Sunlight poured through the gaps between the curtains that someone had pulled closed over the windows. It tinged the inside of my eyelids with gold and red from the thin skin of my closed eyelids. Something tickled my ear, and I shivered. Warmth pressed against my face, and a steady beating thumped against my ear. I shifted and found that instead of alone, I was laying half atop another warm body that smelled of pine, meadows, wood smoke, and sleep.
Groaning, I stretched and flexed my fingers only to find that I had them tangled in soft strands of thick hair. My eyes fluttered open to see that it was black and shone brilliantly in what little morning light shone around the edges of the curtains. Casersis’s chest still rose and fell in the gentle, deep rhythm of sleep, and I found myself staring, rapt with awe at the sheer beauty of Casersis at rest.
Breath hitching, I reached up and traced a finger over Casersis’s plush, full lips and sighed. The rhythm of my own heart matched that which thudded beneath me. As I watched Casersis’s eyes move beneath his lids in whatever dream he experienced, something fluttered in my stomach with such intensity that my breath hitched again, and tears pricked my eyes.
This is mine. He is mine. I can feel Cass inside me, I thought.
A sudden possessiveness gripped me and shook me from the inside, leaving my entire body tingling and alive. It churned my gut in a semi-pleasant way, shooting from my solar plexus out to my limbs and arousing me. I ground my hips lightly against Casersis’s hip to ease the ache, hoping not to wake the elf. He seemed so peaceful, and Casersis needed as much peace as he could find after keeping his sadness locked away inside him for so long. We both did.
The intense pain of the night before seemed a distant memory, but strangely still fresh and bright as if it hovered just inches away from returning. My mom once told me that I would never know true pain because I would never bear a child. But she also said that the pain of childbirth was one that was instantly forgotten the moment a mother held her child for the first time. I finally understood that sentiment. I hadn’t given birth to a child, but I went through some immense fucking pain. Now, it was only a memory as I held Casersis in my arms.
That pain was worth it for the connection I now felt, like I was one with Casersis, with the world, and with myself. The connection both frightened me and filled me with wonder and a sense of peace and belonging I’d not even felt with my parents. I belonged, and I was part of something—part of someone.
Those tears that pricked my eyes earlier now blurred my vision, and I pressed my face to Casersis’s throat and sniffled. Even in his sleep, Casersis seemed to smell the tears and his hand fisted in the covers over my back as if he wanted to wake from whatever dream held him captive and offer comfort.
Shivering, I frowned and carefully disengaged my face from Casersis’s throat to look around for a clock. I didn’t want to activate my CommLink to tell me the time for fear of waking Casersis. I found that discreet glass-encased clock on the nightstand that I loved. It reminded me of Casersis, in a way. Instead of a pendulum that swung back and forth, this had spinning golden arms along the bottom that spun one way for a few moments, then the other way, back and forth in a steady rhythm. The porcelain-faced clock said it was nine in the morning, and I groaned. It was still mid-afternoon when I passed out. I had slept almost a full day. Shit.
A wave of pain washed over me, and I clenched my teeth, screwed my eyes shut. It hurt so bad that all I could do was huff through the pain. If I screamed or thrashed, it would wake Casersis, and I had no idea if he had gotten much sleep after I’d fucked him stupid.
God, the pain was incredible. It was so bad that part of me wished, begged, pleaded for death. But I wasn’t about to give up when I had Casersis lying next to me. Not when I felt this stunning connection between us. I needed to live to explore what this meant for us, and for me as an individual. I wanted to live, but goddamnit, I wished I could die just to escape the pain. My entire body felt like I was on fire, being electrocuted, being hammered by dozens of blacksmiths.
But I couldn’t make a sound, or I would wake Casersis, and he would do nothing but worry. He had already worried so much the day before. I could still see his sad eyes, still hear the tears in his voice as he begged me to fight for him.
And I would fight for him with everything I had, with everything I was.
I didn’t know how long I laid there in agony. My muscles twitched, sending new flares of pain radiating through my limbs, exploding in my core. If I clenched my jaw any harder, I’d shatter my teeth. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could last without passing out again. Though, if I were honest with myself, I wished I could just let go and fall into that oblivion again. When I passed out the afternoon before, I fell into a dreamless sleep. I didn’t remember any pain during the night until I woke up screaming and thrashing against Casersis.
Now, it seemed my body was trying to make up for lost time.
I breathed through the pain, trying to keep my harsh panting quiet so as not to disturb Casersis. I knew I had started sweating again, but I couldn’t care. I just wanted this to be over.
I must have passed out again because sometime later, I woke up. When I checked the clock, it was after ten in the morning—only an hour. I had only lost an hour, and when I glanced up, Casersis was still fast asleep.
Again, the pain hovered just out of reach, as if it was threatening to crash back down onto me at any moment. I hated it. That feeling was almost as bad as the pain itself.
I felt gross. I was coated in sickly sweat. The sheets under and around me were soaked with it again. My scalp itched from it. I knew it had to be making Casersis uncomfortable, but he didn’t even stir. It made me wonder just how fussy my persnickety kitten would be when he woke to realize I had sweated the bed, and he was literally lying in a pool of my bodily fluids. Just the thought made me kind of nauseous.
Casersis shifted under me. I watched his face, and when he grimaced, I smirked. Yeah. He would be a little grossed out when he woke. And it made me wonder. Now that we were in this soulbond thing, it was such an instant attraction that my head spun when I looked at him. My ribs felt too small for my heart, a sensation I had been growing accustomed to over the last few weeks, but now it was worse, or better, or whatever. But now, just looking at him, sleep-mussed and beautiful, peaceful and at rest, my cock stirred to life like I was some horny teenager, unable to get enough of my mate even after our sexcapades last night. My earlier morning wood died a painful death when that last cascade of agony came over me. And now my body was up and raring to go.
But I didn’t want to wake Casersis.
Casersis shifted again, and his thigh ground against my cock in the most delicious way. Shit. Maybe I could wake him with sex. That always went over well, didn’t it? He was one of those disgusting morning people, so he wouldn’t mind, would he?
My body was all on board with that idea, and I wanted to groan at myself. Soulbonds apparently made you intensely horny. Either that or my libido decided to go into overdrive this morning for no apparent reason. I was so hard it was painful, and I helplessly ground my hips into Casersis’s thigh, seeking the friction I desperately needed to ease the ache.
Smiling to myself, I stroked Casersis’s cheek, then grinned as I got a rather evil idea. I feathered my fingers up the plane of Casersis’s cheek and found his delicately tapered ear. I followed the whorls and ridges to the tip, and using my fingernail, I lightly scratched down the outer edge to the lobe to see if his reaction last night was a fluke.
Casersis’s breathing stuttered, and he moaned in his sleep. His back arched off the bed as his eyes tightened against the light and the intense sensation. It stunned me that I could feel his arousal through our bond, intensifying my own. Jesus, this was out of control.
Grinning wider, I shifted so that my mouth was even with Casersis’s other ear and murmured into it, my voice filled with gravel and lust, “I’m going to get you dirty, kitten…”
Casersis gave a full-body shudder and clutched at me. His eyes remained tightly closed, but his breathing sped up a step. I couldn’t tell if he was still mostly asleep or not, but either way, he’d be wide awake soon.
With a dark chuckle, I leaned in closer and let my breath waft over that sensitive ear. I bit my lower lip as Casersis’s arm tightened around me. The elf squirmed on the bed, and his sleepy voice moaned, “Imp…”
I shifted so that my thigh pressed against Casersis’s groin and found him already hard and throbbing. I rolled my hips, moaned into Casersis’s ear just as I flicked my tongue out and used the tip to trace every curve, hill, and valley from the canal to the tip and back. By the time I got to the lobe again, Casersis steadily rocked his hips against my leg, effectively rubbing my own arousal with his movements until I was panting and needy.
“Gods…” Casersis moaned. “Beauty…”
“You’re wearing very soft pajama pants, Cass.” I groaned. “They won’t be soft much longer.”
The soft slide of silk caressed my bare leg. I still wore the heavenly underwear that Mr. Cipriani made for me. And while I hated to ruin new clothes, I didn’t want to pull away just to take the damned things off.
I shifted again to get higher on Casersis. Once I got into position, I sucked the top of the elf’s ear into my mouth and grazed my teeth over both sides. The strangled, heated moan that tore from Casersis’s throat had me leaking, soaking the front of my underwear with pre-cum, and I couldn’t care. That moan sent shivers up and down my spine that had my whole body tingling, making me forget about the earlier pain.
With a soft whine, Casersis’s head thrashed on his pillow in his passion. I threaded my fingers in all that glorious, soft hair, gripped it in a tight fist, and pulled, holding Casersis’s head still as I recaptured that ear. Casersis let out a strangled cry. His cock jerked under my thigh.
I sucked hard on that tip, lightly bit the cartilage. Casersis nearly levitated off the bed. He clutched me so hard that I knew I would have bruises later. Casersis thrust his hips up one more time and cried out as I bit down on his fleshy lobe. Then, my leg grew hot and wet as the elf beneath me came, spilling his hot seed between us, soaking his sleeping pants.
Casersis sagged back onto the bed as the last wave of his orgasm left him boneless. And with a wide grin, I pressed a sweet kiss over the canal of his ravaged ear and trailed more down the side of Casersis’s face until I reached his mouth. Casersis panted so hard that when I kissed him, he stole the air from my lungs with each breath until I breathed only for him.
When I pulled away from the kiss for my own air, Casersis’s glazed eyes stared into mine. “Gods, my beauty,” he murmured in a raspy, sultry voice. He feathered fingers through my hair, smoothing out the strands that stuck up on end from the previous night’s thrashing. “My beautiful, evil imp.”
He reached between our bodies and into my underwear, shifting me as if I weighed nothing, and stroked my cock masterfully. I thrust into his hand, a constant moan on my lips until I became frantic. I dove in to capture Casersis’s lips for my own, ravaging his mouth with teeth and lips and tongue. I sucked hard on Casersis’s tongue, making him whimper for me. Then, with a twist of Casersis’s hand, I screamed my release into my lover’s mouth and sagged against him.
We both panted for air for long moments until our hearts steadied and our lungs were sated. Casersis shifted beneath me and let out a grunt. “These were my favorite sleep pants, imp.”
“That will teach you for wearing clothes to bed, kitten.” I chuckled and nipped his nipple. “I did promise I would get you dirty.”
“Mm…” Casersis shifted again and wrinkled his nose. “I have learned my lesson.” He pulled the covers up tighter over the both of us and nuzzled into my hair with a deep, heavy sigh. “How do you feel?”
“Like you pulled my soul through my dick.” I laughed at his stunned expression.
He smacked my ass. “I meant from the bond, imp!”
Giggling, I pressed my face into Casersis throat and settled down. “Strange. Like I’m connected to everything through you. Different things I don’t know the names for.”
I heard the smile in Casersis’s voice as he said, “Time and learning will teach you those names. And the pain?”
I shuddered. “I had another wave of it this morning. Passed out again, but only for an hour. It… it was bad, Cass. So bad.”
“Oh, Dustin.” Casersis wrapped me against his chest, holding me tight while still being so tender that tears stung my eyes. Usually, I was the one to comfort him, but it felt good to be held, to be comforted. It felt good to have everything taken care of in that moment, to be the one with no responsibilities.
But I knew it wouldn’t last. And I was proven right when my CommLink chimed with an incoming call. “Joe Nichol calling,” the gentle female voice announced.
“Answer.”
“Hey, Dustin.” Joe sounded stressed, but he always sounded stressed. “How are you doing, kid?”
I cleared my throat and snuggled closer to Casersis. “I had a bad night of pain last night, but I’m doing okay at the moment. You?”
Joe grunted, the sound making me smile because he usually grunted when anyone asked him about himself. “I’m okay.” He sighed. “Are you coming back? Do you have any ETA?”
I glanced up at Casersis, and he shook his head.
“No ETA yet. Sorry, boss.”
Joe grumbled something unintelligible and grunted again. “Shit. Kid, I need you. The guys are everywhere. Never realized how well you kept the fuckers in line until you weren’t here anymore. I swear, they’ve turned into a pack of cats, and herding them is making me lose my fucking sanity.”
I chuckled into Casersis’s chest. “Herding cats was my specialty. What happened to George?”
“He retired early.” The sound of papers rustling broke up the line for a moment. “He had family issues and had to move down to Georgia to help out, and decided to retire there, the bastard.”
“So, what you’re telling me, is you want me to be your new foreman, and you’re struggling because I’m going through gene therapy and can’t work.”
“That would sum it up, yes.”
“Shit, Joe. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll figure it out, D.J. Just hurry the fuck up and get better. Mr. Armistead is taking care of some shit, but it’s temporary, and I want you back, you hear?”
“I hear you, boss.”
“Good. Now, go rest and call me when you’re coming back.”
“Will do.”
My CommLink chimed to signal the end of the call, and I groaned into Casersis’s armpit. “I want to go back to work, Cass. So bad.”
Casersis stiffened, and I knew he was about to argue, but he relaxed and said, “We will talk about that in a bit. For now, let us have a shower.”
I smirked and cuddled up into him, rubbing my leg against his. “I don’t know. You’re still looking too kissable to leave the bed. I may have to remedy this.”
Leaning in, I purred into the lazy kiss we shared. Casersis’s arms flowed around me, rubbing warmth into my back as the fireplace now held only cold ashes. I whimpered as Casersis trailed fingers along the waistband of my underwear, and just then, the door opened.
Pulling back, I looked toward the door and just barely dodged a jar of jelly that bopped Casersis’s bicep. Beth stood over a cart filled with food that soon had the entire bedroom smelling of breakfast.
“Breakfast first, horny toads!” Amusement flashed through her brown eyes as Casersis babied his arm. “Serves you right for lazing about in bed.”
Falling atop Casersis’s chest, I cackled and dissolved into breathless chuckles. “Good morning, Beth. Thanks for breakfast.”
Soon, Casersis joined me in the laughter that shook the bed. He lolled his head to the side to look at her. “Late as always, Beth.”
“Indeed,” she said with a regal sniff.
“Will you set it up in the parlor?” he asked. “We will be out momentarily.”
“Of course.” Bustling about, Beth arranged the firewood in the hearth in my room, so it would only need a match to light the tinder. Then, once she had the drapes tied to the sides of the windows, she pushed the cart out of the room, but not until she turned to stare us down.
“You need to return Bradley’s calls.” Beth sighed. “I have curbed him all morning. Please take care of that as soon as breakfast is over, lest the poor man come and burst down the door for your attention again.”
“Yes, Beth,” Casersis said, not getting up. “The moment I dress, I shall return his calls.”
“Good.”
Without another word, she bustled out of the room and closed the door behind her. I broke down into chuckles again and flopped onto my back at Casersis’s side. I stretched and glanced over. “Quit babying your arm. I saw the whole thing. It barely touched you.”
“She has a good arm with those jars,” Casersis muttered. “And shoes. She is deadly with shoes. Somehow, she even manages to boomerang them around corners…”
With a snicker, I rolled to my side and pecked a kiss on Casersis’s cheek. “My poor abused kitten.”
“I am!” Casersis cried. “So abused!”
Giving him a playful shove, I sat up and headed for the door. We could shower after breakfast. “Up you get. Breakfast is getting cold. And then we need to talk about me going back to work.”
Casersis sighed and gracefully got out of bed. At least he didn’t outright deny me. Yet.
“So let’s talk about this elven marriage thing,” I said as we arranged the breakfast trays on the table. We sat in Casersis’s parlor, our chairs close together, so our thighs touched. At my question, he leaned over and kissed my bare shoulder. “Are you really telling me we accidentally got married?”
Casersis smiled uncertainly, but he couldn’t lie to me. I could almost feel him trying to formulate one through our bond before settling on the truth. “A soulbond is the one thing no elf or any other being, no matter how powerful or high in any hierarchy, can deny or tear asunder. All must abide by it so long as neither bond-mate refuses the bond.”
“We’re… married…” I rolled that around in my mind, unsure if my brain could process it this early in the morning and after my painful start to the day. I guessed it was akin to getting drunk in Las Vegas, but at least I loved him and knew him for more than a few hours.
Kissing my forehead, Casersis stroked my cheek and stared into my eyes. “I have waited for you, Dustin…” He cleared his throat to get rid of the waver in his voice but failed miserably. “I have waited for millennia beyond remembrance. I was meant only for you.”
The reverence in which he spoke brought tears to my eyes, but they were too stubborn to fall. I shivered and leaned into him until he wrapped an arm about my shoulders. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting,” I said.
He grinned at me, a sweet thing that made the soulbond we shared sing. “It just makes me more grateful for the bond we share, beauty. It gives me an appreciation for forever when I felt like I could not go on. Now I have you, and I can see forever again.”
To be honest, the thought of “Forever” freaked me out a bit. …Okay. It freaked me out a lot. I didn’t dare tell Casersis, but he looked at me like he already knew. Thank fuck he kept it to himself. I needed to absorb it all.
Then I cocked my head and stared at him before saying softly, “But you have a son…”
Casersis gave me a bright smile that lit up his whole face. “Kennan was born from no omega of flesh, beauty. He was born of Mother, as was I, and as Kennan’s son will be. Our line is the only one who can hear Mother and speak for her on our continent, though currently, she slumbers beneath us.”
I stared at him dumbly. “Mother?” He’d insinuated the goddess before, but I now needed clarification. It was time to start learning about shit like this.
Casersis looked confused a moment before it clicked, and he said, “The soil and trees.” His tone remained tender as he went on, “The planet is alive… sentient. Our worlds are connected in a way. All three share Mother’s love, body, and spirit.”
“Oh, okay.” I rubbed my eyes and sighed. “That’s not as bad as I was thinking. At least I have proof she’s real from when I passed out after touching a tree.” I groaned and speared a piece of sausage I’d cut from the patty and smirked as Casersis watched, rapt as I ate it. He seemed fascinated as I closed my mouth around the tines of the fork, making sure to pull them out of my mouth in the most seductive way possible. He shifted when I moaned.
We had a huge spread this morning. Around the table sat a plate full of crispy bacon, two bowls of scrambled eggs, two plates with thick waffles, biscuits with a rich, white, peppery sausage gravy, sausage patties, a pot of coffee, and a pitcher of fresh-squeezed orange juice. I felt drunk on the food and had crumbled almost everything except the waffles and one of my four sausage patties into one of the bowls, and then drowned it all with the sausage gravy. It seemed to amuse Casersis to see it, but at least I had an appetite today. I had feared I wouldn’t after the stress of last night and this morning.
“Either you have a giant stomach, or she still thinks I do,” I groused. “I swear Beth’s trying to make me fat.”
Casersis grinned and nipped my shoulder. “You are changing, beauty. All is well. Eat what you can.” Good thing he knew better than to call me on my shit as I settled in to inhale half the table’s worth of food.
We chatted amicably for a moment, and then I snorted, setting my fork down to take a sip of orange juice. When I set the glass down, I grinned wickedly at Casersis. “You know, this could be kinda awkward.”
“What do you mean?”
I grinned brighter and winked. “Pedophilia. I’m only twenty-one. You’re how many millions of years old?”
Casersis barked a laugh and shook his head. “Pedophilia is not my thing, beauty. I may be ‘above the law’ in some respects, as you put it, but I would have been lynched for something so heinous, no matter what world I lived in.”
He turned away to eat another bite of cheesy eggs and moaned at the taste but soon picked the thread of conversation back up. “You are of legal age in the human world, and if you had been born a full-blooded elf, at this stage in your life, you would be nearly a thousand, yourself, which is also the ‘legal’ age in Adradis for marriage and sexual relations with those above such an age. Of course, children are encouraged to experiment sexually with their peers once they are sexually mature.”
I choked down the last bite of my homemade breakfast bowl and took another sip of juice. I decided to avoid the sex talk and focus on the important bit as a thought occurred to me. “That’s another thing. What am I supposed to do for eternity?”
The bond between us telegraphed the ache he felt for me. I reached over and squeezed his leg. That seemed to loosen his tongue to answer me. “Whatever you like. There are plenty of opportunities to change your mind, learn everything you wish to know, travel to places you have only ever dreamed about.” He sobered a bit and quieted his voice. “You also may travel across Kal’brath… see your other home, live there if you so choose. For you, the possibilities are endless.”
“But I can only do half those things with you,” I grumbled. “If I ever go to this Adradis place, you’re going with me. Otherwise, I’d rather just stay here.”
Casersis looked as if he could beam the light of the sun straight into me. Our bond filled me with his swelling heart. If it grew any larger, he’d need a bigger body to house it. Hearing me say things like that seemed to do wonders for his ego and sense of well-being. “I must take you to the Council, at any rate,” he whispered thickly. “Your lineage must be made known to the Head Magi, and they must enter you into the Rhalvan Sayuveni.”
I made a face, and he laughed and hurried through what was in his mouth so he could interpret. “It roughly translates to ‘Record of Understanding’ and houses the birth and death records, marriages, soulbonds, and life milestones of every elf in existence who was born on the continent of Kal’brath. It is housed in Elhrovin, but the Council takes care of such things wherever they convene.”
“So… I have to get registered…” I frowned and attacked my waffles that Casersis set before me, and spread the soft, creamy butter into each square, then doused it liberally with the syrup that was so thick I almost needed to spoon it out of the glass jar. “Sounds like a government thing.”
“In some ways,” he conceded. He leaned in to kiss my bare shoulder again, seemingly unable to get enough of my skin. He seemed to love the way I pushed up into him for more affection, too. “It is mostly a celebration of events. Unlike humans, almost every elf treasures all children. Each one is sacred because of our low fertility rate, and to have one come to us from a past union is a blessing.”
With a wrinkle of my nose, I cut through my waffles, keeping the knife exactly on the raised lines so as not to mess up too much of the un-melted butter. “I just don’t see why it’s necessary. If you can’t go back, why bother?”
He covered my right hand and squeezed it gently until I looked over at him. I studied Casersis, noticed that his eyes were wet. I traced a finger over his furrowed brow. His voice shivered with his intensity as he said, “Because, beauty, if anything should happen to me, I would want you cared for by our people. I want to be certain beyond any doubt that you will always have a safe home. I want to know that you are known so that I may find peace during the eternity that I must wait for you against Mother’s breast.”
“Cass…” Shivering, I set my plate aside, and since he was done, I plucked Casersis’s plate up and set it aside, too. “Oh, Cass.” I could sense just how fragile the conversation had made Casersis. I was almost afraid to touch him. But I got up, pulled his chair away from the table, and straddled his lap, facing him, and hugged him with both arms and legs, pinning him to his chair like an octopus. He trembled like a frightened child until I started stroking his long, soft hair. “I’ll do it. I’ll go. Just please, calm down. I’ll go, I promise.”
After a few long minutes, he let out a brief, wet laugh and buried his face against my shoulder. “I am sorry. I should be stronger than this. So much stronger…”
“I can be strong for both of us, kitten,” I murmured against his ear. I felt our soulbond light up like a lake of fire. It burned bright until it felt like we both would burn to cinders. “I’ll be strong for you.”
My words seemed to soothe his soul, but he still whispered, “I am broken.”
I pulled back and framed his face with both hands, tilting his head up to look at me as I grinned. “Good thing I’m a construction worker, then. I specialize in building, rebuilding, and fixing things, and come equipped with miles of duct tape, gallons of superglue, tubs of epoxy, and if that doesn’t work… well, we always have clothes.”
His mouth parted, and he stared into my eyes for a few moments. Tears rolled down his face as he sat there, stunned. I kissed the tip of his nose. “Nothing is ever always sunshine and roses, Cass. We’re like bones. We break. Sometimes we shatter. But with the right care, we always heal stronger for it.”
More tears flowed, and he closed his eyes, laughing softly. “What a wonder you are,” he whispered.
“Why do you say that?”
He took a deep, cleansing breath before saying, “I slept next to you—against you—last night, both to offer you comfort because you were in pain and relaxed with me near, but also because I feared it would be the last night.” He shivered and rested his forehead on my shoulder. “I knew you would refuse me when you came to your senses… I knew this would not last.”
“Goes to show that no matter how old you are, you still don’t know everything,” I teased. I kissed Casersis softly, coaxed his face from my shoulder, and leaned our foreheads together. “I specialize in broken. I crave it because I’m good at fixing things, and I like the challenge.”
“I will be a great challenge, I fear…”
“Good,” I said against his lips. “The greater the challenge, my dad used to say, the greater the reward.”
He hugged me tight, buried his nose in my hair, and breathed in my scent. I felt it calm his racing heart while he let our bond calm his soul.
Hopefully, today would be a great day.
