“No. I can’t leave yet, but you have to. He’ll destroy you if you stay.”
The wind picked up, tangling her hair around us as I fixed my gaze on hers and realized she was determined to see this through.
“Deva, no. Whatever Ouranos wants with you, it isn’t worth it.”
“He wants me, Ozzie. I have to let him believe he has me, if I’m going to beat him. He wants me whole, and he’s counted on you making it up here to get to me. He threatened to kill you if you go any farther. I won’t let him hurt you.”
“You won’t let . . .” I choked out an astonished laugh. “Deva, losing you is the only thing that can hurt me. Haven’t you figured that out yet? I knew that night we made love the first time that it would destroy me. That’s why I made the request to have my memory wiped if I ever lost you. I couldn’t survive in a world where you didn’t exist. I can’t survive.”
“You won’t lose me if this works. Please let me do this the way it needs to be done. Make love to me here. Then go. Please.”
She slipped her arms around my shoulders, and for the first time I realized she was as naked as I was.
I hated the idea of leaving her to best a god on her own, especially a god as brutal and relentless as Ouranos, but I wouldn’t leave her without making her whole first.
27
Ozzie
I pulled Deva close, cradling the back of her head. She tilted her face up to mine as her body melted against me, every inch of my skin lighting on fire where we touched. The wind that blew around us was as warm as her skin and her breath on my mouth. It was my power surrounding us, not the god’s ambient magic, and I pushed it closer, wrapping us in a cocoon of air as I laid her down and bent my head to her throat.
I peppered slow kisses down her neck and over her collarbone, flashes of our first time repeating over and over in my mind as I moved. Deva arched into my touch, sighing and tangling her fingers in my hair as I took one of her nipples in my mouth and sucked.
My insides thrummed with a hungry ache. The need to do this had lived inside me for so long it had become a constant, nagging itch that I was finally going to be able to scratch.
She tugged lightly on my hair and I glanced up, meeting her eyes and the desperate look within. She didn’t speak, but I understood her urgency didn’t stem as much from need as it did her fear of the god.
I growled, hating that I couldn’t take my time, but I knew better than to risk both our lives by pissing off Ouranos.
I kissed her again, rougher this time, my anger at our timeline bleeding into my actions in a way I couldn’t help. But Deva responded in kind, raking her nails over my shoulders as she wrapped her legs around me and pressed her hot, slick core against my throbbing shaft.
The air currents buoyed us, wrapping around us like invisible blankets, and I had room to slip my arm beneath her back and hold her while I tilted my hips. Her breathing was ragged, her body hot and her beautiful, spicy scent inundating the pocket of wind circulating around us.
I would have happily drowned in that scent, and inhaled her deeply as I pushed into her. I let out a long groan of pleasure as I sank in until I bottomed out, and she threw her head back with a rough cry.
Deva clung to my shoulders for leverage, holding on as she rocked her hips against mine. We were floating in air as dense as cotton, supported by magic as I buried myself in her delicious depths, amazed at how I’d ever not been able to instantly love her in the middle of an experience this amazing.
But the man I’d been the day before had been broken, carrying a curse by a god who could never know love. I was back, and all my love had had time to mature within the confines of my trapped memories. It was more potent now than ever, and I was more than ready to give it all to her.
The cushion of wind magic surrounding us afforded little leverage, and before I knew it, she had spun us, staring down at me as she pumped her hips on my cock. Tears streamed unchecked down her cheeks, but she was smiling. I offered her a perplexed smile in return and sat up, commanding the air around us into a tighter hold to support me.
I wrapped my arms around her and met her rocking hips with rhythmic thrusts, my breathing coming quicker now, and Deva clung to my shoulders, her full breasts gliding up and down my chest as she moved.
“I love you,” she whispered in my ear. “Breathe with me.”
My heart gave a heavy, excited thud, and I pulled back and looked into her eyes. She was flushed and breathless, her throat working over words that wouldn’t come. She didn’t just want the piece of my soul that had been torn from her—she wanted all of me.
She could have me. In many ways, she’d had me all along, despite never taking this final step of sharing breath in a turul mating ritual.
I found my voice finally and began the chant. “Boreas breathes for us. We breathe for each other.”
She joined me and then we closed the distance, sealing our mouths together. I took her in first, reveling in the brilliant prismatic power of her chimera’s breath filling my lungs. Then I returned my own lungful of the West Wind’s magic.
We parted on a gasp, the pleasure rising in us from our mingled magic. The next verse became a song spilling from her lips, and I sang with her.
“Notos breathes for us. We breathe for each other.”
I wondered if the Winds themselves were here in spirit—the four demigods who had all found their own love thanks to Deva, despite being fathered by a god devoid of it.
We called to all four of them with a song, repeating the verses twice while we made love and shared our breath, binding not only our bodily essences, but our magic too. Being inside her again with my love returned was every bit as intense as the first time, but in a way more desperate for the urgency to finish, yet still honor the value of the bond.
But when the ritual was done, I couldn’t hold back. I slid my hands up her back and cupped the back of her head, fixing my gaze on hers. Her breathing was synced with mine, our bodies in perfect rhythm as she continued to rock, her wet heat more heavenly than I remembered.
“I love you so much,” I managed to whisper just as the ecstasy overwhelmed me. I groaned into the half-kiss we shared, unable to seal over our orgasmic cries, but still needing to share one last breath.
I knew the moment my soul broke free from the flash of wonder in her eyes. Her skin grew luminous, rippling with different textures from scales, to fur, to feathers. Iridescent horns jutted from her temples, sprouting into forks, then twisting into elaborate coils before stopping at brilliant, razor-sharp tips. Wings erupted from her shoulders, webbed like a dragon’s, but feathered on the backs when I stroked my hands over them in wonder.
Deva shivered and arched her neck for my lips, and when I darted out my tongue, she tasted of earth and fire, sea and sky. Brilliant agony scored my shoulders, and I gasped as she raked sharp claws through my skin.
She seemed to come to her senses a little then, and her eyes widened. She jerked her hands away, holding them up to reveal bloody talons. I grabbed her wrists and shook my head.
“Mark me,” I said. “Make me yours forever. I want all you can give me.”
Still rocking against my hips, riding out the last waves of climax, she dipped her head to press a light kiss against the tattoo on my chest.
Her tongue flicked out, searing my skin and slicing deep enough to make me bleed. Tears stung my eyes from the pain, but I loved it more for that agony. I wanted to be bound to every part of her, not just the part I had given of myself already.
When she finished etching my skin, she leaned back, her lips tinted red with my blood.
“Your turn,” she said.
I frowned, not quite sure what she meant. I’d seen her endure mishaps that should have caused injuries and didn’t, demonstrating how impervious she was to damage. She couldn’t bleed, so a complete blood meld was impossible.
“What are you doing?” I asked when she lifted her index finger to her mouth and a razor-sharp talon emerged from th
e tip.
“Sharing all of me with you,” she said.
She exhaled a flame that licked along the talon until it glowed with prismatic light, then touched the very tip to the side of her neck. With the slightest stroke, she cut into her own flesh. Blood welled, and I stared, dumbfounded, as it trickled over her throat.
Her soft fingertips on my cheek brought me to my senses. I wondered if it would even work, but the wild nymph who’d tied me up so recently was certainly capable of completing a blood meld as much as Llyr had been.
I licked my lips and bent my head, touching my tongue to the cut gingerly at first. Deva tilted to the side, sighing softly when I covered her skin with my lips and drank her in. She tasted like nothing that had ever crossed my tongue. The magic that filled her was both spicy and sweet, with a tang that betrayed the potent power she now held inside.
It made my cock harden again inside her, and I groaned with fresh need. She began to move again, undulating her hips in a hypnotic rhythm as I continued to drink her blood, unable to stop.
I was drowning in the euphoria of all that delicious power. Eventually the urgency of her movements demanded that I respond and I tilted her back, pinning her to a cloud of my magic and driving into her. I forced my mouth away from her neck and kissed her instead, groaning at the flavor of my own life’s blood on her lips.
Deva’s core clutched at me so tight I couldn’t last, but she was already crying out in rapture, the sound reverberating not just through the air, but within my mind. Her pleasure echoed through my body, sending me over just as quickly.
I pulled her into my arms as I rolled, not wanting to simply collapse on top of her. We lay suspended in the air atop the roof, legs tangled with her head on my shoulder.
In the few moments it took us to catch our breath, the tension of our impending parting drew taut. She let out a shaky sigh and looked up into my eyes.
“Turn over so I can seal your wounds.”
“You don’t need to heal me. I can manage it fine when I shift.”
She quirked her lips. “I know you can, but you’ll lose the marks if I don’t observe the ursa tradition. You need our mixed fertile essence to have that bond sealed.”
I was perhaps a little slower than normal after having two world-shattering orgasms, so it took another second for her words to sink in. I rolled over and braced myself for her touch on the wounds she’d gouged into my shoulders. I had wished for marks, after all.
Those bloody furrows stung as she used both hands to spread our mixed essence over them, but it wasn’t as painful as I’d expected. Within moments a cool tingle spread across my back, and when her touch disappeared, the pain was entirely gone.
I rolled back over and shifted my shoulders experimentally.
“Keagan might get jealous if he sees those,” she warned with a smile.
“He’ll live,” I said. I sat up and rested my forearms on my bent knees, looking down at her. “You don’t have to do this alone. I can come with you.”
“It has to be me. Only me,” she said. “I know how to deal with him. At least I think I do. Now that I have my power, I will figure out the rest. Go back to the others. Tell them I love them.”
Her voice shook and my heart ached. I didn’t like the sense of finality in her tone.
“You don’t owe Fate anything,” I said. “This is not your battle.”
“It is mine. This is the fight I have to win to become who I am meant to be. Fate may not have been kind to me, or to the bloodline, but that doesn’t give me the right to turn my back on it, and an entire race of creatures who will fall victim to Ouranos’ whim if I don’t fight—your race, Ozzie. And how long until he finds a way to take it out on the others? The gods want me to do this. Not just Fate.”
“Since when do the gods care what tortures one of their number wreaks on the higher races?”
Deva stared at me for a moment, and within our new blood meld, I sensed the indecision inside her. She had a secret she hesitated to share. But why? What could be so terrible she couldn’t tell me? I reached deeper into our bond, but she pulled away.
Shaking her head, she said, “Because he wants to create a new race using me as his broodmare. The gods don’t want a whole race as powerful as I am that is also loyal to him. But the only way to stop him is to let him have me. Fate is his captive now, but it’s no longer about Fate’s agenda. We all need Ouranos brought to heel.”
A chill spiked into my gut. The fucking gods were involved now? And it sounded like they were throwing her to the wolves.
“No, Deva. I’ll go back, but we’ll find a way inside past Ouranos’ wards. We’ll come for you somehow. Now that you and I are mated, we’ll be stronger.”
She blanched and shook her head. “Please don’t. Please trust me, all right? Fate wouldn’t be able to kill you, but I don’t know what Ouranos is capable of. Promise me you’ll let me finish this on my own.”
I wanted to reject her plea with every fiber of my being. Whether it was fear of losing her or a lack of belief in her abilities, I wasn’t sure. I’d spent the last year focusing all this energy on protecting her; perhaps it was merely habit that made it so difficult for me to finally, grudgingly nod.
“Fine, but I’m not just sitting on my ass waiting for you. Find a way to give us a sign if you need us.”
Deva cupped my cheek, stroking her thumb across the day’s growth of stubble there. Her breath hitched and she gave me a smile, her eyes glinting.
“We’re blood melded now. I think you’ll know if I’m in trouble.”
Her promise only let me relax a little, but I could sense her need to see me away from this castle before Ouranos caught wind of my presence. We’d probably already spent too long together.
I stood and let the magic cocoon of air flow away from us. The chill of the storm surrounding us replaced it instantly, tangling violently through our hair and stealing our breath.
I bent and kissed her once more, gritting my teeth against the desire to grab her and simply dive off the edge of the tower, trusting that Llyr or Rohan would catch us if we were struck unconscious by the lightning.
Reluctantly I released her, hating the sense of dread coiling in my bowels as I pulled away. I launched myself into the sky, shifting the instant my feet left the roof. I made a wide arc overhead, crying out my love to her as I circled once, then dove through the clouds, dodging lightning bolts as I plummeted, my wings held tight against my sides.
Once I was clear of the danger, I spread my wings again and let the heaviness in my heart pull me back to the ground.
* * *
A haze of frustration and despair clouded my vision, and when I first landed, I thought nothing of the silence. But as I shifted back to my human form, I realized it was far too quiet.
I swept my gaze over the field, worried I’d miscalculated my position and landed some distance away from the others, but my clothes were in the same heap I’d left them in. Llyr’s and Rohan’s were there too.
But they hadn’t returned, though they should have been down here waiting for me for at least an hour. My bond to Llyr had taken a backseat to Deva’s presence in my mind all the way down. He’d been unconscious the last time I saw him, and I’d been too preoccupied with my reunion with her to even think about the others.
I forced some semblance of calm to my mind and focused, found the thread of my bond with Llyr, and tugged. He didn’t respond, but he was there, somewhere . . . above?
My gaze shot to the sky again, eyes wide. The clouds were beginning to dissipate, and when they disappeared, so would Ouranos’ castle, fading back into whatever stormy dimension it occupied when the skies were clear.
And with it, all the people I loved.
I tore back into the sky in a mad rush to reach the castle before it was gone again. The clouds were already thinning into wispy mist when I hit the bottom edge, but were thankfully still somewhat dense and darker the farther I climbed.
Finally I reached the el
ectricity-charged air surrounding the castle walls and flew inward until I reached the dark stone.
There were no ledges to land on, save for the walkway around the roof. The tower was nothing more than an impenetrable cylinder soaring high into the sky, an appropriate monument to a god as ruthlessly brutal to every female who had ever crossed his path.
I trusted Deva to know her strength, and I knew she hadn’t lied to me about what she needed to do. But I had also counted on having backup to come to her rescue if she called. If the others had somehow been captured when they left me, I had to get to them. We were stronger together. Just as Deva needed all of us to complete her soul, the five of us needed each other to be complete.
I couldn’t risk flying through the storm again to reach the roof, though. My energy was flagging, and if I was clumsy enough to be struck by lightning, I would never get to them in time.
With the last dregs of magic inside me, I circled away to gain some distance, then flew directly at the stone wall. I focused all my power on my link to Llyr, and in the split-second before collision, I drifted straight into the belly of the beast.
28
Deva
My bittersweet farewell to Ozzie left me with a painful burn in my chest. The magic thrumming inside my lungs couldn’t overpower the desire to curl into a ball and cry.
I watched him fly away, that new piece of my soul reverberating inside me with the growing distance. They were all too far away for comfort, yet also too close. I didn’t like their proximity to Ouranos’ castle. The closer they were, the easier it would be for him to sense them, to capture them and use them to make me agree to his abominable plan.
The wind acquired a strangely rhythmic resonance, like voices calling just outside my range of comprehension. I closed my eyes and tried to focus, my skin tingling with a swell of power that had a different quality than the electricity permeating the air around me. I climbed higher to stand at the very peak of the rooftop, the slate hard and jagged under my bare feet.
Fate's Fools Box Set Page 120
