Chapter 145 - Much Needed

Chapter 145 - Much Needed
Chapter 43 - Much Needed

Elowen POV

The door opened.

And Lachlan came in like gravity finding me again.

His magic brushed mine first, threaded with earth and storm. Then he knelt in front of me, cupped my face gently, and said my name like a prayer.

“Elowen…”

I shook my head. “I can’t do this. I’m cracking.”

“Aye, ye are,” he said softly. “Anyone would.”

That stopped me.

He wasn’t trying to tell me to be strong. He wasn’t telling me to breathe. He wasn’t telling me I’d be fine. He just… saw me.

“It’s not fair,” I whispered. “Why does it always fall on me? Why does it always have to be me?”

Lachlan inhaled, slow and steady, and his thumb traced the trembling corner of my lip.

“Because ye were born wi’ a spine made for carryin’ worlds,” he murmured. “And because fate is a greedy bastard that hands its hardest battles to the one woman stubborn enough to win them.”

A broken laugh escaped me.

He leaned closer, his forehead resting against mine, and his breath warm on my cheek. “But hear me, mo ghrá. It shouldna fall on ye alone. Nae this time. Nae ever again.”

Chaos quieted inside me, listening.

Lachlan continued, his voice low but strong. “Life hasnae been fair tae ye. Not once. Ye’ve bled and fought and died a little every time someone asked ye tae save them. But ye will nae carry this war by yerself. I won’t allow it.”

My throat tightened.

“And it’s nae just me,” he added, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear. “Daxon. Bram. Ashrian. Vaelrix. We stand wi’ ye. Till the end of every realm.”

“Lachlan…” My voice broke.

His hands slid to my shoulders, firm and grounding. “Look at me.”

I did.

Those blue eyes saw everything, the fear, the grief, the fury, and the weight of a universe I didn’t ask to hold.

“I’ll die before I let anything hurt our children,” he said, steady as a vow carved in stone. “Before I let the void touch a single hair on their heads. I’ll face gods, monsters, demons, whatever crawls out o' the darkness, so long as ye’re at my side.”

His voice softened.

“And even if ye weren’t… I’d still fight for them. For ye. Because ye made me somethin’ better than I ever believed I could be.”

My vision blurred with tears.

Lachlan smiled faintly, brushing his lips against my temple. “Ye dinna scare me, Elowen. No’ yer magic. No’ yer anger. No’ the chaos in yer veins. All I see is the woman I love. The woman who saved me long before she even knew it.”

Chaos purred at that.

I swallowed, my voice barely a whisper. “What if I burn the world down?”

“Then I’ll help ye rebuild it,” he murmured against my cheek. “Brick by brick. Realm by realm.”

His fingers tipped my chin up slowly.

“And if the void thinks it can take ye,” he growled softly, “it’ll learn real quick what a MacCrae mage can do when someone threatens his heart.”

My breath hitched.

Heat simmered low in my stomach. His closeness, his voice, his strength, it lit every nerve in my body like kindling.

“Lachlan…”

“Aye,” he whispered, his mouth brushing mine, “I’m right here, mo ghrá. Always.”

And I leaned into him. And then his mouth claimed mine. Not gentle. Not careful. Lachlan kissed me like a man starved and finally allowed to feast.

His tongue swept in, and I opened for him with a helpless sound that he swallowed whole. My hands fisted in his shirt, dragging him closer, needing the solid wall of him to keep the world from spinning apart.

He growled against my lips, low and rough. “Christ, Elowen. Ye have no idea how I’ve burned for this since we got here. For ye.”

His big hands slid down my sides, gripping my hips hard enough to bruise, and he lifted me as if I weighed nothing. My legs wrapped around his waist on instinct, and he pressed me back against the nearest wall, the stone cool against my spine while his body scorched me everywhere else. The thick length of him ground against my core, and I whimpered into his mouth.

“Ye feel that, mo ghrá?” he rasped, rolling his hips slowly and deliberately. “That’s what ye do tae me. Every damned day. Every night I watch ye sleep and have tae fist my cock so I dinna wake ye with how bad I need to be inside ye.”

I arched against him, desperate for more friction.

“Lachlan, please.”

He chuckled, dark and wicked, his teeth scraping my throat. “Please what, love? Please tease ye until ye’re sobbing my name? Please make ye drip down my thighs before I’ve even got ye bare?”

His fingers hooked into the laces of my gown and yanked. Fabric tore like parchment. Cool air kissed my skin, then his hot mouth was on my breast, sucking hard, his tongue flicking my nipple until my head thumped back against the wall.

He knew exactly how sensitive I was there, knew I would shatter if he kept at it too long, so he pulled back just as the pleasure edged into too much and bit down softly on the curve of my shoulder instead.

“Ye taste like sin,” he murmured, licking the mark. “My sin. Mine.”

I clawed at his shirt, ripping it open so I could get my hands on all that new muscle, thicker and harder than even a year ago. Gods, he was magnificent. Broad shoulders, carved chest, the ridges of his stomach flexing under my palms. Power thrummed under his skin, ancient and wild, answering the chaos roaring in my blood.

He carried me to the bed without breaking the kiss, laying me down like something precious even as his eyes promised ruin. Then he stood back just long enough to strip his robes off. His cock jutted up heavy and flushed, a bead of moisture already glistening at the tip, and I licked my lips without thinking.

“Greedy lass,” he said, his voice like gravel and smoke. “Ye want this?” He wrapped a fist around himself, stroking once sloy. “Ye want yer mate splitting ye open?”

I nodded, my thighs falling open wider shamelessly.
He crawled over me, his knees forcing my legs apart, and settled between them like he belonged there. Like he had every night for eighteen years and would every night until the stars burned out.

His mouth found mine again, softer this time, and reverent, even as his hand slid down my belly and cupped my heat possessively. Two thick fingers pushed inside me without warning, curling just right, and I cried out at how perfectly he filled me, and how he knew the exact spot that made my back bow off the bed.

“There she is,” he crooned against my ear. “My wild woman. Soaked fer me already.”

He pumped slowly, his thumb circling my clit, and then his magic flared, warm earth and crackling storm pouring into his touch. His fingers began to vibrate, low at first, then harder and faster, right against that place inside me that turned my bones to liquid.

“Lachlan!” I gasped, my hips jerking.

“Aye, scream for me. Let the whole bloody castle hear who ye belong tae.”

The vibration intensified, relentless and perfect, and pleasure coiled so tightly I couldn’t breathe. My hands scrabbled at his shoulders, my nails digging in, and he only laughed that dark, sinful laugh and crooked his fingers harder.

“Come on, mo ghrá. Give me what I want. Soak my hand. Mark me like I mark ye.”

I shattered.

The climax hit like a tidal wave, ripping a raw scream from my throat. My walls clenched around his fingers, and then I was coming harder than I ever had, a hot rush flooding out of me, squirting in a shimmering arc that splashed across his chest and the sheets and gods, halfway across the room.

Lachlan groaned like a dying man granted salvation, his eyes blazing as he watched me fall apart.

“Fuck, Elowen. Look at ye. My perfect, filthy goddess.”

He pulled his fingers free and licked them clean while I trembled beneath him, then gripped my thighs and spread me wide. The blunt head of his cock nudged my entrance, and he pushed in with one long, merciless thrust.

We both cried out.

He was huge, stretching me to the edge of pain and past it into bliss, bottoming out until I felt him in my soul. Then he started to move, with hard, deep strokes that shook the bed, the walls, and the very air around us. Magic sparked between us, gold and blue lightning dancing over our skin, binding us tighter.

I wrapped my legs high around his back, my heels digging into the flexing muscle there, urging him deeper. He obliged, pounding into me like the god he had become, growling Gaelic filth against my neck.

“Take me, love. Every inch. Ye were made for this cock, made tae milk me dry.”

I couldn’t speak, could only moan and claw and meet every thrust, our bodies slapping together, and the sounds were wet and obscene. Another climax built fast, coaxed by the relentless drag of him over that spot inside and the way his magic still thrummed against my clit with every stroke.

“Lachlan, I’m...”

“Aye, come again. Come on me while I fill ye up. Want ye dripping for days.”

I broke a second time, clenching around him so hard his rhythm faltered. He snarled, his hips snapping faster, and then he was coming too, pulsing hot and deep, flooding me as he roared my name like a battle cry.

The world went white.

When I came back to myself, he was still buried inside me, trembling, with his forehead pressed to mine. His breath sawed in and out, harsh and reverent.

“Elowen,” he whispered, his voice ragged. “My heart. My everything.”

I cupped his face, my thumbs stroking the sharp lines of his cheekbones, and felt the chaos inside me quiet completely for the first time in weeks.

He was my gravity.

And I was finally home.