Enthroned by Amethysts (A Dance with Destiny Book 3) (43 page)

“I’m not an Angel, neither am I a Guardian, or even a devil. I am but a man. A man whose torch for this loveliest of women has burned longer than she has even known of your kind’s existence, burned longer than
you
have been alive. Alas, I’m not blessed with days such as yours. I won’t live for centuries upon centuries. My time is limited. My days, numbered. You know my heart concerning her. You know
her
heart concerning me. If I was granted her love for the rest of my natural days, it would seem as but a blink in the span of your time with her. I ask this of you, not Jenevier. I know not what her answer will be. But I do know this. If it would hurt you, she will say no. No matter what her heart is singing. She is yours, Daichi. So, I ask you again. Can you share her? Can you share but a breath of your lifetime to grant me the heart of the only woman I have ever truly loved, ever truly wanted?”

Daichi stood, staring down at the crying mortal who owned such a large chunk of his Angel’s heart. He didn’t speak. He only gave one sharp nod of his head before turning to leave.

At that, Alastyn wrapped his arms around her. Allowed his tears the freedom they had longed for the better part of his life.

When Daichi left that little rose-covered cottage, two of the most tormented souls he would ever know were curled up on the faded old lounge in front of a tiny crackling fire, fast asleep in each other’s arms.

Chapter 55

Ashgard

(ASH-gahrd)

“Kias…”

“You don’t have to give voice to your fears, Sharna. I know your heart. I promise to be gentle with you, my love. I will erase the horrors of your past, beautiful lady, and replace them with unspeakable joys.” His soft kisses tickled her body as he spoke.

He wouldn’t rush her. Never would he force her in this thing. His noble heart raced when he felt her surrender bit by bit, slowly succumbing to his gentle caress.

“Kias, my love… that feels… so… good.”

His black eyes rolled up in his head at her labored words. He was wholly consumed, single-minded in his desire for her. Any noise, any movement, any sign at all of acceptance from his beautiful wife, sent the princely Elf into a euphoric spin.

“Kias, mi Shafeal, teach me how to pleasure you,” Jezreel whispered. “Show me where to kiss you. I want to do the things you desire. I wish to satisfy you in every way. Teach me how to please my gorgeous husband.”

“Sharna.” He moaned out her name as he gently pushed her down, covering her body with his. “Your voice alone arouses me, but your words have nearly done me in.”

“Mi Shafeal, my body aches to know you. I quiver and tremble at the delicious thought. Tease me no longer, my love. I need to feel you move within me. I want you to claim me, Kias.”

When he slowly entered her, Jezreel’s back arched, her eyelids fluttered, and a joyous smile parted her lips. He had hoped this would be the case, hoped she would be comfortable enough to feel only him, only his love… minus all nightmares and past trauma.

Her body’s intense response to his almost caused him to lose control. He’d wanted to feel her pressed against him for so long; the reality of it was very nearly his undoing. He looked down at where their bodies were connected. Moving within her, Kias reveled wholly in all the sweet noises she made, all the little moans and gasps now filling their moonlit room.

“Never did I dream you would feel this incredible, mi Sharna. I have loved you for so long…” He paused as tears burned the backs of his royal eyes. “As with everything else, my love, you continue to exceed my wildest imaginations… and I slowly, gloriously lose myself in you.”

He licked her hardened nipples and she gasped, a tremor running throughout her as she squirmed beneath him.

“…Kias,” she barely managed to rasp.

Jezreel’s response to her husband’s touch was completely natural, yes, but it drove the Elf Prince over the edge, sent him into an oblivious freefall. Kias clung to her trembling form, blissfully relinquishing all control. After only a brief moment to catch his breath and slow his racing heart, he continued with their promised magical night. A promise filled with love… not sleep.

Jezreel’s eyelashes fluttered once more as another tiny gasp escaped with her third epic release.

*****

The sunrise teased her eyelids open. Faint sounds from the kitchen pulled her to her feet. Jezreel was still yawning, tying her robe as she entered the dawn-drenched room.

Her sweet Prince was there, humming cheerfully as he sat the table for their first breakfast together in their new home.

I must be dreaming
, she thought.
My life isn’t supposed to be this amazing. I’ve made too many mistakes to be blessed like this. I’m terrified I will wake, lose everything. I’m certain I would never live through such a thing. If I ever woke to find my beloved Kias gone… I would close my eyes and wake no more
.

“There you are, mi Sharna.” His smile was beaming, exuberant. “Come.” Kias motioned with a graceful sweep of his arm toward her seat. “I thought I was going to be forced to wake you. But you looked so beautiful lying there; I simply couldn’t bring myself to disturb such sweet slumber. You are radiant this dawn, my love. I take it you slept well.” He pulled out her chair, beckoning her to sit.

“Like a baby,” she answered as she took the proffered seat, blushing.

Staring at him from across the breakfast table, Jezreel was wholly enamored… all over again. Kias was exactly everything she had ever wanted. Just looking at his sharp features in the morning light, remembering how he had touched her, the things he had whispered in the dark, it made her tingle all the way down to the pit of her stomach. When he caught her staring at him, she blushed and turned away.

“Are you well this morn, mi Sharna?” Concern showed in his dark eyes. “Did I hurt you, my love?” He reached over and gently took her hand.  “Apologies for my eagerness. I did try to rein in my fervor, honestly. Tell me. Was I too rough with you? Did I do something wrong?”

“Kias, don’t say such things. It’s embarrassing.”

He only smiled at her.

Had Jezreel been blessed with Jenevier’s gift of hearing internal monologue, his would have gone something like this…
Dear heavens, I love this woman madly. If the day ever comes when I’m forced to wake without my sweet Princess sleeping by my side, that day will be my last
. Instead, she was swimming about in crippling doubt, an uncomfortable, nauseating departure from her normally fierce confidence.

“Kias?”

He jumped at the sound of her timid voice, his distant dreamy look washing away as he focused on her quivering bottom lip.

“Yes, mi Sharna. What troubles you?”

“I’m not troubled. Well… not exactly.” She blushed again.

“Do not be shy with me, dear one. I am your eternal mate.” He smiled softly as he squeezed her hand and winked. “You should learn to trust me… since you’ll never be rid of me.”

She looked down, blindly gazing at her own fidgeting fingers. “Well, I only ask because I’m curious, you see. And… well… just a little sad.”

He perked up at her admission and quickly moved to take a place by her side. “Tell me, Sharna. I have sworn to always make you smile. To hear of your sadness, dear wife, tears a hole in my heart.”

She lifted her watery gaze to meet his. “It’s just… I was curious…” She sighed wearily. “Why do I not please you? Tell me what I can do to satisfy you, mi Shafeal.”

Kias was visibly shocked by her words, shaken. “How can you think you do not please me? Did I not show you last night just how much I desire you? Just how easily I lose control when I but touch you, when I merely taste your soft skin, when I hear your tiny voice beside me?”

Jezreel’s cheeks burned crimson and she averted his intense gaze. “I only meant… well… I’m not… you know… experienced in the ways of men. But… when you didn’t…
finish
… Well, it made me feel bad.” She sniffed and wiped away the single tear that had unexpectedly escaped. “If you will only tell me what it is you desire, I will do whatever I can to satisfy you. I love you, Kias. I only wish to please you.”

When he didn’t respond, she forced herself to look back up at him. The look on his beautiful pale face was one of complete bewilderment.

Tears spilled down her cheeks then. “You’re angry with me. I knew I shouldn’t have mentioned it. If I did not care for
your
feelings more than my own, I would have held my tongue. But I can only ever be happy if you are even more so. And when you didn’t… you know…
finish
, I knew you weren’t happy and I—”

He placed his finger to her lips, ceasing her nervous ramblings. “Is that what you think, sweet Sharna?” He brushed her hair back from her face, wiped her tear-stained cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Are you afraid I find you undesirable? Did you think I was unable to leave my seed within you?”

She tried to look away, but he took her trembling chin in his hand and turned her back to face him.

“Open your eyes, Sharna. Look at me.”

Slowly, she managed to obey.

“What would ever make you think something such as that, my love? Listen to me. If your womb is ripe, dearest wife, you carry our child as we speak.”

Her brows furrowed as she desperately searched his mysterious onyx eyes. “But… but… you never stopped, Kias. Not even once. You slept within me, my love, and never did you—”

“Oh… I see.” He interrupted her protests. “You assumed I was not satisfied because I remained hard within you.”

She sucked in a quick breath. “Kias…”

He smiled then and lightly kissed her trembling lips. “Yet… the opposite is true, my love. You satisfied me so completely, so utterly unimaginably, I did not
want
to stop. My desire for you was so great; I could only pause with each climax.” He gave her a wry smile. “Ahh… The way you moved under me, Jezreel, the cute little noises you made, the taste of your bare flesh upon my tongue. You very nearly killed me, Sharna. Twice, I thought I would lose consciousness. Never have I even
heard
of such pleasure as that. You own me, dearest wife. And I can do nothing… save your bidding.”

His deep kiss and honest confession melted away her fears and filled her soul with immeasurable joy.

Jezreel sniffed. “I love you, mi Shafeal,” she whispered.

He smiled sweetly. “You were meant for no one else, mi Sharna… and neither was I.”

Kias gently lifted Jezreel in his arms, continually kissing her sweet lips as he carried her back to their soft, welcoming bed.

*****

“Aye now, after the report we received, I dinnae expect tae find much in the way of cats roaming aboot these trees.” Vittorio laughed. “My heart swells at the sight of ye, wee kitty.”

“You will find we are much harder to kill than you may have imagined, Guardian,” he purred. “Now that you’re here, I wish to know what has happened to my lovely Ajená. Did you find her?”

“Aye, wee kitten, who is this lovely little flower ye speak of?”

Syadar transformed. Standing toe to toe with Vittorio, he growled once before politely resuming his elegant feline manner. “Now, Angel boy, if
I
am a kitten in your eyes, I should love to meet the ones you call cats.” His demure smile could have easily been taken as a smirk. “And, if you must know, the big burly one among your kind,
he
told me that my Ajená was missing. He even came here looking for her. Alas, he never returned to tell me good or ill concerning her. I know not if my life mate yet lives. She sings within my heart. Yet I would gladly surrender another one of my lives to hear her singing within my ear. So tell me,
wee Angel
. Does my Ajená yet live? Will Jenevier return to me, whole and beautiful and delicious, as she was when last we met?”

Vittorio’s obvious growl was mixed in with his astonished words. “Jenevier? Life mate? Aye, Cat, ye’ve lost yer bloody mind, ye have.”

The chocolate colored cat, Syadar, Prince of the Darthian clan, only sighed. “Why can you colorless flying beasts not see what’s clear before your eyes? Do you choose to be blind? Or is it a common disease among your kind?”

“Aye now, ye listen tae me, ya wee fur Prince. If yer speaking of the Angel who owns my heart, yer treading on extremely thin ice. My lass wouldnae become the life mate of a Byzanthian. Nae withoot at least confiding so in me. Are ye the reason Vareilious refused tae let her come here? He swore she wouldnae return tae Byzantha, nae as long as he drew breath.”

“Is Vareilious the one who looks like his muscles forgot to quit growing? The one who claims the build of the Titans of old?” Syadar’s eyes sparkled with mischief.

“Aye, that’s him all right.”

Syadar purr-laughed. “So, he feels the need to warn her away from me, does he? It seems my lovely Ajená is a collector of rare hearts, is she not?”

“If yer calling my Princess this Ajená person, then yes. She seems tae be blessed with that damnable ability. Why?”

“I simply find it funny. That’s all. The brawny Guardian, Vareilious, was it? He claimed almost the same entitlement to her as you now do. Was it your child she carried when she came to me during our Month of Joining?”

“Ye go too far, Kitty. Dunnae say she joined with ye.”

Prince Syadar resumed his cat form and leapt onto a low hanging branch, gracefully twitching his tail back and forth just above Vittorio’s head.

“Was it your child she carried?” he asked again.

“It wasnae,” Vittorio answered, looking away. “That’s my only wish, my one hope,” he mumbled.

“So, let me see if I have this straight, Vittorrrio.” Syadar elegantly twirled his Rs. “When Ajená last came to me, she was not manacled. Yet, she carried a babe within her. I know now she owns the hearts of at least three Guardians. There’s you, the muscle-headed one, and her precious Varick… the one who claimed the mask of the Northern Prince, Alzeen. And, it seems, a fourth man was the one she blessed with her fertile womb. Yet, she married
me
.”

“I dinnae take ye for a liar, wee Prince. But I know Jenevier. She dinnae marry ye. She dinnae join with ye. An’ she certainly doesnae relish the thought of being bound, nae tae anyone. I wouldnae hold my breath if I were ye.” Vittorio narrowed his eyes. “I may just have tae side with Vareilious on this one. She’ll nae be coming back here, Kitty. That I can guarantee.”