Astrid's Wish (9 page)

Astrid turned in Klaus’s embrace and tucked his head under Klaus’s chin. He placed small kisses to the small divot under his mate’s throat then rubbed his nose into the light fur covering Klaus’s chest. The curly, fine hairs tickled his nose, causing him to giggle.

“What’s so funny, my angel?” Klaus asked as he dropped a kiss to the top of Astrid’s head.

“Your hairy chest is making my nose itch.” Astrid propped himself up on his elbow. “And it tickles.”

Klaus’s eyes were slightly opened as he stared at Astrid. His hair was mussed, and a grin pulled up at the corners of his lips. His mate was sexy as hell first thing in the morning. Even when all disheveled, Klaus still managed to pull off the look. Other men were probably
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jealous of Klaus’s handsomeness, and they should be. No man should be allowed to look that amazing.

“Come up here and kiss me.” Klaus grabbed under his arms and pulled him up his body. He maneuvered Astrid like he weighed nothing. “There’s less hair to tickle you, angel.”

Astrid was coming to love the nickname. Klaus considered him his angel. After being told for so long that he was shit, it was nice to have someone care so much for him. The love Astrid had for Klaus grew with every breath he took.

As he leaned down to Klaus’s lips, Astrid paused in mid-descent.

He caught a whiff of his mate’s musky scent. His eyes fell shut, and another sigh pushed past his lips as he breathed deep, warm skin and sex.

He purred as Klaus ran his fingers up his neck, grabbing the long strands that fell loosely down his back. Klaus gently pulled Astrid into a kiss. Soft, full lips met his own, and it was heaven.

Klaus swiped his tongue along the seam of Astrid’s lips. He parted his lips, and Klaus dove right in. The way his mate mastered his mouth set Astrid’s skin on fire. Klaus poked and prodded at his tongue, and he answered the call by dueling back.

Astrid sucked Klaus’s tongue farther into his mouth, causing a moan to erupt from his chest. He wanted to taste every part of his mate and couldn’t hold back his need any longer. He wanted Klaus to make love to him.

“Klaus, love me. Make me yours,” Astrid whimpered as he grabbed at Klaus’s hair, pulling him closer.

Klaus reached for his hands, detaching his grip from his hair.

“Angel, remember what we decided last night? We’re going to take things slow and see where it leads us. There is no rush to do anything.”

“No, you decided that, not me.” Astrid yanked his hands from Klaus’s hold. Tears filled his eyes as embarrassment and shame swam
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in his gut. Being rejected should have been an old song and dance for him, but it didn’t make Klaus’s rejection any easier.

“Stop it,” Klaus growled as he rolled over on top of him, pinning him to the bed. “I’m not saying no. I’m just saying we should take things slow.”

Tears fell like rain down his cheeks. He understood and respected his mate for wanting to wait, but what he needed to heal himself was Klaus. To have Klaus’s loving touch erase the memories of the years spent in Malcolm’s care. He needed good memories to replace the bad, to make him complete on the inside.

“Stop saying that!” he cried out. Why couldn’t Klaus understand that he needed to feel his cock buried deep in his body? To fill him inside and out with his love, claiming him forever. He took a deep, calming breath. It was a form of meditation he’d learned years ago to help center himself and his thoughts. “I just wish you would make love to me like a good mate should.”

Klaus’s eyes became hazy, as if he were in a daze. Very slowly, Klaus’s head lowered toward his, and then he suddenly stopped. He shook himself, as if trying to clear his thoughts.

“Whoa, what was that?” Klaus’s brow knitted together in confusion.

“What was what?” Astrid asked.

“When you said you wished I would make love to you, I felt my mind go fuzzy. All I wanted to do was what you asked. I felt compelled to do as you wished, and your skin glowed slightly.”

Klaus’s eyes widened. “Oh shit.”

At the concern on Klaus’s face, Astrid started to get scared. What was going on?

“Angel, say it again. Say you wish I would make love to you. I think your wish was trying to make me do it.”

Astrid had no clue what game Klaus was playing at, but he said it anyways. “I wish you would make love to me, right now,” he added.

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If wishing for something got him what he wanted, then so be it. He’d try anything to get Klaus to bed him.

A surge of heat he hadn’t noticed before flared across his skin.

Ignoring the odd feeling, he focused on Klaus’s reaction. The same glazed-over look covered his eyes. When he blinked, it was gone.

Klaus took a couple deep breaths as he hovered over him.

“Astrid, have you ever heard of fairies, or did Malcolm or Lucian ever say anything about fairies within your presence?” Klaus asked.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Why are you asking me this? I don’t understand.”

“When you made that wish, I felt the compulsion to do it.”

“Huh?” he asked in disbelief. Klaus wasn’t making any sense.

“Let me explain a little of the fairy history to you the best I can.

Keep in mind they are extremely rare, as in, no one’s actually seen one in person in centuries, and for good reason. Fairies, as a whole, are considered the purest of beings, right up there next to angels.

Their magic comes in the form of wishes. It’s magic without consequence. All fairies are good by nature. They couldn’t grant an evil wish even if they tried. Their magic won’t allow it.”

Astrid stared blankly at him, unsure what all this meant for him. If fairies weren’t evil then what was the issue?

“I can tell by the look on your face I’m not explaining this very well.” Klaus paused for a moment then began again. “Let’s say someone wishes for someone to die. A fairy literally cannot grant that wish. Even if the fairy wanted to, their magic wouldn’t work. And back in the day, before this became known to other paranormals, fairies were a sought-after commodity. Some paranormals believed they could have their own personal wishing machine that could grant them any of their heart’s desires, but they didn’t realize it didn’t work that way. Some fairies were tortured, some even slaughtered for what they couldn’t give to their captors.”

“That’s terrible.” Tears started to trickle down his cheeks, but he didn’t have the energy to wipe them away. The cruelty of others never
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seemed to end. Those poor fairies suffering at the hands of others for things they couldn’t control wasn’t right.

“Angel.” Klaus turned Astrid to face him. “If I’m right and you have fairy blood running in your veins, we have a major problem.”

“What kind of problem?” Astrid managed to ask past the lump in his throat. Would he ever get a break and just be allowed to live his life?

“First off, I’ve never seen a mix of two species before. It just isn’t possible. So if you are, in fact, a hybrid, someone went to great lengths to create you. Mother Nature has checks and balances, and in all of existence there has never been a cross in species, ever. Second, fairies are beings of good, so their magic has no consequence, unlike a witch’s. Where a fairy cannot do bad things, a witch can. So, combine the two and you have a magical being that can now do any sort of magic without any backlash. So, in theory, if you wished for someone to die, they would, and there would be no consequence to you for doing it. Some paranormals will see this as a very bad thing and may want to seek you out to capture you to use for their own gain, and others will seek you out to kill you, considering you an abomination needing to be destroyed.”

“Oh my god, I think I’m going to be sick.” His stomach began to heave. Bile burned the back of his throat as the acid from his stomach worked its way up his esophagus.

“Angel, just breathe.” Klaus rubbed at his back in an attempt to calm him. “We will figure this out. You’re my mate. I will never let any harm come to you, I promise.”

A cold sweat broke out across his skin. Klaus said fairies were rare and people would want him, even kill him, for what he was. Oh god, could he have been set free from one prison just to be hunted down like a wild animal in need of being put to death?

“Astrid, talk to me,” Klaus demanded.

It took all he had to pass air through his lungs. All he ever wanted was to find a home with a family and know true love. In the end it
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didn’t matter what he wanted. It was obvious the universe was against him ever finding happiness.

“Astrid, please say something.”

“You all said I was a witch. How can you be certain I’m a fairy?”

His voice sounded weak and defeated to his own ears.

“Astrid, I can sense the witch in you, but when you made that wish”—Klaus shook his head—“I felt the compulsion to do as you wanted, and the way your skin glowed, that is only found in fairies.

When their magic powers up, a soft glow starts from the inside of their bodies and shines its way out. Just like I saw you do.”

“What do I do now? You said it would be bad if I had fairy blood.

You said people would want me or would want to kill me.” Tears made his vision blurry. “I’m so fucked it isn’t even funny,” Astrid sobbed.

Klaus began to laugh. Astrid had no clue what he found so funny, but it pissed him off that in a time like this his mate would laugh at him. Maybe all of Klaus’s kind words were a lie and a trick to get what he wanted from Astrid.

“Let go of me,” Astrid shouted in Klaus’s face.

“Angel, calm down.” His hold tightened on Astrid’s wrists. “Stop fighting me.”

* * * *

Klaus couldn’t understand why his mate fought him. Yes, he was laughing, but he wasn’t laughing at Astrid, just at what he said. To hear such dirty words coming out of his mate’s sweet mouth caused his dick to lengthen and become rigid.

“Astrid, please,” he begged. “I’m not laughing at you, just what you said.”

At Astrid’s blank stare, he explained.

“You said ‘fuck.’”

“Huh?” Astrid’s eyebrows knitted together.

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“Such a dirty word coming from such a pretty mouth, it turns me on.” He nipped at Astrid’s bottom lip then rocked his hips forward, grinding his arousal in between Astrid’s spread legs.

When Astrid gasped in surprise, he took the opportunity to seize the delicious, moist heaven he had become addicted to. The taste of his mate was all the fuel he needed to survive.

As he kissed his mate senseless, Klaus thought about Astrid’s concerns. He did tell his mate that he would be sought out for either a prize to be held captive or to be killed for the fear of his power. Cold tendrils of terror weaved their way up his back, surrounding his spine and holding him in place as he devoured his lover’s mouth. He deepened the kiss, doing his best to meld Astrid and himself together.

The need to protect his mate from the unknown would be his only mission from here on out. The council would have to learn to live without him.

Astrid yelped, causing Klaus to come back to his senses. He tasted the metallic tinge of blood on his tongue. Klaus withdrew from the kiss to see what he had done. Shiny red drops of blood beaded up on Astrid’s full lower lip.

The only way to protect Astrid was to mate him. Klaus had enough clout within the council that they would trust his judgment to control Astrid, and the mating bond would strengthen their magic.

Together they could keep each other safe. He would be damned if anyone took Astrid away from him.

Holding Astrid’s gaze, he reached for the bedside table. He grabbed the bottle of lube he had stashed there when he first arrived.

The time had come to claim his mate. The right thing would be to wait and give Astrid time to live on his own and make his own decisions. But that chance had left the building. Fairies were an endangered species for a reason, and he wouldn’t let Astrid become a part of those statistics.

“Wh–what are you going to do with that?” Astrid’s voice shook with nerves.

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He grinned down at his mate. “I’m going to do what you’ve been begging for. I’m going to make love to you and make you mine forever.”

“Really?” Astrid’s eyes widened to the size of saucers, and he cleared his throat. “I mean, are you sure?”

Klaus watched as Astrid clenched his fist then flexed his fingers just to clench them back tight again. It would appear his mate was jumpy at the idea. Klaus could understand his trepidation. For the first time in Astrid’s life, he would have the choice if he wanted to engage in sexual activity or not.

Astrid had whined about Klaus not fucking him, but now, faced with the knowledge that that was exactly what was about to happen, he seemed to get a little nervous. He would have found it odd if Astrid wasn’t a little uneasy.

“I’m very sure, angel,” Klaus said as he sat back on his heels. He pushed up on Astrid’s thighs so he would lift his legs. Astrid pulled his knees to his chest, gifting Klaus with the sight of his pale-pink starburst. He had to purse his lips together to keep from drooling.

He popped the cap to the lube and drizzled the clear liquid over his fingers then traced a finger from the base of Astrid’s cock, down the crease of his sack, and toward the rippled opening. He circled his wet finger around the tight muscle. On the second time around, he lightly pushed the tip of his finger inside. Astrid jerked and whimpered in response. Klaus quickly removed his finger.

“Angel, are you okay? Do you want me to stop?” He bit his lip while he waited for Astrid to answer. If his mate wanted to cease their play, he would, no questions asked, but he really hoped not. He had just a moment inside his mate’s snug, hot channel, and he had to have more.

“No,” Astrid shouted. “I’m just not used to this. I mean, I know that you know—”

“Don’t say another word,” he said, cutting his mate off. He knew what Astrid was referring to, and he wouldn’t allow the memory of
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