31. Naera #3
Her words land with the weight of a bell tolling through bone. Soft, but shaking something loose inside me.
Because… there it is .
A vow.
It winds tight around my ribs, pulling breath from my lungs. Not harsh. Not cruel. Just… true. Steady in a way I don’t know how to brace for.
My chest aches with it, with the sudden, shattering realization that someone means to stay.
That she means to stay.
Not because I’m holy. Not because I’m powerful or glowing or useful. Just… because I’m me.
My vision swims. My throat burns. I blink once, twice—too late. The tears are already sliding down, warm and betraying.
Selis stills. I see it flicker across her face—surprise, like she didn’t mean to make me cry. Like she doesn’t quite know what to do with me now that I am.
“Naera,” she says, my name all breath and worry, barely more than a shape on her lips.
Then she’s kissing the tears from my cheeks, nuzzling in close. Her nose brushes mine. Her voice is a rough whisper, trying for levity, trying not to come undone with me.
“Hey now, this was supposed to be the part where I look irresistible.”
I huff a laugh that’s more sob than breath. “Sorry. I’m sorry, I don’t know why—”
“Don’t be,” she says, low and steady. Her hand comes up to cup the back of my neck, grounding me like a prayer. “You’re allowed to cry. You’ve earned it.”
And maybe I have. Maybe I’m allowed to want. Maybe I’m allowed to be held.
Even here. Even now.
With her.
“I want to go slow,” I breathe, my voice barely more than a ripple between us .
Her lips brush mine again—soft, reverent. She murmurs into the kiss, “Then slow it is, starlight.”
The words settle warm and low in my belly, wrapping around the ache like silk.
I lean in, close enough that my breath stirs the damp strands near her ear. “I want you to show me everything.”
She pulls back just enough to look at me, really look. Eyes sharp and shining, like I’ve just said something sacred. Or dangerous. Or both.
A smirk ghosts the corner of her mouth—lazy, lopsided, full of trouble. “You’re making it very hard for me to go slow.”
Desire curls tight in my stomach, low and deep, catching fire at the edges. My gaze drops—to her lips, always hovering on the edge of a smirk, like she knows more than she’ll say.
But right now, they’re parted. Waiting.
I reach up, touch light as breath—just my fingertips tracing the shape of her mouth.
She exhales, still and watching me like I’m something rare. Then, without breaking eye contact, she opens her mouth and draws one of my fingers in.
Warm. Wet. Gentle pressure as she sucks, slow and deliberate.
The intimacy of it steals the breath from my lungs. It’s not just the act—it’s her letting me lead. Her offering.
Heat spills down through me, molten and heavy. I look up at her with wide eyes, lips parted.
And there it is again—that damn smirk. Back like it never left, like she’s proud of me for unraveling.
She’s letting me take the reins. Her hands stay where they are, steady at my hips, anchoring me. Not pushing. Just waiting.
I slip my finger free and lean in, pressing my lips to the curve of her neck .
She shivers.
Salt clings to her skin, warm and human. I taste it, trace it. Her pulse flutters against my mouth, a drumbeat under silk.
But it’s not just desire pooling low in my belly now—it’s bloodlust too, creeping up my throat like heat rising.
Selis shudders beneath my lips. My teeth graze the tender space just beneath her jaw.
She tilts her head. Offers more. Silently.
Selene, help me…
I kiss my way down to her collarbone, tongue flicking out to taste the hollow where heat gathers and her heartbeat pounds hardest.
Her breath catches.
Her fingers dig into my hips, just a little harder.
And I feel it again—that edge we walk. Between hunger and tenderness. Between reverence and ruin.
“Selis,” I whisper, voice rough with want, “will you let me taste you here?”
Her breath hitches. Just once. Then her eyes darken like stormclouds rolling over the sea.
For a heartbeat, she doesn’t answer. Just watches me, gaze steady and unreadable.
Then her hand finally slips from my hip, trailing down with aching slowness until she cups me beneath the water.
The sensation steals every thought from my head. I gasp, sharp and startled, shame flushing hot through me as I press into her palm.
She leans in, mouth brushing my ear. “Only if you let me make you feel good while you do it.”
And then her hand moves .
Her palm grinds gently against me, sending sparks bursting behind my eyes.
There’s no going back now.
So why not give myself to her? Why not trust the woman who held me while I cried, who looked at my glow and didn’t flinch?
I’ve never felt this way for anyone. Not even Ria. That ache had always stayed behind a wall.
But this—this is something else.
I nod, breath catching, shuddering as her fingers slide between my folds, finding the place that makes my knees threaten to give out even in the water.
She strokes me there—soft, insistent circles that feel like nothing I’ve ever dared to give myself.
I clutch at her shoulders, trembling, helpless to stop the way my body keens toward hers.
Her lips ghost over my jaw, and her voice is low and wicked when she murmurs, “If you’re going to bite me, starlight, now would be the time. Before I make you too blissed-out to aim.”
I let out a shaky laugh, half-wrecked already. “Too late,” I whisper.
Her grin flickers across my skin like lightning—bright, brief, and gone too fast. But her fingers keep moving, coaxing gasps from me, little broken prayers I hadn’t meant to speak.
My breath stumbles. My hips follow her hand like I’m bound to her by something older than flesh. Older than gods.
And maybe I am.
Selis presses a kiss to my neck, the curve where shoulder meets throat. “Go on,” she murmurs, voice husky now, reverent. “You’ve wanted to.”
She tilts her head, baring her throat. Offering.
I hesitate. Just a second. Just a breath .
And then I give in.
My lips brush her skin—hot and damp from the steam, salty from the spring. I kiss the hollow of her throat once. Twice. My hands shake. My teeth ache.
When I bite, I try to be gentle. I don’t know how, not really, but something in me remembers. The skin gives beneath my teeth, not easily, but with trust.
And then—
Her blood hits my tongue like starlight cracking open inside me.
It’s not just taste. It’s not just hunger.
It’s her .
Wild and aching and alive. The heat of the sun and the sharpness of blades. Fire and wind and something softer—something she doesn’t show the world but has let me see.
I moan into her skin, overwhelmed.
Her fingers don’t stop, and I’m drowning in sensation, in taste, in her—
Her hands, her breath, the pulse fluttering against my lips like a secret.
It’s too much.
It’s perfect .
And somewhere in it, I realize I’m crying again—not from sadness this time, but from the unbearable, impossible wonder of being held like this. Of holding her back.
Selis is whispering something into my hair—words I can’t quite hear over the pounding in my ears, the rushing in my blood.
But I know what they mean.
She’s here.
She’s mine .
And for once, I’m not afraid.
The wave crashes over me—hot and sharp and blinding.
I come undone against her hand, gasping her name like a prayer as everything inside me clenches tight, then breaks open.
Stars bloom behind my eyes. I taste her blood on my tongue—metallic and warm and dizzying—and the world fractures into light.
When it’s over, I sag against her, every nerve humming, lips slick with the proof of what I’ve done, what we’ve become.
Trembling, I draw back.
Still tasting her. Still holding the echo of her heartbeat in my mouth.
Selis exhales like she’s been holding her breath since the beginning. Her hand stops between my thighs but doesn’t leave. Just stays there, soft and steady, until my body’s not shaking from pleasure but from the memory of it—raw and open and humming.
I press my forehead to her shoulder. I can feel her pulse in my mouth still, like it’s found a home there.
Something warm and golden and true settles deep inside me. Not light, not magic. Something else. Something special.
“Selis…” I breathe.
“I know,” she murmurs, arms wrapping around me now, holding me close like she’s afraid I’ll float away. “I feel it too.”
I don’t know what it is. Not exactly. But her blood sings in me, and mine answers, resonant and strange and right .
As if this moment was meant from the start.
I bury my face in her neck. “I didn’t know it could feel like this.”
Selis kisses the crown of my head. Her hand runs down my back, soothing, grounding. “Nor did I. ”
And I believe her.
Because now I’m full of her—her blood, her touch, her warmth—and it doesn’t feel like surrender.
It feels like becoming.
We stay like that in the water, our bodies tangled, the night pressing close around us.
She doesn’t ask what I felt. I don’t ask if she’ll stay.
We don’t need to.
The vow was already made.
Not with words.
With teeth. With touch. With trust.
And in the quiet that follows, I begin to believe—really believe—that maybe there is a life waiting for us beyond blood and gods and ruin.