34. Gone!

Chapter 34

Gone!

"Ow! Ow! Ow! Don't bite!" I cried. I tried to scramble away from those sharp teeth, but nearly two hundred pounds of sweaty, naked elf pinned me to the bed. Not to mention, I was sated within an inch of my life, and I couldn't feel my legs beyond a bit of tingling in my toes.

Nylian licked a long stripe along my neck where he'd just bitten me, creating an outbreak of goose bumps across my entire body. Feeling returned to my legs along with other parts of me. "Come on. Let's go again," the elf growled in my ear.

"Gods! What are you? Part rabbit?"

With a little elbowing and pushing, my voracious lover allowed me to roll over onto my back so I could stare up at his smiling face. He was flushed, sweaty, and his hair was a golden rat's nest. He looked like he'd been thoroughly fucked, which was so very true.

"We're celebrating. Don't you want to celebrate with me?" The wicked elf attempted to jut out his bottom lip and flutter his eyelashes at me in an adorable pout, but he couldn't maintain that ridiculous expression.

"We've been celebrating all night." I tipped my head to peek out the closest window. As I suspected, the night sky was turning lighter. In just a couple of hours, dawn would break over West Vale.

"Then we will celebrate all morning, all day."

The spirit was willing, but the body…the body was utterly drained. I was afraid if I tried to come one more time, dust would puff out the end of my dick.

Smiling at the elf who owned me completely, I reached up and placed my hand on his cheek, reveling in how he leaned into my touch. His emerald eyes closed, and such an expression of bliss washed over him. "Every moment we are together is a celebration. This battle is over at last. Orian is safe. You are home, and your parents love you. The world knows you are good and honorable. You're allowed to rest now."

Nylian's eyes opened. "You forgot the most important part."

"What's that?"

"I have you. The king of Wolfrest has ordered you to marry me. You have no choice now."

Still holding his face, I pulled him in for a slow kiss, soaking in the exquisite feel of him. Everything about this felt so right, as if I had been waiting my entire existence to find him so we could fit together.

"And if he hadn't ordered it, I would have come up with a wicked plot," I murmured against his lips when I broke off the kiss.

Amusement lit his eyes. He shifted so that he had one arm on my chest and his chin resting on it after pulling a blanket across our bodies. "Really? What kind of plot?"

"A kidnapping plot."

"Ha! How were you going to manage this? Did you have help lined up?"

A smug smile grew on my lips, and I pushed a stray hair from his forehead. "I did. I asked Saida to loan me Adeline. My scheme was to drug your evening tea and hide you in a sack. From there, Adeline and I would sneak you out with the laundry into a waiting wagon Orian promised to arrange for me."

Nylian laughed and snuggled closer. "You've got both Saida and Orian involved."

" Mn . From there, I would drive the wagon north until we reached Misty Pass. I was planning to hold you hostage there until you agreed to marry me."

Nylian made a happy noise and closed his eyes. "I like that plan, but why Misty Pass? Why not go all the way to Gushan?"

I snorted. "Because I don't want to start a war. Plus, that's a long drive. I wouldn't be able to wait that long to kiss you again."

"Not to mention, Misty Pass is near where we first met," Nylian added.

"That reminds me, Nylian ," I said, putting emphasis on his very fake name. "Saida recognized the name when she heard me use it. I forgot to ask about that. Nylian wasn't a name you just made up, was it?"

The elf turned his face into my chest as if he were embarrassed. "Gods, I forgot about that."

"What? Now you have to tell me!"

He sat up a little and smirked, his cheeks tinged pink. "Nylian was a name I used when Orian and I were very young. When we had some free time between our studies, we would run off to the neighboring woods and play silly games of pretend. I used the name Nylian when I played at being a forest rogue who robbed caravans and went on treasure hunts."

My body trembled with laughter, and I pulled him in for another hard kiss when he tried to roll away from me. "That's adorable."

He snorted and halfheartedly shoved away from me, but I refused to release him. "Orian must have told Saida about our games, because we were too old for such things when she was born. That day in the forest, you said your name was Adam, yet I knew you were Victor. I figured it was all a ruse, so I had to play along. The moment you asked for my name, my mind went blank. The first one I thought of was Nylian."

"I love that name," I purred, easing him close for another kiss. "But which would you prefer I use? Would you rather I call you Xeran all the time?"

My prince shook his head. "Together in private, I am your Nylian, and you are my Adam. We'll save Xeran and Victor for the rest of the world."

"Agreed."

I was getting ready to suggest that we share a bath and then try to grab a few hours of sleep. But before I could speak, I watched the smile fade from Nylian's lips and his brow furrow with a thought.

"What's wrong? What did you just think of?"

"The coin," he whispered, as if he were afraid of the monstrous thing hearing him.

My heart skipped a beat. I'd forgotten all about the damn thing. In all the chaos of saving Orian, getting Jasper settled with the wizards, and just going with the flow of hectic palace life, it had slipped my mind.

This was it. The happily ever after. All the problems were solved, and the story was over. If my job was to get Nylian to this point, that coin should have zapped me back to my old world and my old apartment. Or worse, my old dead body.

But I was here in bed with my fiancé.

Nylian swallowed hard and sat up. "Do you still have it? Did you ever give it to one of the royal wizards?"

I planted my hands on the mattress and pushed until I was sitting up as well, the blankets falling down to my lap. "I haven't actually touched it since Ulmenor, but I felt it in the bottom of my bag when we were in Blackscar. After we got here, I just stuffed my bag in a drawer."

We both looked over at the elegant white dresser with gold filigree on the far side of the room. In the very bottom drawer was that bag, along with some of the worn and ragged clothes I'd used during our long journey.

"May I see it?" Nylian inquired.

It seemed only fair, even if the thing made me nervous. The coin had brought us together. Maybe it wasn't as evil as the Riverhold wizard claimed.

After sucking in a fortifying breath, I wrapped a blanket about myself and climbed out of bed, causing Nylian to snicker at my makeshift toga. Okay, so I was still a little shy, plus the air had grown colder with the steady approach of winter.

I kneeled and pulled open the drawer. It took some digging for me to locate the dirty bag, but I knew something was off as soon as I lifted it from the drawer. It was too light. My hand plunged into the bag, going directly for the hidden pocket, but it was empty.

"The coin's gone!" I gasped.

Nylian was out of the bed in a flash and kneeling beside me. He grabbed the bag from my fingers and felt around in every pocket, turning the entire thing inside out.

"Someone stole it! How? Who knew about it?"

I shook my head, trying to replay all the millions of seconds that had passed since I'd last touched the sleek gold coin. "Just the four of us, I think. Well, and the wizard from Riverhold, but it couldn't have been him. I don't think we ever talked about it in front of Master Binx." I lifted my gaze to Nylian's puzzled expression. "It couldn't have been Jasper or Adeline. I…I don't think it was stolen."

Nylian sat on the floor beside me, seeming oblivious to his nudity or the coldness of the tile floor on his bare bottom. "What do you mean? What happened to it?"

I shrugged. "Maybe it moved on to its next person to terrorize." Nylian frowned and started to shake his head, but I grabbed his hand and squeezed. "Think about it. The damn thing just appeared in the gutter one day as I was walking by. My world doesn't have wizards, so how the hell did it get in my path? I could have been meant to pick it up or it could have been luck. No idea. The point is that it's gone, and I'm still here ." I leaned in and pressed my lips to his. "I will always be here with you."

He kissed me back, his smile growing wider with every tender peck. "Here. Forever. Mine."

"Forever yours," I agreed.

The elf pulled away and cocked his head. "Shame I never got to see it. What did it look like?"

"It was a shiny gold coin about this big," I said, holding up one hand with my thumb and index finger spaced about two inches apart. "I don't remember any writing on it, but there was a bird with its wings spread. Sort of like a raven."

Nylian caught my hand and turned it so that the signet ring I wore caught the flickering lamplight. "Like this raven?"

I huffed a laugh as I looked at the bird emblazoned on the onyx stone. "Yeah, a lot like that, actually."

"And the other side?"

"A dragon."

Nylian cackled and jumped to his feet. I stared at him until he extended his hand to me. I took it and let him pull me up as well.

"What?" I asked.

The elf's hand shot out toward the bed, where a huge shield hung on the wall with the gold dragon of the Elrich family on it. The same dragon I'd seen a hundred times a day since coming to West Vale, and I'd never noticed that it matched the damn dragon design that graced the coin.

"Fuck. That's it," I breathed. Grinning at my fiancé, I grabbed the ends of my blanket and wrapped us both in it, pulling him in close.

"So, that proves it. We were always destined to be together."

"We just needed a little magical help to get us there."

Nylian snuggled in close, wrapping his arms around me and burying his face in my neck like an overgrown kitten. "It doesn't matter if we're together in this world or your world. I'm happy so long as I have you."

Yes, my elf would always have me. Nylian was the love of my life, and nothing was ever going to separate us.

Not even crazy magic coins.