─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
"I love her. And that's the beginning and end of everything."
─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
RHYS'S EYES darted between where I stood and the soup as he consumed every spoonful.
When he was done, he set down the spoon.
"Aren't you going to say anything?" he asked at last.
I angled my head, studying him. "The way I see it," I took a single, slow step toward him, "you have two options. The first, I go through my dreadfully tragic story and eventually get to the decision I made before you even got here." another step toward him. "The second, I skip to the conclusion, and tell you that I love you and have for a long while now." I raised my brows. "I suggest you choose the latter, but the decision's yours nonetheless."
Three words. Eight letters. A sentence.
I had never said it before. Not to anyone other than my sisters. Not to Astrid or Fynn or Kai. Not to my father or mother.
To me, I love you was a death sentence from my mouth. And yet the words came easy then.
Right. They felt right.
I stood in front of Rhys then, reaching up a hand to cup his cheek while I brushed away his tears with my thumb. Wiped them away and hoped I never saw them again.
"Say it again." he breathed.
I smiled, aware of every breath, every movement, I sat in his lap. His hands gently braced my hips as I studied his face. "I love you, Rhysand. I will until I am a mere whisper of darkness between the stars."
I'd never felt so certain about anything in my life.
He looked as though he were in pain. Like this—I would disappear at any moment. He exhaled, his eyes glistening again. "I don't deserve you." he shook his head, though unable to look away from my gaze. "I have spent my entire life longing for this and I do not regret it a moment of it. My world has been upturned and I couldn't be more happy..." he brought up his hand, so very gently placing it onto my cheek as though I was going to break under his touch. As though I was forged from glass, about to shatter at any given moment. "And yet, I am afraid...that my love will terrify you."
Too much pain and sorrow in his life that he was afraid such a beautiful thing would scare me.
I did not answer for a moment. Looking into Rhys's eyes and watching as the truth swayed within them. Dancing to a deadly rhythm. It was only then did I say quietly, "I have faced evils and death, I have gone to great cities and seen beautiful sights, been to dozens of worlds and seen all they have to offer." I rasped, "And...I do not think I have ever been happier than in this moment." I said, my words a soft sound as I caressed his cheek. "You are my sun, my moon, and all of my stars, Rhys. And I would not have it any other way."
His arms wrapped around me, and he placed his forehead on my shoulder, his body shaking. I stroked a hand through his silken hair.
"I love you." I said again, the words flowing from my mouth as though that was what they had been made for. "And I'd endure every second of it over again so I could find you. When war comes, we'll face it. Together. I won't let them take me from you. Nor will I let them take you from me."
Rhys looked up, his face gleaming with tears. He went still as I leaned in, kissing away one tear. Then the other. As he had once kissed away mine.
I pulled back far enough to see his eyes, "You are mine."
Rhys shuddered, leaning his head forward as his lips found mine. It was gentle—soft. The kiss he might have given me if we'd been granted time and peace to meet across our two separate worlds. "I am yours. Always."
My lips melded with his, desperation growing within me with each passing second. Breath was nonexistent, all there was, was this. Everything. The entirety of joy and bliss compiled into one single moment.
Rhys stopped, though he didn't pull away as he said against my lips. "You're mine."
I took a breath, something like lightning racing through my veins as I breathed out. "I am yours. Forever."
Us. This.
My love for him is boundless.
Constant. Deathless. Eternal. Infinite. Limitless. Unbroken. Undying. Unfathomable.
And without end.
Everything. My love for him was everything.
"Always and Forever, Rhys." I muttered, my hands running along his chest, tracing the black markings I knew to be beneath his shirt. I had spent days thinking of those markings, finding them in my mind as I memorized every line.
"Always and Forever, Danika." he echoed.
And then he kissed me again. And again. I slid my arms around his shoulders, opening my mouth to him, and his tongue slipped in, caressing my own. Mate—my mate.
He hardened against me, and I groaned into his mouth.
The sound snapped whatever leash he'd had on himself, and Rhysand scooped me up in a smooth movement before laying me flat on the table—amongst and on top of the paints.
He deepened the kiss, and I wrapped my legs around his back, hooking him closer. He tore his lips from my mouth to my neck, where he dragged his teeth and tongue down my skin as his hands slid under my shirt and went up, up, to cup my breasts. I arched into the touch, and lifted my arms as he peeled away the long-sleeve in one easy motion.
Rhys pulled back to survey me, my body naked from the waist up. Paint soaked into my hair, my arms, likely of the turquoise that had spilled. But all I could think of was his mouth as it lowered to my breast and sucked, his tongue flicking against my nipple.
I plunged my fingers into his hair, tugging lightly and he groaned. Rhys braced a hand beside my head—smack atop a small puddle of paint. He let out a low laugh, and I watched, my gaze heated, as he took that hand and traced a circle around my breast, then lower, until he painted a downward arrow just beneath my navel.
"Lest you forget where this is going to end."
My mouth parted as my lips ticked up a fraction, I ground against him with a smirk, and his eyes guttered shut, face twisting as though it took every ounce of restraint not to yield.
Raising my head so that my lips were so close to his ear that as I spoke my mouth grazed against his skin. "It's not me that needs reminding." I said, "You're the one teasing, Rhys."
He groaned, leaning down as he kissed just below my ear. "Patience," he murmured.
"Cruel." I replied, he laughed again, his mouth finding my other breast. He ground his hips against me, teasing—teasing me so horribly that I had to touch him, had to just feel more of him. There was paint all over my hands, my arms, but I didn't care as I grabbed at his clothes. He shifted enough to let me remove them, weapons and leather thudding to the ground, revealing that beautiful tattooed body, the powerful muscles and wings now peeking above them.
My mate.
His mouth crashed into mine, his bare skin warm against my own, he pulled back for a single moment but my hand shot out, gripping his chin as I pulled his mouth back to mine. I gripped his face, smearing paint there, too. Smearing paint in his hair, until great steaks of blue and green ran through it. His hands found my waist, and I raised my hips off the table fluidly to help him remove my pants.
Rhys pulled back again, and the protest that near escaped my lips was cut off with a slight gasp as he gripped my thighs and yanked me to the edge of the table, through paints and brushes and cups of water, hooked my legs over his shoulders to rest n either side of those wings, and knelt before me.
Knelt on those stars and mountains inked on his knees. He would bow for no one and nothing—
But his mate. His equal.
Damn right.
The first lick of Rhysand's tongue set me on fire.
I want you splayed out on the table like my own personal feast.
He groaned his approval at my moan, my taste, and unleashed himself entirely.
A hand pinning me to the table, he worked in great sweeping strokes. And when his tongue slid inside me, I gripped the edge of the table behind my head, my first clenching around the edge as I tried to hold reality.
He licked and kissed his way up to the apex of my thighs, just as his fingers replaced where his mouth had been, pumping inside me as he sucked, teeth scraping ever so slightly—
I arched off the table as my climax shattered through me, splintering my consciousness into a million pieces. He kept licking me, fingers still moving. "Rhys." I rasped.
Now. I wanted him now.
And I was not good at relinquishing control.
My hand curved around his neck, pulling him up until my face was level with his. And in a motion too fast for him to detect, my legs wrapped around his torso, flipping him so that our positions were reversed.
I straddled him, listening to the sweet sound that escaped his lips as my mouth pressed against the soft column of his neck. Peppering soft, teasing kisses in places I knew would send fire racing through him.
I kissed down and down, my mouth and tongue tracing his tattoos—his skin in long, slow motions. Teasing just as he did to me.
I trailed back up his body, my lips stopping just below his ear as my teeth grazed it. Nipping at the lobe just barely.
And then we were flipped again. My back once more pressing against the table. Rhys looked me over, naked, covered in paint, his own face and body smeared with it, and gave me a slow, satisfied male smile. "You're mine." he snarled, and hefted me up into his arms.
I wanted the wall—I wanted him to just take me against the wall, but he carried me into the room and set me down on the bed with a heartbreaking gentleness.
Wholly naked, I watched as he unbuttoned his pants, and the considerable length of him sprang free. My mouth went dry. I wanted him. I wanted him so gods damned badly it was embarrassing. Wanted to claw at him until our souls were forged together.
He didn't say anything as he came over me, wings tucked in tight. He'd never gone to bed with a female while his wings were out. But I was his mate. He would only yield for me and I would only yield for him.
I wanted to touch him.
I leaned up, reaching a hand over his shoulder to caress the powerful curve of his wing. My nail lightly grazing it.
Rhys shuddered and I watched his cock twitch. "Play later." he ground out.
Indeed.
His mouth found mine, the kiss open and deep, a clash of tongues and teeth. He lay me down on the pillow, and I locked my legs around his back, careful of the wings.
Though I stopped caring as he nudged my entrance. And paused.
"Don't be a tease." I breathed.
Rhys laughed in a way that skittered along my bones, and slid in. And in. And in.
I could hardly breath, hardly think beyond where our bodies joined. He stilled inside me, and I opened my eyes to see him staring at me. "Say it again."
I knew what he meant.
"You're mine." I breathed. "Always and forever."
Rhys pulled out slightly and thrust back in slow. Torturously slow. Sweet pain. Glorious agony.
"You're mine."
Again, he pulled out, then thrust in.
"You're mine."
Again—faster, deeper this time.
I felt it then, the bond between us, like an unbreakable chain, like an undimmable ray of light. For us and us only. A secret. A treasure.
This is what it felt like. Love. Assurance. I had never truly felt either in this way and now that I had it, I felt as though I could not get enough. Could not understand how I had lived without it. This lifeline.
With each pounding stroke the bond grew clearer and brighter and stronger. "You're mine." I whispered, dragging my hands through his hair, down his back, across his wings.
I moved my hips in time with his. He kissed me over and over, and both of our faces turned damp. Every inch of me burned and tightened, and my control slipped entirely as he whispered. "I love you."
Release tore through my body, and he pounded into me, hard and fast, drawing out my pleasure until I felt and saw and smelled that bond between us, until our scents merged, and I was his and he was mine, and we were beginning, middle, and end. We were a song that had been sung from the very first ember of the world. A melody born from stars and darkness.
The world quaked around us as I lost my grip on my magic. As reality fell away and all I knew was pleasure and need. Though the world was a mere speck of dust compared to the might of my power.
Rhys roared as he came, slamming in to the hilt. Outside, the mountains trembled, as though his magic answered the question of my own. The remaining snow rushing from them, only to be swallowed up by the night below.
Stars and darkness. Sun and moon. Yin and yang. Opposites in all ways.
Silence fell, interrupted only by our panting breaths.
I took his paint-smeared face between my own colorful hands and made him look at me.
His eyes were radiant like the stars. Shining and shining and illuminating all the darkness inside me and chasing it away.
I smiled at Rhys as I let that mating bond shine just as bright between us.
A/N: The urge to have Rhys say: "...gOoD SoUp..."
I was gonna have Rhys not roar, but honestly, would it really be Rhys if he didn't? Yes, it would be great if he wasn't a lion or some mountain cat, but it's kinda his staple ya know?