Chapter 33 #4
She snatched the front of his tunic and dragged his mouth down to hers.
Mordred slid his hands to her ass, lifting her so she could wrap her legs around him.
She moaned when their hips met, deepening the kiss.
Barely able to breathe and feverish with want, Nyneve reached between their bodies, her fingers hunting for the lacings of his trousers.
The knight trailed his mouth down her neck, and she said his name like a plea, her heartbeat thrumming against the hollow of her throat.
“Will you not let me take my time with you?” Mordred murmured against her skin.
“No,” she said breathlessly, successfully unlacing his trousers. “Gods, no. I need you inside of me now.”
“Nyneve,” Mordred replied, one long-fingered hand beginning to undo her kirtle, “you can have anything you desire from me.”
She shimmied his trousers down and then buried her hands in his hair, kissing the changeling as if the force of her love could save him. When he pushed her smallclothes to the side beneath her skirts and trailed his fingers against the core of her damp heat, Nyneve let out a hoarse cry.
He went still at the sound of it, his breath held, something in his expression gone dark and wild. His eyes found hers. Nyneve whimpered and closed her thighs tighter around his hips, her breasts heaving. The knight slid his hands to her waist.
“Halt me if I am too rough,” Mordred murmured, the words slow and deliberate. “You make a beast of me.”
Nyneve stared at him. “Show me, then,” she said. “Ravage me like a beast might.”
Mordred pulled her chemise down around her waist so hard she thought he might have actually torn it. But then his tongue dragged across her nipple, and she found she did not care about anything else.
“Mordred,” she gasped, bucking her hips, digging her fingernails into his shoulder. She needed more. She felt as though she might die if she did not have all of him.
At the sound of his name, Mordred raised his head from her breast, his mouth parted.
The dangerous gleam in his eyes made the pulse between her legs leap into a furious pace.
Then he braced one forearm against the wall above her head and shoved her skirts aside.
Without looking away from her gaze, Mordred thrust himself inside of her.
She let out a sound she hadn’t known she was capable of, her back arching.
Pleasure sang through her entire body as he drove into her, one hand between their hips, touching her exactly how she wished to be touched.
She panted his name once, and then louder, more desperately, until his mouth met hers again.
“Not yet,” he teased, even though he drove into her harder, the pressure of his touch deepening. “I want to see you this time.”
He pulled her away from the wall, her legs still wrapped around his hips, and took them both down to his pallet.
Faerie lights bloomed overhead, illuminating the sharp ridge of his collarbone and the rabid intensity in his gaze.
Nyneve lay on her back, breathless and moaning, as he pulled her garments over her hips, one by one—kirtle, then shift, and finally her smallclothes—until she was completely bare beneath him.
“Gods,” Mordred groaned, his hands running down her body. He met her gaze, looking at her as if she were divine, not monstrous. Perhaps there was no difference. Even Fate’s teeth were so very sharp. “You are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen.”
“Mordred,” Nyneve whimpered, reaching for him. “Stop talking. Fuck me.”
He laughed, lining their hips up and sliding back inside of her.
Pleasure exploded in her body. She wrapped one hand around the back of his neck, pulling him down into a kiss.
He still tasted like revenge and woodsmoke.
Nyneve wanted to drown in him, so she did something she never had before—she reached for his magic with her Threads.
Just like that night beneath the hill, he opened for her without hesitation.
Their Threads wove together, and Nyneve’s mind went white, the rising pressure between her legs like nothing she’d ever felt.
“What is this?” Mordred asked roughly, pulling her from the depths of her bliss.
“What?” she asked, pushing up onto her elbows.
He had one large hand splayed on her chest, his brow furrowed with what might have been rage. “Did someone bind you?” Mordred snarled, meeting her eyes.
“I allowed it,” she explained hastily. She did not put it past him to thoroughly pleasure her and then ride off into the night to find the Elders. “I asked for it.”
He looked at her with both horror and compassion, one hand cupping the side of her face. His fingers traced the line of her cheekbone. “Why, Nyneve?” he asked hoarsely.
She should have felt so vulnerable here in his bed, not a stitch of clothing on her body, about to confess her greatest shame.
And yet as she gazed up at him, she felt nothing but the heavy weight of the faerie knight’s attention like a velvet cloak across her shoulders.
There was no pity in his eyes. All he cared about, she realized, was her.
“I killed a boy,” Nyneve said. Tears welled up in her eyes as she said the words aloud for the first time.
“One of my Elders’ sons. His name was Coel.
It was so foolish, Mordred. An unsanctioned duel.
But my . . . my baneful magic is so strong.
I didn’t mean to kill him. I didn’t even want to kill him.
” She paused, moving to brush the tears from her face, but Mordred did it for her, his touch gentler than it had any right to be.
For a moment, Nyneve looked away, her vision blurred with tears.
Neither of them said anything at all. Then Mordred slid his forearm along the bed linens, cupping the back of her skull in one large palm.
Her eyes met his. His glamour was gone, she realized, every sharp angle of his ethereal and terrible beauty visible to her.
“Would you,” Mordred asked, his free hand caressing the skin between her breasts, “permit me to remove it?”
Nyneve drew in a sharp inhale. Surprise muddled her thoughts, giving childish, foolish hope the opportunity to creep into her heart.
Because, gods, in this moment, she wanted nothing more.
She’d spent so long hiding this terrible truth, prostrating herself on the ground to atone, and here was the most beautiful creature she’d ever seen, so utterly sure she deserved to be free.
“After what I just confessed, you wish to release my baneful magic?” Nyneve demanded. Perhaps he misunderstood, for there was not a trace of judgment in his eyes. “I would be a monster.”
Mordred’s gaze never left hers as she felt his vast and terrible darkness latch its claws onto her binding. It felt good—gods, it felt so good, nearly as good as his long, hard length still buried within her.
“So be a monster, Nyneve,” he murmured, their mouths brushing. “Show me your sharpest teeth.”
Fierce pleasure and unbridled elation consumed her. Two divine beings had already appeared to her today. Was he—goddess-forged, Fate-touched—not the third?
The third, and the only one to whom she would give this answer:
“Yes.”