“Look how breathtaking you are.” He traces the witch’s marks spiraling around my breast, then lowers his hand to the most sensitive part of me. “Watch what you do to me.”
There’s nothing in the world but us then. Nothing but the way we fit together—bodies and magick—the way he takes me so thoroughly. One moment he’s clutching my breast, and the next, he’s teasing me between my legs, his magick singing in my blood. It’s a cruel dance, one he prolongs, sending me to the brink of rapture again and again, our every movement captured in the glass across the room.
I am clay beneath his skilled hands, changing, as though he’s molding me. Not back to the woman I was, but to someone new, someone damaged but unbroken, wounded and yet healed. I’d feared how he might change me, and yet he reminds me of who I am and who I can be with every caress, every kiss, every thrust, our magick entwined, bright as a beacon, showing me parts of myself long-buried, parts of myself unknown. I like who I am with him.
Who I’m becoming.
Arching back, I wrap my arm around his neck and writhe on him, that ache inside me building to a breaking point.
He moves harder, murmuring my name like a holy enchantment. This time, he doesn’t stop touching me. Masterfully, he rolls his fingertip across that bundle of nerves and lingers. Those merciless circles and his pounding rhythm begin to unravel me. He moves faster, thrusting so hard and so deep that I can taste his magick, sense it gliding across my skin.
I don’t know where he ends and I begin.
He’s too much. Too consuming.
He’s everything.
“Come for me,” he begs on a shredded breath, touching me. Touching us. “Let me feel you come for me.”
My body obeys.
Pleasure cuts through me, lightning flashing like fire in my veins, my core filling with liquid heat as I spasm around his hardness. It’s as though I slip outside myself, the connection to ecstasy so intense and thrilling that—for those long, wonder-filled moments—that’s all I feel.
Utter bliss.
No sooner than I begin the quivering fall back to reality, Alexus presses his hand over my heart, his other arm tightening around my waist. There’s so much power in him, even though contained. Even now it’s almost unbearable, but I still want to set it free. I want to experience what it’s like when he’s inside me and brimming with magick.
“Stop me if I hurt you,” he whispers against my neck.
My stomach tightens with anticipation. I shake my head—because there’s no way I’ll stop him—and again, his smile tickles my skin.
He lowers his strong hands to my hips and euphoria rises once more. His release builds, throbbing inside me.
Dark desire washes through my veins as I train my eyes on the window. The fierceness of his claiming is stunning to watch, his muscles tensing and flexing as he thrusts and thrusts, each onslaught jolting my body, stoking my arousal anew.
His fingers bite into my hips, and in the window, with snow falling beyond, he tips his head back and moans. All that silky black hair slips over his shoulder as a strained “gods” leaves his lips.
I cover his hands with mine, squeezing, because he’s carrying us away again, and I can do nothing more than hold on and let him.
Gasping, I take all he has to give, until he cries out my name. His sinewy body shudders hard against mine, and I shatter a second time, quivering with pleasure.
When it’s over, we collapse, sweat-slicked and exhausted, wrapped in one another’s arms and one another’s magick. We lie side by side, staring into each other’s eyes for a long time—gently caressing, exploring, touching—the crackling fire and our slowing breaths the only sounds in the room.
Alexus kisses my fingertips, and then cups my cheek before pressing his lips to my mouth. It’s a slow, sweet kiss, deliberate and unhurried. I love it, but I pull away.
“You cannot keep kissing me like that, or we might never leave this place,” I sign, throwing his words from the wood back at him.
A gorgeous, heart-stopping smile unfurls across his face. “Well, you see, that,” he says against my lips, “is what it is to be mine, and I intend to show you several more times tonight if that’s all right.”
I smile too. A genuine smile. A smile I feel in my heart, my soul.
I touch his dimple and drag my fingertips through his beard before pulling him on top of me.
“Promise?” I sign.
He presses his reply into the skin over my heart. “I promise.”
44
Raina
There is no love without fear, but no one told me that fear feasts on those with something to lose. That’s been my problem all along, and though everything looks very different now when I gaze at my life, that part remains steadfast and true.
I imagine it always will.
The starkness of this certainty settles deep as I lay before the fire with Alexus’s head at rest upon my breast. His long body is wrapped around mine, so still and tranquil, clinging to the remnants of our lovemaking. My mind drifts so easily to the worry that—at any moment—that gentle heartbeat of his could cease, and I can do nothing to stop it. I don’t know how to reconcile this. Accepting that this is our fate unless we defeat the Prince of the East with a handful of Witch Walkers is beyond my reach.
Alexus doesn’t seem to live under the weight of such concerns. When he wakes, he takes me again, until my mind is blank of anything other than the passion we share. But we cannot remain in the dreamworld of his bedchamber forever.
Too soon, I’m standing with Helena in the main hall, watching servants carry the last of the packs and blankets outside. We’re dressed in leathers, thick wool tunics, heavy fur-lined cloaks, and sealskin gloves. Our boots are tall with daggers strapped to both sides, and we each wear a baldric across our chests, complete with swords that fit our hands perfectly.
I can’t help but glance at Hel, looking like the warrior she’s meant to be. Every hour here brings some new change that makes my old life less and less recognizable, but I’m beginning to feel like these changes somehow fit.
Helena jerks her head for me to follow, and we turn down the impressive hall leading to the kitchens. We pass a half dozen tapestries, each at least thirty hands high, depicting war in a desert. The Land Wars. The wars that led Colden Moeshka to a life he never expected—that of an immortal king.
Hel opens the door leading to the main kitchen, and we slip inside. No one is here but us.
“What is this about?” I ask.
She arches a dark brow and guides me across the room. A pitcher and scrying dish filled with water waits on a rough-hewn table.