Chapter 53 - Glory
Glory
LIII
I woke to the taste of blood.
Unmistakably Cammon’s blood. There was no confusing it with anyone else’s, the way it sparkled on my tongue and set fire to my veins like nothing else I’d ever had.
It was even sweeter with the two-way bond running between us.
I wasn’t familiar enough with his emotions to recognize them by name, but they tasted bright and clean and satisfying.
Every gulp from him was an offering from the gods, and I had to restrain myself from clawing at Cammon’s back and draining every drop.
Memories swept over me of our battle. All that blood and mud and death.
I’d wielded my magic and unleashed chaos, just as I’d always been terrified I would, and it had been just as extreme as I’d feared.
But I’d controlled it. In letting my vampiric nature out at the same time, I hadn’t needed to divide my concentration, and with that freedom, I’d harnessed all my fury and fear and love for Cammon and directed the storm.
I had been walking destruction, but the destruction had been my choice.
When I blinked my eyes open, I found myself in an unfamiliar room, and it took me a moment to appreciate that it was a room.
Not a destroyed, washed-out valley filled with horrifying, mutated corpses, but a simple, wood-panelled room.
Not much larger than the bed, with a narrow table wedged against the wall, a desk across the way, and a porthole above it.
A ship cabin.
I pulled away from Cammon on a gasp and looked around us. The portraits on the walls depicted the Golth skyline and the Never Sea in all its seasons. A map hung over the bed, and through the porthole I made out a bright blue sky alight with sunshine.
I turned back to Cammon to find him smiling at me. Dark bruises of exhaustion lined his crimson eyes, but he was breathing. He was here. With me. And he was… happy? The emotions running between us hummed with the identification, and I knew I was right.
I threw my arms around his neck and ran my tongue over the punctures in his throat to hurry their healing. He groaned at the sensation of my gentle licks, and the sound woke something else within me. A deep need I doubted would ever be sated.
He turned his head into my neck, to where my bond mark now rested, and when he kissed it, I felt that kiss all the way to the tips of my toes.
My head dropped back to allow him better access, and his mouth skated across the column of my throat, nuzzling and nipping and leaving soft kisses that had me writhing with want.
He lay me back against the pillows—actual pillows on an actual mattress—and slid his hands under yet another wrecked shirt.
The last of Kalla’s gifts. Not that it mattered.
I didn’t intend to be dressed at all until the ship arrived in Golth.
Maybe not even then. Maybe I’d greet Evaniel as naked as the day I was born, hand him the amulet, then return to Cammon’s arms, never to leave again.
I laughed at the image, and when Cammon pulled back, questions in his eyes, I answered with a smile and a kiss. We were alive, and we were together. Everything else was irrelevant.
He tugged my shirt over my head, and I shimmied out of my torn breeches before moving on to his ruined clothes.
Most of his wounds had closed thanks to the bond, but we moved gently with each other.
He spread my legs and settled between them, his hard, throbbing length pressed against my aching sex.
My need for him was almost a physical pain, but he teased me by taking his time.
His large hands followed the lines of my body, then cupped my breasts, his thumbs playing with my nipples until they were stiff peaks.
At my whimpers of protest, he chuckled against my skin but didn’t hasten.
As though he were lingering over every moment, every taste.
I understood it. After how close we’d come to losing everything, I also wanted time to take note of every beat of his heart and rise of his chest. But I also needed him inside me to fill the void that had grown ever since the last time we’d been together.
The emptiness that had nearly split me open when I’d believed I would never get to experience his touch again.
I threaded my fingers through his thick hair, then ran my hands down his shoulders and over his wings, which he’d left exposed.
He shuddered against me as I did, curling his back to give me more space to explore, and I accepted the invitation.
The feathers were soft and so beautifully black they took on a faint blue hue in the sunshine.
I carded my fingers through them and winced when one pulled free.
I showed Cammon, and he took it from me.
I expected him to drop it to the ground or to show some feeling about the state of his poor, mangled wings, but instead he touched the downy softness to my forehead, over the side of my face, across my lips, down my throat.
The tickle was offset by the sensuality of its lightness, a barely-there caress that woke my nerves and raised goosebumps on my skin.
I imagined what it would feel like if I were wearing the blindfold as well and shivered in response.
With a growl of matching desire, Cammon kissed my neck and trailed the feather over my breasts and across my stomach. When it reached my inner thigh, I spread my legs wider to accommodate him. But the feather travelled outwards, over the outside of my thigh down to my knee.
When it touched the spot behind my knee, I flinched at the overt tickle, and Cammon’s low laugh against my skin made me smile.
The lack of tension, of impending doom, made it possible for us to play. How long had it been since I’d done such a thing? Had I ever?
It was such a new, novel concept that I froze, suddenly unable to cope with the unfamiliar freedom.
Cammon stilled and looked up at me, concern shining through his eyes, the inky black swirls receding.
I swallowed hard, overwhelmed by the intensity of emotion running back and forth through the bond.
Understanding filled his expression, and he set the feather on the pillow, then rolled his big, muscular body over me to nuzzle the tip of his nose against mine before consuming my mouth in a kiss.
I slid my arms around his neck, gripped his hair, and kissed him back, sending every ounce of affection through both kiss and bond.
He had done nothing wrong. On the contrary, he had opened doors I hadn’t even realized had been wallpapered over.
I wanted to explore every room with him, every possibility, every facet of our wants and desires.
But for now, for this moment, I wanted him.
Knowing it, sensing every nuanced emotion through the bond, Cammon set the tip of his cock against me and nudged it inside.
The feeling of being complete was almost enough to tip me over the edge right then, but I hung on, clinging to his shoulders, letting my body meld with his as he gently rocked into me, sliding deeper, taking up more space even as he made room for me to show him what I wanted.
He kissed the spot where he’d marked me, and my head fell back against the pillows when his touch sent sparks racing through my blood, stoking my desire and fuelling the fires he’d lit with his first touch.
My need rose along with his, and the speed of his thrusts quickened.
He strove to be careful with me, mindful of the wounds that covered us both, but in my heightened arousal, I no longer noticed the pain.
Only him, the mounting pleasure of friction and closeness, and that constant undercurrent of shared emotion.
A strange flavour played over my tongue, spicy and rich. Some part of me recognized it not as my desire but as Cammon’s, and the intensity of it, the intimacy, like a secret door that stood open between us, spurred me on.
I slid my hands down his back, around his wings and hooked on to his muscular buttocks, pulling him to me, demanding more.
He tried to resist, not wanting to hurt me, but when I sank my fangs into his neck for another sip of his decadent blood, he hissed and lost control.
His eyes turned black and his next kiss was punishing, teeth nipping at my bottom lip, trembling arms braced at my sides.
His hips pummelled me, driving me into the mattress, hitting that one spot that took me higher, higher, until my head drowned in ecstasy.
He pulled back to meet my eyes, his black stare full of lust and hunger and love.
His shuddering breaths grew erratic. He opened his mouth to say something but had no time before I drowned it out with a cry as my orgasm crashed through me.
I dug my claws into his flesh, pulling him into me, and he fell moments later, his body tensing, his groan of release in my ear.
I wanted to know what he’d been about to say, longed to hear the words that accompanied the feelings running between us, but I was too tired. Too sated. We barely had time to twine our bodies together—my back against his warm, broad chest—before we both fell asleep.