Chapter 9
THE PETALS sealed them in with a whisper.
Light folded down in soft, rippling waves, turning the air gold and rose and something more elusive, like warmth shaped into breath.
The scent wrapped around Emmy, rich and heady, as if the flower exhaled a world meant only for them.
Her pulse stumbled, caught, and began to race.
She lay half on top of Apex, their bodies cushioned by layers of living silk. Every movement made the petals shift, sighing with a sound like distant surf. Outside, the Echo Predator’s hum faded into silence, swallowed by the thick pulse of the bloom.
Apex lay still beneath her, muscles tight, his gaze locked on her face. “You are safe,” he said, though the words came low and rough, almost unsteady.
“Am I? Are we both?” Her voice was breath against his throat. The heat in the air pressed close, dizzying. She lifted a hand and touched his cheek, tracing the faint shimmer of his skin. It came alive beneath her fingers, warm and electric.
“For now.” He didn’t move away. His eyes darkened as she brushed the edge of his jaw. The Valenmark at her wrist flared to life, light threading from her skin to his. It pulsed once, twice, until their heartbeats fell into rhythm.
“Apex,” she whispered. “Tell me it’s soon.”
The sound of his name broke something open. His breath caught, then deepened. His hand came up, fingers sliding into her hair. He didn’t pull her closer. He simply held her there, suspended in the heat and quiet, until she leaned in on her own. Their lips met like a sigh.
He gathered her close. “It’s soon.”
The next kiss was slow, a testing of breath, a question.
Then the answer came in the way she opened to him, the way his mouth caught hers and deepened the kiss until the air itself seemed to heat.
The Valenmark blazed between them, need rolling through her veins.
Every pulse of it drove deeper, sinking into her bones.
The scent of the flower thickened, sweet and narcotic. It slid through her like liquid light, heightening every touch. When his hand moved down her back, the sensation made her shudder. Her skin prickled, nerves alive, her body arching instinctively toward his.
He broke the kiss only to breathe her name. “Emmeline.”
It came out formal, demanding, as if it were an order carved in breath, meant to command the air itself.
His mouth found her throat next, tracing the line of her pulse.
She tilted her head back, fingers digging into his shoulders.
His skin was impossibly smooth under her hands, heat pouring from him in waves.
“The air,” she gasped. “It’s changing us.”
“It is amplifying us.” His eyes blazed, the amethyst turned molten. He lifted and caught her mouth again, slower this time, a kiss that poured through her until the world dissolved.
Her body answered without thought. Every brush of his lips, every stroke of his hands sent another wave of light through her.
When his fingers slid beneath the edge of her shift, the touch stole her breath.
She arched into him, the heat building, loosening, rising.
The fabric between them became unbearable.
It kept them at a distance they could no longer tolerate.
“Apex,” she whispered again, and this time it was a plea.
He hesitated, his breath mingling with hers, eyes closed. His voice came strained. “If I touch you now, I will not stop.”
“Then don’t stop.”
Restraint thinned like mist. His hands slid to her hips. The movement drew a low sound from his throat, something between growl and breath. A tremor ran through him, his fierce control breaking beneath need.
Clothing became a memory. The petals beneath them rippled in response to every motion, cushioning, supporting, alive.
The air shimmered as though the bloom itself felt their heat and mirrored it.
When his mouth found her breast, her cry echoed back through the flower, the sound turning into light.
He caught her nipple in his teeth and tugged, a combination of pain and pleasure flaring as bright as the Valenmark.
He worshipped her with hands and mouth, every motion deliberate and unyielding.
The Valenmark flared brighter, threading light through the gold of her skin until she smoldered beneath him.
Her fingers tangled in his hair, urging him closer.
He answered with patient focus, with a devotion that made the air shake.
“Look at me,” he said quietly.
She looked. His eyes were dark and fierce.
He held her gaze while his hands learned her, while his mouth wrote a language against her skin that her body understood at once.
The hush inside the bloom deepened until her breathing sounded loud.
She could hear his, too. It came rough and steady as if he turned effort into prayer.
The flower responded to their rhythm. Petals lifted and lowered with their breath. Light poured and receded in rolling tides that matched the pulse at her wrist. The scent richened, honey over heat, sweetness over something like rain on stone.
He flipped them over and moved lower, tracing a slow, heated path down her stomach, each inch marked by the glide of his breath and the faint surge of restrained strength that set every nerve awake.
She couldn’t stop the way her hips rose to meet him, the way her hands found the curve of his skull, the way his name fell from her lips like both plea and promise.
He answered in the steady pressure of his hands, in the patience of a man who meant to learn everything and forget nothing.
The world narrowed to pulse and light. She closed her eyes and the color behind her lids flared, rose and violet, gold and indigo-blue. Every breath filled her with warmth. Every exhale emptied her of thought.
He moved with slow precision, letting the connection build like the drawing of a bow.
He slid downward, his tongue trailing a path that sent shudders through her body.
He stroked her thighs, a suggestion, and she parted her legs.
His mouth settled on her, finding the moisture that had gathered just for him.
He drank from her, pausing to tease her clit before dancing away, driving her insane with need.
Again and again, he played over her, sending her edging higher and higher until she hovered right on the brink of the most powerful climax she’d ever experienced.
And then he pulled away again.
“Apex, no,” she cried, sliding her fingers over his elven ears and through his short silver hair. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”
“Never.”
He pulled back and slid upward, his cock replacing his tongue. He slid it along her slit until it was wet with her juices. And then he paused at her entrance.
“Look at me,” he ordered.
Her gaze zeroed in on his erection and her breath stuttered.
It was huge, far larger than any human’s.
It was a shade darker than the bronze of his skin and both wide and thick.
But what caught her attention was the mounds pulsating around his length.
Bizarrely, they seemed to move in the same pattern as the heartbeat of the planet.
How would those mounds feel when they pulsated within her? She shivered at the thought. There was a large knot at the base of his cock and her brows drew together in confusion. What purpose did that serve? Did it... Her breath caught. Did it go inside of her?
“Does that knot end up inside of me during sex?” she finally asked nervously. “Wouldn’t that hurt?”
He shook his head. “It will not. The mounds release a secretion that gives you immense pleasure when we’re knotted together. It also helps your passage expand so everything fits appropriately.”
“Does the knot hold us together?”
“Affirmative.”
“But it doesn’t hurt?” She glanced up at him. “Just checking.”
“It will not hurt you. I so swear.”
Cautiously, he slipped more fully between her thighs and notched himself at her opening. He thrust inward a bare inch and she shuddered at both the intense pleasure and the painful tightness. Fluid gathered, hers and his, combining in a sweetness that had her arching toward him.
“Slow,” he urged. “There’s no rush.”
No rush? Her body disagreed. Totally. “More. Please.”
He eased in a little further and the mounds pulsed against her walls in the most delicious rhythm she’d ever experienced.
Slowly, but surely, he worked his way in until he bottomed out.
Then his hips found a steady rhythm that pressed into her deeper each time, the motion deliberate and powerful.
The air between them turned molten. Their breathing matched, their bodies straining to keep pace with the growing heat.
She recognized his restraint, the taut constraint in every motion, the promise behind each measured thrust. His vitality surrounded her, anchoring her as he claimed her rhythm, claimed her completely.
He lowered his head to her shoulder, his breath rough, his golden canines scraping across her collarbone, his words a low growl meant for her alone.
Each motion became an unspoken order. Yield.
Take. Answer. She met him, breath to breath, until the world slipped away and only the cadence of their bodies remained.
He slowed to keep her with him, to draw the moment longer, to make it last until she trembled beneath him.
The mounds drove her insane, rippling in an unending pattern.
When release finally found her, it rose like dawn, slow and unstoppable.
It shimmered through her veins, stealing her breath, breaking her apart in waves of light.
The petals held. The air held. He held. And the knot temporarily formed tight inside her, locking them together in a powerful connection.