34. Chapter 32 Arden

Chapter thirty-four

Chapter 32: Arden

T he door slams open barely five minutes after the guard sent word, and Camus unlocks and rips the door to the cell open.

"Mine!" he growls and grabs me, scooping me into his arms and hauling me out of the cell.

His fangs are elongated, and his scent is stronger than ever. If just the thought of me being in heat excites him this much, I'm scared to see how he reacts when it's actually happening.

Once we're away from the dungeons, I say, "Please put me down."

"Absolutely no chance of that happening, love."

I lean in and whisper, "I'm not actually in heat. It was a ploy."

His eyes narrow at me, and he halts in his tracks before gently setting me on my feet. "Were you that desperate to see me?"

"Yes, but not because of that," I say, smacking his arm playfully. I'm high on the excitement of finding my dragon. It's making me giddy. "Though if you're going to stay all feral, we can do that too."

"Do what, Arden? Don't be shy; use your words." He tangles his fingers in my hair and pulls, tilting my face up to look at him.

My cheeks heat. Weeks ago I loathed everything about him, but now his primal possessiveness makes me weak in the damn knees. His erection is digging into my belly, and I'm aching to have it between my thighs.

"We can fuck," I whisper.

"I'm sorry. I couldn't hear you."

My nostrils flare in irritation. "I said, we can fuck! " I shout, drawing the attention of a guard strolling by.

"That's better."

His lips collide with mine in a desperate, branding kiss. Once my lips feel bruised and swollen he pulls back, and smiles down at me—a smile that I return.

"Can we go to your room so we can have a little privacy?" I ask, voice sultry in case that guard is lurking nearby.

"You sure you don't want me to take you here where anyone could see?"

"I don't want anyone to hear the sweet nothings I want to whisper in your ear," I say, pushing some authority into my voice.

"Fine." He laces his fingers with mine and drags me down the hall.

Once we're in his room he slams the door shut and pins me against it, and begins lifting my dress. "You can say whatever you need to say while you're naked."

I grab his hands and hold them in front of me. "I can. But I would rather we have a serious conversation about this. But I will let you do whatever you want to me after we're done talking."

His brow furrows. "This is serious."

"As a heart attack."

"A what?"

I snort. "Nothing. Come here." I pull him over to the settee and we sit down together. "My dragon is surfacing."

"Dra—I thought you didn't know what your animal was." He shakes his head attempting to sort out his thoughts as he says it.

"Whatever you gave me...it allows my dragon to bypass the magic suppressants. It's not there but another dose of that, and I think it could be."

"I have another one. I can give it to you now."

"No. We should wait. I'm not sure if my dragon will immediately take over or if it'll allow me to stay in control. I could shift and break the entire castle, and we still have to get my blood out of your grandmother's quarters and gather Solina and her sister. There's just too much to do."

"And Dira."

"Dira isn't coming," I say, the words bitter on my tongue.

"She's even more of an idiot than I thought."

"Don't be rude. And she's not an idiot. She's found her mate. Which I guess sometimes makes fae act like idiots..."

"Who is her mate?"

"Gormon," I say with a scoff. "Seems they've been keeping secrets."

"So have we. But I asked that fucker directly if he had mated her."

"He hasn't mated her. They're fate bound."

"Interesting," Camus muses. "Well, I will go down to the kitchens and ask for them to bring food. You'll need it for your 'heat'. And I'll ask Sterlyn to retrieve Solina for us so we can talk to her without drawing attention. He likes you. If I say it's for your benefit, he'll listen. The second I get back I'm treating you like you are in heat," he says and kisses me on the forehead.

***

After several rounds in bed, and a short discussion with Solina making a plan to meet the next day, I'm exhausted. Even still, rest doesn't come easy. It feels like it did when I was a child waiting for Christmas morning to come. Eventually my eyes close and I drift off. I dream of my mates like I do every night. Only now, Camus has joined their ranks.

The others aren't going to accept him. But they have no leg to stand on. They've let me rot in here for over a month. As excited as I am to get back to Feldorn, there's also a knot in the pit of my stomach. A voice in the back of my head keeps telling me that they haven't come because they don't care. I'm convinced that the time apart has given them clarity and they don't want a weak fae like me.

"What's wrong?" Camus murmurs sleepily into my hair.

"Nothing," I whisper, a tear falling to the pillow.

"Liar. You need to tell me or else neither of us will sleep." He props up onto his elbow.

With a huff I roll onto my back so I can look at him. "I'm worried they don't want me anymore."

"Who?"

"My other mates, dumbass." I smack him with a decorative pillow that somehow survived our several romps in the bed.

"They'll want you. I promise. And even if they didn't, I do. We can run off together and live happily ever after in a cabin in the depths of Feldorn. Fuck them. Fuck the castle. Fuck my grandmother. Fuck them all. We just need each other."

The doubt he's feeling is clear on his face. We both know that I could never survive without the others. Especially Livarius. But I indulge in his little fantasy of shirking all of our responsibilities and running away together.

"Would you build this cabin?"

"We could bring Umurn and his brother with us. They designed the one that's now the shed by the woods. And they were just kids back then."

"I like Umurn. He's kind."

"Are you trying to add him to your harem? Seven mates not enough for you? You need some orc dick, too?"

I chew my lip, feigning contemplation.

"You would !" Camus says with a gasp of faux horror. "I've seen him naked. He would wreck you." He holds up his hands a little over a foot apart. "Huge," he adds for emphasis.

A real laugh takes over. That's one thing that Camus never fails at. He's always able to make me laugh.

When the giggles subside, I sigh. "He's not bad looking for an orc. I'm not saying I would or wouldn't, but it's not an immediate 'no'. So if we need him for our house building, I'm in."

"How many bedrooms would we need?" he asks, drawing small circles on my stomach with his finger tip.

"What are you really asking me?"

"In this hypothetical situation where I get you all to myself—or possibly only have to share you with an orc—how many babies are we having?" There's a vulnerability in his gaze that I almost never see.

"Three seems like a good number," I say.

"I think three is a perfect number." He smiles down at me then wrinkles his nose. "Though if I'm sharing you with Umurn, I suppose he may want to put a baby in you too!"

"A baby that size would rip me apart."

"Occupational hazard," he says, then kisses me before pulling me into his arms so my head is resting on his shoulder. After a long silence he asks, "Do you think you'll have a baby with each of your mates?" When I don't answer, he pulls back and looks down at me. "Why do you look so pale?"

"I just hadn't thought about the reproductive logistics of having seven mates before now. It's gonna be like musical chairs. But backwards. Musical eggs."

"What the fuck are you going on about, crazy girl?"

"Nothing. None of that matters right now. Let's just focus on one thing at a time."

"Yes, and right now, that one thing is sleep."

***

I feel as though I've just drifted off to sleep when I wake to Camus' hand reaching between my thighs and stroking my clit to wake me up.

"Do you think we have time for a quickie before we meet Solina?" he asks. "It may be a while before we can fuck properly again, and I want you so fucking bad."

He flips me onto my back and moves down my body, settling with his head between my thighs.

"We can make a little time," I say with a smile.

He presses his tongue against my clit, and slides two fingers inside of me, but stops abruptly and pulls them out, making me whine.

I push up onto my elbow and glare at him. "We do not have enough time for you to tease me."

"You're nearly fertile." He groans and his eyes roll back in his head as he licks his fingers.

"How can you tell? I haven't even had my first symptom."

"It's like when you have a fruit, and it's fragrant, but not quite at its ripest. You're nearly at your peak. Remind me how bad it would be if I put a baby in you right now, because the thought of finally being able to breed you like I've been threatening since we met..."

"If I'm pregnant, I can't shift. And if I can't shift, I can't get us back to Feldorn. Do not put a baby inside of me. Can't you get me some heat suppressants from the infirmary?"

"We don't keep them on hand. The only reason there are shifters in Solardin is for the sake of getting them pregnant. It would defeat the purpose."

"We'll need to stop by the first town we find in Feldorn then. I'm certain an herb shop will have them."

He crawls back up my body and shoves himself inside of me making me gasp.

"Camus!" I protest.

"You're not fertile yet . You'll be fine."

"Pull out, just in case," I ask, eyes pleading. "You cannot fuck up our plans—literally or figuratively speaking."

"Fine," he growls fucking me hard. His eyes have gone black which isn't something they typically do unless he's about to feed from me.

"The magic suppressant," I say, placing my hand on his chest.

Between pants, he says, "I'm not going to bite you. It's just taking every ounce of willpower I have to not spill myself inside of you."

The thought has me clenching around him, the primal side of me begging for him to do just that. Truthfully, there's a part of my more logical side that wants that too. I want to start a family with him. But not yet.

"Stars. Do you like that, Arden? Do you want to be a little cum slut for me until your belly is swollen with our child? I can feel the way your cunt is begging me to fill you up, milking me for everything I have. I'm not gonna last. I need you to come for me."

He reaches between us and the second his thumb hits my clit, it's like a bomb detonating inside of me. I arch my back and scream his name. He barely pulls out in time, coming all over me and the bed.

"I think we should probably hold off on sex for a day or two," he says with a frustrated sigh. "I almost came inside of you anyway. Not that your body seemed to mind that idea."

"Biology is a bitch," I say. "Let's get going. We need to get out of this place before I actually go into heat."

While we discussed our plans with Solina, we had packed a couple of bags. We hadn't told Solina what I was, only that we needed to leave. She was going to be meeting us on the edge of the gardens in about an hour.

Camus sets the bags by the door, and helps me into my dress.

"You ready to slay the biggest dragon of them all?" he asks, clasping a silver necklace around my neck.

"I think I was born ready," I say with a laugh.

"I think you were, too." His eyes meet mine in the mirror. The look of reverence on his face makes me melt a little. "I mean it, Arden. I have no doubts you'll do great things with this realm. We just have to get you free first. Now what's the plan again?"

"I go down to the throne room, and seek council with your grandmother. We lure her back to her quarters where you'll keep watch, and I'll drug her with the sleeping drought. Once she's asleep, I let you in, and I'll stand guard. You'll grab my blood, then we'll rush back here, grab our things, then go gather Solina and Llewellyn."

"Perfect. Let's go." He kisses me on the forehead and leads me to the door, dropping our bags just inside the room. Then he pauses and turns to me. "I love you. If this goes wrong, if I don't get another chance to say it and make sure you've heard me...I love you, Arden. With everything I am.

"I don't expect you to ever forgive me for what I did. And I'm not really apologizing either. But I hope that this one grand gesture—committing treason—will help you understand just how much I care for you."

I stare at him, wide-eyed. He's betraying his kingdom—his family—for me. I'm not sure why the thought hadn't occurred to me before, and I'm angry that it took him pointing it out for me to realize it. If we go through with this, we'll never be able to come back.

And while that's perfectly fine for me, I cannot ask him to do that.

"You can't do this. You can't come with me."

"Don't do that." He rolls his eyes at me.

"What? I can't possibly ask—"

"You're not asking, silly girl. I made this choice just as I've chosen you every single day since the second we met. No matter what, I will always choose you ."

A realization washes over me like a tsunami. "You've never truly meant me any harm."

"Well, that's subjective." He smirks down at me.

I ignore his snark. "Even that first night. You were doing your duty, but you were honest about it and you didn't want to actually cause me any harm. You...have also never been dishonest with me."

"Of course not. What reason could I possibly have for lying to you? And of course I never meant you any harm. The second I smelled you, heard your heartbeat, I knew you belonged to me. What is going on with you?" he asks placing a hand to my forehead, as if checking for a fever. "Are you feeling okay?"

"You just surprise me, sometimes. That's all."

"I hope I always continue to surprise you. I'm glad you eventually gave me a chance."

"Not like I had much choice in the matter," I say.

"You did, though. You could have broken the bond if you really wanted. You already knew how to do it."

My jaw drops just slightly. He's right. I could have broken our bond at any point, but the idea never occurred to me. Why didn't it occur to me?

"I'm sorry, love, but we don't have time for whatever existential crisis you're having right now. We can talk about it on the way to Feldorn."

I nod. On the way to Feldorn. I breathe out a long breath as he leads me out the door and down the hall to the throne room. I'm going back. I'm going home .