Chapter 69 Immortality
LUCA
Arya walked past without seeing me, her scent immediately wrapped around me like a drug. My body responded instantly, need flooded through me with painful intensity.
I waited until they were gone before following at a distance.
In our room, I found her standing by the window, silhouetted by moonlight. She’d changed into a silk nightgown that clung to her curves, and the sight of her sent pure want racing through my veins.
“I know you’re there,” she said without turning. “I can feel you watching me.”
“I’m always watching you.” I stepped out of the shadows. “I can’t seem to help myself.”
“Is it the bond? Or is it you?”
“Both.” I moved closer, drawn by an invisible thread. “The bond makes me aware of you every second. Where you are, what you’re feeling, if you’re in danger. But the watching? The obsessive need to have eyes on you at all times? That’s all me.”
She turned to face me, and I could see the exhaustion in her features. Three days of brutal training had left her bruised, sore, pushed to her absolute limits.
And she was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“You haven’t slept,” she observed.
“Neither have you.”
“I tried. Couldn’t.” She moved toward me, and I met her halfway. “There’s too much in my head.”
“Like what?”
“Like wondering if I’ll survive tomorrow. If I’m strong enough. If—” Her voice broke slightly. “If this is the last night we have together.”
Something cracked in my chest.
“Don’t.” The word came out harsh. “Don’t talk like that.”
“We have to be realistic—”
“No. We don’t.” I pulled her against me, perhaps too roughly, but I couldn’t be gentle right now. “You’re going to survive tomorrow. You’re going to cleanse that land, host that summit, and change the fucking world. Because the alternative is unacceptable.”
“Luca—”
“I mean it, Aeliana. The alternative is unacceptable.” My hands slid into her hair, tilting her head back so she had to look at me. “Do you understand what you are to me? What you’ve done to me?”
“I—”
“For eight hundred years, I existed. I didn’t live, I existed. I ruled, I conquered, I maintained order. But I was hollow inside. Empty. Just going through the motions of immortality because what else was there?”
My grip tightened in her hair, bringing her closer to me.
“Then you walked into my life. You, with your hidden power and your fierce heart and your absolute refusal to be diminished. And suddenly I wasn’t hollow anymore. Suddenly I had a reason to wake up, to care, to feel.”
“Luca, I know—”
“No, you don’t. You don’t know what it’s like to live for centuries in grayscale and then suddenly see color for the first time. You don’t know what it’s like to have purpose after endless years of just floating.” I pressed my forehead against hers. “You don’t know that I would tear down everything I’ve built, betray every alliance I’ve made, become the villain of every story ever told if it meant keeping you alive.”
She was trembling now, and I could feel her emotions just like they were mine. Fear, love, worry, desire, all tangled together in a potent scent.
“That’s not healthy,” she whispered.
“I don’t care about healthy. I care about you.” My thumb brushed her lower lip. “And tomorrow, when you face that dark magic, I’m going to be right there to make sure that if anything goes wrong, if that darkness even thinks about taking you—”
“You’ll do what?”
“Whatever it takes.” The words were simple but carried the weight of absolute truth. “I’ll trade my life for yours. I’ll make deals with forces I shouldn’t. I’ll break every rule, cross every line. Whatever it takes to get you back home safe.”
“I won’t let you—”
“You won’t have a choice.” I kissed her, hard and claiming. “Because I’ve already made mine. Eight hundred years alone taught me the value of forever. And I’m not going back to that existence. I won’t. I can’t.” The last part came out softer than the rest.
“You’re scaring me a little.”
“Good. I’m terrified. Seems only fair you are too.” I lifted her, her legs automatically wrapping around my waist as I carried her to the bed. “But right now, tonight, I need to remind both of us what we’re fighting for.”
I laid her down, covering her body with mine. The silk nightgown was beautiful but in my way. I ripped it off her in one smooth motion, the sound of tearing fabric loud in the quiet room.
“Luca!” She gasped, but her pupils dilated with arousal. “That was expensive.”
“I’ll buy you a hundred more.” My mouth found her neck, teeth grazing the mark I’d already left there. “Right now, I need to touch you, to taste you, remind myself you’re here and alive and mine.”
“I’m yours,” she breathed. “Always yours.”
“Prove it.” I moved lower, my mouth blazing a trail down her body. “Let me worship you. Let me show you what you mean to me.”
I took my time, mapping every inch of her skin with my lips and tongue. Every curve, every hollow, every place that made her gasp and arch. I was methodical, obsessive, committing every response to memory.
Because tomorrow I might lose everything.
So tonight, I’d make sure she knew. Make sure she felt everything she did to me. Make sure that if these were our last hours together, they’d be burned into both our souls for whatever came after.
When I finally settled between her thighs, she was already trembling, already desperate.
“Please,” she whimpered. “Luca, please—”
“Tell me what you need.”
“You. I need you. Always you.”
I gave her what she needed. My mouth, my tongue, my fingers—all working in concert to drive her higher and higher. When she came the first time, she screamed my name loud enough for the whole estate to hear.
Good. Let them hear. Let everyone know who made her feel this way.
I didn’t stop. Worked her through the first orgasm and into a second, then a third. By the time I finally rose over her, she was a shaking, incoherent mess.
“Beautiful,” I murmured, positioning myself at her entrance. “Absolutely fucking beautiful when you come undone.”
I thrust in, and we both groaned. She was impossibly tight, impossibly perfect, impossibly everything.
“Look at me,” I commanded. Her eyes, glazed with pleasure, focused on mine. “I want you watching me when I claim you. I want you to see exactly what you do to me.”
I set a brutal pace. My hands gripped her hips hard enough to bruise, and some distant part of me knew I should be gentler.
But I couldn’t. I needed to brand myself on her soul.
“Mine,” I growled with each thrust. “Say it.”
“Yours,” she gasped. “I’m yours.”
“Forever.”
“Forever.”
But forever had a different meaning for us. Her forever was measured in decades. Mine stretched into eternity.
The thought of outliving her, of watching her age and fade while I remained unchanged was unbearable.
‘Then make her immortal,’ my Lycan suggested.