Page 16 of A Dream Shrouded in Fury
XI
That night, we headed outside again after a somewhat improved but still horrible meal that I had choked down between rough laughs while tears of hilarity streamed down Kalla’s cheeks.Kalla had yet to go out to hunt, choosing instead to sit beside me in the grass.
There was something different about her now that we were outside.She was quieter, lost in her thoughts, and every now and again, she looked at me with what I could only interpret as sadness.I wanted to ask but somehow knew I wouldn’t like the answer.
So we lingered in silence for a long while, Kalla staring up at the sky, me flipping my flute between my fingers.I’d slept holding on to it, as though now that it existed, I couldn’t let it go.This memory of what I’d been—ofwhoI’d been.The version of me, full of dreams and naivety, that had withered and died when Leonine had set his blade to my skin.
I clung to the safety of the void, but the loss of Kalla’s laughter tonight threatened my carefully honed emptiness more than anything else had in a long time.In just a few days, I’d become addicted to the sound.Enraptured by it and by the way it made her face light up.For all that she was a creature of the moon, her carefree joy and the generosity of her smiles were a gift of the sun, and in their disappearance, the world had gone dark.Dark enough that my lungs grew tight, as though the haunted look in her eyes were as great a terror as waking up in a pitch black cave.
“Would you play for me?”
Her question came out so softly, I wasn’t sure she’d meant for me to hear, but I’d become attuned to her voice, every crystalline note another layer of a perfect harmony.
I could have pretended I hadn’t heard.She had no idea what she was asking of me, how she’d reached into my chest and squeezed my heart, sending its steady rhythm into an off-tempo beat.Panic swept over me in a familiar shroud, and as it settled in my blood, I became aware that it had already been creeping forward, encroaching on the edges of my mind at Kalla’s silence.
The realization knocked me back and made me set the two fears side by side: the fear of embracing a part of me that had died against that of watching the struggles of the woman who had brought part of me back to life.
With the comparison before me, I knew what I had to do.I didn’t understand how she wielded such power over me, but I couldn’t fight it any more than the tide could fight the pull of the moon.I needed to draw her back to me, needed to drag my gasping soul to a safe, quiet bank.
The moment the reed touched my lips, a lifetime of memories flowed over me, and for a change, they didn’t steal my breath.When the first notes filled the night, all thought of the past disappeared, and all that existed was this song and the woman I played for.
I noted the way Kalla stiffened beside me, as though shocked by the sudden music, which supported my suspicion that she hadn’t expected me to give in to her whispered request.Her eyes widened, her lips parted—revealing that flash of fang.
With such a simple instrument, the music itself was simple.At first, I kept the song light, aiming to cheer and entertain, but before long, the melody took on a life of its own.I closed my eyes to it, allowing my breath and fingers to guide whatever story the flute wanted to tell.The song brought to mind forests, the wind through the trees, water cresting around rocks in the river.It flowed through my skull, stirring long-forgotten emotions, and by the time it came to a close, my chest was so tight I had to take a few shuddering inhales for the air to flow freely.
I wasn’t the only one affected.When I opened my eyes, Kalla’s face was streaked with tears.She’d moved closer while I’d played, resting one hand on her chest while the other curled into the grass.
My reclaimed breath caught again as I stared at her, unable to separate the song I’d just created from the woman in front of me.Their beauty was intertwined, both of them having coiled into my thoughts and shaken the emptiness of my drained, battered soul.
“Kalia lutrena tomine aven, bredthenin olen de,” I whispered, the lines of an old poem sweeping through me, fluttering off my tongue from a buried place in my mind.Her brow furrowed, and I translated, “The song of the lily defies description.No beauty can compare.”
Her breath hitched, her gaze bored into mine, and suddenly there was too much space between us.I might have been the one born with magic, but she’d woven a spell and ensnared me in it.Everything in my life had fallen apart, but somehow—by fate or by disaster—she had come into my life to fill the gap.
I slid my hand over hers where it lay on the ground, struck once again by the coolness of her skin, so strange and unfamiliar compared to the warmth of the fae.I imagined how it would feel to have those hands drifting over my skin, exploring my body, stroking my cock.
The longing in my chest grew painful.
“Can I kiss you?”I rasped, my mouth moving without my permission.
Even in the darkness of the barely moonlit night, I watched Kalla’s eyes darken.Watched her gaze drop to my lips.Watched her throat dance with a swallow.This vampire who’d spoken of fucking as if it were nothing more than a hobby now reacting as if a single kiss might shatter her.Her reaction left me hard, aching, desperate for a single taste of her.
“Yes,” she whispered.
I dipped my head and caught her lips with mine.We came together as water to the shore, and I’d never felt so refreshed.My tongue flicked at the seam of her lips, requesting access, and she opened to me with a low moan.Her hands slid up my chest and over my shoulders, anchoring her to me.My grip on her face firmed, and I crept my fingers backwards to cup the back of her neck.
She met my tongue stroke for stroke, and I needed more.I didn’t understand this pain.How it felt as though, if I were to stop kissing her, I would stop breathing.I skated my hands down her sides, gripped her hips, and pulled her into my lap.My wound complained, but the discomfort was irrelevant—a buzzing fly against the crash of cymbals playing in my head.
She ground herself against me, a whimper escaping the back of her throat.I wrapped my fingers around her crimson hair and tilted her head back to kiss down the column of her neck, flicking my tongue over her racing pulse, savouring the salt on her skin.And then I claimed her mouth again, unable to stay away.I needed this.I neededher.More of her.
As if she sensed it, understood, and felt the same, she fumbled at the laces of my breeches and reached her hand inside.Her fingers, strong and soft, wrapped around my erection, and a growl burst from me, rumbling against her throat.My breath grew ragged, my palms slick as I clawed at the back of her shirt.The leather was too thick, creating too much of a gap between our bodies.Without pulling my mouth away from the crook under her jaw, I tugged at her laces and loosened her shirt so it slid off her shoulders, revealing more of her smooth, cool skin, which was all the cooler under my fevered kiss.
Another moan echoed in my ears as my lips trailed downwards towards her supple, rounded breasts.I cupped them in my palms, thumbed one nipple, and bent my head to nip my teeth at the other.A soft yelp filled the night, and my cock twitched as I laved my tongue over the pebbled peak to remove the sting.
The roll of her hips grew more frantic, the friction that much sweeter, and I curled one hand around her hip to press her against me.Her eyes flew open, and she met my stare with a look of such need—such deep, primalwant—that it nearly tipped me over the edge.It had been so long since anyone had looked at me like that.Since I had let myself be vulnerable enough to have anyone look at me like that.The void tugged at me, threatening to yank me back, but I thrust myself away from it and back against her mouth.
Her fingertips dug into my shoulders, and I hissed when her elongating talons pierced my flesh.The pain was so sweet, coming as it was from a place of sheer, distracted pleasure, that aside from a faint memory of the press of red-hot blades, it had no other effect than to heighten my arousal.
“Please,” she whimpered, her breath fanning against my ear with desperate gasps.
