She swallowed his growl with the sweep of her tongue. Her hands were hungry, sliding down his chest to stroke the tangible length of his desire as she wrapped a leg around his hip. They had explored each other every night since she awoke, a delicious dance of asking and daring, waiting for the other to take them both past the line of no return. But only tonight did he feel the readiness in her touch, the yearning in her kiss.
“This is escalating quickly,” the god said. “I’m going to go ahead and leave, but if you change your mind—”
Vali tore his face from the vector of her kiss, his eyes hazy with murderous plans as he interrupted Loki with his stare alone. Without another word the trickster wrapped himself in the cloak and folded into the image of a bird before flying off into the night. His last foul screeches echoed across the realm.
Ailsa was sitting on top of the ledge, her linen shift pulled high around her hips. Her eyes were low on him, hooded behind a lusty veil. She dangled her long, bare legs and pushed a disheveled lock of wavy hair behind her ear, knowing just how to bait out his savage side.
“The gods must think I'm a fool if they senthimto convince me,” she said with swollen lips.
“Youarea fool,” he said. His hands fell over the bony prominence of her knees. “Loki may be a trickster, but nothing he said was untrue. Why would you deny the tears and the promise of a long life? They practically ensured you would survive the Crow’s threat.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and skimmed her words against his lips. “Because there is more to life than existing. And now that I know you, I don't want to live a single day without you. Much less doom your world with my selfish wants.”
“Your health isn't selfish, Ailsa.”
“Would you rather I have drunk the tears and left with him? Taking the hope of the Light Elves with me?” She pulled back, confused.
Vali swallowed against the rough edge in his throat. His words weren't coming out right, his gratitude falling short. “Of course not. But your happiness is the most important thing in the world to me. To Hel with the rest.”
“Don't say that,” she snapped. “You cannot speak like that as a future High Lord. This is your realm, your people. Act like it.”
He nodded tightly and averted her gaze, struggling to swallow the truth. “You would have been perfect at my side. As my Lady.”
She smiled and leaned against him, fleshing her body against his chest. “I willalwaysbe with you,Sólskin. Tell me, have I not marked you forever? Or do I need to carve my name across the runes on your chest.”
“I have something better in mind,” he whispered. “Be myFraendi, Ailsa.”
Her eyes flinched, and he thought for a moment she would refuse him. But her jaw only opened and shut, not accepting but not denying either. “Aren’t the fae exclusive for life? Once you choose aFraendiyou can never have another one?” she asked.
“Yes, but that changes nothing.”
“It changes everything!” She slipped between the railing and his hips to distance herself, retrieving the damp blanket cast aside across the pavers. “I will not take away your one chance for aFraendijust to die and have you to walk the rest of your days alone.”
“I won’t though, you don’t understand…” Gods below, he couldn’t say the right thing if he tried, and he was trying his best to convince her she was all he wanted. But if she refused to be hisFraendibecause of this, the truth would have damned him for good.
“You deserve a real mate,” she whispered while looking away from him. “One you can share a life with, not mourn over.”
“What Ideserveis to have you the rest of my life, and if the only way I can have you is through a mark on my skin, then so be it. You were my first choice, and you will be my last,sváss. I have not wanted anyone like I want you for the last century, and I will not for the next!”
She clutched the blanket and faced the door, her back to him as her shoulders rose with indecision. Her chin floated above her shoulder as she asked, “Fraendihave a mark?”
He brushed the strap of her shift aside and kissed her cold skin. Chill bumps trailed from the placement of his lips down her spine, disappearing beneath the satin. “Yes,” he answered. “Life mates share a mark completely unique to each other, a personal rune written in their combined blood. When they consummate the bond, the blood turns black, branding the skin forever.”
“Vali,” she breathed. NotSólskin, but his name. It rolled as blissfully off her tongue as the first time. She wanted to say yes. Ailsa had no problem turning a man down, to break a heart with a single word, stab them in the chest while wearing a smile. She knew her mind as well as her heart, but something about this decision made her uncertain.
His lips moved to her neck, where a bounding pulse raced an allegro beat beneath his tongue. She opened for him, letting her head fall to the side so he could taste the curve of her throat. He spoke again in the absence of her words. “If you don’t want me, if you don’t want to be myFraendi, just say it. But don’t take my choice away because you think you know what’s best for me. Ailsa,lookat me.”
She spun around sharply on her toes, her hair fanning around her shoulders until it rested down her back. When he met her gaze, her eyes were a deep ocean that drowned him away, almost making him forget his words. “Since the moment I first saw you on the shores of Drakame, my blood has sung for you. Every part of my being reaches for you day and night, and I thought it was because the Tether was my destiny, because the runes on my skin demanded it. But it is not the will of gods that calls me to you, Ailsa, it is the fates themselves. My entire existence I thought my purpose was finding the Tether. But now I know it was really findingyou.”
Her palms skimmed his chest, tracing the coded runes with a distracted gaze. “But how do you know it is me you will always want? How do you know you won’t regret me when I am gone?”
He could tell her heart was convinced, but her head needed more. Needed to hear the words he had been holding back for longer than he realized. “The fae only have one mate for life because there isonlyone mate created for them. There will never be another who crosses my thread that will fit quite as seamless as you do. We were destined to find each other. And…” Vali cleared his throat, summoning the rest of his courage to say the words. “And I am so inherently in love with you, Ailsa. Every bone in my body, every drop of my blood, every breath I breathe, it loves you. That’s how I know you are myFraendi.”
Her mouth lifted in the beginning of a smile. “Are you sure?” she asked, giving him one last chance to turn back.
“With everything I am, Ailsa.”
Her lips trembled as they parted, a decision made in her eyes that dominated the hesitation in her heart. “Where’s your knife,sváss?”