by Alisa Woods
He was tempted, only because of the pleading look in her eyes. It was the most human thing he’d ever seen in her. Then he pictured five hundred years of power plays in the bedroom—the ones that turned her on but left him cold—and he doubted he could endure it. Plus that was a lot of time for someone like Kalen—or another fae infinitely more powerful than Leksander—to slip a dagger into him. No, if Erelah could never love him, then he’d be better off finding a human female and secreting her away to mate and have a dragonling. This fucking around with the politics of the Summer Court was too dangerous.
But how to get the queen to release him? When the need in her eyes for love would surely translate into rage if it wasn’t met?
The sound of something tightening behind him made him turn. Kalen stood with his hands clenched, rigidly staring at the point where Nyssa’s hand gripped Leksander’s arm. The noise was a grinding of magic that seemed to come from his clenched fists.
Kalen.
Leksander turned back to Nyssa. “Send Kalen away.”
“What?” Nyssa blinked, his words seeming to jar her. “He’s only—”
“I cannot stand his presence,” Leksander growled out, as if he were jealous of Kalen. “Send him out of my sight!”
She jolted and flicked a hand at Kalen, shooing him away.
The rage on the fae’s face was missed by Nyssa—her gaze had never wavered from Leksander’s—but Kalen twisted and disappeared.
Leksander gripped the queen by the shoulders. “Do you not see him, Nyssa?”
“What?” She looked dazed, like his words made no sense.
“Kalen loves you.” He stated it boldly, hoping that might break through.
“He does not matter—”
“Do you want love, Nyssa?” he demanded, squeezing her shoulders harder. “Do you want someone who would do anything for you? Lay down his life. Frustrate his own needs. Bring another lover to your bed, if that’s what you desire? Surely, you have to see it.”
She twisted out of his hold. “Kalen is simply…” But she stalled out, and he knew he was closing in on it.
“Tell me he hasn’t filled your bed.”
“That’s of no concern—”
“Tell me he hasn’t been there every time you had an itch that needed scratching. A frustration that needed venting. A loneliness that ached just a little more than you could bear.” He was full-on guessing now, but by the wide-eyed look on her face, he was hitting home.
“He’s a servant. Good only for…” But the look on her face was uncertain now.
“Why would you want someone like me?” Leksander pressed. “Someone forced into your bed? When you could have someone who would give his life for you?”
Resistance finally surged up in her eyes. “He’s not like you! He’s not royalty and a beast the way you are. There’s no…” She gestured to Leksander’s body with a flailing of hands. “There’s no essence of wildness, the kind which drew my mother in.”
“You are not your mother.” Leksander grabbed hold of her shoulders again, and her eyes were wide, staring up at him. “She nearly broke your Court seeking True Love. But you’ve got True Love staring you in the face!”
Her mouth fell open, then she drew back from him. “He is a lesser in my court. He is unworthy of the love of a queen.”
“And he knows that,” Leksander said, nodding. He fairly loathed Kalen and all his sneers and threats and rage, but he couldn’t help feeling sympathy for a man in love with a woman hopelessly out of his league. Leksander knew that feeling all too well. “Open your eyes, Nyssa. And believe that True Love has a power and magic all its own. Your mother proved that. Your Court has abided by that idea for millennia. Let it work for you this time, instead of against you.”
He could see the words working their magic on her. But still, she was frowning. “I don’t know if I can love him.”
“Maybe you can’t,” Leksander conceded, although it felt dangerous to admit that so close to convincing her. “But if you could… think of it, Nyssa. Think of what you could have with him. I will never love you as he does.”
And that did it. He could see it by the way her eyes opened not with horror or surprise, but with hope. “You think it’s possible?”
“My House is ruled by Love,” he said with a small smile. “You’d be surprised by the miracles I’ve seen True Love conduct.”
She gave him a small nod, and suddenly, she looked vulnerable. Shaken. Awed by the possibility, maybe, that she could have a True Love of her own. Leksander knew that was how he felt every damn time he looked at Erelah.
“Let me take her, Nyssa.” He gestured to Erelah’s still inert body, his heart wrenching again at the sight. “Let me take the woman I love and at least try to see if I can win her love in return. Even if I can’t, at least I’ll have given my best to the only thing that really matters in this world.”
Nyssa scowled, but it looked as much to hold back tears as anything. He had a strange lightness in his heart. Like somehow this was how it was meant to be—the fae queen finding her True Love just as he was finding his. Without a word, Nyssa held out a hand and conjured a pink butterfly-sprite, the kind that flitted around her throne room.
As she held it, fluttering above her palm, she quietly said, “Kalen, I have need of you.”
Her lover instantly appeared by her side. He threw an uncertain scowl at Leksander and noted Erelah still lying in the grass, then looked to Nyssa for her bidding. She turned and looked at him, peering at him like she’d never really seen him before. Which Leksander guessed was probably the sum of it.
Her stare seemed to unnerve Kalen. He flicked an angry look at Leksander, then dipped his head to her, his expression becoming alarmed. “Is my queen all right?”
She nodded. “Take the dragon and angeling back to his realm. They’re not to be harmed. Then return to me, Kalen. I’ll have need of you then.”
He frowned, and Leksander had to rub the back of his hand across his mouth to keep from smiling. “As you wish, my queen,” Kalen said.
Nyssa turned to Leksander and held the pink sprite out to him. “Use this to wake her when you’re ready.”
He hesitated but held out his hand. The misty butterfly condensed into a tiny pink angel in his palm. He slipped it into his pocket and gave her a small smile. “Thank you.”
She waved it away as if she were embarrassed. Leksander sure as hell wasn’t going to push his luck. He’d convinced the summer queen to conduct her own search for True Love, and not with him, so he would make haste to beat a retreat before any of that changed. He hurried to Erelah’s side, where Kalen was waiting, a confused concern still clouding his face. Kalen placed a hand on both, then wrenched them away from the throne room.
When Leksander’s senses came back, Erelah was lying on the rocky ledge of the weigh station with him and Kalen kneeling next to her. The wards kept them out, so this was as close as Kalen—or Erelah, for that matter—could get to the keep.
Tajael was still there, waiting for them. “Holy angels of light,” he whispered softly upon seeing Erelah’s body.
Kalen snarled at him and disappeared an instant later, no doubt in a hurry to return to his queen.
“She’s alive.” Tajael’s voice was still filled with wonder, but he hung back, as if afraid to encroach on them.
“And I can heal her.” Leksander’s heart was torn anew as he bent over Erelah’s torture-wracked body.
“Do you need assistance?” Tajael asked, his voice strangely soft.
“No.” Leksander’s gaze was fixed on Erelah’s beautiful but scorched face. He dug out the waking-sprite from his pocket. “I can wake her with this.”
“Then, I’ll leave you to it,” Tajael said in that soft voice again.
When Leksander looked up, he was gone. Which was just as well. Leksander placed the tiny pink angel on Erelah’s breast, just above her heart, and the thing turned into mist which then sunk into her body. His breath caught, and he prayed to ma
gic the queen hadn’t slipped some kind of evil sprite to him instead. But Erelah stirred on the rocky ground and gave a small moan of pain. He quickly set to work, slicing open his palm for a fresh dose of healing dragon blood and summoning his runes to heal her that way. He gently laid hands on every scorch mark, every angry burn welt, and slowly healed the torture wounds his beloved had endured on his behalf.
Healing her body might be all she would want from him. But when she awoke, he would do everything in his power to convince her that loving him was exactly what was meant to be.
She owned his heart regardless.
Erelah was in a dream of pleasure.
Her heart raced with it—because this pleasure came not from slaying demons but from light whispers of touch all over her body. Even with her eyes closed, she knew that was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. She struggled to wake out of the dream, but her eyelids stayed stubbornly stuck shut as the pleasure continued, evincing small moans from her as each touch brought another pulse. Her wings, her back, her feet… there was nowhere the warmth of that touch didn’t travel up and down her body. She vaguely noticed, as she swam closer to full consciousness, that the ground was hard and cool and unevenly pointed underneath her. The touches, by contrast, were warm and soft and zinged with pleasure. She prickled with pain everywhere, as well, but the touches made the pain recede and layered over a soothing blanket of pleasure on top.
The heat of those touches lasted long after the source had moved on to other places.
Finally, she felt air pulling sharply into her lungs, dragging her awake enough to blink open her eyes and squint at the figure holding her hand, palm up.
Leksander.
She struggled to lift up from the rocky ledge she was lying on. It was the weigh station outside the House of Smoke. How in all the Dominions did she get here?
Leksander let go of her hand, but then he cupped both her cheeks in his large, warm hands. She managed to sit up, but he held her like that, eyes shining, a smile broad across his face, as he flushed that same pleasure into her, the kind that mingled her angel power with his dragon and fae magic. It was like when they kissed before—that one time which she vowed never to repeat—only this time her mouth hung open, her entire body buzzed, and she was breathless with him just holding her skin-to-skin on her face. The flush on his cheeks, the dilation of his eyes—she could see them so wide and ice-blue with him this close—all of it said he felt this strange magical connection, too. The one that was coiling a tight knot of need deep in her belly.
Then, suddenly, he released her.
She nearly toppled over to the ground.
He braced her by grabbing her upper arms and holding her upright. “Whoa,” he said. “Maybe you should lie back down.”
Lie down? With Leksander? He meant it literally, not figuratively, as in having sexual contact, but her body was pulsing with his magic everywhere. Lying down seemed precipitously unwise, like jumping off a cliff when your wings were clipped and hoping you will not crash at the bottom.
“I am fine.” She waved off his touch then noticed her own arm. It was flushed pink, like his cheeks, and a memory poked at her. The burns. They were gone. She looked up at Leksander with wide eyes.
“I’ve been healing you,” he said, a little breathless. “It took awhile.” He didn’t seem like he minded—almost the opposite. Like he was apologizing for enjoying it so much.
Erelah inched away from him, protectively gaining distance, lest she ask him to keep “healing” her more with those gentle touches. But that small movement made his expression pinch in, like it was causing him pain.
“Thank you,” she rushed out, holding a hand out to reassure him but then bringing it back in before he might touch her. “Thank you for healing me.” She had to be swimming in fae and dragon magic now. As she checked her wings, which were still extended, and her legs and arms, every last burn was gone, but there were still smears of Leksander’s blood. How much did he use to heal her?
He was sitting on his heels, kneeling in front of her, waiting. Patient.
Then she remembered. “The queen. How did you…” She frowned, hard. What did Leksander do to gain her freedom? And why did he come for her? She was afraid she knew all too well the reason, if not the exact method.
“I convinced the queen to let you go.” His eyes were dancing with a held-in laugh, as if it were a joke about which only he and the queen were privy.
Her heart ached with that thought, and it truly shouldn’t. She shouldn’t try to keep Leksander apart from the queen, even though she was fae. Erelah dropped her gaze to the rocky ground next to her folded-up legs. “The queen has love of you.” When he didn’t respond, she looked up. “What did you give her to secure my release?” she couldn’t help asking, even though she didn’t want to know, not really.
He smiled, and it seemed full of genuine pleasure. Maybe all the light touches had affected him, too. “I convinced her to pursue her own True Love.”
She frowned again. “But she wished you to love her. She would do anything for it.”
“She’s not the one I love, Erelah.”
Then she had to look away. Because his eyes lit up as he said that. Because this had all gone wrong. She was supposed to fly away, go into seclusion, have her Penance… not ruin any chance Leksander had with the summer queen. He wasn’t supposed to rescue her. Or heal her. Or look upon her like he wished a repeat of that dangerous kiss in the throne room of his keep.
“Erelah,” he said, and suddenly his voice was closer. He had moved to sit in front of her, legs also crossed. Their knees nearly touched—hers were bare, but his were safely covered by his trousers. She had a new and deep appreciation for why humans and dragons wore such substantial clothing. When any exposed skin could be cause for such pleasureful contact…
He dipped his head to catch her gaze. “I convinced Nyssa to go after her own True Love because that’s what it took to get you out of there. She told me that love was all that really mattered in the end, and she was right. But somehow, she hadn’t seen the True Love that was right in her own Court all along.”
Erelah winced because it wasn’t hard, not with that look on his face, to know his meaning. “I know you have love of me, Leksander, but—”
“But you can’t love me. I know.” He was still smiling, gently, at her.
Her eyes widened. “Then why did you…” She gestured with empty hands at the healing he had done to her body, the very idea that he would risk himself, his House, and the treaty, all to save her from a Penance she deserved.
“Why did I rescue you?” he asked, his smile growing. “Why did I risk the wrath of a fae queen just to get you out of there? Why did I heal every wound on your body that I could find?” His smile settled into a soft smirk. Then he picked up her hand, which was lying in her lap, and stroked her fingers with his thumb. That same rush of pleasure moved through them then rippled through her body, singing with all the other recently healed spots which held his dragon and fae magic. They were like a choir all around her body, trilling together. “I’ll admit that I was probably more thorough on the healing than necessary,” he said. “This feeling when I touch you, Erelah… it intoxicates me.” He breathed out the last words.
She gasped and drew her hand away.
Again, that look of disappointment on his face made her want to reach out to him.
“I understand,” he said, even though sadness was laced in this voice. “You tried to tell me before, but I didn’t really get it. Tajael explained. How you’ve never had someone love you before. Not even your own mother. You were taken away to live with Angels, and my love for you has to be strange. And overwhelming. And possibly something you’ll never understand.” He leaned forward, getting closer to her, but clasping his hands so she needn’t fear he might touch her again. “But the reason I needed so save you from Nyssa’s grasp has nothing to do with whether you will love me or not… and entirely to do with the fact that I love you.”
Erelah just blinked. Her heart lurched and then raced, trying to run away from the love that was plain in Leksander’s eyes. She couldn’t deny he felt it—that was truth, and she was committed to truth in all things—but she could dispute the wisdom. Dissuade him so he would find someone who could mate with him.
“We cannot… this isn’t something that can work, Leksander,” she said, trying her hardest to be gentle because she didn’t want to see that look of disappointment or pain on his face again. Ever. “How can we be sure the mating is even possible? Would you seal me with your mark? What if an angeling cannot be sealed?”
He seemed to fight a smile, but she was dead serious. “I’ve just infused you with enough dragon blood that I’m pretty sure you’re half dragon already.”
She scowled. “I am not.”
His grin broke out. “We can change that.”
“I am serious, Leksander.”
The smile fell away from his face. “So am I.”
That intense look on his face felt almost as powerful as the touch of his healing hands. She looked away again, flicking at a pebble on the rocky ground near her knee. “Even if we could mate, how can we make a baby between dragons and angels?” She looked back at him, giving her best serious expression. Because all depended on this. “I’ve seen how hard it is for a human to bring a dragonling to term. How much harder for a baby with such disparate forces? The angel and fae within it would fight, constantly.”
He edged forward again, letting his hands fall close to her knees, but not touching. “Rosalyn carried a demon for almost the entire term. And she was only a witch. You’re an angel.”
“Half angel,” she said, annoyed that he wrenched that out of her.
He smiled, gently. “And your human half will be strengthened by your angel power. If your mother could carry you, Erelah, I’m convinced you could carry a child of mine.”
He spoke the words with such tenderness and conviction, it threatened to tear her in two. “But… but…” Air was becoming difficult to force into her lungs. “But the baby—what would it be? Fae and angel and dragonling? What about the treaty? Would this hybrid baby be enough for—”
