The Elysean Illusion (The Holy Bloodlines, #3)

by D.N. Hoxa

He was my fuel. All it took was a little focus on those eyes, and those beautiful lips that were the object of all my fantasies, and the heat of his body that comforted me better than anything else.

He was behind me, cocooning me in his arms like he knew exactly how much I needed his touch, and it was okay. I was overwhelmed and my train of thoughts kept crashing every few feet, but he was there and it was okay.

“Do you want to live in a house like that one day, and have a simple, ordinary, beautiful life?” “Well, now I can’t. It’s become impossible,” he said, pressing his lips to mine gently. “Why not?” We could make that house, couldn’t we? It didn’t look complicated. But he said, “Because you’d have to be there, too. And there’s nothing ordinary about you, Snowflake.”

“Regret staying here for you?” he said, shaking his head, kissing me harder. “Never, not for a second. I’d follow you beyond worlds, Snowflake.”

running his fingers down the curve of my cheek as he looked at me, so in awe you’d think he beheld all the wonders of the world.

For gods are indeed great, but only as long as they are properly worshipped.

“But you gotta tell me how good he is in bed. How big his dick is. If he moans or growls or bites—that sort of thing. You gotta tell me.” Oh, God. Squeezing my eyes shut, I slipped around the table, trying not to die of the heat burning me from the inside. “You’re worse than Layla. You’re so much worse than Layla,” I mumbled, but for some unknown reason, I was also smiling. Because I already had all the answers—he’s an eleven out of ten in bed, and his dick is huge, the tip slightly curved up, and he moans and growls and bites—while he fucks me senseless for hours at a time. Yes, I was very much hopeless.

“I’ll be your boyfriend, Snowflake. I’ll be your friend, or your lover, or your anything at all, as long as I’m that first—yours.”

“What do you want me to be then?” Because I could be his friend and his lover and his girlfriend and his anything at all, too. But Shade smiled, coming closer until we were but an inch away from one another. “Mine.”

“Looks good on you,” Shade said, raising a thick brow. I rolled my eyes. “You’re only saying that because it’s yours,” I teased. But he came closer and closer until his mouth was right next to my ear. “So are you,” he whispered, leaving me more breathless than the view did.

I was running through an Elysean mall with two Elyseans I adored and would trade my life for in an instant, laughing my heart out as other Elyseans watched us pass them by and smiled, shaking their heads.

I didn’t want to be chosen! I just wanted to live a normal boring life, damn it. With Shade. And…and maybe possibly with a three-headed pup who looked at me like I was the love of her life. Shit.

Shade was here, and whatever the fuck that fact did to me, I loved it. I loved how easy I felt when I saw his face. How safe and free his presence made me.

Shade laughed his heart out, and I’d be damned if I’d ever been so purely happy as I was while he did. Having good, even great things happen to me was definitely amazing, but making Shade laugh? Yeah, that was a whole other monster, it seemed.

He was perfect. Every inch of smooth pink skin, and every vein on him was damn perfect.

“I love the way you look when you’re begging for me, too,” he said, biting my jaw with a growl. “So completely, undeniably mine.”

How was it that he still felt like the world began and ended right here with him?

You fucking own all of me…

There would never come a time when being with him wouldn’t feel like this. I knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt now, and that thought lulled me to sleep within minutes.

Shade was silent for a long time while he played with my hair and ran his fingertip up and down my naked back, like feeling my skin was the best thing in the world for him, too.

I kissed his lips again. “Then came you.”

“I would run away from anything Elysean, too, for the rest of my life with you, if you let me.” I laughed. “I might…if you’re a good boy.” The second I said those words, Shade pushed me down on the bed and was on top of me, settling between my legs. “Then I’ll just have to get to work right away to convince you that I am,” he teased, tickling me with kisses all over my neck. “Probably. I’m warning you, though—it’s very hard work,” I said, and his hands closed tightly around my hips, fingers digging into my skin. My laughter turned to a moan as if by magic. “That’s okay. I’m a very hard-working guy, Snowflake,” he said.

“I wish you could see how you looked from my eyes,” Shade whispered with a growl.

“Mine,” he growled, spreading it all over my soaked folds. “One hundred fucking percent, Shadow Boy,” I breathed, eyes half closed already.

Wrapping my arms around his neck, I rose on my tiptoes and kissed him back with my everything. Nothing tasted better than Shade. Nothing felt better than him, either.

“Then I should tell you a couple times more. You are simply stunning, Snowflake,” he whispered against my lips. “I breathe for you.”

We stayed like that for a minute, eyes closed and hearts beating steady, just living in each other’s embrace. It was as beautiful as everything else I’d experienced with Shade. He hadn’t told me that he loved me yet, never said those words, but I knew he felt it. He felt it so clearly, it radiated off him any time he looked at me.

“…you want to know the only thing mankind will go to such great lengths to avoid? The answer might surprise you. It is the truth.”

The sound of him warmed me like nothing else in the world. Fuck, I loved everything about this guy. It was almost ridiculous.

Just not right now because I needed him more than I needed to fucking breathe. He made this whole thing bearable just by being here. And I was too selfish to give that up tonight.

His lips were on mine and his body on top of me, and he kissed me like it was his life’s mission to make me feel like I was the only thing that mattered in the entire universe.

“You taste like the sweetest sin, Snowflake. I can never get enough of you,”

He tasted exactly like the sweetest sin, too. Like something forbidden you can’t keep yourself from, and I couldn’t fucking get enough of the taste of him, either.

“It’s really, really hard to resist you, Snowflake. It’s worse because I don’t want to.”

I wanted his hands on me forever, every second of every day.

I loved that he saw me the way he did. I loved that I glowed for him. I always would.

There was no better feeling in the world than being connected to him like this, than giving and taking and being his so completely.

I love you, I said to him in my mind. And I’d be damned if I let him fight those things for the rest of his life, no matter what I needed to do.

Fuck, I loved that guy so much it was unfair. And the way he smiled at me when our eyes met—a barely-there smile—made my heart trip all over itself.

Shade’s hand slipped into mine and it was all I could do not to just lean into him for a second. He was life.

I wrapped my arms around his neck the second the surprise faded—kissing Shade was the only thing better than sniffing him, no matter how fucking weird that made me. It was just how it was.

My name on his lips when he was delirious with pleasure like that might be the best thing I’d ever witness in my life.

And after, while I lay in his arms, him fast asleep already, everything was suddenly right with the world again.

“I’m only hopeless when I’m without you,”

“Falling out of love is indeed disastrous. Such a sad, sad thing… But when love loses meaning, it is worse. When you love someone, when the feeling is there, but it no longer has any worth, that is the true tragedy of the world.”

Screw everything—I just wanted to be with Shade.

“No, no—Elyseans. You can’t bring back mortals,” she cut me off. My mouth was suddenly dry. “I’m pretty sure the book referred to mortals…”

Shade and the Void were mine, and nothing and nobody could get to me here, no matter what it meant that I’d allowed myself to get close to him again.

My soul was resting.

Shade was magic. He was the most powerful spell in the world designed only for me, and the more I kissed him, the more I wanted.