50
Soleil
Finn and I step up to the Veil, and there’s not a single doubt in my mind.
Washed in the light and the magick of the Goddess—in our bond made manifest, in the ether’s swirl, in the waxing hunter moon—I feel nothing but certainty.
This is what I was meant for.
Meant for Finn.
Meant to Ascend.
Meant to be right here, making my own path.
He swings me into his arms like a groom carrying his bride over the threshold. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
We step through.
For a moment, there’s nothing but chaos. The world-bending, stomach-lurching, reality-twisting tempest of entering the Goddess’ realm.
But it doesn’t last.
In the space of a few heartbeats, the chaos smooths out.
We float, nearly weightless here in this place, and the preternatural stillness is almost as unnerving as the chaos was. Finn’s wings spread wide, pulsing a few times to keep us level, but there doesn’t seem to be any need for it as we hang suspended in the Goddess’s domain.
I’m so distracted by the strangeness of it that for a few moments, I forget why we’re here.
“You know,” Finn says wryly, startling me back to the present. “I should have asked around about this part. I’m not actually sure what we’re supposed to do.”
I wriggle a little in his arms until he catches my intent and shifts me so my legs are wrapped around his hips, my arms around his neck, his hands on my ass pressing me into him.
“Aren’t you?” I tease. “You can’t think of anything we might do to seal our bond?”
His crimson eyes gleam and his grip on my ass gets tighter. It brings me closer to him, spreads my thighs wider, and the hard ridge beneath his trousers presses into me in just the right spot.
“Perhaps I have an idea or two.”
“Oh really?” I run my lips over the side of his throat, drag my teeth against his skin. “I’d be interested in hearing more about these ideas.”
Finn claims my mouth in a hard, possessive kiss, and all around us ether swirls. Like the power of our bond has been amplified a thousand-fold, magick rushes through us, so needy and insistent I moan into his mouth.
Oh yes, I don’t think the Goddess’s requirements for sealing a mate bond are much of a mystery at all.
That proves even more true as we tear at each other’s clothes, as we kiss and touch and grab and bite, graceless in our frenzy to be as close to each other as we possibly can.
All the while, the ether holds us steady. It keeps us here, together, in this place where he and I are the only beings in the thirteen realms who actually exist.
I’ve never felt anything like it.
I’ve never felt a magick that even comes close to this as I wrap my hands around his horns and push his head lower in wordless command.
Finn complies immediately.
My good boy.
My willing mate.
My partner for now and for always.
He dips his head and licks a path down my neck, over my collarbone to the curve of my breast and lower. Finn catches my nipple between his lips and sucks hard, drawing a cry from my throat and a hard bow in my back as I arch into him.
“Make me a bargain,” I gasp, nearly too lost in pleasure to form words, but somehow knowing this is right.
A low, possessive growl rumbles through his chest. “You want to bargain with me, witch?”
“I do.” Another hard suck, on my other nipple this time. Firm hands cupping and plumping my breasts together, reverent and hungry.
“I’ll hold you to it, you know,” he murmurs with deliciously sinister promise. “If you accept my terms, there’s no going back.”
This side of Finn is absolutely delightful, and a shiver of anticipation races down my spine.
“Good.” I give another firm jerk on his horns, tilting his head up so he has to meet my gaze. “I’d expect nothing less from my mate.”
Fires kindle in the crimson depths of his eyes. “Very well.”
Abruptly, he releases me from his embrace.
I let out a little squeak of surprise, fully expecting to go tumbling off into the abyss, but the ether holds me in place.
It’s almost solid beneath my feet, strangely.
There, but not there, allowing me to stay where I am while Finn begins to circle me.
Slowly, carefully, eyes still gleaming and wings slightly unfurled to remind me who I’m dealing with here.
A demon.
My demon.
Ready to claim his mate.
“I would ask for your patience, my mate,” he begins. “I would ask you to give me time to prove myself to you.”
I open my mouth, ready to protest and tell him there’s absolutely nothing he needs to prove, but he’s quicker.
“My terms, remember?”
I nod.
“I would ask you to let me try, Soleil. Try every single day to show you what it means to have a partner who will be with you always. Try to be worthy of you, to care for you, to be the one who makes sure you’ll never be alone.”
The words are so sweet, so earnest, that I want to reach out for him. To accept immediately. But something in the hard set of his features, the blazing light in his eyes, tells me he’s not finished.
“You’ll also let me worship you,” he continues, circling closer now. “You’ll demand every bit of pleasure and supplication you desire from me, and let me give it to you gladly. I am your devotee, sunshine, and I plan to be for the rest of our existence.”
Warmth blooms through my blood, my bones, settling deep within my core. The magick between us coils tighter with each of his words.
“I accept your terms.”
Finn lunges.
He wraps his arms around me, pulls me against him, lines the thick head of his cock up to my core and…
Stops.
I groan my displeasure, try to shift myself so I can get what I want, and he clucks his tongue in disapproval.
“Not yet, witch. I’d hear your terms as well.”
My terms?
Goddess, I can barely think straight, let alone come up with terms to seal a bargain with my demon mate. I make myself breathe, make myself pause, rest my forehead against his chest until the beating of my heart has slowed enough for me to sort through my racing mind.
“I would accept your worship and cherish it,” I tell him, reveling in his rumble of approval, the way he melts into me. “I would keep you with me always, Finn. Even if we don’t have any idea where we’ll go or what we’ll do or what life will look like, I know I want you by my side.”
I take another deep breath, reaching for the words that have been lingering deep within my chest for days.
“I would ask that you let me love you.” I raise a hand to cup his cheek, watch his pupils dilate and his eyes go wide. “Forever, Finn. I will love you forever.”
“As I love you, Soleil.”
We kiss, long and lingering, with a hard thrum of magick binding us together.
At least until I pull away with a soft laugh, belatedly remembering we should probably do this right.
“Do you accept my terms?”
Another rumble in Finn’s chest, this one pleased and warm and so deep it sends tingles racing all the way through me.
“I accept. It would seem we have a bargain, witch.”
He claims my mouth again, rocks his hips against mine, and as he notches at my entrance, another growl echoes in his chest.
Burying one hand in my hair, he tips my head back to expose my throat.
“Can I?” he rasps.
I’m barely coherent enough to think about anything other than the thick head of his cock slipping inside me, the urgent tug of magick commanding me to get closer. But one look at his bared fangs makes his meaning more than clear.
“You want to… bite me?”
“Yes.” A pulse of heat in the magick between us. A drag of fangs against my skin. “I want to mark you so everyone knows you’re taken. So they know you’ve been claimed.”
His hips shift another inch, cock sinking deeper, and I moan, cling to him, arch my neck to give him better access.
“Yes, you can bite me.”
He growls his satisfaction, but doesn’t strike. Not yet.
Finn works himself into me in a series of deep, steady thrusts, until his knot is pressed against me.
He pulls almost all the way out and thrusts forward again, and again, his other hand snaking down between us to find my clit. All the while he keeps his fangs at my throat—a promise.
Ether swirls, and I can’t tell how much time has passed—a few seconds, maybe, or hours, eons. There’s nothing but me and Finn and pleasure. The magick of our bond and the steady thrust of him inside me, his muscles working beneath my worshiping hands, my climax building higher, tighter, until—
“Tell me,” Finn groans. “Tell me who you belong to, Soleil.”
“You.” I grip his horns hard, pull him in until the tips of his fangs are just this side of breaking the skin. “I belong to you, Finn.”
With one final thrust, his knot pushes inside me and his fangs sink into my throat.