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Elain laid her hand on the frosted window pane, shivering as the cold seeped into her skin. Bracing, numbing—then burning, the way only two things could: ice and fire. When she backed away, she left an imprint of her hand on the glass, wet with condensation. On the other side, snow drifts had reached the windowsill, and the storm wasn’t over yet. A damn blizzard on the longest night of the year.
Just in time to trap Lucien in the town house with her.
Elain returned to the sitting room, rubbing her hands together to shake off the cold. She claimed the seat nearest the fireplace, a winged-back chair large enough to hold two of her. Flames danced behind the black iron grate, red and orange and gold. Not enough to warm her up, but then, half the cold was coming from inside her.
She stiffened at the sensation of phantom fingers brushing her brow. That happened occasionally, when Lucien was close, the shadow of a touch that wasn’t there. Sometimes in completely innocent places, like this one. Other times less so. She was too much of a coward to ask Feyre whether it was a natural part of a—mating bond, which Lucien couldn’t help. Or if he must be doing it on purpose.
Elain knew that if she looked over her shoulder, she’d find him standing nearby, although he hadn’t made a sound. So she didn’t look.
Lucien cleared his throat loudly.
It was petty, but Elain pretended not to hear him.
He stepped forward, close enough that she could see him in her periphery, then he held out a blanket.
Elain glanced up then, meeting his eyes. One natural and russet, the other golden and mechanical, both heavy-lidded and long-lashed. Beautiful, same as the rest of him.
All High Fae are beautiful, she told herself. But... in truth, to her, no other male was as handsome as Lucien. No doubt some primal instinct woven into the bond’s magic, trying to blind her to anyone besides her mate.
It worked better than Elain would have liked.
She took the blanket from Lucien, a heavy quilt large enough to cover a middling sized bed.
“Is this your blanket?” Elain asked.
Lucien shrugged. “I can’t sleep anyway, and you’re cold.”
She wrapped the quilt around herself, trying (and completely failing) not to notice how divine it smelled. Juniper and sage with a hint of woodsmoke. Autumn personified, as if he still carried his cruel Court with him, so many years after leaving. A woman could get drunk on that scent—if she was very foolish.
“Thank you,” Elain murmured. “I’m sorry I…”
What? Kept him awake with her shivering? Because if he was close, any discomfort she felt became his discomfort. And vice versa, gods help her.
“You didn’t,” he said quickly. Then a sharp smile curved his full lips. “At least, not in the way that you meant.”
Warmth rushed over Elain from head to toe. She hoped it was too dark in here for him to see her blushing.
“Do you mind if I sit?” Lucien asked, gesturing at the chair beside hers.
“Of course not.”
The speaking glance he sent her way showed how much he doubted that. He accepted it, though, and claimed the seat to her left. Just as he always accepted even the smallest scraps from her. Elain hated how that softened her toward him. She hated it because she didn’t choose it; she’d had no choice in any of this, least of all Lucien.
“Why didn’t you like the gloves?” he asked.
Elain started at the bald question, then lied on instinct. “I do like them.”
Lucien canted his head, eyes narrowing. “No, you don’t, and it doesn’t take a mating bond for me to see that. Everybody did.”
You made sure everybody knew.
He didn’t say that part, but Elain heard it all the same. Lucien couldn’t speak to her mind directly the way Feyre and Rhysand did, but she could often tell what he was thinking anyway. That street went both ways, however, a fact that Elain preferred not to consider.
“It was a thoughtful gift,” she said, to soften the blow. “The problem is that I’d never get any use out of it. Half the joy in gardening, for me at least, is getting my hands dirty.”
One of his fine, arched eyebrows rose.
“That surprises you?” Elain asked.
“A little,” he admitted. “You don’t seem like the kind of female who would enjoy dirt under her fingernails.”
Female. She’d never get used to that, her sex referred to like an animal’s. It was so dehumanizing—fitting for one who had been stripped of her humanity.
“How would you know what kind I am? We’re practically strangers.”
Lucien made a sound between scoffing and laughing. “That’s true enough. Despite my best efforts.”
Elain bit back something unkind. This wasn’t like her, struggling against anger and meanness. She was the sweet one, the nice one. Not fierce like Nesta, not wild like Feyre. She had none of her sisters’ fire—except with Lucien.
She pulled the quilt around her body more securely, which was a mistake. Rustling the blanket brought its scent to her attention again, and this time when she shivered, it had nothing to do with the cold.
He knew. Elain could tell that he knew, because she smelled the hope on him.
Maybe it was that which drove her to say what she’d been thinking since the day he’d first called her his mate. “I don’t owe you anything. You’re not entitled to me just because of some magic neither of us can control.”
He flinched, and Elain immediately regretted being so harsh. What was wrong with her?
“That wasn’t fair,” she said. “I appreciate that you respect my boundaries… more or less.”
Lucien sighed. “I know I’m not entitled to you, Elain, and I would never try to take anything you don’t want me to have.”
And yet he kept haunting this house, dogged as a wronged ghost. Seeking her approval. Her affection. Her love.
Worst of all, tempting her to give it.
“But surely you understand why it’s hard for me to walk away,” he said.
“No, I don’t understand. Why are you so set on—me? We know almost nothing about each other, and—well, look at you.” She waved vaguely in his direction, her face hot again. “I’m sure you could have anyone you wanted.”
“You don’t have to accept me,” he said coldly, “but I’d appreciate it if you at least didn’t ridicule me.”
Elain gaped, snapped her mouth closed, then turned to face him. “Ridicule you? I just complimented you, you—prick.”
The vulgar insult felt awkward on her tongue, but she’d heard Feyre call Lucien that more than once, and it did seem fitting. Certainly right now.
He looked her up and down. His golden eye managed it a half-second faster than his natural one, and she wondered what all he saw with it. If its magic could peer through her clothes, beneath her skin, all the way to her racing heart.
Lucien gestured lazily toward the left side of his face. At his unsettling mechanical eye and the white scar that marred his golden brown skin. “You think I could have anyone I wanted,” he said dryly. “With this?”
“Anyone deterred by a simple scar isn’t worth your time anyway,” she said.
“Simple?” he snarled.
Lucien had a temper. One he’d never truly shown to her, but she’d felt it simmering beneath the surface when the others pushed him too far.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Elain said. “Which you should know already.”
His shoulders relaxed, and he slumped back in his chair. He was just so tired. She could feel the exhaustion as surely as if it was her own.
“When’s the last time you slept?” she asked gently.
He ran a hand over his face, then through his hair—longer than hers, and prettier too, as sleek and lustrous as red silk. She hoped he never cut it.
“I don’t know,” Lucien muttered. “A few days.”
When Elain stood, he said, “No, you don’t have to leave. You were here first. I’ll leave.”
She didn’t allow herself to think better of it as she held out her hand to him. “Come to the kitchen with me. I’ll make you a cup of tea with chamomile and valerian. Not the sweetest, but I’ll add some honey. It should help you sleep.”
The moment Lucien took her hand, Elain knew she’d made a grave mistake. He was unfairly warm on this bitterly cold winter night, and she remembered something Feyre had told her on her birthday. She and her little sister had drunk entirely too much wine, and somewhere between the third bottle and the fourth, Feyre said, giggling, Before I killed her, Brannagh told me that Autumn Court males fuck like they have fire in their blood.
Elain dearly wished her sister had kept that to herself, because now it was all she could think of as Lucien’s strong hand clasped her smaller one, warming her cold fingers. He looked at her with enough heat that she could believe Brannagh’s claim.
She slipped her hand free of Lucien’s and strode from the sitting room to the kitchen, her mate on her heels.
Her mate that she didn’t choose. Who proclaimed her his in front of everyone, a heartbeat after she spilled out of that awful, evil, hateful Cauldron. The two were entwined in her mind, impossible to untangle: her Making and her bond with Lucien. Sometimes she wondered if the Cauldron had Made her for him.
Elain buried that fear, same as she’d bury seeds beneath the rich, black soil in her garden.
Lucien leaned against the pantry door while she stoked the fire in the stove and filled the large copper kettle with fresh, biting cold water from the tap. Just watching her, always watching her. She tried not to feel self conscious as she went about the ritual of tea. It was something the twins had been teaching her since she'd come to live among the Fae, and she found as much comfort in concocting the perfect brew as she did in hours of pulling weeds.
“I’m sorry I snapped at you,” he said. “I shouldn’t have assumed the worst of your intentions. It’s just… I thought you found me unattractive.”
Elain took a squat tin canister off the shelf, then pulled a small pair of golden shears from an earthenware cup beside the sink. She reached for a heavy set of brass scales as she said, “It’s not your looks I find objectionable.”
He laughed, low and savage. “Then what is it about me that bothers you so much?”
She set the scales down on the granite counter with a clang. “Do you truly want me to list the ways?”
“There’s a list?” Lucien sounded almost impressed. “I suppose that says enough.”
Elain fidgeted with the sleeve of her too-thin nightgown. “No, there’s not a list. You seem like a decent person, and I don’t hate you, Lucien.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, shoulders rigid and jaw tight, waiting for the rest. For the axe to fall.
“I know you didn’t mean for this…” She tapped the tip of her pointed right ear—which still felt foreign, all these months later. “To happen to me. But what you did, what you helped Tamlin do, landed me in the Cauldron. And when I came out, I wasn’t me anymore. How can I love anyone when I don’t even know who I am these days?”
Lucien was quiet, though it seemed the fire burning behind his eyes had dimmed. She turned away again, busying her hands with something, anything familiar.
She weighted one side of the scale with what she knew would be a good dose for him. Even without having lain with him, even without ever having shared his bed, Elain seemed to know the size of Lucien, his weight and how he carried himself. Was it because of this meddling magic that took away all of her control? Or because she watched him nearly as much as he watched her—if only to make sure he kept his distance?
She used the shears to cut bits of dried valerian root and placed the pieces in the opposing dish. Each one a reason to despise him.
He gave you to Hybern.
He helped to keep Feyre under Tamlin's thumb.
He's the reason Rhys nearly died in the woods that day.
But the ornate little counterweight was dense. As if the man it represented was more than just his infuriating faults.
He brought Prythian aid in our darkest hour.
He is gentle with you, and patient, even when you can see that he is a flame, not a feather.
He is loyal.
He is brave.
He is unfairly handsome.
Elain cut a large bit of root, baring her teeth as she tossed it among the others.
He is yours.
Finally, the scales came into balance.
She swore softly, then dumped the lot into the kitchen teapot. It wasn't pretty or suitable for a lord, but it made the best cup of tea she'd ever had. When the kettle rattled on the stove, she took it from the heat and began to count down from ten. It was meant to give the water time to come off the boil, but it helped her to get her own frustration in check as well.
She exhaled, long and slow, as she poured the water over the pungent smelling roots. She set the kettle aside and turned to face Lucien.
His smirk was back.
"That was like a five act play."
She strode around him, making quick work of snipping chamomile blossoms from the dried herbs over the hearth into an oblong basket.
"I don't—"
"—know what you're talking about," he finished for her. "You do. If all the muttering while you were snipping up what looks like dried worms wasn't enough, the symphony of scents you were cycling through was a dead giveaway. Were you imagining me at the end of those little scissors?"
She resisted the urge to stick out her tongue at him and simply turned back to the drying rack.
"Are you making yourself a cup as well?"
"Mmm?" she looked over her shoulder at him, a few sprigs of mint in hand.
The smirk warmed to a genuine smile, and something inside her went liquid. "Well, I assume the worm tea is for me, and the basket of flowers…"
Elain sighed. "It's not worms. That's the valerian root. It has to steep longer than the other elements of the blend. It's more robust while the flowers—" She held up a dried stem of lavender. "Are much more delicate." She shook it gently, and almost all its dried purple buds fell to join the rest of the tea things in the basket. "Each botanical is different."
"Will you add each at a different time?"
She laughed. "No. I'm sure there's some herbalist out there who would, and that cup of tea might take you straight to paradise for all I know, but most people don't have that kind of time. I'll just dump the rest in once I've finished picking everything out."
He canted his head. "You're improvising?"
She considered him, giving him a long perusal that made his scent change as well. She knew what it meant, but she didn't know what exactly to do with it.
"I'm just—customizing… my usual sleeping blend."
Lucien stepped away from the pantry, closer to her. "I am going to wake up, aren't I?"
She felt her heartbeat thump faster in the pulse points of her neck, in her ears. "Yes, of course. I wouldn't—I told you already that I don't hate you, Lucien."
He was still moving towards her, still closing in. "Then why go through the trouble?"
Something inside Elain compelled her to answer honestly, even though lying would be smarter. "I—wanted to impress you. Valerian tea can be a nasty business, and it takes a special blend to make it palatable. I wanted you to like it."
He stopped, and Elain took the chance to turn away. If she wasn't careful, the tea would over-steep, and his joke might have some truth to it after all.
It was the work of a few moments to prepare the last of the ingredients, to remove buds and leaves from stems and clear away any debris. Elain added the rest of the herbal tea to the teapot and topped it off with a fresh splash of hot water. Her heart was pounding now, her elegant, Made hands shaking.
I wanted you to like it.
What had she been thinking?
.
.
Elain’s hands were trembling, her cheeks rosy, and he scented something more than anxiety on her. Nervousness, yes, but beneath that metallic tang she smelled of simple want. Interest, even this subtle, was more than he’d ever expected to have from her.
His baser instincts screamed for him to pull her into his arms. Kiss her lips, her throat, her small breasts—kiss her everywhere. And once she was wet enough for him, to lay her across this table and take her.
Elain glanced at him sidelong, her throat working. He had to get a hold on his need, or she’d likely run from him. Push him away, as she always did when he got too close for her comfort.
She asked him a question, and it took a moment for Lucien’s mind to catch up with her words. Something about honey.
He shook his head, trying to clear it. “I’m sorry. What?”
She held a spoon in one hand and the lid to the honeypot in the other. “How much honey do you want?”
Months of needing her and not having her must have addled his brain, because the only responses he could think up were lewd.
It’s a cup of tea. Get your shit together.
“Uh, four spoonfuls,” he said.
Elain laughed. He knew that beautiful sound, but never because he had drawn it from her.
“Four?” she asked.
It was an absurd thing to be embarrassed over.
Lucien scratched the back of his neck. “I like sweet things.”
Her throat worked, and he imagined feeding her a spoonful of honey. Chasing after the flavor, licking at her sticky, bee-stung lips.
“You like a toothache, more like,” she said, but she did as he requested.
Four golden doses of honey, the same color as her hair in the dimmed evening lights. She stirred the cup, making no sound with the spoon on the sides of the ceramic. She was a true lady, bred to be as proper as any courtier he might find in Autumn or Winter or Day, even as she worked over a stove and herbs in the kitchens. She moved the spoon suddenly counter-clockwise, perhaps a belowstairs superstition she’d learned, then set the cup aside. When she lifted it, she blew a soft breath across the surface, and even that made him hard. By the Cauldron, he wished for the sweet release of death.
Elain extended the cup to him, then paused, pulling back, stepping away. Her fawn brown eyes were wide when she asked, “Does—does this count as giving you food? As making you food?”
Fear cloaked her, thick in the air between them, extinguishing that stupid spark of hope her laughter had kindled. She didn’t want him for her mate. A few smiles and a cup of tea meant nothing—especially when she’d sooner flush that tea down the toilet than give it to him with strings attached.
“No, it doesn’t count,” he said dully.
Elain had the grace to at least look guilty when she handed over the tea, and Lucien didn’t soothe her.
He couldn’t help groaning at the first sip. She’d claimed that valerian root could turn out badly, but under her care it certainly hadn’t. Her fussy measuring and brewing had made the most calming tea he’d ever tasted. Lucien drank deep, despite the heat, and Elain grimaced.
“If I’d known you were that thirsty I’d have added a little milk to cool it down,” she chided.
He smiled. “It doesn’t bother me. Fire, remember?”
For some reason, his words brought a blush to her cheeks, but he couldn’t be sorry for it. She looked lovely in pink. He drank again, keeping his eyes on hers, and felt oddly triumphant when she flushed deeper. She knocked over the tin of valerian root as she turned back to the counter, cursing again under her breath.
He set his tea down, using his larger hands to move what he was still sure were dried worms back toward her. It was cheap, and she probably realized it, but it gave him a chance to almost envelope her from behind. She didn’t need his help cleaning. But he needed to do something, anything, to be closer to this rose and cinnamon scent rolling from her now.
“Here,” he said. “Let me.” He took the tin from her hand, touching her far more than was necessary, praying all the while. Let me, let me, let me. Please just let me.
She did, the cool silk of the back of her hand and the fragile pebbles of her knucklebones. And her, standing so still in his loose, foolish embrace. He swept the valerian in the tin as she held her shaking hands out before her, then slowly lowered them to the counter. He took a stupidly long time picking up each little piece he missed, a job much better suited for her nimble, slender fingers, but she stayed still, her back so lightly pressed off-center into his front. He could smell her hair; like black tea and smoke from the stove and white roses. White, because they were the most fragrant, the sweetest. He knew this from so many years spent in Spring.
“Where—?”
She didn’t speak, only lifted a hand and pointed to the glaring empty spot on the shelf of tins, like a front tooth missing from a child’s wide grin. He placed the canister where it belonged, leaning into her more than he had to.
Everything he did was more than what he needed, more than what was required, more, more, more. He was so greedy, so wanting, so tired of being superfluous and just aching to be ached for in return. It hurt a thousand times more than having his eye gouged from his skull.
Elain cried out, and he brought his reaching hand down to her shoulder. Narrow, dainty, a perfect fit he’d likely never feel again.
“What is it?”
She touched her face, just below her left eye. “I—I felt. For a moment. It must have hurt you so much.”
He exhaled, resting his forehead on the top of her head. No, no it didn’t. This hurts. This is what truly tears me to pieces.
“It was a long time ago. I’m fine now.”
Lucien nuzzled into her hair. Couldn’t stop himself from seeking her scent, no more than he could keep from leaning into her. Too late, he realized that she must feel him, hard against her back. You’re not entitled to me, she’d said, and this was just what she’d meant, wasn’t it? That no matter how urgently, how fiercely their bond demanded that he touch her, love her, have her—
She owed him nothing.
Somehow his hand had drifted down to Elain’s waist, holding her close… without her permission. Lucien clenched his teeth as he let her go, as he started to step away. Freeing her.
Elain grabbed his hand before he’d fully released her, bringing it back to her middle.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t go.”
He drew her closer, fully against him, though he kept his grasp on her loose. Anytime she wanted this to stop, she could easily break away. But gods, he prayed she wouldn’t. Just holding her in his arms ruined him. Nothing in all his years had ever felt this intimate—or erotic. Lucien splayed one hand over her belly, keeping her body cradled securely against his. The other he allowed to slide lower, to her hip. She was slighter than her sisters, more delicate, and he couldn’t quite shake the fear that he would break her if he wasn’t careful.
When he stroked his fingers over her hipbone, Elain gasped, leaning into him as he cupped her bottom. A jolt of pure need rushed through him when he discovered that she wore nothing beneath her thin nightgown.
“Fuck,” he hissed. He bent, turning his face more into her hair. His lips met one of those pointed ears she so loathed, but as he brushed a kiss over the tip, she trembled, her hand on his wrist turning sharp as her nails bit into him.
So sensitive, and finally here in his hands. He exhaled, sending hot air over her ear and neck, and she arched, moaning softly. His hand left her belly to let down the rest of her hair, and she moved her hand from his wrist to cup the back of his neck, scratching lightly. It sent a chill down his entire spine, and he couldn’t hold back the groan that escaped him as he dipped to kiss beneath her jaw. She cried out, scraping her long, manicured nails up his scalp, as gentle a caress as a sigh.
Elain pulled his hair, so lightly, as if she could ever cause him real physical pain, and the care she took in her passion nearly broke him.
“It’s all right, love. Hang on if you want. You won’t hurt me.”
She shook her head, her breaths coming heavy through parted lips. “No. No, I don’t want to use you—roughly. I just—”
He groaned, the hand on her ass doing just as she’d said, squeezing harder than he had been, kneading her in long fingers.
“Use me,” he said. “Oh fuck, you don’t know what those words do to me.”
She let go of him and turned around. Looking up at him with wide brown eyes as she ran her hands along his chest, all the way up to the collar of his shirt, which she grasped with excruciating delicacy. Tugging him down, down, inviting a kiss.
Lucien bowed low enough to bring his lips almost to Elain’s. Not an inch separated them, but he stopped, waited. If she wanted this kiss even half as badly as he did, she’d take it.
She tilted her head back, angling her mouth closer to his. At some point while making the tea, she must have chewed a mint leaf, because he could taste it on her breath. He’d prefer to taste it on her lips, her tongue, but she hesitated.
“Elain,” he said, and he knew she couldn’t mistake what he’d made of her name: a plea. The most shameless sort of begging, and Lucien didn’t give a damn. He’d crawl on his knees for her, if she asked it.
He broke at the same moment she did, their lips meeting in a kiss that neither of them took or gave, but rather made together.
And it was the paradise brew Elain had spoken of. Everything added in just the right order and steeped between them, joined in perfect pieces. Her lips, plush and velvet soft against his, their breath mingling. And when she opened to him, the honeyed slide of his tongue over the herbal sweetness of hers—something surged around them. Old magic, an ancient rite, binding them together.
He wrapped his arms tightly around her, threading his fingers through her hair as he cradled the back of her skull. He sipped from her, drank deep, and she surprised him, matching him stroke for stroke, her clever tongue learning his mouth as well as he was learning hers. She licked at the corners of his lips, over the grooves at the roof of his mouth, even tugging his bottom lip between her pretty white teeth to gently suckle.
A tender mauling from a hungry kitten.
“Why are you laughing?” she panted against his lips, giving him another tiny nip as she pulled him closer.
He picked her up and set her on the table, an easy feat when his lover was as fine as spun glass. “I’m not laughing.” She spread her legs, rucking up the skirt of her nightgown, and he happily moved to stand between her thighs.
“I don’t believe you,” she growled—as well as a female such as Elain could growl.
He pulled back, though it pained him to do so. “Truly. I’m just—thrilled to learn you. You’re so perfectly ferocious, while staying so perfectly kind. It’s you. It’s exactly you, and it makes me so happy I could die.”
She blinked heavy-lidded eyes, her lips kiss-swollen and red. Her arms shook a bit with how tightly she held his shirt in her fists, and if he listened, he thought he could hear some of the seams beginning to give. Even seated on the table she had to look up at him, and there was nothing and no one in the world he wanted to protect more than her. Just, her.
“Please,” she said. “Don’t—don’t die.”
“I’ll try my best.”
Elain yanked up his shirt, giving him no choice but to pull it over his head and toss it aside. He didn’t give a damn where it landed. All he cared about was Elain, wrapping her legs around him, kissing his chest, sliding her hands down his stomach.
“You’re so beautiful,” she murmured against his skin. “I thought it the first time I saw you. Even with—everything happening. I couldn’t overlook you.”
Lucien buried his hands in her glorious hair. Gleaming more gold than brown in the low light, her loose curls wrapped around his fingers.
“When I met you, you were the only thing I saw. I should have known right then that I was yours,” he said. “You’re the most incredible female I’ve—” Elain glanced away, shrinking under his hands. “The most incredible woman I’ve ever met.”
She bent forward, gaze lowered, her body suddenly rigid. “You don’t have to say that. We both know it’s not true.”
Lucien grasped her pointed chin, guiding her to look up at him. So she would see the honesty in his eyes when he said, “Your heart is still human, even if the rest of you isn’t. That makes you a woman in the only way that matters.”
He watched as her eyes filled, tears glittering in the candlelight. Lucien bent, kissing the lashes of her left eye before the tear could fall, tasting wet and salt. He moved to the right, not quite quickly enough, and licked along the path that stray drop had made. He kissed over the salted trail as well, one after another, soothing it as if it were a wound. And maybe it was.
His mouth tasted like the ocean when he pulled back, and her liquid eyes were on his, soft and searching. She shifted on the table and in the circle of his arms, pulling her nightgown up and over her head in one fluid movement. She clutched it to her chest, then set it aside and lay back.
“Wait.”
He wanted her, he wanted to knock everything to the ground and take her, but that wasn’t the way. Not with Elain, not in this moment. She would set the counterweight and he would move to match it.
Lucien took the nightgown from Elain, still only catching glimpses of his mate’s nude body as he cleared the space behind her. He moved it all—a covered loaf of bread, the mortar and pestle, his half-empty mug of tea—and spread out her gown. The white fabric stood out starkly against the rough oak tabletop, too thin to provide any cushion, but better than nothing. Lucien allowed himself one indulgent look at her subtle curves and flawless skin, then scooped her heavy hair away from her neck. He laid her back himself, his other hand settled at the sharp dip of her waist, and spread her honey and gold hair out like a fan.
The whole time, Elain watched him with wonder in her eyes. Awe, even. A question had been plaguing him since she’d grabbed his hand, and Lucien couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“Have you done this before?” he asked as he ran a careful hand from her neck, down her throat and over her sternum, to her waist—and then back up again. Avoiding the nut-brown nest of curls that called for him to touch, to explore, to search out and taste.
She glanced away, answer enough, really, but said, “Graysen and I—we anticipated our vows…”
He’d work on not hating the bastard later.
“Was he good to you? Gentle?” Lucien kept at his repetitive stroking down between her breasts to her navel, and no farther. Or perhaps, not too much farther. Maybe he inched the backs of his knuckles closer to her heat with each pass. It was hard to tell. Maybe he’d always made it down to her hipbone when he touched her like this.
“I—thought he had been.”
Lucien decided against giving Graysen any sort of mercy.
“What does that mean, Elain?”
She turned her gaze back to him, a small smile playing at her lips. “We would have been finished before the valerian was done steeping,” she said softly. “And he wasn’t—he didn’t hurt me. But if this is the benchmark for gentle, then…”
Lucien settled his hand at her hip, gripping her a shade more firmly. “Do you want—not gentle?”
She lifted her chin, then reached a hand out, softly touching his wrist. “I want you. I just want you and what love it is you make.”
Lucien grasped her thighs, then opened them wider. Elain leaned her head back, eyes closed, but he didn’t see fear on her face. Only anticipation, excitement, and that want she’d promised. He bent down, tempted to leave a trail of kisses over her stomach, but he couldn’t afford to spend his patience there. Every moment touching Elain wore down his self-control, and he refused to be another man who failed her between the sheets. Not that there were any sheets here.
He licked where she was wettest, moaning against her, almost into her. Lucien parted her soft folds with his thumbs, exposing the place he planned to spend the most time. The place that, with enough attention, would unravel her. When he flicked his tongue there, Elain’s hips jolted up, and she clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle her cry.
He could feel her thighs pressing against his shoulders, tightening reflexively. “What did you…?”
Lucien answered—by doing it again.
Elain shuddered, one hand scrabbling to his hair and tangling in the roots. When he looked up over her body, he saw that the other had left her mouth and was clasping her breast.
He reached to loosen the placket of his trousers. Then he went to work.
Lucien didn't worry about being polite, or even neat about it. He'd given her enough warning of what he meant to do, and so he set to it, delving into her folds as deeply as he wanted. She tasted faintly of salt, like her tears. Beautifully sour, like the ale the faeries drank after a long day of labor. Rich and perfect, his mate. Her hips moved against him, showing him exactly what she wanted, and he fell in love with each undulation. He circled and sucked the point that would drive her sensations up and up and up, then curled his tongue down and down and down, entering her.
Elain wasn't quiet. She didn't cry out or scream, but rather moaned, sighed, gasped. It was music, a lilting song, and he wanted to keep her singing forever.
When he slowed down, Elain nudged his side ungently with her foot, too weak to qualify as a kick. "Please don't tease me," she begged. "I need it."
Lucien pressed a soft, tantalizing kiss to her curls, not even an inch from where she wanted him. "What do you need? Tell me."
"You know!" she huffed, rocking forward. "Just do it, and I'll—I'll give you whatever you want."
His cock throbbed at that promise, and he couldn't resist reaching under the table to take himself in hand. "Bargains have to be specific," he reminded her.
She grunted, beating her fists against the wooden tabletop. "Let me come. Please, let me come, and anything I can give you, it's yours."
Lucien huffed a short laugh, then said, "Done."
He gave Elain no quarter, licking over her with hard, broad strokes of his tongue while caressing her opening with the knuckle of his crooked finger, introducing her to the feeling of his touch there. She gave him her most melodic moan yet, and all he had to do was slip his long finger inside her and press—
Elain arched, the hand in his hair finally pulling hard enough to sting. He felt her body grip him in luscious, perfect waves, and Lucien gripped the tip of his cock in time with her.
Then, as he watched her pleasure take her, like black ink on ivory paper, a mark began just above her navel. His heart pounded as he watched the mark divide, then divide again, traveling up, staining her perfect skin with a delicate rendering of a long stem. Then off-shoots with five serrated leaves. Thorns. And finally, a rose, in the perfect moment of bloom—just as her climax crested—settled below the hollow of her throat.
Beautiful. Terrible. Damn the damned Night Court.
He couldn't say anything, feeling like he'd done this, knowing he had. Knowing he'd ruined this before it had really begun.
She smiled, her eyes still shut in bliss, and Lucien stole one more moment of having her, loving her, feeling her body’s tremors around his hand. Then she opened her eyes and gasped.
"What is that?"
But she wasn't looking at herself. Elain sat up, lodging him farther inside of her, which distracted her for a moment. She bit her lip, glancing up through her lashes, and Lucien wondered if maybe this wasn't over just yet. She touched his chest, trailed her fingers down. He looked, and saw what she saw.
"It's a chrysanthemum. How—?"
She gasped again, looking at herself, then turning scared, worried eyes to him.
Gods. Did she think, honestly think he'd do something so terrible with their bargain? He swallowed, then removed his hand from her. He let go of his straining cock as well, and laid both palms on the table, hanging his head.
The worst part was that the temptation was there. To have her fetch an apple from the larder and hand it over, sealing them together forever. But, no. No. He couldn’t even entertain the thought of taking that choice from her, when so many had been stolen already.
"You name your price," he said. "You tell me what you want to give, and I'll agree to it, and these stupid, heathen tattoos will disappear. Even if it's a punch in the face, I'll say yes. I'd—never. Never use you like that."
Silence stretched between them, as long as this night. Then he felt her cool hands on either side of his face, lifting him to look at her. The fear in her eyes was gone.
"Lucien." He sighed. His name on her lips was the sweetest thing. "I know you wouldn't. At least, I—no. I know that you wouldn't. I do. I was just startled. And—"
She bit her lip. He desperately wanted to take over that particular job.
"And?"
Her brows drew together. "Oh, I just really don't care for tattoos. Feyre is so fond of hers, and I'm happy for her, but—"
Lucien laughed, booming, much more likely to draw someone's attention than Elain's soft sounds of pleasure.
"Kiss me," he said. "Kiss me and your debt will be fully satisfied."
She grinned widely, then pressed her lips to his.
The kiss went from teasing to desperate within seconds. Gods, he might die if he didn't get inside her now, right now—
Elain grabbed him by his open belt with both hands and pulled him close, bringing the tip of his cock against her. Hard to soft, sharing her wet. Lucien rocked forward, pushing into her, a little and then a little more. When Elain winced, he cursed. Idiot. Selfish idiot. He'd meant to work her with his fingers first. Get her ready, open to him, maybe make her come again.
Before he could pull out, Elain grasped his cock, holding him as she arched up. Taking him deeper, welcoming him with pretty whimpers. Lucien wrapped one arm around her, bracing himself against the table with the other, and rocked forward. Inch by inch, until he was fully seated within her.
He kissed her brow, trembling from the effort of holding back. Of not fucking her so hard that the table's banging woke everyone in this house.
"Are you all right?" Lucien asked. He'd never heard himself sound so weak, but he couldn't summon any shame for it. Not here and now, with Elain.
Her arms were around his neck and his hair had fallen forward, surrounding them both. Even his fucking hair was embracing the woman.
"Yes," she said. "You feel so—" She took a moment to breathe, panting mint and honey breaths over his neck and chest. Her skin was clear again, a rosy pale not unlike the petal of the same flower. She swallowed. "So right."
He hadn't truly expected her to finish the sentence, but when she did, he was sure he grew even harder inside her. Right. He felt right.
"Elain."
He'd done this all wrong. She should be in his bed, not perched on the edge of a table in the kitchen of Rhys's town house. But to her, he felt right, and this was what they had.
He rocked slowly into her, then retreated, letting her discover how she wanted him. She shifted, arched, gasped.
"More. I want more."
He grunted, gritting his teeth as he moved deeper, one hand steady at the small of her back to save her from the worst of it.
"Please," she whined. "I can take what you give. Please, don't hold back from me."
"I can't.” He closed his eyes, trying to strike the balance of giving her what she asked for and keeping himself tamed.
"Why? Tell me."
This was his death, he was sure of it: fucking his mate, well but not too well, and having to explain himself at the same time.
Her nails bit into his shoulder and he faltered, slamming deep on a guttural groan. "Don't, Elain. If I let go, I might—"
She buried her face in his neck, pressing her body close to his, her breasts soft against his skin. "Do it," she whispered.
Then she bit him.
She was still Elain, still his ferociously kind mate, and so she didn't put too much strength behind it, but her meaning was clear.
And Lucien would give her absolutely anything.
He held her tight, splaying the hand on her back for better purchase, his fourth finger nestling perfectly in the cleft of her ass. He lashed her to him with his other arm, tangling his hand in her hair and tugging her head back. She had to look at him while he did this, while they did this.
He didn't rock into her now, instead flexing his hips to pull almost all the way out of her, then thrusting back in. Over and over, relentlessly making her feel the entire length of him entering her. Once for every time he imagined taking her, and then once again for good measure.
Her mouth fell open and he kissed it, keeping his eyes open, on hers. Again, again. All of him into her, then nearly out. He could have made love to her a hundred times, a thousand endings, and with a sharp snap of his hips, another beginning.
He wouldn't grow tired of this. He'd fought battles, fought a war. He could fuck her till they needed the room for breakfast and he told them all to go to hell.
Elain hadn't wanted him to hold back, and he wouldn't. Never, ever again.
She broke their clumsy half-kiss as her body gripped his, staring up at him as she moaned. Coming, but also starting to understand that it didn't mean finishing. Not for her, and certainly not for him.
"Mine," he said.
She must have been drunk on fucking, because she nodded her head against the palm of his hand, licked her lips, and gave him another wide-eyed kiss.
Lucien was lost. In her, in her body, in her scent, in the sweet sounds she made. The bond was there already, but he hadn't known it was as thin as spider's silk. With every beat of her heart, another thread entwined with it, drawing him closer. First a bit of hemp, good for a day's work in the field. Then thicker, stronger, something that could raise the sails on a ship, could hold all thirteen loops of a hangman's noose. Stronger, iron, steel, shining gold not of this world.
All tethering him to her: his mate, the female, the woman coming apart again in his arms.
And this time, on a quiet roar, he followed her, mingling his pieces with hers.
.
.
This male was dangerous. Something she’d known about Lucien from the very beginning, but even when she’d collapsed at the Cauldron’s feet and he’d called her his mate, she hadn’t understood what he was capable of doing to her—to her heart.
Elain pressed her lips to his chest, damp with salty sweat, an affection too sluggish to count as a kiss. Because he’d worn her out, body and soul. And still, still, she wanted more. More of his taste on her tongue, his body fitted inside hers, his voice breaking on her name. Making it sound more sacred than any prayer.
Lucien ran his fingers down her back, a soothing gesture meant to calm her. Nothing could do that right now, though, because she finally understood. Not just the mating bond, but how people could lose themselves in drink, or gamble away their lives at a gaming table. Some needs were too acute to deny, no matter what they cost you.
“Elain?” Lucien asked.
She leaned back enough to face him. Hiding would be so much easier, safer, but she’d lived easy and safe for too long.
Elain touched his left cheek. Not quite on his scars, but close enough that he’d know she was looking at—no, seeing—all of him. “I’m sorry.”
He didn’t make her count all the ways in which she’d been wrong, all the time she’d wasted fighting the most beautiful inevitability. He didn’t do that because, even at his most dangerous, Lucien was never cruel to her.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he said. “What you’ve been going through… I can’t even imagine.”
Elain looped her arms around Lucien’s neck, though she should let him go. It wasn’t wise to remain here, (mostly) naked and obviously debauched on the kitchen table for anyone to find.
“Promise me something,” Elain said.
“Another bargain?” he asked, with that indolent smile that she’d somehow come to love in the space of one night. How odd that only yesterday it had irked her so much.
“No bargain. Just a vow not to…” Graysen’s furious face flashed through her mind, the disgust twisting his handsome features when he’d tossed her aside.
“I’ll never hurt you,” Lucien said, his voice colder than an Autumn Court male’s had any right to be. “And I won’t leave you either.”
He knew what promises she needed, and that she needed his arms around her too, his kisses scattered across her forehead. Elain leaned into it all. Finally accepting what belonged to her.
"What do you want?" she asked. She knew she should be afraid of the answer. This morning, she would have been unwilling to offer up any vow to Lucien, blindly or not. But now she held his softening cock within her body, tasted his sweat on her lips. Now she felt something real thrumming between them.
"Nothing," he said. "I'm happy like this."
She cracked open an eye, grinning up at him. "Liar. Tell me. I trust you."
The expression on his face stilled the breath in her lungs. She was giving him table scraps, and he cherished each one like it was pure gold.
"You've given it. I just want your trust, and time to spend with you. Time to—"
He cut himself off, his golden eye whirring softly in the quiet.
"To what?" she asked.
He traced tender fingers over her eyelashes, a tickling touch that still managed to thrill her, then trailed those fingers down her cheek and into her hair.
"To love you."
It took her a moment to remember to breathe, but she did, and then she nodded. "Yes. I can do all of that."
Lucien’s answering grin was too bright not to return, and Elain never stopped smiling while he parted from her and helped her down from the table. Or when he drew her close for a kiss, then another, another. They had so much time to make up for, and Elain fully intended to catch up on the kisses they owed each other by dawn. Lucien seemed to be of the same mind, because he kept snagging her around the waist and pulling her in for more.
“I’m trying to get dressed,” Elain said.
He made a disgruntled noise, but kept his hands to himself while she pulled on her nightgown. Though as soon as she smoothed the skirt down, Lucien swept her up into his arms, his lips already on hers again.
Elain remembered what Feyre had told her on her birthday, and couldn’t stifle a giggle.
Lucien’s brow furrowed as he carried her from the kitchen into the hall, then up the stairs. He had the good sense to whisper when he asked, “What’s so funny?”
Elain shook her head. “Not telling.”
Not telling him, anyway. Tomorrow, though, she’d tell her sister that Brannagh’s claim about Autumn Court males was entirely true.
Lucien laid her in his bed with a gentleness she wouldn’t have imagined him possessing before tonight. Now she knew that tenderness wasn’t something she’d have to earn from her mate; he gave it freely, happily. Lovingly.
As Lucien climbed in with her, Elain noticed a small plate on the side table. It held two cookies, one half-eaten, and enough crumbs to suggest that there had been far more than two before he’d gotten his hands on them.
He caught her staring, nipped her shoulder, and said, “I told you I like sweet things.”
Could something as small as a ginger cookie, passed from her hands to his, truly seal their bond? It seemed insignificant compared to what they’d just done. But if she’d learned anything about magic—especially the magic that bound her to Lucien—it was that it rarely catered to her expectations.
Lucien glanced at the plate, then back to her, and she could see the exact moment that he understood. When she hesitated, he brushed her sweat-dampened hair away from her face, his smile small but honest. He’d been nothing but honest with her, even when his truths weren’t easy to give or receive.
“You don’t have to be ready right now,” he said. “You don’t ever have to be ready, but... if you are someday, I’ll just be thankful.”
She couldn’t cry, not on this perfect night. So instead, Elain smacked his shoulder playfully and said, “Stop being so dreamy. It makes me want to shove a cookie in your mouth this instant.”
Lucien threw back his head and laughed, wide and bright. As warm as the fire between them, the one he’d kindled in her the moment she let her guard down.
Once he caught his breath, he made Elain lose hers, kissing her deep into his sage and woodsmoke scented pillows. She wondered if he meant to have her again, because she'd say yes. She'd say please, even. But he slowed and softened their kisses to something sweet and sleepy, then turned her over to braid her hair down her back—before braiding his own.
It was the most charming thing he'd done all night.
When he tucked her close and waved his hand to lower the flames of the candles and the fire, Elain jolted in his arms.
"Your tea! You didn't get to finish it."
He chuckled, his breath hot in the roots of her hair as he pulled her closer. "I think I'll be able to sleep just fine."
She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to contain the love blooming inside of her.
Elain thought of the honeycomb tucked away in a corner of the pantry, and whether she could sneak down in the morning to fetch it for Lucien before anyone woke. The promise of that bit of sweetness, that bit of forever, carried her into sleep.
.
.
fin