Chapter 26

26

Molly woke with a start, eyes blearily searching the dimly lit room. A single brazier still burned in the far corner, its small sphere of light casting most of the room in an inky blue.

A groan rasped behind her, and Molly realized the body that’d been pressed to her when she fell asleep was gone, taking the blankets and all the warmth with him.

She rolled onto her other side, sleepy and confused, only to gasp in alarm.

Allarion lay in the center of the bed, tangled in the blankets, his skin bearing a gleam of sweat. Although his eyes were clenched shut, one of his hands fisted at his heart, as if his chest pained him.

Another groan ripped from his throat, and Molly’s heart gave an answering lurch. Clambering to her hands and knees, she crouched above him and shook his shoulders.

“Allarion. Allarion!”

His head lolled to the side, mouth pulled taut over his teeth in a grimace.

Molly shook him more violently, desperate to see his eyes. She knew he’d need a long sleep soon after returning home, but he hadn’t said anything, and he’d been so good about warning her when it was time.

He always looked so serene in his long sleeps, too. They weren’t supposed to pain him!

Bellarand! She called through her mind. BELLARAND!

What did I say about shouting?

Allarion won’t wake up! Is he supposed to…is that supposed to happen after the fae have sex?

An agonizingly long pause awaited her. No…

Well he’s—

Allarion jackknifed, sitting straight up in bed in one sudden motion. Molly yelped, rolling to her side with his momentum. His hair billowed around him, and although his eyes were open, he didn’t seem to see her, his hand clutching again at his chest.

“Allarion!” she cried, snapping her fingers to get his attention.

He flinched before his eyes focused on her hand, then her face. The breath shuddered out of him, mouth dangling open as he panted.

Molly held perfectly still, unsure what to make of the wild look in his eyes. Those purple irises stared at her in utter shock, striking as they were framed in white.

“Molly…” he groaned.

He grabbed her hand and dragged her forward. Wriggling closer, she frowned when he pressed her palm to his chest. Another breath shuddered out of his great chest, his skin burning and clammy beneath her hand, and his heart beat a wild staccato—

She gasped, jumping to her knees to plant both hands on his chest.

“Your heart! You have a heartbeat!”

Allarion stared up at her, dumbstruck. “It…it thuds,” he said.

Tears sprang to her eyes even as she smiled. “Yes, it does. Like a heart should. But I didn’t know…”

She’d never heard him have a heartbeat or seen him with a pulse before. Yes, he breathed air like she did and so had lungs. He’d once in a while ingest something and so must have a stomach, too. And he certainly had blood, black blood that had to go somewhere; she just never considered where, as his chest had always been quiet.

In her wonder, Molly searched his face, trying to gauge how he felt. To never feel your heart beating, and then all of a sudden have one, it had to be alarming.

But as she looked…

“Hold still,” she told him, leaning to her bedside table to pick up the lamp that sat there. “House?” The lamp in her hand lit, illuminating them in a soft yellow glow.

She brought the lamp closer to his face, lifting his chin with a crooked finger. Turning his face into the light, Molly saw why he’d seemed different.

The whites of his eyes were white—not black.

“Your eyes…”

Grabbing his hand, she turned it over to examine his wrist, where thick veins ran beneath his pale skin. Even in the dimness, she could see how the blackness had faded. It wasn’t blue or green like hers, but it wasn’t the dark spiderweb he’d gone to sleep with.

Allarion silently brought his wrist to his mouth, and before Molly could stop him, he scored it with the tip of a fang. Dark blood dribbled down his inner arm as Molly quickly put down the lamp and grabbed a kerchief.

She mopped up the trail of blood and pressed the cloth to his small wound.

“What’s happening?” she whispered.

He gently took her hand and eased it off the wound. The kerchief came away stained with his blood—a dark claret red.

Molly pushed the cloth back when the wound welled with another bead of blood.

“Allarion?” she said, more forcefully.

“I didn’t know how he did it,” was what he finally said.

“Who did what?” Grasping his chin, she forced him to look at her. “Please talk to me. You’re worrying me.”

As suddenly as he’d sat up, a ridiculously wide smile broke across his face. He laughed, a wild sound, and gathered her up in his arms to sit her in his lap.

“Your blood—it must be your blood.”

“Don’t blame this on me,” she grumbled.

“Oh, my wonderful azai, it’s entirely your doing. I wondered how Maxim had begun to look so different but never imagined he’d imbibed her blood.”

“Who’s Maxim?”

The name sobered him, and Allarion’s gaze dropped to regard her. Although she had his eyes, his gaze was far away on memories.

“It’s time I told you, sweetling…”

Cuddling her close, Allarion told her a story, one of friendship, love, and sacrifice. He spoke of his dear friend Maxim, a fellow fae and warrior, in reverential tones, telling her of how he’d stumbled upon his friend’s deepest secret. A human mate and halfling child.

Everything might have been well—the child wasn’t the first between a fae and human—were it not for the girl’s gift of foresight. Hidden away as they were, still nothing might have happened, but as the girl grew, so did her powers. Her magic, wild and uncontained, touched the magic of the faelands, and there was almost nothing that happened in the fae realm that the Fae Queen didn’t know.

Soon, whispers slithered through the trees, into the faelands. They permeated every street, every home. That a halfling girl had foreseen the death of Amaranthe.

Wanting it not to be so, desiring a child with such a gift, the Fae Queen began her hunt—and Allarion, Maxim, and Aine began to plan.

Allarion told her of Maxim and Aine’s sacrifice in a quiet voice lacking much inflection. The memories were still raw inside him, and Molly wrapped her arms around him and wept with him as he spoke of his friends’ deaths.

His story ended with a hurried escape from the faelands, to a bower built into a hill. In whispers he described how he’d helped her into the deep sleep to mute her powers, to await when it would be safe again.

His final words echoed in the bedchamber, a somber reminder of his promise to his friend.

Molly lifted her head from his shoulder. “The other bedchamber…Ravenna is the friend you’ve been expecting.”

Allarion nodded, his face a mask of grief.

Molly ached for him—and for the girl, out there even now, sleeping in her bower, awaiting a brighter day. Her past jealousy over the girl shamed Molly; she knew what it was to be orphaned, and to leave everything she’d ever known.

“I hope the estate will be safe enough soon,” he murmured.

“All this…it’s been for her. For Maxim and Aine.”

His lips lifted, but it wasn’t quite a smile, for it was far too sad. Leaning his forehead on hers, he said, “At first, yes. But then I saw a woman at a well—and she changed everything.”

Her heart ached in her chest, and for a moment, she wanted to weep all over again. She let herself have a moment of disappointment that this had all begun for someone else, but then forced herself on. She should have known his reasons for doing all this were noble and selfless, for that’s just who he was—her fae was good to his core. Far too good for her, but it was too late for that now.

Even with how he’d gotten her here, Allarion had spent every moment proving to her that he was sincere. That unlike any man before, he meant what he said. He gave her space and time. He gave her choices. He gave her a home.

It didn’t matter how this had all begun—nothing was perfect and life wasn’t a fairy tale. What mattered was that they were here, together. By some divine intervention or cosmic force or utter coincidence—didn’t matter. Nothing would part them now. Not a Fae Queen, not a belligerent uncle, not even her own stubbornness.

“I love you,” she whispered.

Those beautiful eyes searched hers, so changed and yet so familiar. They were exactly the same hue, the same glittering jewels that saw straight through her, merely set in a different frame.

“I have loved you since I first saw you. I may not have known it, but I knew it.” Taking her hand, he placed it on his chest, where his heart thudded steadily. “Holding you in my heart has been my greatest joy. And now, you are the beat of my heart. My life’s blood.”

Molly wished she was half as romantic with her words as he was, but all she could do was kiss him. Wrapping arms and legs around him, she clung tight to her fae, showing him in every touch and caress and kiss that he was the one for her. He saw what no one else did, cared when no one else did, was there when no one else was.

With him, Molly wasn’t alone.

Allarion received her fierce love with all the patience and grace she knew he would, holding her tight as she carded her fingers through his hair and sucked his bottom lip. And although she was sore and sticky from their previous lovemaking, she began to roll her hips, another ache for him pulling at her belly.

Keeping his transformed gaze, Molly reached down between them to take hold of his hardening cock. After a few firm strokes, she guided the cockhead to her cunt and bore down gently. He glided inside, a small roll of his hips thrusting his cock deeper.

Arms around him, weight on her knees, Molly began to rock her hips, taking him that much more with every downstroke. That infernal piercing slid up and down, catching just the right spot with just enough pressure to make her shudder deliciously.

Dropping his head to her shoulder, Allarion kissed along the tender curve to her neck.

“You wonderful girl,” he breathed, tickling her skin.

Molly laughed to hide how much the words pleased her. “I didn’t do anything. Not really. You did all the biting.”

He lifted his silvery head to pin her with a look as serious as a dirge. “You’ve done everything, my love. Everything. ”

His words sank inside her, and in the soft darkness of their bedchamber, as they softly rocked together, Molly began to believe it.