CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE（Untitled）Wranth

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Wranth

I take the entwined crystal from my bride. If another sluagh comes through the door, my moon steel blade will be the first thing they meet.

The human contraption roars as we travel along one of their hard roads, Zephyr galloping behind us. Shadow slid from her back as soon as we left the town behind and runs in his feline form, flickering in and out of sight as he uses the shadow roads to keep up.

Soon, we enter a forest, one that’s a pale echo of Alarria’s. There aren’t any blue birch, and the green of the pine trees isn’t as vibrant. Only the faintest hint of magic hangs in the air. Still, it’s more than I felt last time I was here, so opening the doors of Faerie is already changing things. And compared to the altered forest of Avalon, these woods are green and alive.

It’s enough that it no longer feels impossible to imagine living here.

Because anything’s worth being with my bride.

The man pulls over, and we climb out of the mechanical carriage. Once it disappears down the road, the distant roar of rushing water becomes audible.

Naomi leads us along a narrow trail that skirts the edge of a wide pond, a waterfall splashing into the surface.

“Ferndale Falls. It gives the town its name—or half of it, at least—the ferns being the other part.” She gestures to the plants that cover the ground on each side of the path, their fronds waving in the slight breeze. Then she gives me a sultry grin. “Told you I like waterfalls.”

My erection stirs, remembering what it was like to chase her around the waterfall in Alarria. I long to do that now, to leave the others here and go cavorting after her through the trees, to catch her and claim her, to feel her shatter with completion around my cock.

“Ha, orc!” Shadow says. “If you could see your face.”

“What?” Zephyr says from behind us. “I can’t see anything from back here.”

“He’s getting amorous.” The feline fae’s green eyes sparkle with mischief.

“Oh, is that all?” She snorts. “It’s not as if that’s anything new now that Naomi is around.”

I groan. Goddess, this is all that I need—the two of them ganging up against me. “When did you two get so friendly?”

They both laugh.

“Oh, how the tables have turned.” Aldronn shoots me an amused glance. My cousin always has little trouble filling his furs with willing partners, as to be expected as the only royal heir. All of the guard members have a certain popularity by association, but I tended to avail myself less frequently than many, knowing the women were more interested in my position than me.

“Not you as well.” I scowl at him.

“Come on.” Naomi leaves the path and heads between two ash trees. “We’re almost there.”

We come out in a small clearing, the trees kept from growing here by a ten-foot tall rock formation. It’s too irregular to be anything but natural, even though it stands isolated. A cluster of clear quartz crystals decorates the top, sending several pointed, hexagons jutting upward at various angles.

“Shadow, will you dig a hole?” Naomi points to the base of the rock.

Once the cat sith’s done so, I drop the paired crystal inside and cover it over.

“I’ll go first,” Aldronn says. “I need to see if Brokk and Garint are safe.”

After I hand the trapped sluagh to him, he steps forward and disappears, the flock sucked through immediately after. Zephyr and Shadow follow.

Naomi pauses, looking back over her shoulder in the direction of town.

Goddess, is she ready to leave me so soon? Can she? My fingers rub my chest. I still feel her, but I can’t tell if it’s the tether or our mate bond.

“Wait here for a moment.” I take off running into the trees. I run and run, my breath becoming shorter the farther I go. Not due to exertion, but because of the growing tightness in my chest. I’ve gone well past twenty feet and I’m still moving away from her.

The tether broke when she opened all the doors of Faerie, just as we suspected it would.

My bride can leave me. I skid to a halt, unable to breathe. The realization crushes me under a mountain of rock, squeezing my heart until it feels as if it will shatter into a million pieces.

I need to let her go, let her live the life she wants.

Fuck, I don’t want to. I long to snatch her away and keep her for myself. It’s the hurt child in me, the lonely one who wants and wants and wants and can never get enough.

My shoulders square, and I suck in a shuddering breath. I’m no longer a child. I can be a man for her, one who thinks of her first. No matter how much it pains me, I will see her happy.

I don’t know exactly what expression I wear when I return to Naomi, but her eyes go wide and she jolts forward to meet me. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” I lie. “It’s the tether. It’s—”

“Broken? Yeah.” She searches my face. “That’s what we wanted, right?”

My teeth grind together as I bite back a protest, and I force myself to nod. This is when she’ll say goodbye and wave me through the door and out of her life.

My stomach plummets when she does exactly that. “You go first.”

That step—my first step away from her—is the hardest I’ve ever had to take.

Aldronn waits on the other side with Shadow and Zephyr. “Brokk and Garint aren’t here.”

I grunt. I know I should be worried about the missing orcs, but how can I when I suffer a much greater loss? My moon bound didn’t even say goodbye. I rub at my chest. Goddess, I can still feel her, bound to my heart, almost as if—

“I love these doors,” Naomi says behind me. “They’re so easy.”

I spin around, stunned. “What? You? But—”

“Words, orc,” Shadow says. “Make use of them.”

“Hush, you.” Zephyr bats him with her horn. “This is serious.”

Naomi’s eyes don’t leave my face as she steps forward to place her hand on mine. In a blink, we’re in the bedroom of the cottage in Moon Blade Village.

Our cottage.

Hope blooms in my chest.

“You shouldn’t have used your powers again today.”

“An in-realm teleport isn’t so bad, and I feel loads better since you ended that soul stealer.”

“But—”

“No buts,” she says. “I have something to say to you, and I don’t want an audience.”

Her little hands push at me until I sit on the edge of the bed. Then my moon bound steps in between my thighs so we’re face to face.

I stare into her beautiful eyes, ready to offer her the moon, if only she’ll stay. I’ll do anything.

“Naomi, my bride. I realize I might not have a kingdom to offer you, but whatever it means to be king, whether riches or land, I give it freely. It is yours, if you’ll have me.”

“Oh, Wranth, don’t you know I don’t care about that stuff?” A haunted look of sadness flickers across her face. “I’m sorry people have made you feel like you’re not enough.” Then her voice strengthens. “But they’re not me. I don’t care that you’re royalty. I don’t need to know anything about your family to know who you are.” She presses her palm over my heart, and it leaps, pounding against my ribs as if eager to reach her. “I already know exactly who you are, Wranth. You’re the man who protects me, no matter the danger to himself. You’re the man who would never leave me, tether or no tether.

“You’re the man I love.”

Joy, blazing with the strength of a million suns, rushes through me. She loves me! My moon bound bride loves me.

I crush her to me, my mouth eating at hers, a starving man given his first bite of sustenance. I will never get enough.