Chapter 43

It tookhim a good few minutes to get me to look around.

“I promise you, you’re perfectly safe. Please, just look,” he said softly in my ear. “You see these hands?” He squeezed my ribs with his fingers. “Nobody in the world could pry them from you. Look.”

I argued for as long as I could.

Eventually, I caved.

Grey couldn’t stop smiling, a completely different person from the man he had been that morning when talking to his brothers. So open and honest and free.

“Go ahead. Don’t be afraid,” he said, nudging my nose with his, and I looked.

I finally looked around us, and I forgot to breathe all over again.

We were even higher up than I’d realized, and the castle surrounded by the woods on all sides looked so small from here. The tower I lived in and knew to be huge looked so narrow and long—and then I saw the mountain. Valentine said there were three, but I could barely make out one behind the castle, far away in the distance, and between it and the miles upon miles of trees surrounding the outer wall, there were lights. Structures I could barely make out stretched everywhere there weren’t trees.

“Wow,” I breathed when I realized that the Whispering Woods was not even half as desertedas I’d believed. Even from up here, I couldn’t see the edges of it because they were covered by the deep clouds that kept the Isle in the dark. Valleys and hills behind us, so fucking beautiful dipped in darkness like that, and Grey showed me all of it as he spun me around slowly, his wings steady, pushing my hair to the sides each time they beat the air.

“It’s something, isn’t it?” he said.

“It’s breathtaking.” And for the first time since I got here, I saw the Whispering Woods as a place where people led lives and had families and worked, rather than my prison. All those tiny structures and lights—people lived there. It wasn’t just this castle and big snakes and trees. There was so much more to this place than I had ever realized.

“It’s all yours,” said Grey, raising the hair on the back of my neck. “The Whispering Woods belongs to you as much as it belongs to me now.”

I shook my head, those words too much for me to swallow. “I don’t… I don’t want to be your bride, Grey.” I didn’t want to be one of the brides. “I can’t stand to think that you…that you’re gonna go to bed with…” Cynthia and Amita and who knew who else would come along in the next years—no.

Fuck. That.

“Good,” Grey said. “You don’t have to—I won’t.”

I looked up at him, the wings blowing my hair in my face for a second.

Then I laughed. “Are we really having this conversation in the fucking air?”

“Where else are we going to have conversations?” he said with a mischievous grin.

“Somewhere closer to the ground, for example?”

“But I’m not done with you up here yet.”

“Grey,” I warned. “We have to talk. I want to talk.”

“Then talk, baby,” he said, and then we were moving. His wings were beating faster, and we were moving lower, slowly, but even so, my stomach was trying to climb right up my throat.

“This is so uncomfortable…” I squeezed my eyes shut, hiding my face under his chin. “Put me down, please. Just put?—”

We landed on something hard.

There was something solid beneath my feet again, and my heart jumped with joy.

Then I opened my eyes to see that we were on the rooftop of the third tower. The pointy rooftop, and we were right at the edge of it.

“Grey!”

He was laughing as I held onto him tighter.

God, it was worse than being up there in the air because we were at the very edge. I was practically half lying on the smooth surface of the roof tiles.

Grey pressed me down harder, basically falling on top of me, and his wings wrapped around us on both sides, securing us in place. The curved claws at their edges dug into the roof tiles, taking chunks off them in the process.

A small scream escaped me, but the roof was against my back, and Grey’s body was pressed to mine, and his wings didn’t budge. Rain fell on our heads—small, gentle drops—and the dark of the sky enveloped us completely.

Like this, I saw nothing else but Grey and the sky.

“There. We’re safe enough to talk now,” he said with a lopsided smile that had my insides melting a little bit.

“You’re awful,” I mumbled, but I was smiling nonetheless, holding onto his neck.

“I’m in desperate need of you, baby,” he said, touching his lips to mine. My eyes closed and I somehow had enough strength to resist kissing him.

“Grey, wait.” I wanted to talk, didn’t I? “The…the other brides. This is important.”

“Important, yes,” he muttered, eyes on my lips still.

“I’m serious. I don’t want to be another bride and have to wonder where you are every single night when you’re not with me. I can’t live like that.” I wouldn’t.

“You won’t. I swear it on these wings that I haven’t touched another woman since the moment I saw you, and that I never will until the day I die. Do you understand me?”

His words were heavy. So fucking heavy.

“But you’re an Evernight.” And we both knew what that meant.

“I’m Grey first,” he told me. “And Grey is only yours.”

“Oh, yeah? So, what am I then?” Because no matter what he said, that’s what I was called—a bride.

“You are…” Grey thought about it for a second. “My wife.”

I snorted. “That’s the same thing.”

“No, it isn’t. You’re my wife, not my bride.”

“I’d need to marry you to be your wife.”

“Then marry me, beautiful. I’ll make you a ring myself. I’ll get on my knee for as long as you want me to. I’ll give you the biggest wedding the Isles have ever seen.” And he meant every word.

Damn. As much as I loved the sound of that with my whole being, I shook my head. “You make it sound easy.”

He didn’t hesitate. “It is.”

“The others might have something against it. You know—because of the curse and everything?” I said, frustrated.

“If they have something against it, I’ll show them why they don’t,” he said. “I don’t want you to worry about anything, baby.”

“But I do. I worry. This is my life!”

“And I’ll protect it with mine. You’re safe, I promise you,” he said, eyes wide and honest, seeing right into me.

And I saw right into him, too. He meant every word, I believed that, but…

“I don’t want you fighting your own brothers for me. You almost killed Tristian today, Grey. That was too much, don’t you think?”

He rested his forehead to mine. “And I’ll kill all of them if they speak of you that way. I promise you that.”

“No—that’s not what I mean at all!” He’d completely missed the fucking point.

“I know. It’s what I mean. I can promise you anything you want, Fall, but I will not let anyone get in my way of you or speak of you that way. I’ll never allow it.” And he didn’t even bat an eye about it.

So damn frustrating.

I sighed. “Grey, you can’t fight Valentine tomorrow. Storm is huge. Shadow is tiny. It isn’t fair, is it?”

“He challenged me. He calculated the risks,” he said.

“He was just pissed off. He doesn’t want people to think he’s a coward—Grey, you can’t accept his challenge.”

“That’s not an option. If we’re challenged, we have to accept. It’s the law,” he said, making my stomach twist and turn. Fuck, I was so stressed I’d forgotten we were on the side of the rooftop of his tower, under the open sky in the rain.

“And what if you break the law?”

“Then I’ll get banished,” Grey said, and that made me feel like I wanted to break something and set it on fire. “The same happens if we’re caught stealing from the Court, conspiring against the Court, or hurting any of the brides. They all lead to instant banishment.”

My eyes closed and I willed my heart to slow down the beating, but it wasn’t working.

“Listen to me, baby. Valentine challenged me. I have no choice but to accept. I will try not to kill Shadow, I swear it.”

“Really?” I opened my eyes, the rain falling right on my lids.

“For you, I’ll try,” he said. “But this isn’t your fault in any way. Do you understand?”

“Of course, it is.” Everything was my fault. “I’m really starting to think I’m brokenor something. It can’t be a coincidence that my blood is compatible with everyone, can it?” All of this would have been avoided if I’d just been like every other bride, and if my blood had chosen only Grey.

“Your blood is what it is. You’re not broken, baby. There were others before you who went through the same, remember? There have even been brides whose blood wasn’t compatible with anyone, and they had to be sent back home.” I flinched. “Everything is possible where magic is involved, especially magic as complex as the Ennaris curse. You don’t know the whole story yet, but the Blood Call is over, and you already know enough so we don’t have to keep anything from you anymore. We can read a few books together. I’ll tell you all about it,” Grey said, and my heart fell all the way to my heels.

“Actually, I know the story,” I whispered, thinking of the Storyteller. Of Emerald. Of Valentine. “This is so, so wrong…”

“Don’t say that,” he said, biting my jaw a little. “Out of everything in the world, this is the only thing that feels right to me.”

I sighed, resting my head on his shoulder. “It feels right to me, too.” And it shouldn’t have…should it? I wasn’t home. I wasn’t free—but nothing was worse than the fact that I didn’t want to be. That I was talking to Grey as if I’d already decided that I was going to stay here forever. That I was going to be his for real.

“Then stop thinking for a moment. Let me help you relax a little,” he said, kissing my jaw as he nudged my head to the side until I raised it enough for him to reach my lips. “Let me take care of you, baby. Right now, you need a break. We’ll talk later.”

“A break?” That did sound heavenly.

Grey grinned against my lips. “Yes, a break—and I’m going to give that to you by fucking you on this rooftop right now.”

I gasped. “You’re mad!”

His tongue was in my mouth, devouring me the next second. “I am. I’m fucking mad for you, Fall. I’ve waited my whole life for you. It was hell when you arrived here and I couldn’t have you right away. That I had to wait,” he whispered. “I can’t fucking wait no more. I need you…” His words could have been my own, personal wings because they made me feel like I was flying again.

He pressed his hips down on me as if to show me how hard he was. How deliciously hard he was for me, even considering where we were.

And I moaned as heat spilled all over me. That’s it—that’s all it took to convince me. “If we fall?—”

“I’ll catch you, I swear it,” he said with that sexy growl. “You’re not going anywhere.” He kissed the breath out of me again. “Hold on tight, baby.”

The next second, Grey leaned down and ripped my pants off my body with one movement.

The cold air of the night against my legs and my soaked folds made me shiver. I screamed again, then sank my teeth in his shoulder, terrified the entire castle heard it.

But Grey’s hands framed my face again and he pulled me in front of him, smiling widely. “Nobody can hear us through the rain, baby. Scream as loud as you can,” he said. “Show me how well I’m pleasing you.” His hand was already down to my ass, and he dug his fingers in, squeezing so hard it hurt, muttering, “Perfect, perfect, perfect.”

“Grey,” I whispered, holding onto his shoulders, eyes locked on his. The anticipation was killing me as his hands moved slowly to my front.

Grey didn’t even blink when he slid his fingers down my folds, painfully slowly, and watched me almost come at the contact.

“Don’t bite your lip, baby,” he said, slipping his fingertip into my entrance. “Let. Go.”

His whisper must have cast a spell on me because I didn’t even try to hold back again. I cried out in pleasure, eyes squeezed shut, my head thrown back on the tiles. Gravity helped in keeping me in place, and Grey’s wings didn’t budge a single inch. His body was still pressed to mine just as tightly, and he wasn’t about to let go anytime soon.

Somehow, I momentarily became insane enough to actual feel safe there. I felt safe on the rooftop of a two-hundred-foot-tall tower because he had his arms and wings wrapped around me.

I let go for real.

Rain on my face. Grey’s lips in my mouth and I bit them like they were my favorite snack as he dipped his fingers deeper inside me still, pulling all kinds of sounds out of me. His other hand traveled down to my stomach, under my soaked shirt and bra. He cupped my breast hard, squeezing until it hurt, but somehow he made it work. Somehow my body loved the pain he gave me. It added to the incredible pleasure that had consumed my every cell by now, especially when he began to pinch and play with my nipple.

He kept whispering things under his breath as I tried to rise higher to take his fingers down to my entrance, but he kept them up on my clit instead, circling it slowly and with just the right pressure.

“Talk to me, baby. What do you want me to do?” he said between kissing me, even though he knew very well what I wanted him to do.

“Grey, please,” I whispered, letting go of his shoulder for a second to push his arm lower as I thrust my hips forward as much as he let me.

“Please what?” he said with a growl, pressing his chest onto mine harder as he continued to play with me. “Tell me. Talk to me.”

“Please,” I said, too embarrassed to say it out loud, so I just ran my fingernails down his chest—his wet chest that just might be God’s greatest gift to me in this lifetime.

Fuck, I was already delirious, not even caring about where I was, and the rain on my face felt mighty fine, too. Almost seductive in the gentle way it fell on my skin.

“I’ll do anything you tell me. Anything at all,” Grey whispered, pressing onto my clit harder, massaging my breast faster, more desperately as his hips moved, too. I reached my hands between us only barely and slipped them under the waistband of his sweatpants. I grabbed his hard cock and a loud cry ripped from my throat as if he’d already come inside me. My head fell back again, and Grey leaned down and claimed my lips furiously, kissing me harder the tighter my grip on his cock.

Fuck, he felt so good. I wanted to see him, analyze every inch of him naked until I knew the map of his skin by memory.

But right now, I needed him to fuck me more. Please, please, please, I begged between kisses, and I no longer had the energy to be embarrassed or ashamed at that point.

And as much as he wanted to give up the little control he was holding on to, he was too fucking stubborn, unfortunately for me.

“Your words, baby. Use your words. Please, what?” he said, and he sounded like he was begging me, too. Begging me to put us both out of our misery.

So, I said, “Please fuck me.”

Grey paused for a short second, and even the rain seemed to stop falling on us until he moved again.

Oh, how he moved.

His fingers were deep inside me without warning. Another scream left my lips and my body locked in place, the orgasm so close I could taste it. He caught my scream with his mouth, wrapping his arm around my waist to keep me in place, and he began to pump those fingers in and out of me fast.

My God, I couldn’t even see anymore. I couldn’t hear anything other than my muffled moans and feel his tongue in my mouth and his body pressed to mine. My hands were around his neck now, holding on for dear life as he finger-fucked me like he was in a damn race.

Grey was not kidding around.

I like to think that the surprise of it played a role because I came less than a minute later. I came around his fingers and my eyes rolled in my skull, and he let go of my mouth because I suspect he loved to hear me screaming. He kissed my neck while I squeezed around his fingers, riding the high.

My eyes opened just a slit by the end, and all I saw was dark.

Rain on my face. Grey wrapped all around me.

A smile spread on my lips.

I was on top of the fucking world.

And I wanted more.

Grey kept his fingers inside my pussy and pressed his body onto me harder until the tiles dug into my back. I didn’t mind it one bit, hardly felt it.

“What in the Isles are you doing to me,” he whispered in my ear, but it wasn’t a question. I wrapped my arms around his neck tightly, kissing his wet neck.

“It’s you who are doing things to me.” He’d made me come in less than a minute, and if that wasn’t a fucking miracle, I didn’t know what was.

Fuck, I used to think that I just didn’t come during sex or from anybody else’s hand other than mine. I was so convinced that I was just one of those women, but now?

Now I realized, one of those women didn’t exist. I had just been with the wrong man.

“Making you come might be the best thing I’ve done in my life,” Grey said, slowly slipping his fingers out of my pussy while he moved back, unwrapping his arm from around me and grabbing my jaw, pushing me against the rooftop, holding me there.

He looked so fucking furious, and the sight of him like that set me on fire all over again. His hair was wet, sticking to his head, and his wings were wrapped around us and his chest was naked and his eyes were sinful and dark—and then he brought up his fingers that had been inside me until a second ago, and he slipped them in his mouth.

“Do you have any clue how you look when you’re screaming my name?” he said with a growl, licking his fingers clean. “You fuck with my mind, Fall. You’re driving me crazy.” It was a goddamn accusation.

He tugged at my heart like nothing in the world ever had, not even the piano. Dangerous, dangerous vampire.

“What are you gonna do about it?” I barely said because his hand was still around my jaw, holding me down against the rooftop.

Surprise registered in his eyes for a second, and then the smile that stretched his lips would have scared me if I didn’t know him.

“I’m gonna do exactly what you begged me to do just now,” he said, sliding his hand down my neck slowly, over my wet shirt and to my breasts, his eyes scrolling down lower to my naked hips and legs.

My eyes did the same and they still insisted that he couldn’t possibly be real—winged and gorgeous and wet—I mean, come on. I shook my head. “Who even looks like that?” I muttered to myself, and I was too turned on to care that he heard. I could be embarrassed about it tomorrow.

And Grey said with a wicked grin, “Your man does.”

I’ll be damned if I’d ever heard anything better in my life. And he could tell exactly how I felt about it when I grabbed him by the hair and pulled him to me to kiss the hell out of him.

Grey didn’t break the kiss at all, let me have his lips while he gripped my naked ass that was numb from the hard tiles. Then he pushed those sweatpants and his underwear down his legs and pulled me up within the second. I didn’t need to be told twice. I locked my legs around his hips, touching the edges of his wings with my thighs, and I wasn’t freaked out in the least. I didn’t mind one bit that this guy—my man—had wings. On the contrary, I wanted to study them, too. I wanted to know them by memory, every curve and every claw.

Later, though. Later because right now Grey’s hard cock was pressed against my soaked folds, and I needed it inside me sooner than I needed my next breath.

Grey must have been desperate, too, because he didn’t play with me anymore, didn’t torture me by making me tell him what I wanted. He reached down for his cock, bringing his tip to my entrance. My muscles locked and I bit into the side of his neck again, the anticipation of feeling him inside me emptying my mind completely.

“So tight. So fucking wet,” Grey whispered as he eased his cock inside me slowly. My God, he felt so good… “Keep biting me like that, baby.”

Once his tip was inside me, he gripped my hips with both hands to hold me in place, and thrust up until he was in all the way to the base.

I bit on his skin harder until I tasted blood. My muscles were still locked as I half lay on the rooftop with my legs around him, and he seemed to be reaching new depths inside me because I felt him even better than I had that morning.

“Relax, baby,” Grey whispered in my ear, not moving a single inch yet. “Relax your body. Let me handle it.”

Fuck yes.

I let go, only focusing on keeping my ankles locked around his hips. Grey held me up without trouble. I searched for his mouth with my eyes closed and kissed him as he slowly began to move out of me, moaning deep in his throat. There were no thoughts in my head, no time to wonder about anything or to remember where I was.

He didn’t rush, fucked me slowly this time, and I loved to feel every inch of him coming inside me and slipping out again. My fingernails dug into his skin as I kissed him with my whole being in the same rhythm.

I don’t know how long we were there or how long it took for his thrust to become faster, deeper, more desperate, but I was ready to explode into fucking fireworks when he whispered my name like he was in ecstasy. His eyes were half closed as he looked at me. We weren’t kissing anymore, but our lips were touching still, waiting for the perfect moment to let go.

It came at the same time for both of us. We were face-to-face, muscles locked, and Grey was as deep inside me as he could get. We whispered each other’s names and let go, the world around us completely lost.

That’s where we stayed for a while, riding the high, and while I looked into his eyes, I climbed higher and higher, way beyond those dark clouds.

But when I wrapped my arms around his neck again and rested my head on his shoulder, I realized I was falling.

Fast. Hard. Spiraling down headfirst.

And it was already too late to try to hold on.