Chapter 45

My eyes popped open.I had no idea how long I’d been out, but the panic was there, ready to take me over in an instant.

I sat up, heart in my throat, about to start running.

Then Grey’s face came into view.

Everything came to a halt. My shoulders relaxed instantly.

He was sitting at his desk to the right of the bed, wearing nothing but his sweatpants, surrounded by drawings pinned to the walls and stacks of books on all sides. One of them was in his hands, his wings halfway spread around the back of his chair, and he closed it when he saw me sitting up.

“You fell asleep,” he said, as if he could read the question in my mind even before I said it.

“I did.” My hand traveled up to my neck to feel for puncture marks where he’d bitten me. They were there. Barely noticeable, but they were there.

Shivers ran down the length of me. I was naked underneath the sheets, so I pulled them with me when I got off the bed and made my way to him.

Grey put the book on the desk slowly, looking at me as if he were mesmerized. As if an angel was walking up to him, not me. His eyes glistened and my smile was automatic, cheeks heated up within a second.

He didn’t move a single inch as I went to him, biting my lip, trying to stifle that goofy smile. I didn’t understand why he was looking at me like that when I was wearing a fucking sheet around me and my hair was probably a tangled mess. But when I finally was close enough, he reached both hands and grabbed me by the waist and pulled me to sit on his lap.

I’ll be damned if I’d ever been more comfortable in my life than I was in his arms.

Grey wrapped one around me tightly and pulled my legs up over his thigh. He touched my cheek, raising my head gently until he could reach my lips with his.

There. No more room for panic. Everything was just fine.

And that should have scared me.

Grey kissed me slowly, coaxing my lips open with his tongue, his muscles clenched as he held me, like he was holding himself back. His wings spread all the way around us, cocooning me between them, and it was like he separated us from the world completely. We were all alone in the universe.

“This better not be a dream,” he whispered against my lips, and my toes curled all the way.

“If it is, I’m sleeping forever.” And I’d die a happy woman.

Happy—how strange. I thought I was that when I played the piano, and it did come close, but this…this was something else. Something more I was never quite sure even existed like they described it in books.

“Forever’s too soon, my beautiful Fall,” he told me, and I just about melted.

“Did I ever tell you that I love the way you talk to me?” And I’d been pretty sure it would sound cheesy in real life, but it didn’t.

Grey grinned. “You do?”

“Mhmm. I love it. It’s just you, I think. Or maybe the fact that you’re older.” Maybe that’s why he knew how to make it work?

“I’ll be as young or as old as you want,” he said without missing a beat. “None of it really matters.”

I shook my head. “Why, though? Not like I’m complaining, just…why?” He was so different with the world. With the other brides. With his own brothers.

“It’s just you, I think,” Grey repeated my own words. “Everything about you speaks to me. I see through you, baby. And you’re as beautiful on the inside as you are out here.” He ran his fingers down my cheek.

I rolled my eyes, but I was smiling. “You don’t know who I am, though.”

“But I do.” He pressed his hand to my chest, right over my heart. “I know your rhythm and your mind.” He leaned down and kissed my neck, right where he’d bitten me. “I know your blood.”

“Mhmm. Yes, you do.” My eyes closed and I was taken back to the bathroom, to his shower, to the way he’d felt when he’d bitten me…

“It was different, your blood. So much different than anything I’ve ever felt before,” Grey said, and I opened my eyes again.

“It was?”

He nodded. “I’ve been doing some reading while you slept. I can’t really put my finger on it, but it tasted different. Not like blood does, just like…more.”

I turned to look at the book he’d been reading, and his wings moved to the sides a bit to let me see it. “And? Did you find something?” The thick, burgundy-colored covers of the book looked old, and when I reached for it, it was heavier than I realized, but Grey pulled me to sit up straighter and the book fell on my lap.

“Nothing. So far, everything I read says what I already know—blood is blood. Human blood gives us about fifteen times more power than animal blood, but that’s the thing.” Grey pulled the cover open a handful of pages to where he’d been reading. “I only took a little from you, and I feel like I drank every drop in your veins. I feel…powerful. More powerful than I ever have after taking blood from anyone.”

I turned to look at him. I couldn’t understand any of the strange symbols on these pages. “Isn’t that normal, though? You guys get more powerful with time, don’t you?”

“Yes—with time. Not within minutes,” Grey said.

For a moment there, he was so focused on the symbols that I had enough time to analyze his beautiful face to my heart’s desire.

The same question still haunted me: how in the world was he real? It just made no sense. Really—it didn’t add up.

“What’s it saying?” I said, kissing his soft cheek above the line of his dark stubble. Fucking delicious.

“Nothing important. It’s just describing the ways in which foreign blood works with the magic in our bodies,” Grey said, leaning his head to the side so I kissed him harder.

“How do you even understand those symbols?” I planted a kiss all over his face every few words, and he loved it.

“It’s Faeish, the old language of Ennaris. Nobody has spoken it for centuries now, but all our books are written in it still. I’m not even sure why,” Grey said. “You missed a spot here.” And he kissed me on the lips.

I laughed. “I didn’t miss it. That was intentional.” I’d wanted to kiss the rest of his face first.

He grinned like the devil. “If you want, I’ll teach you Faeish.”

Fuck, yes—I’d wanted that since I first found myself in Emerald’s library, though back then I’d had no idea that all their books were written in Faeish. “Yes, I want. I want to read everything you have here.” And the books he’d brought for me as well. The ones in English—romance novels he’d risked his life for.

Which is absolutely understandable because books, but still…

“Then you will,” he said, like it was already a done deal.

“Tell me a word. Whatever pops in your head first.” I wanted to hear how it sounded from his lips.

“Hmm. Here’s two,” Grey said, kissing the tip of my nose. “Een aeva.”

Shivers ran down my arms, and he rubbed the goose bumps away from my skin. “Een aeva,” I repeated. It sounded so beautiful. “What does it mean?”

“To translate it literally, it means my life,” Grey said. “But in different contexts it’s more than that. Maybe the better translation would be, my essence. All that makes me, me.”

“I like that,” I said with a smile. Aeva. Essence. “What did you say to me during the Blood Call? Was that Faeish, too?” All the brothers had whispered words to me before biting me, and I wanted to know what it was.

“It was. Erchin vinna meio,” he said, throwing me back to that bed. To that burning sensation that had been about to fucking kill me.“It simply means, honor me by making me your choice. Part of the ritual.”

I flinched. “I’m really glad that ritual is over.” And that I never had to be burning that way again.

“Me, too, baby,” Grey said, closing the book, his eyes never leaving my lips. As soon as he dropped it on the desk, he slammed me to his chest again, wrapped his wings around us, and kissed the breath out of me.

I was panting before the minute was over.

“Grey,” I whispered when he continued to kiss the side of my neck. I needed him so much so suddenly it seemed impossible.

But then his hand snaked under the sheets and ran up my thigh, and my legs spread to the sides all on their own, and yes. Absolutely yes—it was very possible. I felt his touch all the way inside me, to my very core.

“I’m going to do things to you, baby,” Grey said, making my heart skip a long beat. “I’m going to do a lot of things to you in this bedroom.”

Fuck. “What things?”

“All kinds of things. I’m going to keep you in bed for as long as you let me. I’m going to feed you and I’m going to fuck you and I’m going to watch you sleep in my arms until I know every pore of your skin—but right now?” He bit my lip and sucked it in his mouth until it hurt. “I’m going to serve you to myself right here and now because I can’t wait. I’ve been patient enough for a whole month, have I not? I’ve made myself come imagining you in front of me every single day for long enough.”

God, the thought of him touching himself until he came while he thought of me…

Grey bit my shoulder but his fangs weren’t out, just his normal, square teeth. I moaned, my back arching as his fingers squeezed my thigh. I needed that hand higher. Fuck, I needed it just a little bit higher, pressed to my throbbing clit before I fucking died.

“I have no patience whatsoever anymore. I want you everywhere, in every way, all at once,” he hissed, coming up to stick his tongue in my mouth again, and devour me like a savage. I had no complaints. I was begging to be devoured with my body, with my moans, with the way I held onto his neck.

“Lay down, baby.” Grey said, lowering his wing and arm behind me, and he didn’t have to ask me twice. I leaned back and he positioned me better on his lap, then slowly unwrapped the sheets from around my body, exposing me to himself completely.

Fuck, I was so turned on I could hardly breathe. And the way he looked down at me as he ran his fingertips between my breasts, down to my stomach and to my legs, set me on fire even more. He was awestruck, like every new inch of me he saw was the best thing in the world to his eyes, and I fucking loved it.

“I’m going to lose myself in this body. I’m going to lose my mind in you,” Grey said, dark eyes glistening, and he moved me before I had the chance to blink.

The next second, my ass hit the desk right where his book had been just now, and my feet were on his knees.

Grey looked fucking possessed as he ran his hands up my calves, then under my knees, and pulled my legs apart slowly.

A whimper escaped me, and I put my hands behind me on the desk to brace myself. The cold air of the room against my wet folds and my rock-hard nipples was a tease on its own. I was burning in the best possible way.

“Tell me, baby, do you have any requests?” Grey whispered as he kissed my knee, then moved closer and closer, kissing his way up my thigh.

Oh, God…

I shook my head. “Just have your way with me.” I was up for anything he could think of. Anything at all.

The surprise made him grin again. So goddamn delicious, this man.

Then he licked his lips and I all but came right then and there. “As you wish, my queen.”

And he got to work.

Suddenly, his chest was between my legs and his mouth was on my nipple, biting and sucking until I saw the sky over the darkness of the Woods clearly in my mind’s eye. I was flying as I watched him devour my body, and all I could do was moan and cry and whimper his name. His fingers dug into my waist and my thighs and my ass, and his mouth licked every inch of my breasts, then continued lower to my stomach and my hips.

He pushed the chair he’d been sitting on back and he kneeled on the floor between my legs, holding them up by the thighs as he spread his wings, then positioned my heels right over the edge of them.

The sight below me was surreal. Grey was completely consumed with kissing me and licking me, touching me everywhere he could. When he pressed his warm tongue on my throbbing clit, I still couldn’t look away, still couldn’t even cry out, too shocked at what my eyes revealed to me.

A winged man was between my legs, eating my pussy like it was his favorite thing in the world to do, telling me how good I tasted after each thrust of his tongue inside me.

The pleasure almost overwhelmed me, and at the same time I wanted more. I reached out a hand to grab him by that messy hair that I adored, just to convince myself that he was real. He was really there, and I was about to have possibly the best orgasm of my life until now.

“Grey,” I called out his name, holding his head there while my hips moved, trying to take his tongue deeper. Fuck, I was delirious…

“That’s it, baby,” he told me. “Take what you need from me. I’m all yours to play with.”

And, boy, did I play with him.

Eventually, I leaned down all the way over the books on his desk because I needed both hands in his hair and I needed more space to move my hips against his face. God, he felt so good. He felt so fucking good that my eyes had rolled in my skull and I couldn’t care less.

“Do you want my fingers, too, baby?” Grey asked, and I cried out in response, unable to speak words. Fuck, yes, I wanted his fingers. I wanted all of him at once.

“Good girl,” he said, flicking his tongue on my clit before he thrust two fingers inside me all the way, and curved them up until I saw heaven.

I cried out so hard my throat hurt. The orgasm ripped me open, making every cell in my body explode.

Grey stayed there, licking my clit and pumping his fingers inside me for what felt like hours. I could hardly breathe without whispering his name when I came down to Earth again.

Fuck, that was amazing.

“Your pussy was made for me, baby,” he said, and I was pretty sure I was in his arms again, and he was taking us back to bed, but I was too gone still to be sure. “You did so well. So fucking well, I can’t wait to eat you again.” He put me on the bed gently, and he lay down beside me, never letting me go.

I’d be damned, but despite the fact that I was hardly able to blink right now, I couldn’t wait, either.