Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
Falcen’s control shatters.
He slants his mouth over mine, his tongue delving deep.
I open for him with a moan, relishing the taste of him, all unfamiliar spices and forbidden fruit.
He walks me back until I collide with another table, the impact sending a cascade of old weapons and shields clattering to the floor, but I scarcely register them hitting us.
Not when Falcen presses into me, all hard planes and unparalleled swagger caging me in.
Falcen’s hands are everywhere. Gripping my hips, skimming up my sides, pulling at the pins in my hair and sending it tumbling down my shoulders.
Each touch sends sparks skittering across my skin.
I curve into him, desperate for more contact, more friction.
His mouth slants over mine again and again, feasting on me.
One of his thighs wedges between my legs and I grind down on it shamelessly, chasing the pressure, the delicious ache. Falcen groans into my mouth, his fingers digging bruises into my buttocks as he rocks me against him.
“Fuck, Verily,” he rasps.
“I want to ruin you,” I reply with equal fervor. “I want to wreck you like you’ve wrecked me.”
An ominous, famished sound builds in his chest as he spins us and slams me against a different bookshelf.
Priceless hardcovers rain down on us but we pay them no heed, too lost in each other to care.
Falcen’s mouth drags down the column of my throat, his teeth scraping, tongue soothing the bites.
I tilt my head back with a moan, giving him better access.
He laves hot, open-mouthed kisses along my collarbone.
The clothing between us is suddenly far too much. I need to feel him, skin to skin.
I fumble with the fastenings of his uniform, clumsy in my haste.
Falcen huffs a laugh against my neck before batting my fingers away and undoing the clasps himself with quick, efficient movements.
The fabric parts, revealing the expanse of his chest, all chiseled muscle and gleaming tattoos that shimmer through his skin.
I rake my nails down his chest, reveling in the way his soul-glyphs disappear underneath my scratches before reappearing again, angrier and brighter.
Falcen hisses through his teeth, the gold in his eyes joining in the furor.
His hands come up to rip the laces from my corset so he can cup my breasts through my tunic. Even through the fabric, the sensation sends fireworks through me.
“More,” I gasp.
Falcen quirks his lips at my plea. With a swift tug, he rips the rest of my shirt off, sending buttons pinging across the floor. Cool air kisses my overheated skin, pebbling my exposed breasts. Falcen’s gaze rakes over me, scorching in its intensity.
“Perfect,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “Exactly how I envisioned you.”
Then his mouth is on me, his tongue swirling around one straining peak while his fingers pluck and roll the other.
I cry out at the dual sensation, my hands flying up to tangle in his hair, holding him to me.
He lavishes attention on my breasts, sucking and nipping until I’m writhing against him, incoherent entreaties falling from my lips.
Falcen’s other hand skims down my stomach, slipping beneath my waistband. I suck in a sharp breath as he grazes the sensitive skin just above where I need him most.
“Please,” I whimper, chasing his fingers. “Don’t tease.”
Falcen straightens, his eyes hazed over with lust. His tongue slides across his lower lip. “But you beg so beautifully.”
Still, he takes pity on me, his fingers sliding down to brush against my aching center. Even that lightest touch makes me gasp, my hips bucking for more pressure, more contact.
Falcen hums appreciatively as he explores me with deft strokes, mapping the slick heat of my folds. “So wet for me already. I’ve barely touched you.”
“Because I’ve wanted this,” I pant out. “Wanted you, for so long.”
His lips flatten. His eyes narrow dangerously.
“I’m going to ruin you for anyone else,” he vows. “By the time I’m done, no other man will satisfy you. You’ll crave only my touch.”
His words send a shiver down my spine, heat pooling low in my belly. Falcen circles my clit, rubbing the sensitive bundle of nerves until I’m keening, my nails digging into his shoulders.
Two thick fingers plunge inside me without warning, stretching me deliciously.
I cry out, my inner muscles clenching around him, trying to draw him deeper.
Falcen groans, his forehead dropping to my shoulder as he works his fingers in and out, curling them to hit a spot inside me that has stars bursting behind my eyelids.
“That’s it,” Falcen murmurs, his voice a sinful caress against my skin. “Come apart in my hands.”
The ache inside me crescendos until I’m rapidly hurtling toward a precipice.
I’m practically sobbing his name, so close to the edge I can taste it. “Please, I need—”
He nips at my earlobe. “I know what you need.”
And then he’s dropping to his knees, dragging my trousers down my legs.
I hardly register the cool air on my feverish skin before Falcen parts my thighs and drags his tongue along my slit in one long, tortuously slow lick.
I nearly come undone right then, my head slamming back against the bookshelf, scattering more books.
His tongue swirls around my clit before sucking the sensitive bundle into his mouth.
He hums against me, the vibrations shooting sparks up my spine.
His fingers pump faster, rougher, in perfect sync with the flicks of his tongue.
It’s almost too much. I’m balanced on a knife’s edge, teetering between agony and ecstasy.
My thighs tremble, my stomach muscles clench. I’m close, so close…
He could own you if he wanted, the ember whispers. Possess you, body and soul. Would you let him?
“Yes,” I gasp out, though whether I’m encouraging Falcen or answering the ember, I can’t be sure.
He will betray you. In the end.
I ignore her, focusing on the exquisite sensations Falcen wrings from my body, but the ember is relentless.
Would you let me possess you?
Falcen redoubles his efforts, his tongue and fingers working in maddening synchronicity.
He alternates between broad strokes and precise flicks, keeping me balanced on that precarious edge.
My fingers twist in his hair, my hips rolling shamelessly against his face as I chase my release. I’m right there. Just a little more…
He growls against me. He wraps an arm around my waist, hauling me impossibly closer, devouring me like a man starved. His eyes, when they sweep up to meet mine, are wild and feral, the gold completely eclipsing the blue.
Falcen looks every inch the powerful render he is. And he’s on his knees for me, unraveling my soul with his lips and tongue and teeth.
Let go, the ember purrs. Let the pleasure consume you. Let me in.
Falcen sucks hard. Lights burst behind my eyelids, galaxies born and dying in the space of his tease.
And then—click.
A lock, a door, a gate crumbling into dust in my head.
Yesssss.
The ember stretches, shuddering in pleasure as if this is what she’s been waiting for.
Power floods me—not mine.
Not Soulren, not even Void.
It’s older. Terrible. It sears through my nerves like a second heartbeat, a second pulse, a second presence.
The orgasm turns sore, too much, oh gods, something else entirely—and while crying out Falcen’s name, my shout joins in as a warning.
“Falcen—”
The ember laughs, thick with delight.
Falcen is on his feet in an instant, shifting from lover to warrior.
A streak of wrongness crosses his expression. Recognition. No, revulsion.
With that kind of look on his face, I know my eyes are no longer mine.
“Verily?” he breathes, and for the first time, I hear an alien tone to his voice. Apprehension.
A blinding light erupts from my chest, searing through the room. Bookshelves explode in splintered wood. The chandelier above us shatters along with rubies, diamonds, sapphires, all raining down like glass teeth.
The ember takes hold, a tornado of glee, delving down. My muscles constrict, my fingers contorting, a foreign force shoving itself inside my bones.
And then I hear it.
Not mine. Not the ember. Not even Falcen.
Another.
Ancient.
Deep, guttural, patient.
Ah … finally awake.
I scream, a gut-wrenching sound I didn’t know I had in me.
The ember drives deeper than she ever has, fiery spears bursting from the tiny sphere of her familiar burn and aiming for more.
I feel it the way you feel a mountain’s edge crumble beneath your feet, that fraction of a second where your body understands before your mind does, where gravity becomes a concept you no longer trust.
The ember has always been contained. Volatile, yes. Frightening, absolutely. But contained. A furious little star I could orient myself around even when I hated it.
This is not that.
This has no edges.
This has the patience of sediment. The patience of stone that has been stone since before anyone was around to name it. It doesn’t claw like the ember. It doesn’t shove. It simply receives, the way a grave receives, the way deep water swallows a body.
The ember pulls back, every arrow-tip of her wild, sprawling reach snapping back like fingers burned against a stove. She compresses herself into her smallest possible shape and goes utterly, completely still.
I have never felt her do that. Not once.
Terror slices into my belly.
No. No, that wasn’t real. That wasn’t—
I scream, my spine curving off the floor, my nails gouging my chest as I try to tear whatever that was out.
Falcen lunges, heedless of the maelstrom ripping the room apart. His hands slam onto my shoulders, pinning me down to the floor.
“Fight it!”
I can’t. I can’t. It’s stronger. It’s been waiting.
And then I feel him.
Not just Falcen’s hands on my shoulders, but his soul.