42. Your Body Sang For Us
your body sang for us
—SAGE
Open your eyes. Now! Ashán shouts in my mind.
I wake slowly. It’s barely dawn, and Nook has drawn the curtains, so the room is still bathed in darkness. Soft puffs of Eden’s breath tickle my throat.
And I’m still inside her.
The memory of last night floods back, her desperate heat, the way she begged me just to fill her. The relief on her face when I slid inside and stayed there.
I need more of that scent, he breathes. Her body is ready.
My hands move to her stomach, spreading across her soft skin. The scent of life wraps around me, and my entire body tenses.
The altheria doesn’t lie. By the time your rut ends, there will be a soul growing inside her. Our soul, Ashán murmurs.
Should we wake her up? I ask, shifting slightly. So we can tell her?
She said she would love to be woken up like this, but I think we build her up first.
I pull back just enough to slide forward again, savoring the way her body clings to me.
“You are ním, Saevúra,” I whisper into her hair, rolling my hips lazily.
My hand slides from her stomach to her hip, holding her steady as I rock into her with careful strokes. She whimpers softly.
I want to feel her come around me while she’s still dreaming, for her to wake up already knotted, knowing that she belongs to us.
I press my lips to her temple.
“You are ním thaeris,” I breathe. (Mine to protect) “Ním to cherish. ním to keep safe from all harm.”
My hand slides from her hip, cupping her breast, treasuring the place she will nourish our tiny vúsha.
“Ethvúsha ním’thalen. Navrae thelis.” (You carry our greatest treasure. Nothing in any realm will ever touch you)
I keep my movements slow, barely rocking my hips, letting the head of my vék nudge against the deepest part of her. Every gentle thrust pushes more of our seed deeper, coating her cervix in thick, warm fluid.
“My turn,” Ashán murmurs, his skeletal fingers tracing circles over her belly, right above where her womb sits.
“Saevúra ním’thira…ním’vael…ním’ethra.” (Soulbond, you are our heart, our soul, our everything.)
He rolls us slightly, hooking Eden’s leg over his hip to open her wider. She whimpers as her body clenches around me.
“You feel so good,” I breathe against her ear. “Keep dreaming while your mates worship you.”
“You’ll let me taste you, won’t you, ash’kaela?” His hand slides up her body, cupping her breast, níva already dripping from her peaked nipple. “So generous,” he murmurs, gathering the sweetness on his thumb. “Always giving us exactly what we need.”
He brings his thumb to our lips and the sweet taste spreads across our tongue like warm honey.
“Shá,” he chokes out, his fangs lengthening. Before I can stop him, he’s dragging them across the curve of her throat.
“You are our altar,” he rasps against her skin, trailing kisses along her jaw, his fangs scraping lower, down to the swell of her breast.
“You’re going to be such a good mother, Eden.” His mouth closes around her nipple, and the first pull of níva on our tongue makes everything go white behind our eyes.
“Vresh,” he groans against her breast, his control teetering dangerously. Bloodlust claws at his restraint, fangs aching, venom pooling, every instinct screaming to bite down and mark her.
“Need to claim you—” He groans deliriously.
No, I snarl, fighting for control. Ashán, don’t—
She’s ours, he growls back, his hips snapping harder despite my attempts to slow him. Mine to mark.
Not while she’s asleep!
She’s already ours.
Ashán!
He pulls off her breast with a wet pop, his fangs fully extended, trickling shimmering droplets of golden venom onto the pale curve of her shoulder. It seeps into her skin, causing her toes to curl against the sheets.
“Sage,” he gasps desperately. “I need her. I can’t—”
Hold on, I plead. Just hold on. You told me she wanted to wait until you were fully in your reaper form, remember?
His fangs scrape across her collarbone.
It hurts, he admits. A pained moan escapes him. It feels like someone is flaying my nerves, Sage. Like my gums may split under the pressure.
Later, I promise, when you’re in your true form. When she can see you and beg for your mark.
For a moment, the cool air in the bedroom catches fire. Our body shudders so violently that it nearly throws us off the bed. The predatory focus in his eyes flickers, and then he sags against her, his forehead resting in the crook of her neck.
I hate you, he breathes.
I know.
Eden moans, her hips shifting closer. Ashán presses closer, using the soft leaves along my pelvis to grind over her kísh.
Are you feeling better? I whisper.
She makes everything better, he sighs.
“Please,” Eden breathes in her sleep. “Need—need you so much.”
Her soft pleas send a tremor through both of us. I hook her knees over my elbows and spread her wide, driving in at a new angle. Sweat beads on my chest and drips onto her belly.
“More,” she whimpers.
Her lavína throbs around my shaft. Ashán’s hand slides down from her breast, pausing over her belly before continuing his path between her thighs. His skeletal fingers find her clit, slick with her arousal. He circles it slowly, and her body arches into us.
“You’re almost there, aren’t you, ílyen?” His fingers circle faster, pressing his thumb against the hood of her clit, applying just enough pressure to tip her over. “Taking us so sweetly, letting us put our vúsha in this little, tiny womb.”
Her body goes taut, walls fluttering around us as they pulse in that first sweet tremor of release.
Ashán’s breath catches, “There she is.”
We hold her through it, letting her ride the waves on our cock while she sleeps. Ashán presses forward, and my knot catches at her entrance. She whimpers, still lost in her orgasm.
Easy, I murmur, as we press deeper. Almost there.
The pressure builds as we work my petals inside.
Her eyes flutter open.
“Sage?” she gasps, her drowsy eyes meet mine. The confusion in them is soft.
“Good morning, Saevúra,” I breathe. Ashán doesn’t stop moving. My knot is halfway in, and her body continues clenching around me, fighting and welcoming at once. “You’re with us. You’re safe.”
Ashán’s hand slides from her clit to her hip, steadying her as she trembles. His thumb presses into the soft dip of her hipbone.
“You woke at the perfect moment.” His fangs graze her earlobe. “We were just finishing our worship. Your body sang for us in your sleep.”
Her cheeks flush. “I… dreamed of you both,” she whispers.
“Did you?” Ashán purrs, pressing forward another inch, my kná stretching her wider. “What did we do to you in your dreams, ash’kaela?”
“Loved me,” she breathes. “You were… everywhere. Both of you.”
“We were,” I confirm, my hand splaying across her stomach where our vúsha will grow. “We still are.”
Ashán chuckles darkly, “Tell me, mí’maru, did we feel good in your dreams?”
He slants our hips and gives one final thrust, and the wet pop of my knot locking inside draws a broken cry from her.
She clutches at our shoulders. He grinds upward, my petals caressing every sensitive place inside her.
Her thighs tremble around our hips as her walls ripple around my length.
Eden’s lips part on a silent cry as the next orgasm rolls through her.
“Ask him for his seed, Eden,” Ashán groans. “Ask him to fill this pretty pussy with his magical golden come so we can make the heat go away.”
She nods frantically. “Please, Sage. Fill me up. I want to take it.”
I spill thick, warm ropes of lavásia inside her. My cock pulses, flooding her with load after load of seed.
“Mmmm,” she moans, her eyes rolling back.
Her walls clench around us, milking every drop as we empty ourselves inside her.
Emerald tendrils wrap around the bed, creeping up the bedposts and weaving into the canopy until the wood is entirely swallowed by velvet leaves and glowing pink blooms.
“You are in heat, vela té,” I murmur against her temple. “Your body is going to need us, over and over, until it breaks. We intend to keep up.”
“Ním’ma,” I whisper against her hair. (My soul.)
“Ním’thalen,” Ashán rumbles, his hand protectively cupping her belly.