Queen of Death

Here we go :)

— — — — —

Solana

“You’re Nightshade.”

Before tonight, my mother was the only other person on the planet who knew that I am Nightshade. Not even the crew at Caligo know. They’re under the impression that in exchange for being the buffer between Nightshade and the client, Nightshade protects them from any and all harm. Though that is true, they just don’t know that it’s me. I’m the one that keeps them safe. I’m the one that scares away the monsters in the dark.

Ace hovers over my body, both of us naked, baring ourselves to one another. He looks at me with a mixed expression, one where his facial expressions don’t match his eyes. His brows pinch together and his nose scrunches up just enough to be perceived by my enhanced vision, like he’s angry or offended. Angry at himself for not realizing sooner, angry that he allowed himself to feel something for someone like me, angry at me for leading him on a wild goose chase.

But his eyes hold a kinder emotion. His pupils dilate and shrink like gentle waves, in and out, wide then narrow. They focus on me and expand once again like he’s seeing me clearly for the first time.

“I am,” I say evenly, eyeing him warily.

“You’re not going to bother denying it?” He’s surprised by my blunt-force honesty and with good reason. I haven’t made it easy to know me.

I shrug noncommittally, “I thought you said Death has no secrets?”

“I thought you said you weren’t beholden to our rules?” His voice vibrates through me like a honeybee.

“And I thought you didn’t want me to stay...but I was wrong.” I manage to free my eyes from his gaze, dropping them to admire the ink on his arms. “Unless that’s changed?” I can barely whisper the words, afraid to speak them because the truth is I don’t want this to change anything between us.

“This changes everything,” he says as he moves to sit up. I roll onto my back, willing myself to stare at the ceiling. Anything to keep me from having to watch him walk away. I’m startled when his hard, warm body presses against mine, settling between my legs, and caging me between his herculean arms. “This changes everything because now I’m definitely not letting you out of my sight.”

Without giving me time to react he brings his lips to mine, immediately sweeping out his tongue demanding entrance which I automatically grant. I didn’t realize how worried I truly was until the rush of relief flooded through me and I let out a half-laugh, half-sob against his mouth.

His lips blaze a fiery path over my jaw and down my neck. I protest weakly when he begins working his way down to my breasts, down my stomach, heading further south with every kiss, but he swats my hands away and surprises me when he heads left for my hip. Ace traces every line of my namesake flower with his tongue, nipping and biting at my flesh where it’s most sensitive.

“Shouldn’t that mean you don’t need to worry about me as much?” I’m practically panting from his lingual torture.

His teeth sink into the stem of the flower on my thigh and my eyes roll all the way back into my head, my body feels liquified.

He’s bitten me a few times, almost like he’s trying to satiate the urge to claim me without actually marking me yet.

Ace lays back down beside me and pulls me tightly against his chest, dropping a kiss to the top of my head and releasing a long sigh. “Someone wants you dead, and someone else wants Nightshade dead. I’m not taking any chances now that I know how many people are hunting you.”

I nestle against his chest, taking comfort in the steady beat of his heart. “You were one of those people hunting me.”

Ace tenses against me for a moment, allowing that sobering truth to settle before commenting on it. “My only regret is that we didn’t find you sooner. I — we could have prevented you from being poisoned.”

“Yeah that wasn’t ideal, but that’s life,” I shrug.

“Forgive me if I’m not as laissez faire with your life as you are,” he huffs and tips my chin up to claim my lips with his once again.

“Ace?” I ask quietly and push gently against his chest to get him to stop kissing me long enough to listen.

“Hmm?” He hums against my neck.

“What are we doing?”

“Right now I’m trying to coax you back to bed.”

I roll my eyes despite the love-sick grin on my face. I push him onto his back and clamber on top of him. “I’m being serious. What happens with us if I stay—”

“When you stay.” He interjects.

“When I stay...what happens with us? What happens with the guys?” I flush scarlet, embarrassed and a little guilty that I’m asking my mate, a man I’m supposed to feel has hung the moon and the stars, and I’m asking him what will happen when we get back to his pack, all of whom I...

Is it too Princess Calla of me to say that I’ve grown to like them? What would admitting that do to Ace? I mean, what kind of guy wants to share his mate?

A comforting, but deeply disturbing, thought occurs to me. My own mother has two mates. I know it’s a little different because both of my dads are fated to her. But I also suspect that her and Xander had a thing once upon a time. Maybe even have a thing still, but I seriously doubt that because not only is my mom completely devoted to my dads but they would kill Xander immediately.

Nonetheless it is curious. Something I’ll need to ask her about soon.

“I can’t speak for the guys, I mean we both know Hunter will be happy,” he laughs almost sadly while tracing circles along my back. At least I think it’s sad until I feel him growing hard beneath me. “Let’s just take it one day at a time. For now nothing needs to change.”

— — —

Ace

Sol and I laze about in the evening sun for the rest of the day, finding our way into the water a couple of times, sinking myself inside of her as soon as I could after recovering from the last romp.

I wasn’t ready to share her yet. I know that if she stays for good, rather than just for now, that we’ll all have to have a larger conversation on laying claim and sharing. But right now I wanted one day with her, one day where it was just the two of us without competing with someone else’s desire. I wanted to experience what having my mate to myself would feel like.

I don’t blame Solana for being interested in my pack mates. Hunter had a firm claim on her heart long before they were even engaged and I know their feelings for one another run deeper than first love.

I’ve watched her with Eli, I’ve watched her with Dean and Tate, I’ve even watched her with Hunter. And while I’m surprised by my lack of disapproval, what surprised me the most was how much I enjoy sharing her — especially participating with her and Hunter.

She clearly had never experienced a pleasure greater than those couple of days. Everything we did was for her and about her pleasure and her needs.

Tate always touts that everyone has their kinks. How fucked up is it that mine is grouping up on my mate? How do I reconcile the need to claim her as mine with the desire to entrust her pleasure to the guys I’ve come to call family?

It wasn’t something I was expecting. But when she grabbed onto Hunter and told him to come back that evening I won’t lie that I was excited by the thought of us taking her together.

Those feelings alarmed me in the days after because I knew then that a life with her, shared among the pack, was possible. At least in bed.

Now it’s a matter of seeing where everyone else lands on the matter, and if it’s really and truly something I could handle. Because imagining that night with Hunter and adding three additional people to it makes things very complicated. Not to mention my wolf is still extremely possessive of her.

My dick doesn’t share my same fears. He’s very much on board with running a train on Sol, filling her to the brim with our seed and watching as the excess trickles down her thighs.

“What are you thinking about?” I can hear the smile in her voice even though her back is to me as she rests peacefully in my arms.

“Trains,” I say impishly. It’s not technically a lie.

“Liar,” her smile widens.

“How do you figure I’m lying?”

“Two reasons. The first is you clench your jaw when you don’t want to tell me something, it makes this clicking noise sometimes.”

“And the other reason?”

She turns just enough to look at me over her shoulder, “you’re rock hard. Again. I mean everyone has their kinks...but trains?”

She shakes in my arms, laughter rupturing up through her like an unstoppable force, spilling out of her and covering everything in its wake in her joy. She’s beautiful like this. Shimmering white hair, fiery eyes. I want this Solana 24/7.

“I get hard imagining all the ways I want to have you. In the ocean, on the counter, in the shower, planes, trains, and automobiles... I want you everywhere.”

“For that to happen you’d have to let me out of our little bubble here.”

“I will...tomorrow. Let me enjoy one night of having you to myself.”

Solana turns around to face me, entwining our legs together so her heat brushes against my length. “You can always have me to yourself, just say the word.”

My smile is weary, because I’m not sure she can deliver on a promise that large — and I tell her as much. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Solana.”

She sucks in a breath no doubt to protest but I don’t want to spend the rest of the night debating this. So instead I silence her with my mouth and slide into her.

We can worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.