I woke wrapped in his arms the next morning, his heat surrounding me and enveloping me in a cocoon of sheer comfort. Even the
bedroll beneath my body seemed more comfortable than the lumpy, straw- stuffed mattress I slept on in my home. It was the bed that had belonged to my parents, before my father died and my mother spent her nights sleeping in her chair.
Caelum’s stomach was pressed into my spine, his long, muscular arm draped over my waist and stretching up toward my neck, nestled into the valley between my breasts, shoving my dress against my skin to get there. His hand rested against my heart, feeling it beat against him as he held me tightly to his body.
I sighed, letting my eyes drift closed once more and enjoying the rare comfort of waking up next to him. He’d always been up and moving before me, letting me have a few more moments of precious sleep while he got ready for the day’s travel and found us food.
There was no need for that in the tunnels, though; not with food only a short walk away and the lodging more permanent than the caves we’d sought refuge in.
He pressed himself tighter to me in his sleep, his fingers splaying out over my chest and the tips of them brushing over the base of my throat. The bite he’d left me with the night before seemed to throb in awareness, tingling alongside the Fae Mark that contradicted the claiming mark he’d given me.
He groaned, the deep sound bringing a flush to my cheeks as the length of him pressed into my ass in time with that near-growl. “Good morning, my star,” he said, using his nose to brush the hair away from the side of my neck. He lingered over the bruise, drawing in a deep breath of me as he moved his hand closer to my face. His fingers curled around the front of my throat, tipping my head back so he could get a better angle to lick my bruise. “Aren’t you going to say good morning?” His lips tipped up against my skin, the arrogance of his voice sending a shiver through me.
The man knew damn well how much he was tormenting me, even while he barely touched me. Even with layers of clothing between us, I clenched my thighs together to stop the burn he created so easily.
“Good morning, Caelum,” I sighed, my voice coming out far breathier than I’d intended. I’d given in to what I wanted, admitted that the feelings between us stretched both ways, but still I felt the need to hide just how far that want went.
I still didn’t know how to walk the line between being a lady and being the new me; between embracing all that had been forbidden and being too forward. Nothing in my life had prepared me for Caelum.
“Rise and shine!” a voice called from the commons, disrupting the moment while I tried to find a way to communicate what I needed from him. What I wanted more than anything was to feel alive, for even just a few moments, and to remind myself that I hadn’t died back with Brann. The future sprawled in front of me, just waiting for me to find my place in the world.
He sighed, hanging his head farther until his breath tickled my skin. Then he stood, moving to the corner and cleaning his teeth quickly with one of the small brushes and paste they’d provided for us. I followed, doing the same as I tugged on my boots, and immediately felt grateful for how much more human it made me feel to have a clean mouth.
We emerged into the hallway as soon as that was done, walking down it somewhat hesitantly as we followed the small crowd of people who’d been given private rooms. I clutched Caelum’s hand in mine, all my previous fighting words about going my own way during the day forgotten in the face of Jensen’s thoughts of how I should spend my days, serving the men.
I didn’t know what my strength would be in my new life, but I wanted it to be more than what the world would have assigned to me. I wanted to be more than a thing for men to use.
“I’ll look after Estrella,” Melian said, stepping up to us as we emerged into the commons. “You go with Jensen to the training rooms.”
The other man gave me a cursory nod before he turned away, waiting for Caelum to follow. Caelum pulled the dagger from his thigh sheath, handing it to me meaningfully. “Make sure you aim for the throat,” he said, leaning down to touch his lips to mine briefly before he sighed and followed after the one man he now probably wanted to kill.
“He’s feeling extra stabby this morning,” Melian said, nodding her head as she started walking down the tunnel toward the center of the mountain.
“He wasn’t fond of Jensen pushing for me to become a Lady of the Night yesterday,” I said, following at her heels. “I can fight. I may not be Caelum, but I disarmed two of your men.”
She paused mid-step and turned to stare at me with a sigh of frustration. “Jensen shouldn’t have said anything. We don’t have Ladies of the Night here, and we certainly don’t pressure women into becoming them. We have a few women who offer such services because they enjoy it, but it isn’t a shameful position, as it is above the surface. They’re respected positions. The women have private rooms, for obvious reasons. They’re pampered, and while I completely understand wanting a different life for yourself, one which isn’t dictated by your pretty face and the men who want to fuck it, you should know what you’re turning down.” She resumed her pace, leaving me to follow after her. “You would never have to leave the safety of the tunnels. You would never have to expose yourself to danger.”
“Even if I wanted a life of pampering like that, my relationship with Caelum would never allow it. It was an insult to him to ignore that. I’d rather be a fighter,” I explained.
“I think some distance between you and Caelum might be beneficial. You’re too attached. The Fae don’t just Mark our bodies with their mate bond. They steal our hearts. We’re not capable of the kind of life we might have had before them, and if he ever were to encounter his Fae on a mission above-ground, he would be unable to resist the call of her. As would you be, if you were to encounter your mate.
“Between the potential of the two of you finding your true mates and the very real possibility that death will take him away from you, I say this with your best interest in mind, Estrella.” She paused to take my hands in hers. They were as cold as ice, despite the warmth of the air surrounding us, and her intense gray eyes stared down at me as she tried to compel me to
see the logic of her words, but my heart didn’t care about logic as she continued speaking.
“Play with him. Take him for a spin or ten; nobody would blame you. Our ways are much more fluid than above ground. We don’t save ourselves for some archaic concept of uniting two people in the eyes of the Gods. We try to discourage romantic entanglements with the Fae Marked now, for the benefit of everyone involved. Sex can just be sex, and you’re more than welcome to enjoy as many of the men here as you like. I guarantee the other girls will be looking to take Caelum for a spin.”
Jealousy thrummed through me, all-consuming and overwhelming with the constant reminder of what the other women in the tunnels would do to throw themselves at the man I already believed was too good for me.
“You’re wrong,” I said, my voice stumbling as if I wasn’t quite certain if I was trying to convince myself or her. “I have feelings for him. Strong feelings. That wouldn’t be possible if what you are saying were true.”
“Just guard your heart. This will only end in heartbreak, if you continue down this path.” She guided me further into the mountain, leaving the hustle and bustle of the busy community behind us in favor of the warmer central tunnels. I didn’t acknowledge her words that my relationship with Caelum would end in heartbreak. How could I argue against them when I’d thought them myself time and time again?
Caelum would ruin me. He’d tear me apart. I just had to believe he would still be standing there, ready and willing to help put me back together when it all came crashing down, but Melian’s words about him abandoning me in favor of his Fae mate would haunt me. I’d spend every night wondering if it would be our last. If he would be torn away from me in the morning, and, even worse, not even care about what we’d had or what we’d lost.
“Tell me about your life. Jensen said you were a harvester. As much as I would love to put you to work in the gardens, they’re done for the winter and putting you above ground comes with risk. We try to make sure the people who work on the surface in one place consistently aren’t Marked, otherwise…”
“They could lead the Fae here,” I said, nodding as I considered her words.
“Precisely. Many of our warriors are Marked, but they only go above ground when they’re planning to keep moving. It’s still a risk, but
historically the Fae Marked make the best fighters. The Viniculum protects them against the Mist Guard, and they also have the advantage of quicker- than-human healing and a sort of boost in muscle mass and strength.”
We walked beyond the cavern that housed the baths. My body ached to soak in the warm spring, but I knew without a doubt that Caelum would never approve of me going there alone. I couldn’t blame him, because the thought of the other women watching him without me there made me murderous.
“I lived in Mistfell,” I said, to redirect my wayward thoughts. “My family wasn’t well off, but Lord Byron had me tutored privately in the Mistfell Manor. I can do basic arithmetic and read.”
“You can read?” she asked, a small smile taking over her face. “That is quite rare, indeed. A woman being taught.” She veered to the side, leading me through one of the side tunnels until we came to a wooden slab that served as a door.
Heaving it to the side, she opened up a private cavern filled with handmade shelves. On every one of them, books upon books were stacked. Scrolls covered the table, unorganized and haphazard, as if the space had fallen into disuse.
“What is this place?” I asked, stepping inside and running my fingers over one of the dust-covered scrolls laid out on the table. It was a map of Nothrek, and my fingers traced over the cities as I stared down at it. The cities like Calfalls, Tuevine, and Pralis, that had been destroyed in the war, were crossed out with red. “Is this from the war? How is that possible?”
“Our ancestors built this refuge during the war. The Marked couldn’t trust the King to keep them safe, so we did it ourselves. For the most part, they tried to stay out of the fighting and just keep to themselves as we do now. But they liked to document everything, and they kept it all here. These books are entire histories from before the war, and what we’ve been able to collect since,” she answered, watching as I stepped away from the table and moved to the rows of books on the shelves lining the walls.
I slowly pulled one out, the weathered binding cracking beneath my touch as I set it gently on the table. The lettering on the front of the book was like something from a nightmare.
Creatures of Alfheimr.
“This is a forbidden book,” I said, flipping the cover open gently. The drawings within were horrific, my fingers running over the image of a
monstrous creature that was half man and half scorpion. His pinchers and tail were dripping blood while his mouth curved around the throat of a victim.
“A great many things you’ll find in these tunnels are forbidden. Unfortunately, most of this knowledge is wasted on us. Not many can read at all, let alone in a way that would allow them to understand these books. Do you speak the Old Tongue?” she asked, tipping her head to the side as I stared down at the name for the creature at the top of the page.
“Some,” I admitted. “I’m not sure how much of this I would be able to understand. If all these books are in the Old Tongue…”
“Only the oldest ones, but it would be very helpful if you could translate them to the best of your ability. I’m sad to say that I’ve been trying to do it slowly, as one of the last people who speaks it, but there’s only so much I can accomplish with everything else requiring my attention. My sister was our family historian, and she was the one who was working to translate the old texts.” She moved to one of the shelves at the side, which seemed removed from the rest. “These are the books she managed to get through before she was taken from us.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“We were on a supply run to gather new books when we encountered a man who needed help. He was half-starved, so we offered him food and a place by our fire for the night. We didn’t realize that he had the flesh-eating fever until we’d already returned to the tunnels the next morning. We lost half our numbers over the course of the next week, my sister and the other historians among them.”
“I’m so sorry,” I murmured. I’d seen the damage the fever had caused when it tore through my village when I’d been a girl. It was the one time that living on the outskirts of the town had worked to our advantage, sparing us from the nightmarish sickness that killed almost everyone it touched.
“This is far more valuable to us than another fighter or a harvester. Perhaps at some point I can choose someone for you to teach and we can rebuild our historian numbers. Knowledge is power, Estrella. What you can give us is a far better weapon than your hand on a sword,” she said, stepping back toward the doorway. “Think about it. Spend some time with the books. I’ll check on you in a little while.”
She retreated out, leaving the door pulled back so I could leave if I wanted to.
But I didn’t want to. I turned back to the shelves of books behind me, perusing the spines until I found one of the biggest volumes. It drew me to itself, compelling me to pull it out and gently set it on the table. The pages were worn at the edges, as if someone, sometime, had spent a great deal of energy leafing through them.
Libnor non Diathar.
The Book of the Gods.
Opening to the first page, I read the words aloud, translating them slowly as I went. It had been years since Byron had instructed my tutor that I would have no need of the Old Tongue anymore, and that it was a relic she should stop teaching. He was too late; deep down it lingered within me, the harsh sounds so different from the New Tongue that had been adopted as our official language centuries before.
Even before the war.
“In the beginning, there was nothing,” I murmured, the familiar words touching something inside me. They were the exact same words that Caelum had told me, the beginning of his story that night by the fire. The drawing on the first page was a swirling mass of shadows. An inky darkness so black that nothing seemed to exist within it.
There was no man, no face to the ancient Primordial, Khaos. He existed in nothing. He was nothing, and he’d been the very first thing to exist, until his loneliness drove him to create his wife. I flipped through the pages, every word confirming the story Caelum had told me.
The Primordials passed me by, each of the eighteen original Gods striking in their own way. As the generations continued, they became more human in form. These were not the Gods we’d worshiped. These were the Gods the Gods worshiped.
I continued through, uncertain what I was looking for until the moment I landed on her page. Mab’s drawing was stunning, with her long raven hair falling to her waist. Despite the lack of color on the page, her lips and eyes were shadowed in darkness. Upon her head, a bright crown gleamed, shadows seeming to drip from it and blend into her hair itself.
I shuddered, slowly reading aloud the words scrawled onto the page beneath her likeness.
“The Queen of Air and Darkness is the sister to the Seelie King, Rheaghan of the Summer Court. According to Faerie legends, when the two siblings were children, the dwarves of Elesfast brought a glittering dark gemstone to the castle as a peace offering during a time of war. Mab was immediately taken with the gem, requesting it be placed within the crown atop her head. Her mother would have done anything to please her daughter and arranged for it to be done. The gem had been fashioned by Edrus, the Primordial of Darkness himself, and it slowly corrupted the Seelie Princess until there was nothing but the cold, unfeeling shell of a girl who sought power above all else.”
Raising my eyes back to the sketch, I stared intently at the dark gem glittering at the center of her crown. Swallowing down the pit in my stomach, I moved on to the next page. I’d read enough of Mab already, not even daring to dive into the atrocities she’d committed.
I’d heard of the Fae horrors. For Mab to be the worst of them all, she must have been a truly vile creature.
The likeness on the next page stole the breath from my lungs. The God of the Dead’s hair was sketched a mottled light-gray, as if they couldn’t quite achieve the proper color of his rumored ashy silver waves that fell to his shoulders. His eyes were light, glowing from his severe face. His crown matched the same tone, except for the shadows that fell from it onto his head. His pointed ears were hidden beneath his hair, as were the swirling tattoos of white and black, of which only the tips crept up from the collar of his armor and leather tunic. They seemed to glow from the page with a pulse of magic.
My fingers traced the ends of his mark hesitantly, unable to turn my attention away from the drawing and focus in on his history and the atrocities he’d committed.
They were the same color as mine—and Caelum’s.
“I didn’t expect to find you with your head in a forbidden book, my star,” Caelum said, snapping me out of my trance as I stared down at Caldris, the God of the Dead. He glanced down at it as I shifted the cover closed, feeling somewhat guilty for reading about the very God that we’d discussed.
The one I’d seen a likeness of reclining casually with two women kneeling at his feet. I couldn’t look at anything to do with him without
remembering that scene. His casual ease and comfort with himself, knowing that the women would have done anything to please him.
“Where’s Melian? She said she would keep an eye on you,” Caelum said, lifting his dark gaze from the book on the table.
I forced myself to smile, shrugging off the blush that had stained my cheeks. “She brought me here when she discovered that I know how to read. She wants me to translate the texts from the Old Tongue.”
“You speak the Old Tongue,” Caelum observed, tilting his head to the side thoughtfully.
“I’m far from fluent, and I don’t think I could hold a conversation, but I can read it if given the chance. I was just looking through the Libnor non Diathar. I never realized just how many Gods there were—”
I was cut off the moment Caelum grasped me around my arms, lifting me out of my chair. He pushed my back against the shelves, his mouth lowering onto mine forcefully. He bruised my lips with his, but as I wound my hands around his neck, I couldn’t make myself care.
His chest rumbled against mine as a low growl sounded in his throat, while he gathered the fabric of my dress with his fingers. He lifted it, hiking it up slowly as he kissed me.
“Caelum,” I gasped, pulling my mouth away from his when his fingers found the bare skin of my thigh. “We should stop. This isn’t the place.” His sudden, greedy assault on my mouth had left my lips stinging, wondering what had possessed him.
“Everywhere is the place that I want to touch you,” he murmured, dropping his mouth to the top of the Mark on my neck. His tongue teased the sensitive skin there, his fingers working closer to the apex of my thighs. “I’ll stop if you really want me to, Little One, but I want to finish what I started this morning. What’s it going to be?”
His thumb brushed against my core, the simple, barely-there touch lighting me on fire as I threw caution to the wind. I turned my head, capturing his lips with mine as he groaned. That wandering hand beneath my dress shifted between my thighs, stroking me while I whimpered into his mouth.
He slid his fingers through me, pressing one to my entrance and guiding it inside, carefully at first. My body wasn’t ready for the invasion, muscles clamping down and protesting it while he stroked my clit with his thumb and tangled his tongue with mine.
Slowly, I welcomed him inside. He growled when he felt me give way to him, adding a second finger to join the first as he pumped them into me with painful slowness. I wanted it faster. Harder.
More.
I was starved for him and the touch I’d denied myself, as if a gate had opened and only his hands could close it. Yet he deprived me of the orgasm that was building within me, keeping me from falling over the edge with expert torture.
“I suppose this would be an inappropriate time to tell you that I intend to kill every man who has felt you like this. Who has had the pleasure of your body wrapped around him?” he growled, leaning forward to sink his teeth into the sensitive skin on the side of my neck where he’d bitten me the night before.
“You can’t kill a man just for having fucked me, Caelum,” I argued, unable to force myself to push him away. Even when he was acting ridiculous, I’d have done anything to pull him closer. To take him inside me and make me burn. “Think how many women I would have to kill.”
He pressed his hard length against my thigh as he worked me with his hand, building my orgasm higher as he pulled back to stare down into my face. Malice lurked in his gaze when he met my eyes. “I would love to see that, my star.”
“That’s not normal,” I argued, my body jolting when he applied more pressure to my clit.
“I assure you, I do not give the first fuck what is normal when it comes to you. If you want to watch the world burn, I’ll set it on fire for you. If you want to slaughter every woman who has ever taken what is yours, then I will gladly sit back and watch you play,” he said, a twisted smile toying about his lips as he dropped his mouth to my lips and sank his teeth into the plump flesh. “Now fucking come for me, Estrella.”
“Caelum,” I gasped, then I shattered beneath his touch as he worked me, my legs feeling like they would have caved beneath me if it hadn’t been for his support holding me up and the knee he shoved between mine.
“These lips were made to moan my name,” he said, leaning down to kiss them gently as he pulled his fingers free from my pussy. He returned my dress to normal, letting it fall flat and cover me from view as he kissed me sweetly.
He made no move to ask me to return the favor, simply imparting a gift upon me for whatever reason. He could give me that gift every day for the rest of my life and I suspected I would never tire of it.
