Chapter 39 #3
The shadows coiled tighter. Possessive. Protective. Insatiable.
Take her, they hissed. She’s ours.
But he stopped, panting, teeth clenched, every muscle coiled like stone.
He searched her eyes, waiting for her to change her mind. “I…haven’t broken the Sleeping Curse yet,” he said, half-jesting.
She tugged at his trousers, removing his belt. “Tomorrow’s problem.”
Rune chuckled, his breath ragged by her want of him, but he knew better. “Tempting.”
Her eyes held his, challenging.
Then her fingers tugged at the stays, dragging the waistband down his hips.
Rune caught her wrist before she could reach for him, breath rough. “Not yet.”
Her eyes immediately dropped but his shadows swarmed around his waist, veiling him. There were parts of him she had not yet seen.
Sensing his hesitation, Alora whispered with a little smile, “You would deny me now?”
The air turned thick with magic. Lust. Longing.
Of something ancient reborn.
Her light flared brighter, but it didn’t burn. It was soft and gentle. Wrapping him in a warmth he had not felt since the world’s creation. She was the purest thing to ever exist in his world. An untouched beauty he would relish in spoiling beneath him.
“Pleasure is the one thing I would never deny you,” he finally said.
“Well, if I recall—”
Rune pressed his mouth at her neck, shallow bites marking her skin, and breasts. Worshipping and claiming, all at once. When she moaned the shadows trembled and her markings flickered.
Damn him, she was perfect.
His knee spread her legs apart, shadows tearing her soaked undergarments, removing the last layer. She trembled, her hands shaking in his grasp as the tip of him found the wet heat of her. He let out a low groan that reverberated through his being.
He had yet to move, to invade, to explore what he had already tasted.
To take her now would be wrong.
But he was never a virtuous man.
And when she looked at him with those golden eyes full of lust, and he lost all restraint.
Rune slid himself along her warmth and Alora gasped. He groaned at the hot, silky wetness waiting from him at her entrance. But he was not in, not yet.
She tried to look down but he took her chin, keeping her heady gaze on him. He rocked his hips, merely moving his hardness against her slit, using his body to slowly pleasure them both.
Alora panted, her eyes closing. Each stroke was a sinful caress. A damn temptation every time he neared that quivering entrance. He shook with restraint not to plunge into it. Every inch of him craved more, but she was so tiny, could she even take real him?
He placed a hand on her stomach, and it spanned from her naval to the bottom of her breasts. Oh yes, perhaps she could.
The rapture on Alora’s face was a marvel as he pumped fasted. He savored every trembling breath, every broken sound she gave.
It may be worth taking a bite of her fruit.
To know what she tasted like and reminisce on it forever, even if tomorrow she hated him. Let him be the one to tarnish her.
Rune leaned in, their mouths almost touching, the flames of his eyes reflecting in hers. “You make me want to break things,” he confessed, his voice rough with want. “Starting with you.”
Alora’s breath shuddered. But she didn’t push him away as he expected.
Her mouth brushed his jaw, a whisper on her lips. “I am already broken.”
Something quiet passed between them.
Then their mouths collided in a violent storm, desire born of recognition as much as hunger.
He kissed her like worship turned violent, wishing to bury every past version of himself in the center of her soul.
She undulated her hips against his, desperate for friction, angling to fit him into her.
Rune nearly did and he quickly pinned her down.
Her soft protest cut off when he quickened his rhythm.
The sound of their panting and her soft moans filled the small cottage. Rune planted bites along her jaw and her throat, the hollow where her pulse fluttered wildly. It throbbed in tandem with that little bundle he pressed into with every thrust.
She would come on his body first before he claimed her with it.
But could she survive that?
Her heat throbbed wildly as he sensed her rising to the edge. The tide crested and Alora yanked free from his grasp, kissing him as she came.
A violent crack rocked the air, making the ground shake.
Power surged between them like a lightning strike that sang all the way down to the essence of him.
The kiss broke with a gasp and Rune jerked back with a strangled shout as a wave of magic exploded from their bodies. Shadows ripped from his spine and poured into her. Alora’s cries turned to fear and darkness snapped, shoving him off her.
He staggered back, clutching his chest, breathing raggedly for the air that had been wrenched out of him.
Alora sat frozen on the bed. Light danced on the walls, her skin sizzling with energy. Shadows stuttered in the air, drifting like mist around her.
His magic.
Rune’s eyes widened.
She raised a hand, frightened. “Rune—”
The shadows lashed out, hurdling him across the room like a discarded doll. He hit the far wall hard, shoulder slamming into the doorframe with a brutal crack before he collapsed to the floor.
He didn’t move, staring at her in disbelief.
Alora stood from the bed, wreathed in darkness, eyes glowing red. She looked glorious and terrifying.
Like a true sovereign of the dark.
Her breath shook in stunned gasps, clawed hands shaking at her sides. “What happened?”
Rune stared at her, struggling to accept the impossible.
He reached for the darkness out of instinct, a command that had always lived in his blood.
And nothing answered.