Chapter Thirty
GOLDEN EMBERS DRIFTED LAZILY THROUGH the air like living stars, catching on the pale petals raining from the blossom tree. Mist swept over the ground where we lay, and the auroras danced in the hazy sky with purples, pinks, and blues.
Time had no meaning here as every touch eradicated our overwhelming pain. We lost track of what was real and what was not, growing stronger with every kiss and caress.
I didn’t think about how we might look to anyone watching. I didn’t think about Dillon or Frank or my parents...
All I thought about was Lucien as his lips claimed mine, our tongues touched, and he rolled on top of me.
Whatever clothes we’d been wearing vanished as his lips trailed fire down my throat.
The fire in him reignited, turning his palms into a delicious scorching heat as he traced my skin, frost blooming with fractal patterns only to be melted instantly.
Every place he touched healed the dying inside me. The grinding ache in my bones eased. The metallic taste of death faded from my tongue.
He nipped my throat; I arched into him with a broken moan.
Golden embers swirled faster as he settled between my spread legs. He kissed his way down my throat, slow and reverent, teeth grazing my fluttering pulse before soothing it with his tongue. Each lick sent flames racing through my blood, chasing away the black rot that slowly ate me alive.
“You’re going to live,” he whispered against my collarbone. “We both are...because I refuse to accept a world where one of us exists and the other doesn’t.”
He moved lower.
His mouth closed over my breast as I buried my fingers in his black hair.
He sucked my nipple as if intent on pulling the tendrils of death right out of me.
I felt each lick directly between my legs as more ice flared, racing from me to him, frosting his skin with the same white snowflakes.
Steam rose between us like incense as he moved lower.
His lips found my stomach, kissing me as he spread my thighs and fell on me.
His mouth burned my clit, his tongue licking me deep. The auroras twisted into spirals—mimicking the way he made my core clench, pushing me closer to an edge I couldn’t fight.
He didn’t stop.
He devoured me like this might be the last time he ever tasted me—all tongue and lips and the intoxicating scrape of teeth. My hips rocked against his mouth, ice and fire combining until we were surrounded by a shimmering ball of power.
“Lucien—” I gasped, my thighs trembling around his head.
He growled, the vibration shooting straight to my centre. Two fingers slid deep inside me, curling just right. Pressure built like a storm about to shatter.
“Lucien...I—”
“Come,” he snarled. “I want you to come. Right now.”
His two fingers dove into me. His tongue licked me hard. And...I didn’t have a choice.
An orgasm crashed through me with a blinding, blistering wave. My spine arched off the misty ground as a silver blizzard exploded from my heart.
For a wondrous second, the black rot inside my veins burned away completely. My cells sang. My bones stopped aching. Stalking death paused and retreated, driven back by the sheer strength of our connection.
Lucien drank every clench of my release, wringing me out until I twitched and gasped and turned greedy to return the favour. I’d always wanted to. I’d offered, and he’d never accepted. And if this was one of the last times we could be together...
With a surge of power, I kicked him away.
He grunted as he fell backward, his lips glistening with my release. Landing on a bed of petals, his eyes blazed with that scarlet ring as I crawled over him, hair wild, skin flushed.
“My turn,” I whispered.
I kissed down his chest, my tongue tracing every hard ridge of muscle, tasting smoke and salt and him. When I reached his hard cock, I didn’t tease. I took him completely into my mouth, my fingers locking tight around his base.
“Holy fuck.” His head slammed against the ground. His hands fisted in my hair, holding on as if I threatened to break him into pieces. “Shit, that feels good.”
I sucked him harder, flushing with joy as he cursed again. “Fuck, Rook, you’re going to make me come—”
Isn’t that the idea? Didn’t we get told to have as many orgasms as possible?
I took him deeper, hollowing my cheeks as I sucked.
His hips rose with a shallow, desperate thrust, chasing the coolness of my mouth even as his entire body erupted with flame. He crackled and sizzled and need pooled between my legs.
He writhed as I stroked him, tasting the flush of smoky pre-cum.
I loved him like this. This undone and desperate and mine.
His thighs turned to concrete as his fingers tightened in my hair. With a low snarl, he sat up, grabbed my hips, and flipped me onto all fours. Kneeling behind me, he pressed a hand against my shoulder blades making my back arch.
“I need you,” he growled. “Fuck, I need you.”
“Then take me.”
He drove inside me with a deep, possessive thrust.
We both cried out.
Ice detonated and fire roared, combining into a tighter helix, healing us both all while we lost ourselves to pleasure. He took me hard and deep, one hand flat on my back, the other braced on my hip, holding me in place to claim me.
“You’re mine,” he snarled, folding over my back and grazing my skin with his teeth. “Forever mine. No matter what happens.”
“Yours.” I pushed back against him, meeting his every thrust.
We lost ourselves to pleasure.
And when we came together, the entire meadow lit up with a starburst.
His fire poured into me like liquid sunlight, while my ice arrowed into him like a frozen lake. He buried himself to the hilt, spilling deep inside me, and for one perfect, suspended moment, there was no pain.
No tarry blood.
No death.
Just us.
Just mist and moonlight as Lucien withdrew and collapsed over me. I lay on my belly beneath him, blanketed and warm and safe. He scattered kisses on my shoulder, both of us trembling but closer to life than we had been before.
The auroras calmed into gentle waves of colour. The petals resumed their lazy drift. And I had no strength to get up.
Rolling onto his side, he wrapped his arm around my stomach and spooned me.
“Sleep,” he murmured against my nape.
I closed my eyes, safe in his arms, and tried not to think about how this might be one of the last times I would ever feel his heart beat against my back.