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A splash of water to the side diverts us, and Neo leans over, dipping a finger into the embers to restore my gown. “I’ll get you back to Court now. You need rest.”
“I don’t want to go back,” I tell him. I don’t want to rest. All of my weakness from earlier has fled. It shouldn’t be possible after I’d used so much of my power today. One little swim in the Soul Lake shouldn’t prompt such strength, such energy, such revitalization, but my currents ripple into the air and tease from my hair in glimmering filaments until I spin them in a random, dance above my head.
“Quit playing with your Halo and get up,” Neo scolds me, derision in his tone, a grumpiness.
Mischievous as I remember that time after I’d healed him following the hellhounds, I get to my feet and suddenly leap onto him, throwing my arms around his neck. “You owe me a Dragon ride.”
“What are you doing?” Neo balks at my boldness, hands coming down on my back, but his arousal grows, tempting mine all the more. Oh, Saints! He said I could ride him anytime I wanted.
“I’m feeling truly energetic, Neo. Do you really want to kill my buzz?” I clench my thighs, and it seems to do the trick because he growls, drops the gown, and slams his mouth against mine.
He holds me just like on our honeymoon, bearing my full weight. Hands sliding up and down my back, he finally settles on my waist, arms weaving all around me as if struggling to wrench me closer.
I tug at his outer robe, and he obliges me by destroying it and the rest of his clothes with one touch. Moaning into his mouth while his abundant length stabs just the edge of my center, I taste all of him, nip at his jawline. One hand anchors around my waist to bear me. The other cups the back of my head to draw me closer to his smoldering mouth so he may circle his tongue into my depths, stealing my breath. Fresh Halo gold trills down my thighs.
Here in the grotto, I lose myself. In the sounds of the waterfalls cascading to feed the pool, I lose myself—in the shimmering wispy spirits collecting in the Soul Pool, lose myself in the wind unfurling all around us like a promise.
Despite everything that’s happened, despite that he’s not the same Neo, I have no regrets when the Prince nudges his vamp manhood to my sex, wetting it, going slow to allow me to adjust. But I can’t bear anything slow. With one grip of my nails on his hip, I urge Neo onward.
In the moment that he drives himself into me, Neo’s whole body pitches forward, the full force of his length sheathing itself inside my core. Destructive energy, his dark matter splinters the foundation where he we stand, fissuring and fracturing the ground. A stalactite crashes. I nearly scream from the inertia.
Neo roars as fresh wind bashes us, and the entire grotto is suddenly canvassed in the shadow of…his wings. HisDragonwings! Just like before, they are enormous enough to stretch from one side of the grotto to the other so the waterfalls spill onto their edges. He’s so dangerously beautiful, just like on our honeymoon.
Immediately, Neo pulls out of me, eyes like silver thunderclouds when he sets me on the ground, cups the sides of my neck, and asks, “What the devil have you done to me?”
I whimper, aching to tell him, dying to tell him. His body remembers. Somewhere deep in the recesses of his subconscious, Neoremembers!
His grip on my neck strengthens, claws curving from his fingertips, armored Dragon scales emerging. “Ineverrelease my Dragon wings when I fuck, Elysia. Only ever my vampire ones.” He thrusts his gaze to each side of his beastly wings.
He released both for me that night.
Suddenly, he seizes my jaw and tugs my face upward, eyes brutal and demonizing when they rake across me. “What do you know?”
“I know I love you, Neo. I know if I could tell you everything, I would. But the Triumvirate—”
Neo snarls and shoves me away, prompting tears to spill down my cheeks. “And here, I was beginning to trust you. Such a damned fool. Lux was right. For months, she’s been convinced that you will be my destruction. That you only agreed to the Triumvirate with my Father so you could defeat us with your power. It’s your grand game, isn’t it?” I stay still as a statue before him, a statue weeping gold as he destroys me with his words. “You rebel, you resist, you refuse to kneel, you deceive my sister and my friend—you lure me with your power, youtemptme with your body, your power, and even your heart. You are making meweaker!”
“No, Neo, no!” I deny and reach for him, only for my heart to lament when he pulls away, when he runs from me, when he transforms those wings into his vampire ones and flees from the grotto. Naked and grief-stricken, longing for unity, all I can do is stand in the darkness and soul-light because what can I do? Somehow, I muster the strength to put my gown back on, but just after I do, the ground shudders. No, it quakes! I lose my footing, stumble, and fall back so my gown cushions the hard blow.
As soon as I try to get up, Neo is there. Without a word, he gathers me in his arms and wraith-shadowing me right out of the grotto. Just beyond the hidden pathway in the rocky outface is the Bridal Canyon, except it’s not a canyon anymore.
I shriek at what he’s done, at how the cliff faces on the far west side have disintegrated while he’s sunk a mile-long crater deeper into the ground to act as a…a grave. Now, all the corpses are covered. Now, it’s become a burial ground, not a dumping ground.This…this is what Neo has done with that uncontrollable power.
Gazing up at him, at the grim seam etched in his mouth, at the deep shadows growing around his eyes, I murmur the words, “Beauty from Destruction, Neo.”
Neo can destroy, but sometimes, there is beauty in destruction, beauty from ashes. So, why do I feel like he will do the same to me?
When we return to the Tenth Court, I remember how we’ve been gone all day, how Neo did not do Court today. Once he shadows us across the causeway and into the main doors of his tower, multiple Court Stewards await him.
“My lord Prince.” They bow their heads as Neo sets me down. “As they were reuniting families, our knights identified two Court Mordere scouts within the tent city. They seized them at the border and are holding them hostage in our dungeons.”
Neo balls his right hand into a fist, veins puckering, humming with power. Despite what happened at the Bridal Canyon, he still has more to spare, putting my Halo to shame.
Neo hasn’t closed up our bond or raised his drawbridge, so I hear his next thoughts.
Scouts can mean only one thing. War!
Chapter23
