Goldfinch (The Plated Prisoner, #6)

by Raven Kennedy

I shake my head. “No, your sister is right. He did get hurt with me.” I glance back at Wynn. “I give you my word that if things become too dangerous, I will send Argo back.”

Why do I feel like he’s going to die.

This is a päyur bond fusing.

Not a second too soon.

It means that she and I are a match fated by the goddesses. It means that we have been given the greatest gift ever bestowed on a fae. It means that she’s mine.

Like I predicted.

There’s a flash of a different crowned man…a different blade…a pain at my throat as I was held back.

This is the third time a king holds a knife at her throat.

Without her, the Vulmin will have nothing to fight for.

Except there's been another Turley all this time.

I’m staring through that green window again. Binding to the color. It reminds me of summer grass. Of a shadowed forest. Of—

EYES PERHAPS?

It’s like we were both reading the same book, but he went ahead and finished it before me. It feels like he’s just waiting for me to catch up,

Sounds like my best friend throughout this whole series.

“But while you were fighting for your life, unconscious, I was very fucking conscious. I watched every minute of your suffering. But I wasn’t sitting there just for fucking guilt. You want to know what I felt?” “What?” I ask breathlessly, unable to even attempt to be snippy. “So fucking devastated that I was going to lose you,” he replies, stark honesty rumbling out of his gravelly voice. “That I was going to lose you before I could tell you that I love you.”

Oof, dropping the L-bomb already? I love Osrik though.

“Are we a mistake?” I ask quietly. He doesn’t mock me. Doesn’t get mad. Instead, he rubs my back with tenderness. “Like I told you before, you’re the best mistake I want to make. Over and over again. For the rest of our lives. So what do you say?”

Team Osrissa.

I swallow hard at the praise in his tone. “You won’t let me down?” I press. “Never, Rissa,” he replies firmly. “I will never, ever make you fucking regret this.”

Just kiss already.

I want to scoff, but I suppress the urge, because…maybe I truly can be me. Maybe with him, everything can be different. So instead, I fall into this impulsive wave of longing, and I lean forward and kiss him.

FINALLY

He looks at me like he’s reading my thoughts through my eyes. “You don’t have to say anything. I hear you anyway.”

A man that listens like that? Of course he's fictional.

“I want you to do something for me that no one ever has before.” “What’s that?” Embarrassment tries to strangle the words, but I push through, my eyes meeting his. “I want you…to make love to me.”

YES I'VE WAITED A WHOLE BOOK AND SAT THROUGH MALINA/DOMMIK SMUT FOR THIS

“It would be my fucking honor, Rissa Bell.” A tear threatens to slip from my eye, but I sniff and clear my throat. “My last name is Caddell.” “Your last name is going to be Ferox soon, because that’s mine.”

Smoooooth.

“Okay, so we won’t marry,” he says with an easy shrug, as if I haven’t just said what most men would consider blasphemy. “Just like that?” “I’ll get you a ring. To us, we’ll be married. Without any of the bullshit. It’s just for us—for me and you. Think you can handle that?”

Osrik has no business being so PERFECT.

“Are you sure you can handle me?” he asks quietly, his massive hands continuing to massage,

I bet something else is massive too.

Osrik is huge. Girthy. With the perfect flared head and a length that makes my stomach clench.

Called it.

Reaching down, I wrap my hand around his width, fingers not quite meeting.

That's frightening instead of arousing.

going so deep with his massive cock I swear I can feel him all the way up to my ribs.

Sounds painful to be honest.

one hand hitching up my hip so he can angle me further. So he can get even deeper.

And he was already all the way up to her ribs. A little bit further and she'll choke.

“Well?” he asks, cracking one eye open as if he could sense my gaze. “Are we a mistake, Rissa?” The answer is easy, and I smile at him. “The best mistake I ever made.”

She thinks I’d go off and die? No fucking way. I’ve never had more to live for than I do right now.

Because my father’s wrong. I’m not a Cull, and I never want to be. I’m my mother’s son. I’m a Ravinger.

I told her I’d be the villain for her, and I was. Now, I need to also be the hero she would want me to be.

Ravinger stands there for a drawn-out moment.

Shouldn't he be in a hurry to get to Auren?

“I tried to wake him, but he wouldn’t… He never breathed. And then the fae came and took him out. They took him.”

As a mother, my heart is breaking.

“No, Mist. I won’t leave you. You won’t be alone ever again.”

I'm sobbing.

“He was so beautiful… You’ll tell the king, won’t you? Midas will be so happy.” She lets out another sigh. “I hope I get to hold him soon.” “You will,” I whisper as a frigid tear cuts down my cheek. “Rest now.” Mist nods and her expression smooths out, and then her eyes flutter shut. She doesn’t open them again.

This fucking broke me.

So although he was anxious and furious, not wanting to part ways, it’s too dangerous for him to come with me. And I promised a very special little girl that I would keep him safe and send him home, so that’s what I did.

“What are you?” she asks. My gaze stabs into her. “Really fucking pissed.”

She rolls her eyes. It makes me hard as a rock because that’s what this infuriating woman does to me.

Osrik please, you just came out of a battle.

I look down at her, and she arches her brows at me in challenge. Yep. Fucking hard again.

You know when you're playing Pokémon and you try to ride your bike indoors and professor Oak tells you there's a time and place for everything but not now? Well, that.

When Kaila and Manu turn and walk back over, Kaila’s face has hardened. “My brother and advisor has suggested a different course of action,” she clips out, clearly unhappy with it, though her eyes move to Ryatt. “Third Kingdom will aid Orea.”

Thank god Manu has some sense in him.

“We should go to the city,” another male says—the one who possesses power to attack with teeth. He wears a string of them around his neck. They call him Fang.

Like Hagrid's dog.

I glance down at the golden chest plate I made for myself. I’m slightly regretting that decision right about now. It’s going to make me stick out like a sore thumb even more than I already do, but…I look at the way it stretches around my waist, encasing my torso perfectly in elaborate rivulets of melded metal. Not only does it make me feel stronger, it’s pretty too. Bright side.

At least she didn't forget her bright sides!

My brow instantly furrows, a lost memory clinking against a hollow space in my head. Bright side… I can hear myself saying that at another place. Another time. It feels so familiar.

Oh you've said that countless times in countless places.

“No?” I say. “Well, I did expect to find a goldfinch.”

Shouldn't she be able to see his aura too?

“You can see it, can’t you?” I ask her. “You can see my aura?”

There we go.

“You found me,” she whispers, lip trembling. The relief and heartbreaking joy is so intense I have to shove it aside before I can answer. “I’ll always find you, Goldfinch.” Always.

Then my attention is pulled when I feel something else wrapping around us, something soft yet strong, and I turn my head to look. And there they are.

THE RIBBONS

“They’re back, and so are you. I’m whole again.”

I yank her forward and slam my lips against hers. She meets my kiss like she’s been looking for me for a lifetime, and maybe she has. Maybe I have too. We’ve lived a thousand little lifetimes, dying a little bit every second we were apart.

She smiles and looks into my eyes. “We’re quite the pair, you and I.” It feels like I said those words so long ago, and hearing her repeat them now makes my chest tighten. “You figured it out?” She shakes her head. “Not until it happened.”

Then a sudden need to be buried inside of her snares me, stealing my fucking breath and setting my veins on fire.

I love that they're together again and everything that's happening between them, but out of every time it wasn't the time for that, this is not the time the most.

The street is still blessedly empty, save for the shell-shocked male who stands beside the fountain. “Auren?”

He's been very patient, I feel like they've been standing there for a while.

As soon as he says her name, a snarl rips out of me, and my teeth flash at him with unbidden fury. I want to tear him apart. I want to gut him from groin to grin and spill out his lifeblood for daring to speak her name.

Calm your fucking tits, Jesus Christ.

My breath pants through gritted teeth, and I’m fucking hard as a rock,

*Clears throat* NOT THE TIME

“Shh,” Auren soothes, even as she starts to rock against me.

Where everyone can see?

“Go down the stairs, and you’ll come to a private underground waterway. There’s always at least a boat or two there to use. Take one and row downstream until you see the house with the green bulbs. It’s a Vulmin safe house. No one will be there, and I’ll ensure no one will disturb you. It’s secure.”

Very friendly of Wick to show them the way to where they can fuck.

“I’m going,” the male—Wick—says as he starts backing away, hands held up in front of him like he’s warding off a rabid animal. “When you two are…done, go to the building with the blue roof in the city. We’ll be waiting there.”

I can't imagine how awkward this must be for him.