by Willa Hart
I open my eyes and hot tears prick my eyes.
Taraz’s face greets me with as much sadness as my own. “I have not heard from either of them since the attack.”
“Are they…are they…” I can’t bring myself to say the word. No, not my fated-mate, not when I’ve just found him.
“I don’t know,” Taraz says softly, choosing his words carefully. “I’ve never gone this long without communicating by mind with Sarkany and Leo, but while I can’t reach them with my mind, I don’t feel the same coldness in our mind-link that I did when Mother and Fathers were killed.”
“You were with me,” I whisper as my gaze lands on Taraz. “You saved me from dying. You’ve been by my side this entire time,” I say.
He nods. You are mine to protect now.
We are linked? Without Sarkany? Surprise floods through me because my links with Taraz and Leo have required tendrils from their minds to mine or the link was dependent on my link with Sarkany.
Perhaps it was the Medaris, Taraz thinks.
Warmth fills my body. I close my eyes and the memory of spinning in warm golden light fills my body. A longing comes over me to experience the complete warmth and joy of the light again.
“I did everything that I could,” Taraz says, “but I think your inner strength is what brought you back to us. You’re very powerful. More powerful than you might know.”
A wave of fatigue sweeps through me with his words. I don’t feel powerful. I’m worn out and tired. I press my hand to my forehead. “I feel as though I’ve been spinning round and round.”
“You’ve been fighting the poison and an infection for a long while,” Taraz says.
“I was poisoned?”
“Regent Vlissimal put poison on the blades of the guards’ knives that came for us at the hunting lodge. It was his intention that none of us would survive the attack, and he nearly succeeded.”
Taraz stands and walks to my bed. He sits down beside me on the mattress. He reaches out and takes both my hands. I clasp his hands tightly and look into his eyes. The physical connection draws me close and warmth pulses through me. The pupils in his dark brown eyes widen with my touch, and heat slides through me. Comfort combined with…desire? My mouth drops open; yes, I feel this attraction between us. A want that Taraz has for me and that I also share.
“I was afraid that you might not return,” Taraz says. “That you would die or be mind-damaged, and it was my fear that helped me realize that”—he drops his gaze to our hands —“that I have a desire for you that is deeper than anything I can explain through logic. A need to hold you safe and feel your presence. I questioned all of this because you didn’t come into our lives as all the fated-mates of the past have come into their sovereign’s lives, and it’s my nature as a scientist to need to prove and test and fully understand anything that is different. Events that are outliers need to be tested.” His gaze searches my face as though he needs me to understand why he couldn’t surrender to the inevitability of us being fated-mates. As though he has somehow insulted me by not immediately believing that I was the right woman for him just because I was the right woman for Sarkany.
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, I—”
“But I do,” Taraz interrupts. “I’m sorry,” he says, and drops his gaze.
I squeeze his hands, letting him know that I forgive him his interruption.
“As I sat beside you,” Taraz continues, “I watched you and tried to heal you and I suddenly
understood your meaning not just to Sarkany and the Kingdom, but your meaning to me as well.”
I pull his hands close to me and take a deep breath. He is opening his heart to me, and the warmth and love that he feels is genuine and flows through his mind and his body to me. I open my heart to him in response. Light and peace and joy slide from my heart and pulse through the connection we share, and I gift him these feelings. Taraz is a good man. He is solid and kind and would do anything that was needed for his Kingdom, his brothers, and now also for me.
So there is hope, I think. For all of us. Sarkany. Me. You.
Yes, Taraz thinks, there is hope. “You must rest,” Taraz says. He leans forward and gently pulls the blankets up around me, and I relax back into the pillows. “You must continue to heal. We have much to discuss and plan once you are well.”
He sits beside me and stares into my eyes. I’m tired and my body is heavy with exhaustion.
Healing is hard work, Taraz thinks.
I close my eyes, hopeful that when I awaken there might be two more Roya brothers by my side.
Meela…
The voice that I’ve heard while I was unconscious has returned. A whisper of a voice calling through my mindscape. I walk through the woods in fresh snow. Darkness surrounds me. Fear trickles through my body.
Who is it? I call out. I turn to my left, then my right, and continue walking through the forest.
The falling snow silences everything around me. Leafless, black tree branches rise up around me curling into the darkness like long, aged fingers. Who is it? I call again.
Meela…
What do you want from me? Show yourself! I turn and behind me stands a giant wolf. His face is even with mine. His fur is whiter than the snow; his black eyes with a silver Wolveskin ring stare into my eyes.
You must fulfill your destiny.
I am a Dreg caught in a fight between Royas. There is no prophesy that involves me. Send me my fated-mate and let me live out my life in the Dark Forest with Sarkany and Taraz.
You are Dreg. You are Eliterrati. You are Wolveskin. You belong to the sun, the moon, the wind, the city, and the forest. You are the daughter that was promised to us all. The Queen that shall bring a long and prosperous peace to all the realms.
You and your prophesy can kiss my ass, I think. I have no intention of fighting. I nearly died. Do you understand, died! I was poisoned by a crazy man by the name of Vlissimal—the Lord Regent Mindslayer—perhaps you’ve heard of him?
He’s not a Mindslayer.
I’ve seen him kill Dregs.
Vlissimal is a para-succubus. He attached to Wagu, his Dreg, and now Wagu is dead. Sarkany is alive. You are here and you have a job to complete. If you fail the prophesy, peace and the Kingdom will be lost.
That’s a bit unfair isn’t it? I think. Take my parents, throw me in a laundry with a sick man who continually tries to grab me, have three princes decide to ‘rescue’ me, then when I finally fall in love with one, we’re attacked and separated, and I nearly die! All I want is to live my life in peace.
I swear I see the damn wolf smile.
You are so much like your mother, he thinks.
My mother? Now he’s got me. He absolutely has my attention. How do you know my mother? Is she…is she alive?
She waits for you and your sister in the Northern Province. Find Huali and go to your Mother.
Wait…my parents are alive?!
The wolf starts to shimmer in front of me like mist on the wind.
Wait! Wait, I call out. Where does she wait? How do I get there? Is my father there too? Please…how do I find them?
Fulfill your destiny. The wolf shimmers into the mist. The prophesy calls your name.
And he is gone. The forest spins away and I drop again into the darkness of my dream.
Chapter Fifteen
Meela
A soft glow of embers in the hearth. I pull back the blanket from my leg and slowly lift the bandage from my thigh. Healed! My leg is healed. No pain. A giant smile breaks across my face. My feet hit the floor and I stand. Goddess! I can walk, I can jump, I can—oooh, woozy. I grab the edge of the bed so I don’t pass out on the floor from jumping.
“It’s been more than a week since you put weight on that leg,” Taraz’s voice startles me. I turn toward the corner of my room. He still sits in a chair in the darkness. The light flickers across his jaw. His face is so different than his brothers but no less attractive. Slighter more elfin with higher c
ut cheekbones.
“You’re still here,” I say.
“Of course.” A small smile on his lips. An unsaid thought hangs in the air. That he is the lone brother who is meant to protect me now. That neither he nor I have linked with Sarkany or Leo in what feels like forever. That it is now just the two of us, against what feels like the world. Taraz pulls his gaze from me and stares at the fire. “Sarkany reminds me of fire,” he says. His voice is soft, and I am grateful for his use of the present tense because I too cling to hope that my fated-mate is alive.
“I can understand how you see a kinship between the two.” I say. “Sarkany burns bright, commands attention, and has a great deal of heat.”
“He has a warrior’s spirit,” Taraz continues. “Passionate and hot. He burns with warmth or rage or whatever emotion carries him on his fated path.” Taraz’s eyes glance from the fire to me. “I am thankful that he loved you first.”
My heart beats faster with Taraz’s words. I walk toward him and sit on the edge of my bed near him. “And Leo?” I ask.
“Leo? He is water,” Taraz says. “He glides evenly and easily across any surface. Always finding a way inside wherever he wants to go, a crevice, a nook, a cranny. Often his power is underestimated and yet, like water, Leo can exert the most powerful of forces, or eat away a stone slowly over time…drip, drip, drip.” Taraz’s eyes examine my face with a warmth in his eyes.
“And you?” I ask softly.
“Me?” Taraz lifts his right eyebrow. “I am the earth. Solid. Firm. Grounding us all. Providing a surface upon which to build and live. Unfeeling but stable. Some might say boring.”
“Boring? No. Stable, yes.” I say. “Without the earth none of us would have a home. And unfeeling? Not at all.” Taraz seems well aware of what he and his two brothers are like. I’m surprised by his poetry, his analogy—his words tonight are so unlike what I’ve grown to expect from his scientific mind.
“And me?” I finally ask, wanting to draw him out, to hear more from this part of Taraz that I’ve never before seen or experienced.
“You?” he asks. His voice is solemn. “You, beautiful Meela, are the air. Without you, there could be no life. No fire. No water. No earth. Without the air all else is nothingness.”
My heart swells with Taraz’s words. “As though in one night a scientist has become a poet,” I say. “I didn’t know that as well as analyzing mechanics and chemicals that you also analyzed human relationships and character traits. You always seem so…”
“Removed? Scientific? Unemotional?” He smiles a small smile.
“Well…yes,” I say. “And content in your world of science. It’s not a bad thing. I thought that…well, you love science and logic and intellect and—”
“I do,” he says as though not only convincing me but convincing himself. “But while I’ve sat beside you, watching you fight and needing you to be well, I’ve discovered another part of myself that I didn’t know existed.”
“And that is?”
Taraz stands and walks to me. In front of the hearth, in the firelight, he reaches out and grasps both my hands.
“When the healing light from the Medaris took you,” Taraz says. “I experienced a new feeling.”
I look into Taraz’s eyes. Passion stirs in Taraz. I stand with Taraz’s touch and a charge thrills through my body. A wave of warmth and comfort and security flows through me. As though my bare feet are on the warm, soft earth.
Do you feel this, Taraz thinks.
I do.
I have never experienced these feelings before now, he thinks.
You’ve never loved?
I…I loved my Mother and my Fathers as a child loves their parents. And my love for my brothers is as one loves their hand or their leg—an innate part of me but not anything I notice loving. But this? This love is entirely new and different for me, and I…these feelings can overwhelm me and I don’t know how to manage these emotions.
I open my eyes. Taraz stands before me. Heat thrills through me and love blooms in my chest.
“Ground your emotion in us,” I say.
Taraz lifts an eyebrow and a corner of his mouth lifts too. “You appeal to my scientist’s mind when you say such things.”
“These feelings between us, they are electricity and chemistry and magic and everything that is beautiful in the world. I feel this too…this…beginning thing, and instead of being overwhelmed and swept away, ground the feeling with a knowledge that we are together.”
In us, Taraz thinks. He steps forward and his body skims mine.
Heat builds in my chest and charges through my body. Heat and want and need and desire. I know…I know what this moment shall mean for me and for Taraz. He is near me, his breath mingles with mine. My nipples tighten with his nearness and my skin tingles with desire. Warmth, safety, and contentment wash through me in a way I’ve not experienced with Sarkany.
Taraz leans forward and his mouth, his lips, are so close to mine. Then the press of his lips, his mouth on mine—warm and tentative. His hands grasp my shoulders and he pulls me closer. His breathing shallows with desire. His lips part and his tongue, soft and languid, enters my mouth seeking mine.
Oh Meela, he thinks.
We are linked and I allow him into an untouched space in my mind.
His hand cups my breast and his lips press down along the curve of my neck. He pulls at my shirt, tugging it over my head, and I grasp the edge of his shirt and pull it from his body. In the flicker of the firelight Taraz’s chest is strong and lean. A lithe body, his muscles run tight beneath his flesh.
I spread my hand over his chest and close my eyes. His heart beats against my hand.
You will be mine now too, Taraz thinks.
There is a solemnity about what we are about to do. He is a man of deep passion who shall only give his heart once. I reach out and unbutton his pants and he pulls them down over his legs. We both stand unclothed in the firelight.
“Let me look at you,” he says.
I step back. His eyes start at my feet and travel up my body. I feel every inch of his gaze as if he caresses my skin.
“You’re beautiful,” he says with a certainty and a trueness to his words. “Your beauty is incomparable.” His gaze meets mine. “Nothing and no one will ever be as beautiful to me.” His eyes glisten, and I’m completely unsurprised by Taraz’s tears. There is a depth in this moment.
He steps forward and cradles the back of my head with his hand and tilts my head back. He takes a deep breath and presses his lips to my lips. His fingertips trail over my breast and trace a line of pleasure from my collarbone down and over the curve of my breast to the tight bud of my nipple. His fingertip circles and pulls.
Oh, Goddess, I moan.
He smiles around my kiss. My Queen likes that? He walks me back to the bed and I lay back. He pulls his lips from my mouth and bends his head to my breast. His lips open and pull my nipple deep into the hot of his mouth. My sex clenches with desire, and my head drops back. Circling and circling, his tongue teases and caresses my nipple. Heating my body. His hand traces down over my belly and slides ever so softly, so gently, past my curls and separates the lips of my sex.
“Oh, Taraz,” I moan out.
He releases my nipple from his mouth and presses me back onto the bed. He is above me and I grasp his sex and slide my hand up and down the hard, smooth skin. But he pulls away from my touch and kisses my belly. His lips and tongue trailing down and over my flesh to my hip and then over my thigh. He parts my legs softly and pauses above my sex. He bends down and is before me. His fingers part me, delicate and soft, but with the strength of want.
His lips kiss the edges of my sex. His tongue strokes up the side. My hips buck upward, and he presses his hand to my hip quelling my bucking and the need and want that grabs me.
He presses his mouth to my sex and draws my clitoris deep into his mouth. Teasing and sucking, he strokes his tongue over the engorged flesh. Still sucking, he pushes a finger d
eep into me, and I curve my hips up and back riding the pleasure from his mouth.
Oh yes, Taraz, yes, I am going to come, oh Goddess yes!
He moves faster, his tongue and mouth more insistent that I go over the edge. Then I shatter into a thousand shards of pleasure and light. My body rolls through the pleasure of my orgasm and I shiver.
Taraz, I think, please, please, I need you to fill me.
He moves his mouth from my sex and he is above me. His cock hard and strong. I reach out with my hands and stroke him. He pulls back and his cock is between my legs.
I want you to be mine, he thinks.
The head of his cock edges the ring of my sex.
Tell me, he commands. Tell me that you are to be mine.
My gaze locks with his. “I am yours,” I say into the stillness of the night.
A fierce, hard thrust and he is deep within me. His cock is wide and hard and firm. I clutch his shoulder and bend up with pleasure.
“You are mine,” he says, and thrusts even deeper into my sex.
“I am yours,” I say. He pulls his cock back, leaving me nearly empty and longing for him to fill me.
He smiles at me and presses his lips to mine. “Yes, my Queen, you are mine and now, I will forever be yours.” He presses his cock inside me, and my sex clutches him. Slowly he pulls back and we are on the edge of pleasure, together dancing on the edge. His body tightens and I gasp; he thrusts and thrusts and thrusts again until we fall into the chasm of pleasure as one.
Chapter Sixteen
Taraz
Sun streams through the glass ceiling and bathes Meela in light. She sleeps beside me. Her skin appears to glow. I can’t pull my gaze from her now that we have been together, my heart forever belongs to her. The historical text I’ve read stated that once one Roya Prince determines their fated-mate, the other two brothers are quick to fall. At the time, I did not believe that the texts were accurate. But as I stare at Meela’s perfect lips and her face as she sleeps, more beautiful than my imagination believes the Goddess to be, now I understand how accurate the historical texts I was forced to read as a child were.
