25. Ash

CHAPTER 25

Ash

One day. One fucking day. That’s all I lasted before I caught a glimpse of red hair heading up the stairs to the balconies overlooking the courtyard, and I was drawn like a fucking moth.

I screamed into my pillow in my bedroom at the Black Tower like I had the previous morning.

I’d been fine.

Fine, damn it!

The previous night I’d managed to have a meeting with Rider, Talon, and Quill and leave right away despite the ache in my chest urging me to look for her. But last night Talon had suggested we stay in the courtyard to wait for Rider on the off chance that he’d actually pull his shit together and make it to our nightly meeting.

I’d been an idiot and agreed even though I knew that if Rider’s rage had been enough for his wolf to take over, we wouldn’t have seen him until morning.

And by the time I’d realized staying was the worst idea ever, my insides had twisted tight with my need to find Red and reconnect with her, and I could barely breathe, let alone think.

Then I’d caught that glimpse of her heading up the stairs and that was it. I was gone. My heart had pounded so hard I hadn’t heard what either Talon or Quill had said. I’d just gotten up, left them, and followed her.

Goddess above! What the fuck was wrong with me?

I used to be in control of myself and my urges. I knew what my fate was and while I hadn’t been fine with it, I’d accepted it. And then a stunning redhead stumbled into my life, her emerald eyes wide with awe and fear, and had turned everything upside down.

She’d even figured out that I didn’t want her to see me or know my name and had accepted it, and I hadn’t gotten a sense that she was just humoring me and hoping that her marks would bind my soul to hers. It was like she understood that I wasn’t ready to be seen and probably wouldn’t ever be ready.

Of course, from the way she looked at the men in the courtyard, she wasn’t ready either. I’d known before she’d confessed to me that the men below made her nervous, which made me wonder who she really was.

I still didn’t know her name — I wasn’t even sure she’d told anyone in the Garden her name since all my methods of information gathering had failed to discover it — but that didn’t really matter. She was Red to me and I was fine with that… because if I knew her name, it would be even harder to ignore my desire for her.

Which was damn hard to begin with, because everyone in the Garden was talking about her, talking about her sudden appearance and then how she wasn’t coming to the courtyard to find her mates. And that wasn’t like any fae woman they’d ever met.

Even one who wasn’t ready for her mates knew the only way to relieve the pressure of her mating marks was to give in to her desire and hopefully find her mates quickly so she could move on with the rest of her life. And the best way to do that was to go to the courtyard.

But she was afraid of the attention — and I got the sense she was afraid of attention in general — but also afraid because that attention came from men.

Which was even more confusing. I’d never met a woman that afraid of men. They’d been surrounded by us all their lives, and while Red was a little smaller than the average female, she should have been used to it… unless, of course she was from one of the sects that sheltered their women from outsiders.

But if that was the case, once they learned her spirit was manifesting in the Garden they’d have put a stop to it until she was fully mated and wanted to have children, since fae women could only conceive in the Garden.

Perhaps her family hadn’t figured out that she was manifesting already. If men made her nervous, I doubted she’d tell anyone she was going to the Garden.

But she wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret for much longer. Her marks were overflowing with power and her need to mate would soon make it impossible for her to concentrate on anything else and she’d be discovered.

Goddess, that couldn’t come soon enough.

Except the moment I thought that, my heart clenched. My soul still thrummed with the power of the connection I’d made with her when I’d buried myself in her a second time. It was like life and light and magic and certainty exploding inside me, more powerful with her than with any woman I’d been with.

Of course, maybe that was just because it had been too long since I’d actually been with a fae woman, and I’d forgotten just how powerful and addicting the connection I made was.

I groaned, my cock hardening at the memory. I could still see the blaze of light from her marks dancing across the back of my lids and hear the moans of pleasure that had slipped from her lips. Her need had been so strong, the power billowing from her marks and rippling through her spirit form, I was a little surprised she hadn’t thrown herself at me the moment I’d let her know I was watching her.

I’d tried to get her to consider some of the men below, but I’d ended up flirting with her instead, and then the power in her marks had increased as the magic from Talon’s shadow caught her — even though he’d insisted that after attacking Sawyer it was fully fed.

With her fear of the men below, I’d known she would have stayed on the balcony and tried to take care of her desires by herself like she had when I’d found her in the nook, and I hadn’t been able to just walk away.

That and my body had taken over even before my mind had realized what it was doing. I’d only added to her desire, and I wasn’t going to leave her wanting. I might lie and cheat and steal and kill in cold blood to protect the realms, but I wasn’t cruel. Not when I could help it.

Fuck. I hadn’t wanted our time together to end. I’d wanted to make her come again and again until I’d released as much power from the marks as possible if only to give her time to find her courage. But her spirit form had rippled, heavy exhaustion — another curious anomaly that usually only happened to men in strenuous occupations — and she’d turned to smoke and vanished .

And now I was back in my bed in the Black Tower, once again aching for a connection I wasn’t going to have, my cock and balls tight, screaming for another fucking release.

I rolled onto my back, pushed my blanket aside, and squeezed the base of my cock, trying to get myself back under control.

I had to pull my shit together, but I really didn’t want to deal with Mikel and his plans to turn Sawyer into a man, especially now that Talon had incapacitated him into missing yesterday’s training. They were going to go harder on the boy now that it was clear Rider was giving him special treatment.

Of course, from the look of the boy when I’d passed him on my way to the running trail, I doubt he’d been able to stand let alone run or fight and it had been a good call sending him back to his room.

Changing the day’s lesson from daggers to wrestling, however, was a terrible call. I knew why Rider had done it. There’d been no point in testing Sawyer’s wrestling abilities. The boy would have lost every fight until he’d been pitted against Tyon, and even then, if Tyon got in a lucky grab, the chef’s assistant could use his extra weight and just sit on him. I doubted Sawyer had a high enough skill level to deal with someone twice his weight.

The pressure in my cock grew instead of subsiding like I’d hoped by thinking about work, and the memory of Red’s hot, wet sheathe flooded me.

I bit back a groan and slid my hand up to my tip where I was already leaking precum.

Despite her fear of the men in the courtyard, she’d leaned into my embrace and fully trusted me. She’d trusted me from the beginning, and I hadn’t realized how special that was until we’d been flirting over the men in the courtyard last night.

And as soon as she saw me, she’d be afraid.

I had to keep reminding myself of that. I’d never been handsome like Talon, merely passable in my appearance, and now I wasn’t even nice to look at. What woman wanted to wake up beside someone as scarred as me every morning?

Red, maybe, a tiny voice whispered inside me. She’s accepted everything else you’ve asked of her.

But I couldn’t let myself hope. I’d hoped before. I’d had a lover before I’d been burned, had thought she’d known me, known what kind of man I was on the inside. But being handsome on the inside hadn’t mattered to her.

And now I wasn’t handsome. Inside or out.

I pumped my hand up and down my length, unable to stop myself from imagining I was back inside Red.

I fantasized that she’d stayed and I’d made her come again, playing with that amazing sensitive nub until I was hard and ready to go again. Then I’d take her slowly for our second time. I’d lie her on the couch, capture her lips with mine, and breathe in her every moan. I’d savor the feel of our naked bodies brushing against each other, of her nipples, tight buds teasing my chest, and I’d fall into those emerald eyes, her face lit up from the power of her marks, as I made her moan with pleasure.

My cock swelled and I came into my hand and on my naked chest, but my release was nothing compared to what it had been with Red. It was empty and aching and only partially satisfying, and I had days to go before this rotation was done and I could get to the pleasure house in Lehyrst.

And even then, would another woman help me? She wouldn’t be fae. My soul wouldn’t connect with hers.

She wouldn’t be Red.

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.