Page 17 of We Steal The Flight

I walk closer, trailing my eyes up and down his body. He is a stunning man. Ripples of muscle cover his body, and there isn’t a part of Vale that isn’t toned. I don’t let myself dare to look below his waist though. He turns, his dark eyes tracing over me and making me feel like the shower water has turned up a million degrees. I know it hasn’t, but it feels that way when my enemy looks at me like this. We used to hate each other, or love each other, or something maddening in the middle of it all.

“Come here.” His voice—the deepness of it—makes my knees weak—as I step up to him under the hot spray of the shower. His hand sinks into my hair, gripping my neck and pulling me in for a deep kiss.

I want some control, because when I’m with Vale, it always feels like a battle. “Show me what it’s like to be yours,” I whisper, and the words feel less like surrender and more like a dare.

Vale goes very still against me, his eyes flashing with his dragon. For a heartbeat, he only looks at me, his jaw tight, eyes unreadable, that familiar storm-dark expression fixed in place as if he could glare his way through the dare. This moment between us is everything and will end with us being mates. It is unspoken but there. He knows it too.

It would have been easier, perhaps, if he had looked triumphant. If he looked smug, or hungry, or anything simple. But Vale has never been simple, and the look he gives me now is the very reason I fell in love with him and want him as my mate.

“You know what you’re asking for, Hex?” he asks.

My pulse jumps. “Yes. I’m asking to make my enemy mine.”

His mouth twitches, not quite a smile. “There is my Hex, always weaving her spell over me.” He closes any space between us, and the air between us collapses into nothing.

Vale’s fingers find the dip of my hips as he kneels, and there is nothing careless in the way he strokes his massive hands down my thighs before digging them into my soft skin and parting my legs. His gaze tracks every inch revealed, and the heat in it makes my skin feel too tight for my body. I have spent months telling myself I hated the way he looked at me—too sharp, too smug—and he was such an asshole to me. It was always as if he could see every weakness I would rather die than confess, but he never let me far out of his sight. It was always more than a bonded mark; it was this tugging us together. Hate and love. Witch and shifter. Bonded and mates.

I look down at Vale, and he looks at me like he wants to lose for once.

His mouth brushes the bare curve of my hip before he sinks his face into my pussy and licks me. I cry out, my legs going weak, but his tight hands hold me up. He is relentless and unforgiving as he fucks me with his tongue, over and over, until I’m crashing into a mind-blowing orgasm.

“Look at you,” he mutters against my pussy. “You taste so fucking good.”

I dig my fingers into his hair. “And I want more. I don’t need you on your knees, Vale. You’re mine, and I’m yours. I love you.”

The words land between us, heavy and perfect. His eyes fill with tears as he stands up, and Vale kisses me. He lifts me up in his arms, pressing me against the shower wall as I wrap my legs around his hips, and he reaches between us, lining up his cock with my pussy. Vale’s hand wraps around my throat, where I know he is going to bite me for the mating. “Last chance to back out, Hex.”

“Never,” I whisper.

“I fucking love you, Juniper.” He slams deep into me with one thrust, and I cry out in pure pleasure as he fills and stretches me. There is nothing gentle about how Vale fucks me at first, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. When he draws back, it is only far enough for him to watch as he slides his cock straight back inside me.

My pulse is racing as my orgasm builds with every deep thrust. “I don’t want this to ever stop.”

His eyes darken. “Fuck, Juniper. I could be inside you for years, and it wouldn’t be enough. I will never get enough of you.”

That, more than anything, nearly undoes me.

One of his hands pins mine beside my head, his fingers threaded with mine, while his other hand holds onto my ass as he thrusts into me again and again.

“Still want me?” he asks, voice rough and deep. His lips find my neck, his teeth tracing my sensitive skin.

My breath is uneven, and I’m so, so close to crashing into pleasure. I know what happens with a mate bond. I know how good this is about to feel. “You know I do.”

“I want to hear you say it,” he demands.

“I want you as my mate,” I whisper to him around a moan. “You’re mine.”

“And you’re mine,” he replies against my neck before sinking his teeth into my neck. The pain is a pinch, only for a second, followed by orgasm after orgasm, as our souls and bodies become one. I cry out his name, feeling him fill me with his come only seconds later, and his groan echoes loudly in my ears. The mate bond clicks into place as if it has always been there between us, as Vale still kisses me like he has a grudge against the entire world but not me. Never me. We kiss for what feels like hours, content just to be together, and when we part, I stare at the mate mark covering his heart, matching the same one I have now. “My mate.” He cups my face and kisses me again, this time sliding right back inside me where my enemy has always belonged.

Chapter 12

It’s been two days since we got Vale out, and we’ve been hiding in the caves with no word from Lyra or Aster. I don’t think the Umbral Authority have Lyra or any clue where we are, but they are focused on tearing up the forest. They’re trying to figure out a way to get to us, and their Mindless have endless patrols in the forests, but these caves are well protected. Years of spells for shifters to hide and protect them, and so far, those spells are working. Even then, all of us are on alert since coming here because we are well aware that our luck could change at any moment. We have a plan to leave through the sea if they find us. We can get to the edge of the forest with Vale and Kane, thanks to them testing the boundaries of the spell, but they can’t stay long. They begin to feel weak and sick the further away they are from the academy. Even on the land here, they feel an urge to return to the academy itself.

I clear my throat, turning back to reading one of the many books down here about potions and curling up in Black’s lap as he rests his eyes. I sense the magic in the air seconds before a note falls straight into my lap out of thin air. Maz, who was sharpening his daggers, turns his head towards me. Vale and Kane are on watch at the door, and Maz calls for them as I turn over the folded letter, seeing a dragon drawn onto the front and feeling the familiar magic wrapped around it. “It’s from Lyra.”

I quickly read it out to everyone.

Juniper—