23. Aerolus

Alandra stared at Morn Mountain in awe, and it was all I could do to stand still and not gather her close. As I'd expected, Tanselm had reached out and accepted the slight Aellei with open arms, the land's rich magic delving into Alandra and bonding with her as if she'd been born to the land.

My eyes misted, the sight of my affai too beautiful to behold, as she caressed the pure energy of my world with reverence.

"This is the most wondrous place I've ever been." She tore her gaze from the rock to stare at me, her smile wide. "I hate to say it, but it makes Aelle pale in comparison."

"I saw a glimpse of Aelle in your dream, but I'd like to hear you describe it to me."

She shrugged and petted the rock like a lover. "Aelle is filled with the splendor of the Aellei, yet its magic is not even a quarter of what Tanselm possesses. Thank you for showing it to me." She sounded so sincere, her heart in her eyes. "I know it can't be easy bringing a creature of Shadow into your world."

"You don't know anything." The need to touch her overwhelmed me. I stepped closer and stroked her cheek.

She blazed a brilliant white in the mountain's shadow. I had never seen her look so lovely.

"I trust you, Alandra, even though there's more you haven't told me." I knew that shift in her expression. "But I also know you'd never see the Light of this world extinguished. You would protect me with your life, as you did when you thought Arim meant me harm."

She blushed and looked away, toward the thick forest beyond the kingdom. "I overreacted."

"My family is the reason you're no longer in Aelle."

"True," she agreed. "But I don't miss home as much as I used to." She stared at me, her lavender gaze intense, as if trying to see inside me. "But you, I don't understand how being away from this place isn't tearing you apart. I knew you were strong before. But I'm in awe of your commitment to saving this world."

I cupped her face. "I give everything I am to those I love." Then I leaned forward and kissed her thoroughly. Like petals of silk, her lips parted on a sigh, her breath sweet.

She pulled back and blinked. "You're sexy for a Light Bringer."

I smiled.

"Your energy is so much hungrier here."

"Hungry, yes." I hadn't realized I'd been holding onto her with my magic. "Hungry for the truth, for peace, for your lo—" I paused, worried that saying the word "love" might spook her.

"For what?" she asked coyly, her touch moving over my chest and lower.

I barely held back a groan, then lost all discipline when she rubbed me through my trousers. Her eyes sparkled, the vixen no doubt pleased at the obvious control she had over me.

As much as I loved that about her, I wished not everything had to be about control. Part of me wished Alandra was nothing more than a normal woman with whom I could have a genuine conversation, not always worried about losing at some game we apparently played.

But her challenging nature appealed to me. The naughtiness inherent in her Shadow an allure I couldn't resist.

She continued to caress me, her eyes shining, her aura pulsing with… No.

With love?

Maybe I truly was the idiot Arim had accused me of being. All this time I'd been playing word games and second guessing us, when all along the answer had been right in front of me. Tied in our magic and in all of her actions since she'd come into my life.

Thanks to Tanselm, and because I really looked, I could see the love bonding us together.

My Light and her Shadow forged into a different energy, one vastly more accepting that made use of everything around us. With Alandra, I teetered on a power on par — almost — with Arim.

Her grip tightened, and my heart raced, the touch of her and the feel of her more than I deserved.

"Ah, love. You are a treasure." I kissed her again and rocked into her hand, needing her in the worst way.

"I am priceless, aren't I?" She laughed, her joy a part of our connection. "I want to see you come, my little Wind Mage." Her eyes twinkled.

"Little, eh?" I carried us to the ground, buffered by a gentle wind. With a thought, I spelled our clothing gone and shoved her thighs wide.

"Aerolus?" Her voice was high with excitement.

"Quiet, purie. Let me love my affai as a true Storm Lord should." I stared into her eyes and saw the exact moment the carefree joy in her expression changed to one of shock and disbelief.

"Affai?"

"Well, maybe." I rubbed myself between her legs, using her cream to slide faster between her wet sex. "I'm willing to make a bargain with you. But it's on my terms. Take it or leave it."

I took her nipple in my mouth and sucked, loving how she tensed and sighed, moaning my name. She had a petite frame graced with such generous curves. I couldn't get enough of her breasts. It was all I could do not to shove home and come deep inside her.

Instead, I brought her to near-orgasm with my mouth and tiny teases of air that stroked her heated skin.

"Aerolus," she moaned. "What are you doing to me?"

"I'm loving you, affai," I liked the sound of "affai" more and more. With Alandra, the title sounded magical. I trailed my mouth down, past her taut abdomen to the treasure between her legs.

I licked at the ambrosia glistening between her thighs and parted her folds with my fingers, torturing myself by waiting. "Don't you want to know what I want out of the bargain?"

Her breathing heavy, she tried to draw her thighs closed. "If you'd give me a minute to think —"

"Now we can't have that." I closed my lips around her clit. As she keened, I nipped and pulled, teasing the flesh into a tiny pearl, so sweet and hard.

All the while, Alandra squirmed and begged, pleading for me to enter her.

"Tell me you want me." I thrust a finger inside her and sucked her clit once more.

She arched into my touch, her body coiled like a bow about to release. "I want you," she gasped.

I pulled back to stare at a face I would never forget. "Now and forever."

She moaned as I pumped another finger inside her, thrusting harder and faster. "Now and forever, Aerolus."

I pushed my luck. "Admit you've known for some time that you love me."

I stopped, waiting.

Her eyes opened, and within their depths I noted silver striating the lavender in her gaze. A true bond, both of us part of each other.

"Aerolus." Alandra squirmed, but I held her down, my winds more powerful now than they'd ever been.

"Tell me, purie, how much you long to be my wife. How the thought of another woman clenching me, taking my cock and my seed, makes you rage."

She shuddered, Dark waves of energy emanating from our passion.

The Dark should have hurt, but it didn't. Instead, I felt Alandra all over me. Inside me.

"Damn you, Aerolus." She struggled but remained trapped. "You want to hear it? Fine. You're mine," she snapped. "You've been mine for a year. My charge, my responsibility."

"Your what?" I asked with a coolness belied by my raging cock. Did she really think we would continue by ignoring the truth? By the Light, I wanted her so badly. But I wanted all of her, an acknowledgement of her feelings.

No more games. "Your what, Alandra?" I asked again.

"My mate," she said with a disgruntled sigh. Then with a sultry note, added, "My love."

And I buried my face between her thighs once more, my fingers working magic in her warmth.

I was completely out of my mind, drugged on my bride. She cried out and came, and I rose over her and thrust deep. "We're in this together. One heart, Alandra. One soul."

I tried to hold out, but before I knew it I'd come hard, the pleasure extreme.

When I could think again, I opened eyes I hadn't realized I'd closed, shocked to still be hard inside her.

Alandra toyed with the hair at my nape, a sly yet contented look on her face. "We're one…once I agree with your conditions. So what are they, my prince?"

She shifted, and I couldn't help from making love to her all over again. I wanted nothing more than to fill her with new life, to cement our ties so we would always have this warmth and passion between us.

"Fuck, Alandra."

She laughed then moaned when I took her harder.

I was panting as I said what I'd been planning for a while. "You'll be my bride and live with me here in the kingdom over Morn Mountain. You'll bring a handful of loyal Aellei you deem worthy to join us, a bridge to gap our worlds of Light and Shadow."

I was close to climax, and I could feel that she was as well, her Shadow pulsing in time with my Light.

"Aerolus, come, baby. In me."

I groaned. "I will. If you do one small thing."

She kissed me, and I jerked, nearly coming. "What?" she whispered. "Oh, oh. I'm close."

"You must never, ever lie to me again."

Before she could answer, I thrust deep once more and came, and she joined me, our energy, our love, spiraling into the air and down, into Tanselm.

"Aerolus," she moaned, clenching me to her.

A massive vortex of wind and energy swirled around us, leaving us in the center of the storm's heart. We remained locked, each tied to the other, heart to heart, mind to mind, as I poured my love into her.

Magic unfurled, a dance of winds and a wave of the mountain's shadow caressing the two lovers with loving acceptance.

I didn't dare think she might keep a promise to never lie to me. She was an Aellei, after all. But I'd said what mattered.

"I'm finally home." Struck by the truth of my words, I felt tears come to my eyes.

Tanselm, Aelle, Seattle. None of it mattered if Alandra wouldn't be there to share my life..

"You tricked me." She brushed back a lock of fallen hair from my eyes. "I can't believe an inexperienced Wind Mage, a snotty little Light Bringer, tricked me."

She sighed and stretched, tightening around me again.

By the Light, how this woman commanded my body. It was truly magical.

She stroked my cheek and winked. "Taken in by a Light Bringer. I'm pathetic." She laughed. "It must be love."

Where the shadow of the mountain met the ground around us, flowers sprang up, the sultry scent of life blossoming with wonder.

"Aresla." Alandra blinked in surprise. "They only bloom in Aelle, and only in the presence of Shadow."

"But that was before." I kissed her cheek and stroked her shining hair, feeling a tenderness for the tricky female that warmed everything inside me. Finally sated, I gently withdrew and kissed her again.

"Before?"

"Before your randy efforts nearly ruined everything," a hard voice sneered, blasting us apart, each of us flying away from the other and landing hard on the ground.

With a bellow of anger, I leaped to my feet and commanded the air to aid me. Lost in fury, I dragged Alandra to me without thinking, protecting her as I reflected whorls of raging wind and bolts of electricity into the once-blue sky.

To my shock, the spells bounced harmlessly off my opponent—a large male with hazy features and a hint of Djinn flame. He jerked Alandra from me and gripped her arm in a punishing grip.

"Get off me, you cretin," she snarled and did her best to go free. To no avail.

The air stilled, everything coming to a complete halt as a great blanket of Shadow and Darkness descended.

"Alandra." I tried to move, reaching out. She reached back, but we remained apart. Broken.

Misery consumed me as fingers of bleak terror radiated deep inside, where Alandra should be.

"Enjoy the Night, Wind Mage." Evil laughter covered Alandra's shrieks, and as I struggled to free myself from the sudden suffocation of malevolence, I prayed to Tanselm to keep my love safe.

"Come and get her when you've got the rest of your family to back you up." The intruder snickered. "We'll be playing in the shadows."

A pop sounded, and I recognized the sound of a Mir charm at work.

My power came back to me, but it was too late.

Alandra was gone, captured by an enemy using Aellein magic.

Sudden worries of my affai soon suffering torture by her own kind, and all because she'd helped protect me and Tanselm from the worst kind of evil, stirred the terrible rage within me to a Dark, thickening mass of power.

The lingering resistance over me vanished. Air hissed its displeasure as trees and grasses flew from the ground, ripped from their roots. Clouds gathered. A funnel of bleak wind loomed while boulders flew as if weighing nothing.

Alandra had been taken from me as easily as if I'd given her away. I'd been unable to protect her in my world, a land that used to stand for peace and prosperity.

Another tree cracked and protested being torn from the ground. I struggled to focus my rage on the ones responsible, on the Dark Lords behind this abduction. Not Tanselm.

I deliberately contained my wrath, feeding it with the retribution I owed the enemy who'd put us all at risk.

I spelled myself in battle dress, armed with a sword strapped to my back and a mage staff in hand while I studied the area. The kidnapper might as well be the walking dead, as far as I was concerned.

Should harm befall my beloved, I would allow none of the enemy to live.

And the Light bless those who thought to stand in my way.