Yearning For Her, page 29
Really beautiful.
“With you here, it is,” he said. “You make it a view worth taking in.”
Blushing, Willow turned to face him. “Don’t you normally appreciate the view here? Otherwise, why bother having a place like this?”
His smile was uncharacteristically wistful. “Perhaps because I already felt apart, and this place allowed me to also feel…above. From here, I could always look down upon my prey.”
She stepped closer to him, reached up, and flattened her palms against his chest.
Kian covered one of her hands with his, hooking a finger from the other beneath her chin to tilt her face up. “Is this sorrow for me, little mortal?”
“I know what it feels like to live in two separate places and feel unwanted in both.”
“Ah, Violet,” he rasped, releasing her hand to wrap an arm around her.
She smiled, running her palms up to his shoulders and threading the fingers of one hand through his long white hair. “I’ll always want you.”
He tipped his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. He held her for a time, somehow gentle and possessive at once, before he said in a low voice, “There’s something I want to show you.”
Opening his eyes, he stepped back and took her hand. Willow followed him across the living room and past the spotless kitchen, where she glimpsed not a single utensil, pot, pan, or appliance apart from the microwave and huge fridge. They continued into a hallway with several closed doors on either side—all, unsurprisingly, black. The dim lights made those doors seem almost imposing, amplifying the mystery of what was behind them.
He stopped at the last door on the right. It looked like all the others, but as he reached for the handle, Willow swore she spied a smudge of purple on the metal fixture.
The door opened into a dark room. The curtains only allowed a bit of light through, turning everything in the room into looming, indistinct shadows. She entered behind Kian. The glow of his eyes fell upon nearby objects, but it wasn’t strong enough to reveal what they were. It almost seemed like a room filled with furniture covered by sheets.
Then he switched on the lights. Willow’s eyes widened as she looked around the room, stunned.
The rest of his apartment was all blacks and grays, but here, there was color. So much color. Paintings covered nearly every inch of the walls, and easels, some with cloth-shrouded canvases, stood all around the room. The tarp spread across the floor was spattered with paint of every color imaginable, and the big table that held dozens of jars and tubes of paint, paint brushes, and palettes had fared little better.
But as Willow studied the paintings and absorbed what she was seeing, her surprise only deepened.
Many of the works were moody, dark, favoring shades of red, black, and gray whether they were abstract or contained figures. A few were lighter, with greens, blues, and yellows. There were landscapes scattered here and there. The familiar Memoree skyline under a night sky, viewed from the overlook he’d taken her to. A rugged coastline during a storm. A river flowing through a canyon. And several more of places that were too lovely, too alien, to be real. Places with colors too pure, with white trees and flowers unlike anything she’d ever seen, with a sky that seemed to bleed into the crystal-clear surface of the lake beneath it.
Willow lightly traced her fingers over one of those paintings. “Are these…?”
“Memories from beyond the Veil,” he replied. “Hollow attempts to recreate the hollow beauty of that realm.”
“They’re wonderful. Magical.”
He laughed gently. “They’re also as close as I ever want to get to Tulthiras again.”
She looked back at him to find that he’d not moved any farther into the room. “You really never want to go back?”
“I have everything I need right here, Willow.” His eyes were fixed on her, leaving no question as to what he meant.
Her heart quickened, and a whisper of pleasure coursed through her. She looked away from the scorching intensity of his gaze, inhaled deeply, and forced her attention back to the artwork. The paintings of the Evergarden were so surreal. Like vivid, impossible dreams.
As she wandered farther into the room, the color purple became prominent in more and more of the paintings.
She swept her eyes around the walls, following the apparent progression. First, abstract purples with splashes of green. More colors gradually crept in, and a figure began to take form—a figure that was startlingly familiar to her. A woman with lavender hair and green eyes.
Willow’s lips parted in wonder.
She saw herself in a variety of poses, under a variety of lighting, against a variety of backdrops. Saw herself captured in breathtaking realism and passionate stylization. But in every painting, she was vibrant, even when there was clearly sadness in her eyes.
Each stroke had been made with such care, with such thoughtfulness. With such purpose. Several of the paintings depicted her in the very dress she wore now. Others showed her in lingerie—some of the same lingerie she’d worn in her boudoir photos years ago—or with cloth tastefully draped over her private parts, while a few more had her erotically baring everything. She recognized moments she’d shared with Kian in some of the paintings, though he wasn’t in any of them. Moments when she’d been laughing, smiling, or staring into the distance contemplatively.
In every painting, in every pose, she was…beautiful.
She was seeing herself through Kian’s eyes.
Willow stared at the final painting. It was the largest canvas in the room, resting upon an easel next to a glass door that let out onto the terrace. In it, she stood on the bridge near Central Boulevard, the wind tugging at her skirt and hair, all the reflected lights making the dark river below look like a road paved with stars. There was a hint of sorrow and pain in her eyes. And yet, somehow, the image instilled in her a sense of hopefulness. A sense of possibility.
It was like the Willow in the painting could hop onto that starry path and follow it to happiness, to her destiny. To anywhere she wanted to go.
That bridge was where she and Kian had first spoken. It was where she’d made an impulsive decision that wasn’t supposed to have meant anything, but which had changed everything. A decision that had brought them to this moment.
“Kian…” She turned toward him. “These are all of me.”
He nodded, and finally walked deeper into the room. His gaze settled on the earlier paintings in the sequence, the more abstract ones in shades of purple. “After I first had you, these colors tormented me. I could not put brush to canvas without using them. Violet and emerald…”
Kian stopped in front of a portrait of Willow and lovingly ran his fingertips over the face on the canvas. “Before long, I realized it wasn’t the colors at all. It was you. You were haunting me. Your voice, your face, your body, your taste, your essence. I prowled the streets, desperate to feed, but not once could I find even a spark that would enable me to take what I needed. Only when I let you dominate my mind again could I feel any arousal, any excitement, anything beyond the bitterness, frustration, and desperation that was swallowing me.”
Slowly, he continued forward, shrinking the distance between them. “I didn’t understand then. Even when I found you again, even when I realized you were my mate, I didn’t truly understand. But I do now. My soul itself yearned for you, Willow, because you were meant to be mine. Because you are mine.”
Willow remained still, unable to look away from him, hardly able to breathe. She’d known of his need for her. He’d told her that she was his mate. But she’d never realized the gravity of it, not until now, not until his confession. Not until seeing all this.
“You haunted me then, and you haunt me now.” Finally, he reached her, and caught her chin with his fingers. “How could I ever do you justice on a canvas? A dozen paintings, a hundred, a thousand… I will never be able to encompass all of who you are.
“I cannot even choose which of your features is my favorite. Is it these eyes, that sparkle when you laugh?” The light of his gaze warmed as he stroked her bottom lip with his thumb. “These soft lips, that can disarm me with a single smile or crush me with the slightest frown? Your hair, as vibrant as your soul, or your hands, so gentle but sure? It is an impossible choice. But if I had to choose, Willow… I would choose your heart. With all its joy, all its compassion, all its love. Your heart, which leads you to put others before yourself. Your mortal heart, which has claimed mine completely.”
He slid his hand up along her jaw, guiding his fingers beneath her ear and into her hair as he leaned his face closer to hers. “I have met many beautiful creatures, Willow. But you are the only one I’ve known who is utterly captivating both inside and out. You shine brighter than all the rest, be they mortal or fae.”
Tears stung her eyes. She touched her fingers to his brow, tracing it, before caressing his cheek. “I don’t know what to say to all that.”
“Say you are mine.”
She laughed softly. “That seems so simple compared to what you’ve confessed. But yes. I’m yours, Kian.”
His expression was serious, his gaze so focused, so controlled. “I need you to understand what that means, Willow. If you are mine, if we seal our bond, there is no going back. Our souls will be tied forever, and not in the figurative way in which you mortals always speak.”
“It doesn’t change my answer, Kian. So long as you are mine, then I am yours.”
Kian smiled, wide and brilliant, and his blue eyes sparkled with pure, radiant love.
He wrapped his arms around her and dipped his head, capturing her lips in a hungry kiss that kindled a fire in her core. His hot tongue traced the seam of her mouth, and Willow opened to him. He teased and coaxed, tasted and seduced, and shivers of desire raced through her, stirring that smoldering heat into a blaze.
And she returned the ravishing kiss with equal passion. Slick gathered between her thighs, and her sex pulsed with a heavy ache.
He crushed her against him. Willow felt his want for her through their clothing, felt the hardness that she longed to have inside her.
She dropped her fingers to the buttons of his shirt, eager to rid him of it so she could feel his bare skin under her palms. But the damned buttons wouldn’t slip through the holes fast enough.
Kian pulled away with a laugh, leaving her lips tingling with want. She squeezed her thighs together as his hands moved toward those buttons. Willow was desperate to touch him again, to kiss him again, to feel every bit of him.
He didn’t waste time. He grasped his shirt and vest in both hands and ripped them open. Several buttons fell onto the tarp underfoot, quickly joined by the torn clothes as he swept them off. Awe briefly overcame her need when his wings materialized behind him, glittering with their own light of. They fanned out.
Instead of returning to her, he stepped to the terrace door and opened it. The breeze swept in, lifting the shimmering white strands of his long hair and making Willow’s dress whip around her thighs. A shiver coursed through her.
Kian held his hand to her. “Fly with me, Violet.”
Willow’s eyes widened as she flicked her gaze past him, to the night sky. “Fly?”
“I won’t let you fall.”
Her heart sped. She wasn’t afraid of heights, but she wasn’t exactly fond of not having the ground beneath her feet either. Except… Willow trusted Kian. She knew he’d never let anything happen to her. Knew she’d be safe.
She smiled and took his hand.
Thirty
Kian’s fingers curled around her hand, and he led her through the doorway. As soon as she was outside, he tugged her body against his, guiding her arms up around his neck before locking her in a firm embrace. He bared his fangs in a mischievous grin.
Willow furrowed her brow. “What’s that look f—”
He leapt into the air.
Willow’s stomach sank. No, sank wasn’t the right word—her stomach plummeted right out of her body. She screamed as air rushed by and her hair whipped into her face. Hooking her thighs around his waist, she clung to Kian with every ounce of strength she could summon.
“Not that I mind when you’re vocal, Violet, but do you want the whole city to hear you?” Kian asked, that smooth, deep voice rumbling into her.
“Not funny, Kian! Oh, my God… Don’t you freaking dare let go!”
His hold on her strengthened. “Never.”
And then their ascent gained even more speed. Willow caught his hair in a desperate attempt to find better purchase, scraping his scalp with her nails, before she shut her eyes and pressed her face against his neck. She whimpered, repeatedly said his name, begged him, cursed him, the words and sounds tumbling out unbidden. It was such a strange sensation—she felt weightless and impossibly heavy all at once, like gravity was dragging her down hard but she was still rising higher and higher.
Apart from the wind and the noises she’d made, it was silent. All the city sounds she would’ve expected were absent. There was just the air, cool against her skin but not cold, and a sense of vastness around her. A sense of the world being so big, so limitless.
“I have you, Willow. You can open your eyes,” Kian said.
Taking in a shaky, fortifying breath, Willow opened her eyes and tentatively peeked over Kian’s shoulder.
She’d flown in planes before, had once looked down on this very city while it glowed beneath the night sky, but the view from that little window was nothing compared to this. Memoree sprawled out far, far below, all of it made tiny by distance. She could see everything for miles around—the towering downtown buildings, the stadiums and parks, the traffic flowing along the streets, the river winding through it all. She could see where the city eased into the suburbs, and the forested hills beyond the city limits.
Above it all, the sky stretched into infinity. Soft gray clouds drifted amongst the glimmering stars, but nothing was so bright as the full moon, which hung round and huge over the city.
Her gaze shifted to Kian. His wings were shimmering blurs, moving faster than her eyes could perceive, and his skin was pure alabaster under the moonlight. With that silver glow cast upon him, and his silken hair flowing in the wind, he looked more ethereal than ever before.
He looked more beautiful than ever before.
And his eyes were upon her with all his intensity, all his love, as if the marvelous view didn’t exist. As if the world didn’t exist.
“I never realized it, but I wished for you long, long ago,” he said. “When I first crossed into this realm, I felt that hollowness inside myself. Felt that missing piece. I saw mortals living, feeling, loving, and I wished to feel it for myself. To have a mate who could fill that emptiness, who could make me feel all the things I sensed around me every day. I wished for you, hundreds of years before you ever existed. And even if I’d had to wait ten thousand years, it would have been worth it.”
Warmth unfurled in her chest and spread through her limbs, chasing away the night chill. She tightened her hold on him. Her eyes burned again, threatening new tears—as if she hadn’t shed enough already tonight. “I wished for you too, before I ever knew you were possible. And I’d suffer through all the pain, rejection, and heartache again and again, just to have a single night with you.” She brushed her lips across his. “I love you, Kian.”
“Arythion.” His voice rippled with power, and that word flowed into Willow, warming her further and making her skin tingle.
Willow raised her head. “What?”
“My true name is Arythion Shyrik. I freely offer it to you now, Willow Ava Crowley. Keep it in your heart forever, and let it serve as the thread that binds our souls together as we forge our bond with blood, seed, and lifeforce.”
That power increased, thrumming through her. Something compelled her to repeat those words, but it wasn’t his magic—it was from within herself. It was that sense of rightness, of…destiny. She’d always been meant to speak those words to him at this moment.
“I, Willow Ava Crowley, give my name to you, Arythion Shyrik, to keep in your heart forever. Let it serve as the thread that binds our souls together as we forge our bond with blood, seed, and lifeforce.”
“Ah, Violet.” He leaned farther back, allowing more of her weight to settle upon his body. “Give me your hand.”
Willow pointedly glanced down. Far, far below, the city streets lazily rolled by as Kian flew backward.
Kian chuckled. “Trust me. I will never let you go.”
Pressing her lips together, she slowly withdrew an arm from around his neck. Even when he released his hold with his own arm, she felt solid, secure, safe. He gently grasped her hand, his thumb sweeping across her palm until the tip of his claw touched the pad of her thumb.
He stared into her eyes. “Blood.”
She felt his unspoken question—are you ready?
Willow nodded.
He flicked his claw across her skin. She started at the flash of pain. Before any blood had flowed from the wound, he partly released her hand to slice his forefinger claw over his own thumb. Crimson welled on their skin, glistening in the moonlight. The sting of Willow’s cut flared just before he pressed his thumb over it.
The pain vanished instantly.
Kian smiled. “As for the rest…”
Seed and lifeforce.
Willow’s eyes widened even as her sex clenched in response to his tantalizing implication. “Out here?”
“By light of moon and stars, Willow, I will make you mine.” Kian drew her thumb to his mouth, slipped it between his lips, and soothed it with his tongue before slowly pulling it out and releasing her hand. He smoothed his palm down her body, stroking every curve, until it reached her thigh. “Now be a good girl and free my cock.”
He gathered her skirt in his hand, tugging it up. Those clever fingers hooked her panties and forced them aside, baring her sex, before delving into her slick folds.
