His dark voice trails down her spine, lighting a path of desire that renders her breathless. "If only I were in a position of no consequence."
Alia's breath wavers when the pad of his thumb slowly glides across her bottom lip.
"Then I could give in...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"No matter how close, you are always too far. My eyes are drawn everywhere you are..." - Cora Carmack
•
Dawn blankets the sleeping wolves of Rosía in a warm hue of purples, pinks and blues. The night wind is calm, tenderly grazing Valen's skin whilst he walks through the quiet forest towards his home. When he slips inside the dark entryway, the scent of his resting mate calms the restless tremors jolting through his body. The need to feel Alia's touch is otherworldly, and his soul is in visible distress from being starved of it. Even if it has only been a few hours since he held her last.
When he enters the unlit bedroom, his eyes instantly find Alia's bare back, lower body covered by his duvet. He strips down to his boxer briefs and tosses his lace-up military boots, grey top, and black combat trousers to the side, unable to withstand any more time away from his mate. Valen's eyes glide down the curve of her spine, hair sprawled behind her as she faces the space he used to occupy. He remembers the taste of her skin as he kissed every part of her, hands imprinting the mounds and dips of her body to his welcoming mind. But that warmth between her legs has yet to have his tongue, and he truly is a starved man.
Quietly, he slips back into bed and pulls Alia towards him, arms wrapped around her supple frame. She sighs into his throat, lips a breath away from his skin. He can feel the way her body relaxes into him, and it ignites a fire so fervently possessive that a golden vine raises out of the ground behind her to act upon it. It lightly illuminates the back of her soft skin as it bends towards him, goading him to allow it back into his soul. But he bares his canines at the ray and it swiftly retreats before a growl can form in his chest.
He still remembers the scream he heard whilst under its grasp. It tore through his memories, catching his angered attention as he tried to listen past the confines of his mind. His fists shook as he tried to focus, but then the scream stopped and he was sucked back into reliving his past before he could try to stop it. Seeing the ragged pale scars on her ankle and wrist almost made him yank out those rays and tear them to pieces, but he resisted. Instead, he grabbed one of them with a crushing force and brought it before his golden eyes. It squirmed underneath his furious gaze, bowing when a threat similar to the one he gave Sephtis' sounded from his lips.
He briefly closes his eyes to try and calm himself, hand moving to the back of Alia's head as he brings her closer. But a deep, shaky breath leaves his mouth when he glances at the darkness of the room. Even though his memories have returned, and Alia's presence prevents them from overtaking his mind, he still holds a fear of opening his eyes and finding himself back in the darkness of that cell. It would ruin him, if he awoke and discovered that his entire life in Rosía was a sick, cruel figment of his imagination — a way to free his mind from the shackles of his reality.
But he knows Alia's touch is real. Her gentle words and her needy kisses are as real as the air he breathes. So he presses a kiss to the top of her head and closes his eyes, allowing slumber to take him under darkness for the first time in eight years.
