Chapter 31
Thirty-One
Rowan
I feel her before I see her. Adelasia steps into the space between the trees, moonlight kissing her skin and catching in the strands of her dark hair. She’s free from her leather corset, her tunic thin and wrinkled from a restless sleep.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she murmurs as she steps closer to me.
Neither can I. Not when your scent lingers in the air. Not when my body is hollow and my blood stirs with hunger and lust for you.
Those are the things I want to say to her, but instead, I stand slowly, wings unfurling. “You shouldn’t be wandering. It’s dangerous.”
“I wanted to find you.”
“I know. That’s the danger.”
“You don’t scare me,” she whispers. A beat of silence pulses between us, heavy with things left unsaid. Her eyes drop, lingering on my chest where my shirt is half-open, then flick back up to my face.
“You haven’t fed since we met.”
I let out a strained sound at the reminder. “I’m well aware.”
She closes the distance, and her fingers brush mine. She’s hesitant at first, then bolder, her hands sliding up my forearms until they settle on my chest. My heart betrays me, staggering into a frantic rhythm beneath her touch.
She gazed up at me, her eyes glassy. “You saved Saddiq.”
I swallow thickly. “Yes.”
“You saved him before you knew me. Before you cared. Why?”
I clutch her hands with my own finally, squeezing them between my fingers. “Do you really not feel it? That what we have is more than just my lust?”
“Yes, but…Kai–”
“Kaius has felt it too. What the three of us have…it could be unique and beautiful if only we would all accept it for what it is.”
“Accept that we somehow belong to each other? You, me, and Kai?”
Her gaze drops to my lips. I don’t move. Not until she leans up, pressing her mouth to mine with a quiet desperation draped in heat and need. She rises up on her toes like she has wings of her own.
“How do we accept it?” she asks.
I growl, low in my throat as my hands slide down her waist, gripping the curve of her hips as her mouth parts for me again. When my incubus magic falls from me, it finds her instantly. It wraps around her spine. It licks up her neck. It trails across her thighs.
She gasps when it all touches her, a moan escaping her lips that sets me and my magic on fire. I press my forehead to hers, panting with need.
“Are you sure?” I ask her. “We can’t take this back.”
She nods. “Take it all.”
I don’t need to be told twice. My hands wrap under her knees and I lift her effortlessly, backing her against a moss-covered tree. Her legs wrap around my waist and her pulse races against my skin at every point she touches me. Her body is begging to be consumed.
Her body is like ambrosia, burning and sacred. When we shed clothes and I sink into her, my magic surges inside her. She surrenders to it, letting me take and take and take from her.
The bark of the tree digs into her back as I thrust into her as easily as if we were on silk sheets. Her hands pull and tug at my hair. The dark magic inside her thrashes at me like a whip, making everything dangerous and deliciously painful.
Radiant in her surrender, Adelasia is breathless when I pull back to look at her. Then, she reaches for me, her mouth brushing my jaw. Her voice is low and pleading when she begs, “Please, Rowan, I’m so hungry.”
I don’t argue, I can’t. Not when I’m deep inside her and the pleasure is seared into my spine. I tilt my throat to the side for her. When her teeth find the curve of my neck, I surrender to her in the same way she did to me. I let her magic drink from mine just as I had taken from her.
The moment her short fangs pierce my skin, I nearly buckle, but I stand strong, continuing to thrust into her like it’s the last thing we’ll ever do.
And when she’s done feeding, and when we both coat each other with release, I fall to my knees and lay her gently on the soft grass. We tremble against each other; our magic entwined in ways too tangled to ever undo.
When she sits up slightly to reach for another kiss, two hands circle her body from the back. She gasps suddenly, her cheeks turning red with embarrassment and maybe even shame.
“Did you enjoy yourself, Adelasia?” Kaius asks against her throat. “You certainly sounded like you did.”
“Kai–”
“Shhh. It’s okay.” he assures her. “But my sweet agony, I’m starving. Won’t you feed me too?”
Adelasia’s eyes meet mine, dazed out from the pleasure still crackling through her veins like lightning.
Kaius and I share a knowing look before I lean back and pull her on top of me, forcing her to sink down on my length once more. From behind, Kaius kisses trails up and down the curve of her neck before sinking his teeth into her flesh.
When he enters her from behind, slowly and lovingly, I feel her nearly explode from the pleasure racing through her–the full experience of an incubus and the luscious aphrodisiac within Kaius’ mouth.
Her body doesn’t know what to do with itself, and when she surrenders to us both, her body falling limp with the euphoria, something beautiful happens.
From her chest, golden lines run down her limbs, through her fingertips, onto our skin, reigniting the long-dormant bond line on the arms of Kaius and I, adding a new one just for her.
Three souls, entwined by fate, destined for ruin but ready to fight it all.
Together.