Chapter Text
Dinner back at the tavern was as awkward as could be expected. Of course they hadn’t found the shrine from her vision—as if either of them had even been trying after Lucien’s idiotic attempt to talk about his feelings—and Elain’s mood was dampened further by their continued failure.
A cloud had settled over them as Elain picked at her stew, pushing the vegetables around rather than eating them.
She needed to eat. He needed to see her happy again. “You know, no one has told Vassa about your vision. Maybe something comes of it but even if not, there will be no harm done. She’s strong. She will be fine.”
Her spoon clanked against the ceramic bowl holding her untouched dinner. He’d meant to comfort her. So why did her eyes blaze with anger when she looked up at him? “What did you just say?” she asked, rage poisoning every word.
He cleared his throat, panic driving him as if he were facing down a foe and not a female whose frame was so small he could pin her with a single hand. “I said…Vassa will be fine even if you can’t find the shrine…?” Lucien felt more dread than if he were heading to war. The precious progress he’d built with Elain was dangling on a knife’s edge.
“So that’s where your concern lies? That’s why you came?”
Lucien paused, noting Elain’s posture had become rigid as she angled herself away from him. He thought very carefully before answering, feeling as though either option would lead to failure. “Yes?”
Elain nodded silently, staring daggers out the window. She’d turned away from him in such a way that he couldn’t see her expression. His heart was racing; every effort he made to bring her closer was only pushing her away.
“What’s just happened? Have I upset you?” He replayed their conversation in his mind, unable to identify the cause of the shift. “Isn’t that why we’re both here? Your vision? To help Vassa?”
She nodded stiffly. Her body looked so tense Lucien feared she was in pain.
And then, so suddenly that she bumped the table and her glass nearly toppled over, Elain stood and walked away without a word.
Lucien watched her for a moment, begging her to turn and yell at him. Be mad if you’re mad, he heard in her voice. But she only grew further away with each passing breath. “Elain!” he called after her fruitlessly.
What the fuck had just happened? He dropped his head into his hands and ran through everything again. Had the mention of her vision upset her? The pressure of reminding her about Vassa relying on her?
He watched her back retreating, swiftly disappearing up the stairs, and could have sworn he felt the thread between them fraying to splinters. He gritted his teeth until his jaw ached, indulging the learned response to give her the space she asked for. But it fucking hurt—it felt wrong now, where it had used to at least feel warranted.
“No,” he growled to no one but himself. “We are not going back to this.”
He leapt from his chair, taking the stairs three at a time and was at their door in seconds.
“Talk to me,” he compelled her as he burst into their room to find her packing. His heart hammered in his chest, his stomach swooping nauseatingly. Leaving?
“I’m sorry for earlier, Elain—I’m fucking useless with my words. And I don’t know what I’ve done just now to upset you, but I’m sorry for that too.”
“I can’t help Vassa,” Elain said, voice monotone in a way that made him want to shake her until she returned to the person he’d come to know.
“Why not?” he urged, confused as ever. “You won’t even try? You’re giving up?”
“I said I can’t,” she said, a growl rumbling in her throat.
“Why not?“ he goaded, not caring anymore if she was mad. Mad was better than gone.
She silently shook her head, anger rippling from her.
He watched her pack, helpless. “You said you wouldn’t do this again.” His voice shook as he spoke. “You’re shutting me out. You said you wouldn’t—I didn’t ask you to promise it but you did.”
“I can’t because I lied!” She shrieked. The sudden noise startled him into silence as his eyes searched her face.
“What do you mean?” he asked, exasperated.
“I lied!” she repeated, frantic. “I lied about it all!”
She turned to meet his gaze and he saw her eyes were filled with angry tears. Her mouth was locked in an almost childish pout, and Lucien watched a single tear fall before she brought both elegant hands up to cover her face.
This time he didn’t fight the urge to wrap her in his arms and comfort her. Crossing the room in easy strides, he had her tucked against his chest before he asked anything more of her. She breathed deeply before a sob overtook her. He tangled a hand in the hair at the nape of her neck as her body shook. He murmured, “Tell me.”
In truth, he didn’t care what it was—what she’d lied about, or that she’d lied in the first place. There was nothing that would drag him from her now.
A great heaving sob erupted from her as she pressed herself tighter into him. “The vision,” she spluttered.
He ran a reassuring hand down her back. “You lied about what you saw in the vision?”
Ever so slightly, she shook her head, face still covered. “I didn’t have a vision.” She breathed deeply. “The one I said I had a week ago about Vassa—I…I made it all up.”
Letting her admission sink in, he did nothing but trail his hand up and down her back, listening to her breaths to make sure they were even. “So what you and I have spent days looking for…was all a lie?”
She simply nodded, her body wracked by another round of sobs.
Lucien paused everything for a minute before deciding to press her for more: “Wha—…why?”
Her response was so quiet, still muffled, that he had to tap into his preternatural hearing to make out the words. “I wanted to leave the Night Court. With you. I wanted to…talk to you.”
Unsure of what else to do while he processed what she’d said, he resumed stroking her back gently and was rewarded when her muscles eased. “You wanted to…talk to me?”
She nodded again, slowly.
He looked down at the top of her golden brown head, her fingers still shielding her face. He was reminded again of her age, her youth, her inexperience. “Are you saying,” he swallowed, composing himself, “that you fabricated a vision so you could ask me to accompany you outside the Night Court?”
Slowly, she spread her fingers to look at him. Eyes wide and red-rimmed, she nodded.
At that, a laugh burst from him, startling her into dropping her hands to clutch at his shirt instead. His body shook with peals of laughter as he struggled to speak, Elain looking on nervously. “You’re not angry with me?”
“Angry? That you lied to everyone you know in order to get me alone?” He laughed again. “I’ve never been less angry in my life. Why didn’t you just ask me?” He said through his hysterics.
“You stopped coming to see me!” she exclaimed, slapping her hand against his chest in annoyance.
“Because I saw you kissing Azriel that Solstice!” he retorted, in disbelief that he would ever say those words along with a genuine laugh.
“I didn’t kiss him!” she corrected angrily. “I—I thought I wanted to…kiss him. But we didn’t…and after that, I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” she muttered.
Lucien grinned like a Cheshire Cat, earning a smack to his chest.
“How did you even see that? You could have said something to me, too, you know!” she snarked. “Instead of just disappearing.”
He caught her hand in his, face sobering. “I thought it was what you wanted. For me to disappear.”
“It’s not,” she breathed. “It never was.”
Her features set into this serious expression would have brought terror to him a month ago. Now, he ran his fingers through her hair and watched her melt into his hand like butter. “Never?” he questioned, voice low.
“Never,” she whispered, eyelids fluttering closed as she leaned into his stroking hand.
“So there’s nothing between you and Azriel?” He braced for the hard and fast answer, finally.
“Between me and anyone. There is nothing.” She nuzzled his rough hand. “I’m sorry.”
“What did I tell you about that?”
Slowly, her eyes opened. “That I don’t have to apologize?”
He nodded. “That you don’t have to apologize. Just because I was unhappy with your choice, doesn’t mean it wasn’t still your choice to make.”
The low light of the room twinkled in her eyes. “And what would you have done? Been with Vassa?”
Lucien couldn’t help the snort that broke from him. “Vassa? No.” And then it clicked: all the times Elain had called Vassa his queen. The way she’d bristled over dinner when he mentioned her. “Is that what you were upset about? Oh, Elain,” he crooned. “There is nothing romantic there. On either side. Whatsoever.” He let his hand come around to her chin and tilted her face to him. “I would have just angrily loved you from afar for the rest of my life.”
Elain’s breath caught in her throat. “Loved me?”
Lucien hadn’t even realized he’d said it. That he loved her was so clear to him at this point that it was seemingly spilling out of him. He pushed down the urge to deny, to backtrack, to give himself the high ground. “This time with you has been everything to me.”
She stood on her tiptoes to press a sweet kiss to his lips, threading her arms around his neck. “Every second I spend with you is another I regret staying away from you for so long.” She kissed him again, lingering, her breath fanning over his face. “It's not just the bond, Lucien.”
“No, it's not.” He leaned down to kiss her again.
“I don't want to leave you. I want us to…be…together,” she said nervously against his lips.
“Then I won't leave you. And we will be together.” They embraced there in their little room, and Lucien could have happily stayed just like that for the rest of his days. His love in his arms, living and breathing and here and his. Elain tilted her face and they locked eyes, and then she was reaching for a kiss. Her pillowed lips slotted into his, her tongue meekly seeking. His hands roamed over her body, committing to memory every dip and curve. Maybe he had eternity with her, but it would never be enough. A muffled sound of desire escaped her as she deepened the kiss, taking small steps backward and tugging him along with her until her knees were up against the bed.
“You have me, in every way,” she said softly, her breath coming in soft gasps. “I want you to have me in every way.”
Every cell of his body was buzzing. His nerve endings crackled like wildfire, reacting to her words, her meaning, her very presence. The tips of his fingers felt magnetically drawn to her; he was wholly under her power as he watched, mesmerized by the way she deftly undid the buttons lining the front of her dress until it fell away, revealing the entirety of her to him.
The moment was so charged, Lucien couldn’t comprehend what to do but to stare at her in wild wonder. Chest heaving, she picked up his hand and brought it up, laying it flat over her beating heart. That rhythmic symbol of the life in her, the connection pulsing between them, intertwining them.
“Yours,” she whispered, voice catching.
He couldn’t have dragged his eyes from hers for anything in that moment. Was he still breathing? It didn’t matter. “Mine,” he breathed. She nodded, turning slightly so she could kneel on the bed, dragging him so he stood just next to the mattress she was now on.
Lucien was struck dumb, still too overwhelmed to form a thought that wasn’t yours yours yours.
As if touching a live wire, she ever so carefully undid the buttons of his shirt and he let her slip it over his shoulders and down his arms. Her eyes were on his face as nimble fingers undid the clasp of his belt, the metal pieces ringing out a herald. She pushed the loose pants off and he stepped out of them.
Finally, her eyes left his face to travel down his bare chest, her hand tracing the planes of muscle to the trail of course, dark red hair that disappeared beneath the waistband of his undershorts.
Where their last coupling had been feverish, this was pointed, thorough, careful—loving. He swallowed thickly.
She took in the clear evidence of his erection, looking prolonged at the thick bulge straining there before she slid the tips of her fingers in his waistband and tugged until he was bare, his hard cock springing free.
This moment felt holy. He was entranced by her. He existed solely for her.
Looking to his face again, she brought her lovely, delicate hand and laid it over his heart. Lucien hadn’t produced a thought in minutes. He was nothing but a disciple; could do nothing but worship at her altar.
“Mine,” she breathed.
He looked down, and tearing his eyes from hers felt like a physical pain. Her fingers dug into the skin of his chest lightly, and he was shocked to find that the burning glow he felt wasn’t evident from the outside.
“My mate,” she said, her voice thick with emotion.
The word seemed to turn part of Lucien’s brain back on, and he finally moved, twining his strong arm around her waist to gently lay her back until she was flat on the mattress, pinned down by his own body.
“My mate.” Lucien had never heard his voice so deep. He watched Elain nod, a single tear falling from the outer corner of her eye and disappearing into her golden brown hair. He brought a thumb to wipe the trail away and then kissed her, pouring every ounce of his love into their bond. He knew she felt it because she gasped, taking his face between her two hands to kiss him back passionately, her legs wrapping around his abdomen to welcome him into the cradle of her thighs.
Mate mate mate mate mate
As he slowly pushed the sensitive head of his cock against her, his face lovingly held between her palms, he watched her expression. He spread the moisture of her arousal over his cock, guiding with his hand to press against her slick clit. She gasped and he guided himself to her entrance, feeling the tightness there as he just barely pushed in.
Her fingers tightened on his jaw and he pulled his cock back, circling back to her clit again. “Oh gods“, she panted, “please.”
“Let me make it good for you. Let me take my time. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“That doesn’t hurt,” she whined, her eyelids fluttering as he continued the stimulation of her clit.
“Never,” he promised, his meaning deeper than she knew. As good as it felt to rub his cock against her, he dropped it in favor of sliding his middle finger into her. He swallowed her moan, kissing her thoroughly, kneading her breasts and seeing how she responded when he lightly pinched her nipples. The keening sound had him bringing his lips around each nipple in turn, sucking and nibbling until she was whining and panting beneath him. He worked his way down her body, determined to worship every inch of her with his mouth.
When he reached her rib—the one he knew that golden thread was tied to—he couldn’t stop himself from sucking her supple skin into his mouth, hard enough to make Elain gasp at the pinch of pain for the first time. He quickly released, licking over the pink bloom his work had left behind. He kissed the mark tenderly, feeling that beast within him who needed to possess her soothed for the moment. She ran her hands through his hair, twining her fingers at the nape of his neck to keep his mouth there. Before he could stop himself, he sucked her skin back into his mouth, harder this time, desperate to mark her as his. She arched her back and whined until he released her, the mark more prominent now, a beautiful, bright red that couldn’t be hidden.
“Mine,” Lucien growled as he nipped at the spot he’d claimed—the spot that was the base of the thread connecting their souls for eternity. He felt like an animal with its prey trapped in its teeth—he couldn’t let go of her, he needed to sink into her, to have her.
Peeling himself away, he trailed nipping kisses over the perfect expanse of her belly, stopping at the tuft of soft, dark curls between her legs. She brought her legs back towards her chest in invitation, placing one foot on his shoulder and wrapping her hand around her other thigh to present herself to him.
One glance down at her dripping cunt was all he managed before he was lapping at her entrance, desperate to taste her again, to make her come to ecstasy on his tongue. He groaned at the sweet honey he found there, the velvet softness his tongue felt as he pressed it as far into her as he could, curling and probing until he became aware of her desperate cries.
Her hand had wandered down to her needy clit to try and find her release. He pushed it away, instead using his tongue to flick at that bundle of nerves while he slid a finger into her again.
“Lucien, please,” was all she could say as he crooked his finger to rub against her innermost pleasure point, licking her clit while his other hand held her bucking body against the mattress. Her wanton moans only spurred him on—all he wanted to hear for the rest of his days was the way she said his name just before she came. Breathy, begging—to give her what no one else ever had.
What no one else ever would.
He snarled at the thought of another touching her, hypothetical as they may be, and pressed another finger into her, earning a whine.
“Oh, yes, I think i—I think I’m—“ she trailed off as her words were replaced by a moan. Lucien felt her cunt clench around his fingers as he sucked with gentle pressure on her clit, fucking her with his fingers through her orgasm until he felt her body go limp. Leaving his fingers in her, he was drawn to kiss her, to look in her eyes, to stroke her hair, to care for her in every way. He slanted his lips over her and she squeezed around his fingers as she slid her tongue against his.
“I’m ready,” she said, her beautiful eyes darting back and forth between his. She cupped his jaw and ran her thumb gently over the rough scar that marred half his face. No one had ever touched it save for when his metal eye was being worked on. No one had ever touched it like it was a thing of beauty. She tilted his head just slightly so she could press her lips against the jagged edge that ran down from his eye to his jaw. So gently, she kissed around and up until Lucien was sure she’d covered every inch of the tender skin. Her legs wrapped tightly around him, her heels hooking together behind his back to keep him pressed against her as she kissed just above his metal eye, then just beside it, then just beneath. He let his eyelids fall closed and she kissed there too, before finding her way back to his mouth. “So brave,” she whispered. “So beautiful. My mate.”
Lucien kissed her passionately as he slotted the head of his cock against her entrance and pushed in. She was perfection. Heaven. Divinity incarnate. She gasped at the first inches of his length and he stopped. He would spread this over the entire night if that was what it took to make sure it was painless for her. He licked his thumb and rubbed slow circles over her clit, reassured by her mewls.
“More,” she said, wiggling her hips to urge him on. “You feel so good.”
“More,” he repeated as he fed his hard cock back into her, nearly halfway now before he felt resistance and withdrew slowly.
She slid her hands down his scarred back, recognition flickering through her eyes at what she was feeling in those rough ridges, a look of anger as if she might have words with him about how he’d been hurt before, until her hands traveled lower to his muscular ass where she dragged him back to her. “I said, more,” she growled. And before Lucien knew what was happening, she was crawling away from him.
“Lay back,” she commanded.
He obeyed, dropping himself into the pile of pillows and watching as she climbed over him to straddle his pelvis. She lined him up at her dripping entrance and sank down on him nearly to the hilt with a ragged, desperate moan, her gaze locked on his face as she did so. “Lucien, oh gods…”
She dragged both her hands up his torso to brace herself on his sturdy chest, and started moving on him, rolling her hips as she lifted and lowered herself on his throbbing cock.
He watched the soft expanse of her belly flex slightly as she rode him, tucking her feet up on his legs to change the angle with a gasp. His eyes focused in on the love bite on her rib—the mark he’d left there at the base of their bond. She brought her hand up to touch the spot, closing her eyes in pleasure at the same time as her cunt squeezed around him. “It’s so sensitive,” she said with a dazed smile, head tilting back so her long hair swayed, the streaks catching the dim candlelight and sparkling like gems. His.
Overwhelming need flooded Lucien’s body as he watched her, her small breasts bouncing enticingly as she brought them both toward orgasm. He had never felt closer to her—never felt closer to another person in his centuries of life. Suddenly, golden light seemed to shimmer between them, a bridge forged between them as their bodies intertwined the way their souls were. “Beautiful,” he said reverently, voice low. “Fucking beautiful.” Lucien tugged on that golden thread and she gasped, her eyes flying open to find his. Her body stilled for a moment and Lucien took the opportunity to bring a hand to her clit, relishing the way she rhythmically gripped his cock while he played with her. She whined and resumed riding him with zeal, and every slide of her slick walls had Lucien on the edge, just waiting for her to fall with him.
“Again,” she begged and Lucien knew what she meant. Wrapping around their bond, he pulled just enough at the same time as he circled her clit and she came undone, crying his name as she rocked herself back and forth.
The sight alone could’ve made Lucien come but coupled with the feeling of her—wrapped around his cock, wrapped around his entire being, fireworks erupted in Lucien’s brain as he spilled in her over and over. She collapsed on him, spent, her body languidly draped over him.
He panted beneath her, feeling heaving breaths escape her limp body. “Don’t,” she whined as he went to move.
He stilled, obeying her command as she slowly, hesitantly brought delicate fingers down to feel where they were joined. She gasped at the moisture she found there, their combined release. He pumped himself out and back in to allow more of his spend to fall into her fingers.
Her eyes widened at the sensation, her fingers finding their way to her bright pink clit. “Do that again,” she rasped and he again obeyed, a single slide out and back in, his cock having softened only minimally after orgasm.
“You love to tell me what to do, don’t you?” he growled in her ear. Her resulting huff of laughter paired with her hand threading through his hair to grip it tightly was answer enough, and Lucien set to work making laughter the last thing on her mind.
He didn’t remember making a conscious decision to stop fucking her, but sometime later, he was cradling her in his arms on the cusp of sleep. Her fingers traced over his skin lightly, the feather soft touch the last thing anchoring him to lucidity. “I guess we can leave this old inn now,” she whispered.
“Mmph,” was all he managed, discontent with the prospect of moving from this exact position.
She breathed a laugh. “You want to stay here forever?”
“I would,” he murmured into her skin. “If you wanted to.” Too tired to open his eyes, he imagined her expression instead. “Now that we don’t have to look for shrines and vines anymore, we could actually have some fun.”
“Shrines and vines…” she said with a snort. “It’s so stupid.”
“You had me looking for a vine in the court of vines,” he pressed, voice gravelly as he raised it above a whisper. She really gave into her laughter then, and it was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. “I’m sorry,” she laughed.
“The worst part is I can’t even pretend to be mad.” He stroked her hair lazily. Sleep could wait if she wanted to talk. “Do you want to go back to the Night Court?”
She considered for a moment. “Not at all. But…I have nowhere else to go.”
He dragged his eyes open and shifted to look at her. Those deep brown eyes held such question, such promise. “Well, my lady,” he said self-assuredly, “that only means you can go wherever you want.”
A smile split her face. “And you’ll come with me?”
He pressed a kiss to her temple, inhaling her, disbelief flooding over him that this was his reality and not some cruel trick.
She curled impossibly further into him, fitting herself perfectly in the absence that had surrounded him. “Anywhere,” he answered.