play with my breasts with my other hand, pinching my nipples for him, and my climax rises, rises, rises.

"Now," he commands, his voice rough and raw. "Come for me, Sparrow. Come."

My body obeys his command, shattering.

"You," I gasp. "You come. You come, too."

I feel him obey me, feel my sex flood hot with his seed.

We climax together, his thrusts slamming savagely into me, and I smash apart around him, screaming, whimpering, and he roars and bellows and pours into me, again and again.

As our union reaches its peak, that wild volcanic pressure breaks open with an earth-shaking concussion.

White and gold light shot through with amber pulses out of us both in a horizontal ring, slicing through the air in a visible shockwave that shudders snow from the peaks of every mountain for miles, sending avalanches rumbling down the jagged slopes, picking up into a bone-quaking roar.

The roar is also us, our power, united and titanic.

I feel him, everywhere.

And Caspian, oh gods, oh gods, oh my Cas, I feel you, thank fuck, thank the gods and the Fates and the Blood, I feel you in my soul, in my veins.

I feel my hair blaze with power, feel the blinding brilliance of it on my closed eyes.

I force them open, just in time to watch twin snakes of white ink woven with gold thread bloom in concentric circles around my left breast, over my heart. The ink starts at the tip of my breast and spirals around and around and around and splits apart, one serpent snaking over my left shoulder and down my arm, terminating on the back of my left hand in a snarling wolf's head, its jaws wide and spiked with curving teeth, its eyes glowing with the amber power of Caleb's shifter mana.

The other serpent of white ink curls around the base of my right breast up over my shoulder and down my right arm, terminating on the back of my right hand in a set of stylized vampire fangs, each one with a single droplet of scarlet, which glow incandescent with Caspian's rakta.

The snakes of white ink are traced and outlined in shining gold as if literal gold has been woven in my flesh, the white ink glowing with my prana.

Maeve? Caspian's voice. Little Sparrow? I feel you. Please, please, if you're real…please talk to me.

I shatter into sobs, collapsing back against the snow—only to have Caleb roll to his back, making himself my bed.

I'm here, Cas, I whisper across the bloodlink. It's me, my love. I'm here. I'm here.

You're alive.

I am. I escaped from the Tribunal.

I feel his soul more closely than ever, his sorrow, his pain, everything he endured over the last…however long I've been a captive. I'm so sorry, Cas. I'm sorry for what you endured because of me.

I thought you died. I felt…for a moment, I felt the bond sever, as if you died.

I'm not dead, obviously. It's hard to explain what happened, but I…we…god, Caspian, I'm not sure where to even start, especially over the bloodlink like this.

Silence.

I felt…pleasure. A pause. From you.

Yes.

I have a…a tattoo, I guess you could call it.

You do? I lift up, straddling Caleb, still impaled on him.

Caleb has a mirror of the bond-mark: the wolf is centered on his chest, with the stylized outline of a Sparrow in flight over his heart, the same twin lines of ink traced in shimmering gold looping over both arms to his hands—a wolf on his right hand and fangs on his left.

A wolf? Emotion colors his voice in my mind. Please, Maeve. Don't tell me you mated with a SHIFTER .

Anger.

Hurt.

How? His voice shakes in my head, and my heart aches, sliced to ribbons by his hurt and anger.

It's especially painful coming so on the heels of such incandescent ecstasy.

Cas, I didn't… I breathe out hard, rubbing my face with both hands. Caleb caresses my thighs and hips, comforting me wordlessly. It wasn't like I went looking for it—for him. He was in The Dreaming. He kept me sane when my whole world was fear and pain. I could hear you, every word you said, every time you pleaded my name I heard it, but I couldn't answer. If I tried, I was hit with pain so bad I'd rather die than feel it again, and I tried…fuck, Cas, I tried so many times. And Caleb was there. He was there. And he's the reason I was able to escape— through The Dreaming. We mated. We bonded. I didn't know what would happen. I didn't know if it would work. I just knew it was the only way out of that fucking hellhole and back to you.

She loves you, Bond-Brother . Caleb's voice growls across the link. She considered you at every turn. She grieved for the pain you now feel.

Caspian's snarl across the link is savage. She grieved me while you two were becoming bonded-mates?

YES! I shout. It was the only way. And I do not regret my bond with Caleb. You are both my mates.

I'm bonded to a fucking WOLF! Caspian roars.

Tears spurt from my eyes and trickle down my cheeks as pain grips my heart in a fist so fierce it steals my breath.

You wound her, Bond-Brother, Caleb says, his voice full of feral, protective anger. It is not what she needs. The world needs her strong, yet you weaken her with your selfish insecurity.

STOP! I snap at Caleb. Caspian is allowed his feelings. I knew he would be hurt and I chose this anyway. I'm sorry, Cas. I love you and I'm sorry—not for mating with Caleb, because I know in my soul not only was it right, but it was what I wanted and needed. I'm sorry for your pain. For causing you pain. I can only hope you can understand and forgive me.

A fucking wolf. Another vampire, I could understand. Or even a fae. But a SHIFTER . Not just any shifter, oh fucking NO , you mated with the shifter who kidnapped you, put you in mage cuffs, and delivered you to the enemy. And I felt every single goddamned thing you felt. I felt your pain. All of it. I felt your fear. And I felt you FUCK him, Maeve. TWICE! While I lay here for a fucking month and a half , unable to move, in so much pain of my own on top of yours that if I could have cut my head off, I would have. Not to mention, Alistair and the others suffered too, or do you not care about them either?

This is too much all at once, I hear Alistair's voice murmur. For him, and for all of us, here. We all suffered, Maeve. The sickness affected us all, as your coven, but Caspian worst of all, as your bloodmate. He nearly died. I had to put him on an IV of blood to keep him alive.

Alistair, I…

I do not blame you, Maeve. His voice is exhausted. But feeling a new mate-bond implant on him was too much after so much pain.

Fin and Stirling? I ask, my voice across the link small and quiet.

We all felt your return. We all felt the bond, and I must say I've never felt anything like it.

There's a rumbling under us—in the mountain. Rotors thump. I smell fae, shifters, vampires, and violence.

I'll explain as best I can when we're together. We are on the Tribunal's mountain headquarters-base-thing. And they're coming for us, Alistair. We have to go back in. We have to get Caleb's pack—they took them and they'll kill them. They're innocent in this—it's the only reason Caleb did what he did.

Silence. From everyone on the other side of the link.

I need you, my coven. To Caspian directly, privately, then . I need you, my bloodmate. Nothing has changed. You are mine, and I am yours, and I love you. I'm sorry, so, so sorry. I just…I did what I had to do—to survive, and to win this fucking bullshit war you and I started.

Silence.

Please, Caspian. Please. I need you. Come to me. We can figure this out. But I can't do what I need to do without you. I open the link to everyone—my coven, and my wolf-mate. I need you. I need you all.

We're coming, Alistair says, after a moment. We aren't far. We tracked you to Switzerland but lost you in the mountains. Now that you're outside whatever ward they had you in, we can pinpoint your location. We're coming.

Directly to Alistair. Will he forgive me?

He is your mate. It was a shock. But yes, Maeve, he will forgive you. He may not make it easy, but he will.

Caleb is good. I wasn't looking for this with him any more than I was looking for Caspian. I didn't ask for any of this, Alistair. I'm just doing the best I can. I don't know how to have one mate, let alone two, not to mention two mates who apparently hate each other.

You are in danger, Maeve. You and Caspian will be okay. For now, do what you must. Trust your coven. We are coming.

The whole damn mountain is after us, Caleb snarls across the link. Talk is over.

The link goes silent, and Caleb stands up with me in his arms. Unsheathes me from himself—he's still hard, as if he could, in actual point of fact, keep fucking me for the next twenty years as he claimed. His muscles tense and bunch beneath his skin, and his nostrils flare, scenting the air. His eyes burn amber.

"Enemies come," he growls, his voice more animal than human. The amber glow of his eyes brightens. "Stay close. Show no mercy until Death is sated."

He snarls, a wolf's growl. Prowls up close to me, pressing his cock against me, cupping my jaw and kissing me until I'm breathless. "Queen." Another hot kiss, all tongue and teeth. "Mate." His hand dips between my legs, cupping me there, a satisfied smile curving his lips on mine as he feels our essence leaking out of me. "Mine."

A helicopter's rotors thump, abruptly close, and the aircraft rises into view, sidelong, doors open, a huge machine gun manned by an armored and helmeted Enforcer swiveling toward us, chattering cracking rounds that blast snow into the sky, marching across the snow toward us.

Caleb turns away and sprints across the peak, bellowing a wordless war cry, naked, a creature of pure muscle and murderous fury. The machine gun's bullets snap past him, bite into the mountainside, and buzz past my face. Caleb reaches the edge of the peak and leaps, soaring fifty feet.

Mid-leap, amber light flares, obscuring his shape, and then his wolf lands in the open bay of the helicopter, jaws snapping and snarling. His teeth rip the armor like so much tissue paper, and then blood sprays and the body goes soaring out of the aircraft.

I watch, stunned into inaction.

He leaps into the cockpit, and the inside of the windshield is painted crimson, and the engine whines, spooling up with power, and the rotors tilt and the helicopter angles toward the mountain…

toward me.

I watch in horror as it plunges in my direction, rotor slicing through snow and then crunching into rock and then the whole world is a cacophony of metal and rock and fire.

My hands act without my input—I feel instinct take over.

Mom.

I lean into the feeling, into the knowledge that this instinct is her, is my mother, still here, still with me, still loving me even in death.

It fills me with resolve and courage.

I whip my arm in front of me in a swift, arcing slice, fingers pointing at the ground, and a wall of whirling ice and wind spears the sky between me and the onrushing helicopter.

I see a blur of tawny fur, and then Wolf is dancing across the snow, unharmed, and the crashing aircraft smashes into my wall, disintegrating into shards of metal and rock.

When all is still, I snap my fingers, and the wall vanishes.

Wolf trots toward me, yips once, and then turns away, trotting toward the descent.

I hear shouts. Rotors. Snowmobile engines.

Time to wage war.

But first…

I'm tired of being naked.

I snap my fingers and feel maya sizzle in my veins and a golden-white glow shimmers on my skin. It fades immediately, and I'm clothed in a skin-tight white bodysuit with golden tracing on the outside of my arms and legs, the zipper undone to show a healthy helping of cleavage—including hints of the new bond-mark, which glows with my power. White boots hug my legs up to my knees.

In one hand, I hold a short sword, the hilt wrapped in soft leather secured with silver cord, the pommel a snarling wolf's head. In my other hand is a shockstick, the silver metal length traced in scarlet. I active it into a shield, and look to see Wolf watching me.

I sense pride and satisfaction coming from our bond, and he turns and lopes down the mountain.

I follow him at an easy trot.

The farther down the mountain I go, the hotter my fury burns in my veins.

Fuck the Tribunal.