The time and distance that had separated us had only made my desire burn stronger for her. It made me realize that I truly would do anything for this woman. Although I was still afraid to even be with her now, with my mother’s threat playing at the back of my mind, I could no longer resist my urge.
I wanted to create a bond with her that would never be broken. One that would keep us bound together, even if we were torn apart again in the future.
I must’ve looked a mess right now, my skin red and burned. But all she was looking at was my eyes. Her crystal-blue ones gazed deep into mine.
My heart pounding, I hardly even knew how to control my passions. I wanted to shed our garments, the barrier that stopped us from pressing together, skin to skin. As our kiss deepened, her body responding to mine, I knew that she wanted the same.
As untraditional as I might be labeled due to falling in love with a human, there were still some traditions that were ingrained in me.
“Victoria,” I whispered. I unclasped my lips from hers before trailing them up her cheek and kissing her eyelids. I struggled to find the words to express what I was feeling inside right now. It was impossible. Her scent was driving me wild. Her hands roaming through my hair, the hitching of her breath… Anything that came out of my mouth would sound horribly insufficient. But at least I could try. Clearing my throat, I blurted the first words that came to me. “I need you, Victoria. You… You’ve made me insane.”
Her back still pressed against the pole, I lowered myself down until I was kneeling. Resting my hands on her lower back, I lifted up the ends of her shirt and kissed her perfectly formed navel, trailing my way down to the border of her pants.
My mouth dried. I knew what I wanted. But I… I didn’t know exactly how to get there. In The Woodlands everything was so… arranged.
How is this done by humans? I didn’t even know.
I glanced up at her. Her eyes had widened, her lips parted. I seemed to be doing something right.
And who cared even if I did everything wrong? Victoria didn’t. She loved me for whatever I was.
A blush rose to her cheeks as she knelt to my level. That blush… it was my undoing.
“I want you to have my children, Victoria Vaughn,” I whispered, gazing intensely into her eyes, our lips an inch apart. “Even though we’re still stuck in this mess, I… I’m asking you to be mine.”
Victoria was barely breathing as she stared at me.
What was going through her head? I wished that she would say something. Had it been wrong to mention children? Did they not do that where she was from? I was just trying to be honest. It didn’t help that my passions were raging for her.
She leaned closer until our foreheads touched, holding the sides of my face.
“I already am yours, Bastien,” she breathed. “Are you so blind?”
Bastien
Leaving Victoria on the balcony, I zoomed back to Cecil on the other side of the deck.
We were making good speed away from The Dunes. We were already a fair distance away.
“Cecil,” I panted, planting a hand on his shoulder.
“What?”
“I need to ask you for another favor.”
He frowned. “What’s that?”
“I need you to witness Victoria’s and my vows.”
His jaw dropped. “Vows? You mean—”
“Yes,” I said breathlessly. “Victoria has agreed to be mine. Forever.”
After he put aside the reins, he worked to steady the ship so that he could leave the control room for a few minutes. He accompanied me to the balcony.
Victoria was waiting—standing now and facing us—cheeks rosy as ever. She leaned against the pole, hands behind her back, looking anxious, yet overjoyed. That summed up my feeling too.
We had no rings to exchange, but that didn’t matter. Who cared about rings, anyway? Narrow bands that restricted your blood flow.
Victoria’s and my love didn’t need rings.
My vow to Victoria was simple: “I love you, Victoria. And I will never stop loving you.”
Words were not so important in a werewolf marriage, anyway. The real bond took place after the ceremony, when the couple was left alone…
It didn’t even feel like I needed a vow from Victoria. Her actions had spoken far more than any words could. She had already sacrificed for me more than I could’ve ever dreamed she would. And we weren’t even married yet.
I ran my hands down her arms as she gazed earnestly into my eyes. “You are my key to happiness, Bastien. For better or for worse, you’ve become like a drug to me. I seem to start doing really stupid things without you… So please, don’t ever leave me again.”
I couldn’t help but stoop down to claim her lips there and then, forgetting that I was supposed to be waiting for Cecil to give me the command.
“Uh, what exactly do you need me for again, Bastien?” Cecil chuckled, rolling his eyes. He proceeded with some other formalities, some set oaths that all happy couples were supposed to agree to—which in my book were so blindingly obvious they hardly even needed to be spoken—in regards to the sacredness and longevity of a marriage; and then he pronounced us officially man and wife. Our small ceremony was over.
Cecil knew me too well to hang around long. He kissed Victoria’s head and wished her all happiness before making his way back to the front of the boat.
When I turned to Victoria, her smile lit me up. I caught her hand and led her back to the deck. We entered the trap door and descended the steps to the lower levels.
I left her in the hallway while going to check once more on Yuraya. She was still knocked out. Then I returned to Victoria and began searching for a room we could call our own… at least for a short while.
Victoria
It still had not quite clicked what Bastien and I had just done. Although, in a way, it felt anticlimactic. Not because the ceremony was so small, or because my family was absent, but because, as I’d told Bastien, I’d already committed myself to him long ago… even before I’d realized it.
The happiness and excitement in my love’s eyes as he led me into an empty cabin was both endearing and contagious. There was very little in the world that made me more happy than witnessing Bastien’s happiness.
As he closed the door to the cabin, shutting us in our own world, I was aware that there was more to a werewolf marriage than just exchanging vows. But I was not sure exactly what it was…
Moving to me, he pressed his lips to mine and engulfed me in another kiss. As he drew away, his mood had suddenly become more wolf than man. There was an almost animalistic glint in his eyes as he laid me on the bed. He pressed his hands against my hips, making me sink deeper into the mattress, as if to anchor me. Then he crawled over me, his knees on either side of me as, slowly, he removed my top. His lips moved across my chest before his fingers reached the border of my pants. Sliding his fingers beneath them, he pulled them off until they were pooled at the end of the bed.
Now I lay beneath his tense body in just my underwear.
For somebody who was supposed to be a virgin—pure as a snowflake, as Brucella had always made him out to be—Bastien had a sharp instinct as to what to do.
He slipped his hands beneath my back and deftly unclasped my bra. Do they even have bra clasps in The Woodlands?
The blood rushed to my face as he pulled my bra off and took me in. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, his lips flushing with desire. His hands trailed further down my body and removed my remaining underwear.
Then he took my hands and pulled me to stand up on the bed, while he stepped back down to the floor. My hair loose against my shoulders, I found myself wrapping my arms around myself bashfully.
But he caught my arms and replaced them by my sides.
“Please, Victoria,” he said, his voice husky. “You’re so beautiful. I want to look at you.”
And so I stood for him, watching as his eyes roamed me, even as I wondered what he was thinking
… until he finally removed his last remaining piece of clothing, letting it fall to his feet.
I was sure that my body reacted visibly. My breathing labored as he allowed me to take him in fully, just as he was drinking in the sight of me.
In that moment, I wanted nothing but to step off the bed and melt into him. I wanted nothing to exist but our rapidly beating hearts. Our skin, molded together. His breathing against my hair. Him. All of him.
I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep myself away from him.
I let out an audible sigh of relief as Bastien moved to me. Holding my waist, he pushed me back down against the bed. My breath hitched as he lowered onto me, our skin finally touching. He twisted us around so that we lay on our sides, my back against his front. His body spooning around me, his hands caressed my waist and grazed my bosom, before settling over my heart. I realized my ear was about level with his heart, too. Perhaps that was his intention. He lifted one hand to tilt my head, so that my left ear touched his skin. Now I could hear his heartbeat just as he could feel mine.
Was this some kind of werewolf thing?
I recalled one time in the hospital when he had slipped between the sheets to press his ear against my chest, with the excuse that he was listening to my heart. Maybe it hadn’t been an excuse and this was something that werewolves did.
As we lay still together, our focus on one another’s heart, it was as if the universe stilled… but not us. Thump. Thump. Thump. As Bastien took my hand and cupped it over my heart alongside his, I realized as the seconds passed, our heartbeats were sounding closer together, closer and closer until they pumped exactly in unison. The experience was metaphysical. Almost spiritual. Like some kind of otherworldly energy fusing us together, dictating both of our hearts… commanding them to beat as one.
Unexpected tears welled in my eyes—tears of bliss, tears of complete contentment, tears of oneness—and as I panned my head to Bastien’s, I realized that the corners of his eyes had moistened too even as he gazed down at me intensely.
I didn’t know what kind of magic this was. But it felt like our hearts had just been forged together. Bonded in a way that could never be broken. Not by jealousy or misunderstanding. Not by time or distance. Not by anything. Even if we wanted it to be.
Bastien’s and my love felt immortalized. Any words we had exchanged as vows suddenly felt meaningless, pathetic, in the face of this… this deepness. I didn’t even know how to describe it. I was running out of words. Out of thoughts.
All I wanted now was to feel him fully. To fulfill our physical connection. Our souls had entwined… now I needed the same for our bodies.
As though our thoughts, too, had become in sync, Bastien’s hands lowered from my chest. They gripped my hips and he twisted me around, our faces level on the pillows. His arms engulfing me, he locked our upper bodies together as tightly as was physically possible. Our lips, chests, upper torsos… Drinking in his deep, slow kisses like I was drowning, I parted my legs and twined them around him as he moved in to complete us.
My moan stifled by his kiss, he rolled us over until he was on top of me. Before claiming me further, he raised his face above mine, his gray eyes glassy with passion.
He ran his hand up my body to again settle over my bosom, as if to check our hearts were still in tune.
Then a smile parted his lips.
“You are still with me,” he breathed.
“Always,” I gasped as he moved deeper, closing the final gap between us, completely and forever.
Lucas
I spent some time in the hospital after we returned to The Shade. I had been through an ordeal and a half in The Dewglades, and my feet in particular were paining me after being trapped in those heavy blocks of resin for hours.
After Shayla had seen to me and told me that she’d done everything she could, I wanted nothing more than to return to my apartment and sleep. Well… that wasn’t quite true.
I realized that I was more eager to see Marion than to sleep. Far more eager. She’d been almost the only thing on my mind since I had returned to the island, and in fact, since we landed in The Dewglades. During those dark hours I’d spent with the marsh dwellers, something had sparked in me for Marion. My longing for her became almost tangible. Real, for the first time.
I relished the feeling of being able to fly again as I hurtled through the trees back to my treehouse. The sight of my veranda filled me with comfort.
I entered the apartment quietly in case Marion was sleeping, which I guessed she would be at this hour. As I gazed around the living room, I could scent her sweet presence.
After drinking some water, I moved silently to the spare bedroom.
The door was ajar. I pushed it open a little wider. Marion and her baby lay sleeping.
I thought to close the door, perhaps take a long warm shower, and then get into my own bed. But I found myself disappointed that she was asleep, and I didn’t feel quite ready to turn my eyes away from her yet. Her pretty sleeping face. And so I found myself moving closer to the bed until I stood against it. She lay near the edge, acting as a barricade for her baby girl.
I felt a pull as I gazed upon her slightly parted lips, her smooth eyelids. I wished that she would open her eyes so I could witness them in all their beauty. I would have to wait until the morning for that.
I stayed a few moments longer, but before I turned around to head out of the room, I found myself bending over, closer, closer, as though she and I were magnets. My lips found her soft forehead, where I laid a gentle kiss. Gentle enough that I would not wake her, I hoped, but not too gentle that I could not feel her.
Then I raised myself quickly, afraid that I had lingered a little too long. I began to back away… but I had, indeed, lingered too long.
Marion began to stir. Oh dear. She had felt my kiss. I stood rooted to the spot as she shifted on the bed, and then her eyelids flickered, opening slowly. A frown marred her features as she came to, and then her large hazel eyes traveled to me.
Surprise flickered across her face as she sat up hurriedly.
“Lucas?” she whispered.
Her voice saying my name never failed to send a tingle down my spine.
“I’m sorry,” I breathed. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
I wasn’t sure if she was actually conscious that my lips had been against her forehead. And I was going to play innocent unless and until I sensed she realized it.
I could hardly explain to myself in English why I had done that, stooped down to kiss her, let alone attempt to communicate in pigeon French.
And I couldn’t trust Claudia as a translator. I would say one thing to her and she could spit out entirely another to Marion. She still had not told me the meaning of Marion’s parting words.
Feeling tongue-tied, I backed out of the room and returned to the corridor, my temperature feeling significantly raised. I felt hot and flustered all of a sudden, and the blood had risen to my cheeks.
What is going on with you, Novak? She’s just a girl… At least, that’s what I would’ve said to myself decades ago. But since Sofia arrived in The Shade and I had witnessed my own brother’s transformation, I had realized it never boded well to underestimate the power a woman could have over a man. Especially the right woman.
Marion emerged in the corridor after me, as I had half expected her to. She shut the door behind her, allowing her baby to continue sleeping in peace.
Her eyes widened as she gazed up at me, questioning.
“How was your trip?” she asked, her voice still thick and deep from sleep.
I couldn’t exactly bring myself to respond that my trip had been “fine”. So instead I said, “It was, uh, unexpected.”
She tilted her head to one side. “Why?”
Because… I racked my brain for an answer… Because I realized how much I miss you.
I couldn’t find the courage to say that to her, though. And even if I did, she might not understand it.
Maybe
my eyes spoke to her, however, more than my mouth did, because her gaze on me seemed to soften.
“I missed you, Lucas,” she whispered, as if she could read my thoughts.
I swallowed hard. I needed to tell her something. Anything to get these feelings off my chest.
“Marion, I…” As I began, her full lips parted, as though beckoning me in.
Oh, dammit. What use are words in a moment like this?
The next thing I knew, I had closed the distance between us. My hands settled on her hips and pressed her against me. Then my lips were descending, until they met hers… and locked around her mouth. She let out a soft gasp against my kiss, or was it a moan? I pulled her closer still, before her arms found my neck and wrapped around it.
My hands slid to her thighs. I pulled her upward, propping her against the wall and pinning her there with my body.
This was escalating to a level I hadn’t intended, but the passion with which she was beginning to respond to my affection was making my brain fuzzy.
My kiss, tender at first as I relished exploring the contours of her lips— lips, I supposed, I had imagined kissing for a while now — intensified, and deepened. Soon we were struggling to breathe as our lips kneaded together, our bodies attempting to close every small gap between us.
“Je t’aime, Lucas,” she gasped in my ear as we broke apart for but a second.
I didn’t need to ask Claudia for a translation this time. I finally understood what the blonde had said Marion and I knew all along.
Derek
It felt like we all deserved an extended holiday as Sofia and I returned to our treehouse.
Grace appeared to have been fixed. Soon, we would attempt to fix Orlando, too. We still had a mountain of other problems, but at least, Grace was back.
I was exhausted. I could hardly even remember the last time I had slept. And so was Sofia. Even though she had returned to The Shade before the rest of us to help Corrine with the babies, she had obviously not been able to get a wink of sleep either.