Chapter 12

Mind the Three-fold Laws you should three times bad and three times good

– The Wiccan Rede

Iwas nervous as I turned out my bedroom lights and lit my candle in the window, but before I even blew out the match, I knew that he was there. I set the spent match down on the sill and watched his reflection in the glass. He stood still, the flickering candlelight picking out his face. He wore his cloak, as he had the night before, no longer trying as hard to hide what he was.

"I wondered if you would come," I admitted.

"Why would I not?" He tilted his head slightly and the candlelight caught his eyes, giving little licks of fire within the pupils.

"I kissed Mal," I swallowed hard and shrugged awkwardly. "We did more than just kiss."

"I was unaware that there was a limit to kisses," he was amused. "Or to whom you could give them."

"Yes… But." I turned to face him frowning. "It's normally… Frowned upon to be kissing another man, when in a relationship with another."

He walked over to me and caressed my face with the back of his curved fingers. "I would prefer it if you were not kissing Mal," he said watching his hand as he continued the stroke by running his fingertip over my bottom lip. "As Malachar is dangerous, and his intentions are far from pure. But I would not presume to command that you limit your affections or passion to me."

"I would be jealous," I admitted, my eyes searching his face. "If you…" I wasn't sure I could ask the question, both in light of my behaviour with Mal, and the uncertainty around what he was… and what he was to me.

He shook his head, smiling faintly. "I have had lovers before, Elenyx. But this is different."

"Because I'm…?"

"On this side of the veil?" He finished for me. "Both yes, and also no."

"I wondered if it were… forbidden," I whispered.

"To love across the veil?" His eyes were tender and his expression soft as he stroked his fingers through my hair. "Probably. However, you saw me across the veil," his eyes met mine. "Because you were meant to."

"To speak of what you are…"

"Mmm," he smiled. "That is a somewhat… delicate subject. Do you wish to have another name for me? I gave a name for you to use."

"Ender," I realized that the name was an answer in itself. "You have other names." Grim reaper I wanted to say.

"Many," he used his fingers in my hair to lift my face and stepped so close that his cloak enveloped me. My hands closed on his hips as I lifted my eyes slowly from the curve of his lips to his fire-filled eyes. "But I like ‘mine' on your lips," his voice was a whisper hoarse and seductive.

"Mine," I breathed the word.

"Yes." He held my eyes as he lowered his lips to hover just above mine. "Yours."

I moaned and closed the distance, my hands stroking up his back, pushing his body tighter to my own. His hands palmed my arse, and lifted me to sit on the desk, parting my thighs so that as our kiss heated, his lips parting to the test of my tongue and his moan vibrating through our tightly pressed chests he pressed against me. My hands stroked down to his hips, encouraging the grind of his hips into the cradle of my thighs.

"Ender…" I sobbed the name out against his cheek.

"Mine…" He prompted.

"Mine…" I found the tie holding his cloak to him and it slipped off his shoulders, the hood falling away, as I released it. "Ender…"

He lifted me and pivoted, laying me on the bed. For a moment he stood over me, looking down, and then his eyes narrowed, and the expression shifted on his face. Rather than remove my clothing, he gripped his shirt by the waist and drew it up and over his head in a smooth motion that sent his hair into disarray, the strands charged with static so that they stood out, and he had to smooth them back against his skull in a flex of bicep as his chin lifted, it's line sharply carved and his throat strong.

He was beautifully carved marble, the perfection of masculinity, his shoulders broad and rounded by muscle, his waist lean and narrowing to the hip, his stomach muscles an anatomical study of perfection. His skin was alabaster, and his hair ink against it.

He let me look, standing over me, completely still, his eyes downcast, seeming to study where my pajamas creased over my belly button as if that point of cloth held significance.

"Ender," I whispered, and his eyes lifted to mine, his cheeks seeming to pink.

Emboldened I released the buttons that held my shirt closed and lifted onto my elbows to shed it before hooking my thumbs into my trousers, stripping them down my thighs swiftly, shedding a skin that I did not need, and then I held out my arms to him. "Ender," I said again, and his eyes dragged down my body and then up.

He drew in a staggered breath, and I did not doubt that he knew as I did that this time there wouldn't be a point at which we caught ourselves. This time we would cross it, and that meant as much to him as it did to me.

He lowered slowly in a glory of silken skin, the drift of his hair clinging to my eyelashes. The meeting of our lips was a lingering touch, and our mouths were softly open, but it was the way that our eyes locked in a scorching intense soul-searching that melted my heart. I wanted him. I wanted him in a way that surpassed every expectation, that hammered within my chest and ached through my body. I wanted to possess him. I wanted him to be that word… Mine.

He caught my bottom lip between his, sucking it into his mouth, his tongue tracing over it before he released it, and pushed off his palms, dragging his body down mine. I gasped out my moan, my jaw lifting and eyes closing, overwhelmed by sensation, seeking to isolate my senses so I could revel in the slide of his skin against mine, his lips and tongue tasting down my exposed throat, and over the plane of skin and bone above my breasts, before teasing each nipple in turn.

Blinded by my shuttered eyes, I nonetheless found his hair with my fingers, closing my grip in them as he breathed out over my stomach, the cool of his exhale raising the hair in a display of goosebumps, before he adjusted my knees, spreading my thighs wide and pressing them back so that my cunt was exposed to him.

I should have been embarrassed, but there was no time for it, the cool touch of his tongue tracing my entrance and delving within. He flattened his tongue and dragged it up, parting me before him as he had parted my thighs, opening me like a flower, and sucking upon the stamen of my clit, his teeth pinching it so that I cried out and arched into him, not sure if I sought to prolong or escape the intensity of sensation.

He drove me up and up with his tongue, never easing, so that when I came apart, it left me splayed and panting on the bed, realizing that there were different types of orgasms, and I had barely scraped the surface of what my body could achieve with my self-pleasuring.

He leaned on his elbow, his chest to mine, and cupped my chin in the c of his thumb and index finger in a gentle hold that drew my attention back to him. "Elenyx," he leaned down and brushed his lips against mine.

"Yes, Ender… Yes." I felt as if something was missing within me, my cunt hollow and hungry to be filled, and I knew that he could feed that craving. "Please…"

He nodded slowly, and adjusted his weight, bracing over me, his hips resting within the hollow of mine, his cock nudging, already seeking entrance to me. "It will not hurt," he whispered against my lips. "They lie about that. It does not need to hurt… They just wish it to do so."

He rocked his hips into me, allowing the tip of his cock to breach me. It was a foreign experience, a tangle of sensation, my body knowing that it was giving to his and trying to decide if it wanted to do so. He eased out, and his breath sighed cool over my cheek. "Ah… You feel so good around me, Nyx."

The next slide of his flesh within me took him beyond the hold of muscle and bone, into my depths. My whimper was a fragile thing, but he stilled. "Nyx?"

"Don't stop," I whispered, my heels digging into his haunches, encouraging him onward. "It feels… incredible."

"Mhm," was gritty and deep within his throat, the sound of a man clinging to control, and his face sank into the hollow of my neck. "Elenyx… my Elenyx."

"Ender," my hands stroked up his back, into the wild tangle of his inky hair, and restlessly down. "More."

He gave to the plea, rocking his body tightly to me, so that I felt the kiss of the tip of his cock against my cervix, and my sobbed breath trembled my lips with pleasure. He gripped me tightly, his chest heavy on mine, my breasts compressed between us, and his fingers gripping into the flesh of his thigh as he lifted my hips to receive him, his body finding a rhythm that was as natural to us both as breathing.

I hung onto him, seeking the surety of his body on mine within the wild ocean of pleasure that washed through me, rendering me all but mute, my groans, and moans fragments of inhalations with an echo of gasp behind it.

I understood suddenly, clarity snapping into place - this was what lay behind the misery of my Vossen ancestors, behind the risk-taking, behind the madness of it all. This was the reward worth the pain, this was the treasure that however fleeting made the loss sweeter.

His name was on my lips as I fell over the edge and felt him follow, his groan against my ear, and his cock within me pumping his seed into me before his body sagged over mine, still twitching out the last of his pleasure.

My hand had fallen to the pillow next to my head, abandoned in the throes of passion, though my other still clutched him tight. His hand smoothed up the sensitive skin of my forearm from elbow to wrist, and there straightened the bracelet of hair that wrapped around it, before threading his fingers into mine, no doubt taking note of the ring that I still wore.

"Thank you," he said softly.

"Thank you?" My voice rasped in a throat dry from moaning. I swallowed to ease it.

"Thank you for sharing this with me. I am honored," his lips moved against the skin of my neck, tiny kisses of sensual sensation against a decidedly erogenous zone. I felt my body react, my breasts aching into awareness, and my clit throbbing, a pulse echoed within my cunt. "I am honored to be the first that you share this with."

I wet my lips. "I want more," I whispered. "I want to do it again."

His laugh was breathy, blowing cold over my chest as he lifted, the muscles in his arms shifting beneath the paleness of his skin, placing his weight into his hips so that his cock pressed tighter within me. His grin was wicked and wanton, his eyes filled with delighted fire. "More of me?"

"Oh yes," I sighed it out on a moan, my hands finding his arse as my ankles crossed behind him, encouraging him onward. "Oh, yes…" I was certain I had tasted only the edge of what he had to offer my body, and I wanted it all. "More."

"Mhm," he groaned through his nose, his eyes almost closing beneath heavy lids as he began to thrust into me, with more force this time, trying something new, moving from gentle seduction and pleasure into ravishment.

"Oh," my groan filthy with want. "Yes."

He drew back to the tip of his cock and our gaze travelled down the bareness of our bodies, watching as the slickness of his length all but left my body before, impossibly being driven back into me with a force that rocked the bed, tapping the poles against the wall and causing the frame to groan. His hand wrapped around the wrought iron bars for traction, and he moved closer so that my hips curled up, lifting my arse from the bed, pushing his cock so deep within me, before he increased pace, the bed's creaks and the rap against the wall increasing in time with his motion.

I placed my palms against his stomach, fascinated by the movement of the muscles beneath the flesh, my eyes following the line that was carved between them to his sternum to the glaring raven and to the beauty of his face, slack in pleasure, his eyes as smoldering as those of his raven, burning from within with flame.

His other hand joined his first, his knees moving under my arse, and I braced my heels against the mattress working my body against his, seeking my pleasure greedily until it overcame me, and I cried out as I came, clenching around him. He threw his head back, echoing my cry, his hips bucking into me as he followed.

For a moment, we were frozen in repletion, and the room settling into silence again made me aware of just how noisy we had become in our enjoyment of each other. That my aunts and sister hadn't come to find out who I fucked so loudly in my room meant that he had cast some magic to keep them from hearing us – which would explain how he remained so relaxed as he slowly withdrew from my body and lay on his back next to me, his ribs sucking against his skin as he recovered from his exertions.

I rolled onto my side and touched my fingertips to them, before laying my palm over his heart, feeling its beat gradually slow. He covered my hand with his, his eyes on my face. "I have a heart," he said in his husky whisper before moving his hand to rest on his stomach, freeing mine to roam.

"I know," I traced the wing feathers of the raven. "You are not a ghost."

"No," he confirmed. "I am not a ghost."

"I see ghosts," I told him as I followed the line of the wing up to the tip of the raven's beak.

"Yes, the veil thins around you," he agreed reaching up to tuck a stray lock of my hair behind my ear. "There are many reasons such a thing happens, Elenyx."

"Will you…" I hesitated, my eyes on the raven's. "Will you be my familiar?"

He was silent, and I swallowed nervously into that long silence. "I cannot be your familiar, Elenyx," he said finally. "That is not the role destined for me. I am yours," his hand closed around mine and lifted it so that he could kiss my knuckles.

"Mine," I whispered, feeling a shiver of electric sensation pass up my arm from his lips to my heart.

"Yes," he agreed and drew me forward until my cheek rested on his chest. "Sleep, Elenyx," he encouraged. "It grows very late, and you have a busy day tomorrow."

Mal was coming to pick me up I remembered, and wondered if Ender knew. "Ender," I said softly. "Mal is a demon?"

"Hmm." His hum echoed in his chest in the affirmative.

"You said that… He is dangerous and his intentions are not…?"

"He holds a grudge against me," Ender explained gently. "And knows that I am yours, Elenyx."

"Oh," I followed the curve of the raven's chest with my fingertips. "Does he want to be… my familiar?"

"I don't know," he sounded concerned, and I looked up at him, meeting his eyes.

"Would that… stop you from being mine, if he was?" I asked searching his face. His expression was hard to decipher.

"I don't know," he shook his head slightly. "This situation is unprecedented, Nyx."

"Okay," I adjusted my position, making myself comfortable against him, laying my leg over him. I did not need to rush to take a demon familiar, I decided, and would not do so if it meant losing Ender. But I would ask Mal some questions, I decided, and try to work out what his intentions were.

I closed my eyes and tried to drift into sleep, but Ender's body against mind recalled to me what we had done together and to each other, and I smiled. "Ender."

"Yes, Nyx?"

"Thank you. For… tonight. I… I don't think many women's first time is… like that," I could feel the blush heat my cheeks. "With someone who knows to make it gentle and…"

His hand covered mine and he bowed his head to kiss my hair. "I am yours."