Change My Life

Mara

I still, clamping my hand between my legs. The orgasm I was so close to having simmers through my body until it disappears completely.

I want to cry.

My body is still buszzing with so much need but I force myself to stand.

I brush my hands down my dress, both to hide away the creases but also to wipe some of the wetness from my hands.

When I open the door, I blink. Of course. Crissa stands there with one hand on her hip and the other clutching a bottle of bright pink wine. Her eyebrow raised in judgement.

“Fuck,” I mutter, smacking my forehead.

“You forgot about girls’ night?” she asks with a smirk, her wild red curls bouncing as she breezes past me and into my apartment.

I winces. “I’m so sorry. I completely blanked.”

“You texted me a reminder this morning.” She lifts an eyebrow, heading straight for the kitchen.

My mind has been a black hole all day, sucked dry by the book. Not that I can tell her that. “Okay, well I forgot about that too.”

She deadpans. Crissa might be my employee, but she has been my closest friend for the past seven years. She’s the first person I let in after my parents’ death, even if our personalities clash at times.

“I know. I know. I’m the worst,” I say, leaning against the counter. My dress clings to my still warm skin, rubbing against my nipples and I hold in a shudder.

“I stopped by earlier, knocked for like ten minutes,” she says, eyes studying me too much for comfort.

“Yeah, I went for a run to cool off from some stressing things at work.” I don’t know how good I am at lying.

Crissa’s eyes criss cross up and down my body. She sees my nipples pushing against the fabric of my dress, then she looks up to my flushed cheeks.

A smile spreads across her cheeks. Maybe I’m not good at lying at all.

“Mara Thorne, were you playing with yourself?”

I groan. “Crissa.”

She laughs and then stops, her eyes crossing to the other side of my apartment. “Wait. Was Tom here?”

I frown. “No.”

She bites her bottom lip “Want to call him? I don’t mind leaving so you can finally get laid.”

I hiss. “Does that mean you’ll finally go out with Sal?”

That gets her to close her mouth.

“Dish it but can’t take it, huh?”

She narrows her eyes. “I am getting laid, though. Not by Sal, of course. You, on the other hand, probably have cobwebs down there.

My cheeks flame. “Jesus, Crissa.”

She pours herself a glass of wine.

Don’t mind leaving, my ass.

She raises it like a toast.“So? You really won’t go out with Tom?”

“Are you going to tell me why you won’t go out with Sal?”

She grimaces.

“That’s what I thought.” I smile smuggly, the sudden need to look over at the closet overwhelming me.

Someone six-foot-five with blood red eyes and a chest tattoo has burned himself into the backs of my eyelids and I can’t exactly say Tom is completely off the list now that I found the man of my dreams.

Who happens to be a drawing.

Crissa snorted. “Was he big?”

She drains the rest of her wine with a sigh. “Damn. You really do need to get laid. You can’t even think straight. I’ll go, but you owe me a night of gossip and sugar and me trying on all your vintage coats.”

I blink at her. “Deal. You get fudge cake, wine, and access to the coat closet.”

“So maybe call up Tom and fuck him at least once before we meet again so we have something to talk about,” she says with a wink, grabbing her purse. “Bye, slut.”

“Bye, whore.”

The door clicks shut. Silence.

My eyes snap back to the closet.

I don’t even make it two minutes before I’m already tugging the door open, tossing aside scarves and jeans until my fingers close around the book.

It burns. Not literally, but my fingers tingle when I touch it.

I rush to my bed and sit, flipping it open to where I’d left off, desperate to understand. Desperate to see him again.

Kaelith. The Vowed. The Eclipse.

Why does just looking at a sketch of him set my skin on fire? Why do I feel like he is somewhere out there waiting for me?

I run my fingers over his eyes, letting the heat of my body rush through me as I imageine him between my legs.

I settle back, placing the book open on my chest to read as I drop my hand to play with my clit. I circle it, moaning as wetness pools.

“Fragment 12, recovered from the ashes of Virelith Keep.

They call him The Eclipse.

On the battlefield, he was the darkenss given flesh. Where others wore armor, Kaelith wore blood and ash. His blade cleaved through men, beasts, and monsters alike as if their bones were parchment and their screams were ink.”

Oh god. I push my fingers inside, alarmed by how wet I am. The sound is distubingly embarassing and I lift my hips, grinding against my palm.

“He was the commander of the Vowed, but to the world, he was a myth. A terror. A prayer. The whisper of his name was enough to make lesser kings abandon their thrones and stronger men piss where they stood.

He had once been a man of laughter. Of light. Of purpose. Before she died.

Before the last Oracle bled out in his arms, her throat torn, her prophecy incomplete, her hand clutched in his as her magic vanished from the world like smoke.

Since then, he had become a blade with no sheath. A warrior with no war. A soul cut adrift on a sea of centuries, loyal still to a duty that had no direction. He had searched the earth for twenty-five years, eyes sharp as twin bloods, looking for the one girl who would set the stars back into place. His Oracle. His path.”

Goosebumps erupt across my skin and I moan, almost screaming as my orgasm crests over the edge. I part my legs open wider, taking my fingers out of my wet pussy and returning their focus to my hardening clit.

“But even monsters need touch. Even broken men have hunger.

Kaelith did not love the women he took to his bed, but they loved him. He ruined them for others. One night with him was enough to haunt a woman’s dreams for a lifetime. He touched like he fought: fiercely, wholly, without hesitation. Every stroke, every kiss was a vow unspoken. They wept for him afterward, though they did not know why. Perhaps it was the grief he carried, the ache in his soul too deep to name.”

I weep for him now, and I shudder, surprised as tears fell down the sides of my face. I am so close, my insides melting, my heart hammering and my legs beginning to tremble.

“Perhaps it was because some part of them recognized he did not belong to this world, not truly, that his heart had already been claimed by fate and fire.

He did not want them. He only wanted her. His purpose.

The one soul bound to The Vowed. The light at the center of the chaos.

And until he finds her, Kaelith would keep fighting. Keep searching. Keep burning.

Because even a cursed man believes, somewhere deep in the hollows of his soul, that he can be saved.”

I come, so hard that I push the book the side. My back arches and I bury my face into my pillow as I whisper the name that will change my life forever.

“Kaelith.”