Torin
“He’s just through here, my lady.” Felix’s voice was muffled by the thick wooden door, and I sat up abruptly from lounging on my bed at the honorific he used.
There is only one “lady” in Vespera . . .
My heart thumped erratically at the prospect of Ellowyn standing just outside my door.
“Thank you.” Her soft, sweet voice filtered into the room as Felix cracked the door open. I sprang from the bed and wrenched the door the rest of the way before bundling Ellowyn into my arms. She hit my chest with a small “oomph” before she giggled and wrapped her arms around my torso. I pushed my nose into her hair, inhaling her lavender scent as I peppered kisses against the crown of her head.
“I missed you,” I whispered reverently. Ellowyn’s arms squeezed my middle tighter as she pressed a kiss to the hollow of my collarbone.
“I missedyou.” Her confession was a broken plea, and I tucked her head against my shoulder. Felix and I made eye contact over Ellowyn’s slightly shaking form and I gave him agrateful nod. He’d been on the lookout for her the last few days so as to not raise suspicion if I was looking for her.
“I’ll give you two some time and stand guard,” he said softly, something wistful in his brown eyes before he left the room.
The door clicked shut quietly and I maneuvered Ellowyn and I to my bed so she was lying next to me, tucked tightly into my side.
“I saw my parents,” she said, her voice muffled by my chest. I frowned as I pulled her away from my body just enough to see her face.
“Your parents?”
She nodded. “They’re in the dungeons beneath the Academy. They’re . . . not who I thought they were.”
Most of my interactions were with Peytor and her father when we were planning the rebellion in Hestin, so I was surprised to see her speak so disparagingly about them.
“They had suspicions about me, about my powers,” she admitted hesitantly as she dashed tears from her eyes. “Apparently they just wanted to use me as some sort of pawn, a play for power.”
Ellowyn whispered the last part, and I kissed away her tears.
“Everyone just wants to use me, Torin. Everyone. My parents, my husband”—I growled at the term—“I don’t know what’s real,” she lamented.
“I’m real,” I whispered brokenly. “This is real.” I placed her palm over my racing heart as I bent my head to kiss her lightly. Ellowyn sighed against my lips as they parted for me, our tongues languidly dancing together.
“Let me worship you,” I pleaded on a whisper.
A keening sound rose from Ellowyn’s chest at my plea, and I felt her body relax under mine, even before she uttered the words I longed to hear.
“Yes,” she breathed. Her eyelids fluttered open to reveal glittering, grey eyes that I swore held the secrets to the universe.
My lips twitched into a genuine smile, my first since arriving in Vespera. I needed her with me—needed her to ground and center me. Ellowyn was my world, and I spun about her axis.
All tentativeness released from her muscles with my rare show of joy.
“Will you claim me tonight, Torin? Make me feel wanted for who I am and not what I can offer you?” Ellowyn whispered as she shakily tugged at the tunic tucked into my pants. I halted her movements by laying one of my hands over the top of hers.
Her hands froze where they rested against the bare skin of my lower abdomen, just above the waist of my pants, and I inadvertently sucked in a breath at her casual touch. My skin was on fire where her fingers brushed my hardened muscle, and I felt my cock grow hard immediately.
I experimentally rocked my hips, pressing my erection against her lower belly. Ellowyn’s eyes widened with the movement, and a small gasp escaped her lips as a red flush encased her neck and cheeks.
“I will do whatever you want and need me to do, Ell. I told you before and I will tell you again, every hour of every day, if that’s what it takes for you to believe me. You are mine, and I am yours. Whatever you need, whatever you want, you have. If you want me to erase his touch with my own, to show you how valued and cherished you are, to worship you for however long we have, then you need only say the word, sweetheart. My heart, my body, everything that I am is yours.”
A sheen clouded her eyes, a lone tear escaping to snake down the side of her head and tangle with her white-blonde curls.
“Yes.” She nodded her head, hands already moving to tug at my pants. “Yes, that’s what I want, Torin. I am yours. I think I’ve always been yours.”
Her admission said with so much conviction snapped the hold on my restraint and I matched her fervor with my own, tearing at her clothes and mine until we were both naked on the too-small bed.
I hovered over her, my cock jutting from between my legs obscenely as a bead of clear fluid wept from the tip to drip onto her exposed stomach. She laid frozen beneath me, either afraid to move or caught in the same spell I was.
