Chapter 12 #2
Her hips flex, testing the vines.
They tighten just enough to keep her in place, and she moans—low and helpless.
The sound hits me like a quake.
“Dagan…” My name on her lips is prayer and demand all at once.
I smooth my hands along her thighs, thumbs tracing idle circles at the insides, so close to where she wants me.
Her skin is warm, the faint tremor in her muscles betraying how hard she’s fighting not to arch up into my touch.
“Will you do as I say, Oona?” I ask softly, leaning over her, letting my hair brush her collarbone, my breath warm over her lips. “Will you keep those sounds for me alone?”
She nods, swallowing hard. “Please, Dagan.”
“Words, Oona, my little quake,” I murmur, brushing my mouth over hers without quite kissing her. “You know what I want.”
Her eyes flutter shut, then open again, molten and dark. “Yes. I’ll do as you say. Just—please don’t make me wait anymore.”
That plea tears the last of my restraint clean away.
“Good,” I rasp. “Because I’m done waiting too.”
I lower my mouth to her throat, tasting the frantic flutter of her pulse. She gasps, back bowing, the vines holding her just enough that she has to feel every inch of my control.
My tongue traces the line of her neck to her shoulder, then lower—over the curve of her breast, the delicate peak already tight for me.
“Dagan…” she breathes, the sound barely there.
“Softer,” I tell her, closing my lips around her and drawing a sharp cry from deep inside her. “Let only the earth hear who you belong to.”
The Marches answer.
I feel it—the hum running through the stone beneath us, the deep, thrumming echo in the roots twined through the walls.
They recognize her. They approve of her. They send that knowledge up my spine in a wave of heat.
“You feel that?” I murmur against her skin. “They already love you, Oona.”
Her fingers curl into fists, vines creaking softly.
“Good,” she whispers, voice shaking. “Because I’m not going anywhere.”
Pride and something far more dangerous swell inside my chest.
I trail one hand down, over the curve of her ribs, the dip of her waist, the soft give of her hip. I take my time—memorizing the path, the texture, every little shiver she can’t quite hold back.
When I slip my hand between her thighs, she’s already trembling, already slick with want.
“You’re shaking,” I say, kissing the corner of her mouth as my fingers tease and stroke exactly where she needs. “Is it fear, Oona?”
She lets out a broken laugh that melts into a sigh. “You know it’s not.”
“What is it then?” I press because I want to hear it.
I need to hear her say it.
“Need,” she gasps. “You. I need you.”
The words rob me of breath.
I work her with slow, sure strokes, drawing her up, higher and higher.
Her hips strain against the vines, her back arches, her head tips back as her moans grow more desperate and far less controlled.
“That’s it,” I praise, my own control fraying. “Let go for me.”
Her body tightens, thighs quivering around my hand. The moment she shatters, the air changes—the ground beneath us gives a pleased, low rumble, the stone of the shelter’s ceiling shimmering with faint, earthen light.
The zareth bond flares.
I feel it—our connection pulsing bright and fierce between us, like molten metal poured into a waiting mold. Her pleasure rushes through me, magnified, reflected, claimed and cherished all at once.
And I can’t wait anymore. I need to feel her hot, slick heat surrounding me. So, I move swiftly, joining our bodies in the most basic and profound way—just like the Fates and the multiverse intended.
“Oona,” I groan, barely able to think as her release crests and ebbs. “You undo me.”
She blinks up at me, dazed, lips flushed, cheeks pink.
“Good,” she whispers hoarsely. “You undo me too.”
I free her wrists from the vines with a thought.
She immediately reaches for me, fingers sinking into my shoulders, dragging me down until our foreheads touch, our noses brush, our breaths tangle.
“I don’t want any distance between us,” she whispers, firm despite the tremor in her voice. “No more lying. Not even by omission. Not even to myself.”
“No more lying,” I echo, and I roll my hips because I can’t not move.
“Dagan,” she breathes my name like it’s a prayer, “I love it when you touch me. And I-I need to touch you too. That alright with you, my viyen?”
I huff a ragged laugh, brushing my mouth over hers in a soft, aching kiss that promises a hundred more.
“Fuuuck. You bargain with a Lord of Earth while naked and still trembling from my touch, Oona. That is reckless.”
“Is that a no?” she challenges, eyes sparking.
“It is,” I murmur, cupping her face, “the easiest yes I have ever given in my life.”
The Marches hum beneath us in agreement.
And as I lower myself over her, lining up every inch of our bodies, pushing deeper inside her slick heat, letting her feel what she’s done to me in every tremble and nerve ending, one truth roots itself deep and immovable.
What began as a bargain to save Nightfall has become the one thing that might finally save me.
I withdraw almost completely, and she groans at the loss. Then, I push my hips forward hard and fast, and fuck, how she welcomes me.
It’s like nothing else I’ve ever felt.
Her nails scratch at me, her sheath clenches, trying to suck me down further. I groan, licking into her mouth as I roll my hips, keeping my thrusts shallow because I can’t bear to be apart from her.
“Dagan! More, gimme more,” she moans, no, she demands.
And who am I to deny her what we both want?
Her legs wrap round my waist, ankles locked as we move together in a frenzy of passion.
All doubt and reason are gone now. There’s only this.
Only us.
Our bodies working in tandem to achieve the same goal—the culmination of all our efforts crystalizing into that one perfect moment of profound pleasure—and when we fall over that precipice, we do it together.
“It’s too much!”
“It’s not enough,” I counter, dragging out or pleasure with one more roll of my hips.
Alina moans, and I swear to the gods, that sound? It breaks my heart and remakes it all over again.
It beats for her now.
“I got you, I got you, Oona,” I promise as I hold her to me.
And I never meant anything so much in my entire life.