4. Bond, Rekindled #3
“I know.” He kissed her eyelids. “But I need you hotter. It’s been so long. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t,” she said. “You couldn’t.”
“I already have. Too much.”
His fingers set her ablaze again before her lips could shape an answer. Over and over, he took her to the peak and let her spread her wings. When those wings gave out and she lay against him still and sated, he kissed her, setting her to burning once again.
“A little more,” he crooned. “You can take a little more. Let me make up for all the years I couldn’t touch you, couldn’t hold you.”
When she could hardly remember her own name, he shifted.
Large hands gripped her hips and moved her over him.
His cheek pressed against hers. He moved, pressure building at the place his fingers had touched moments past. With every moment, every motion, he pushed farther into her. Opening. Breaking. Unmaking.
When she cried out, he stilled.
“Does it hurt?” he rasped.
She could hardly breathe.
“Starlight, tell me, and I’ll stop.”
Auryn shook her head. “It’s…you’re…everywhere…”
He kissed her, pushing farther.
“Don’t stop. Please.” She opened her eyes, pulling his forehead back to hers. “Stay, Kailorien. Stay with me.”
As though her words were the breaking of a fever in him, his body shuddered. His eyes closed, and he pushed all the way inside. Her nails dug into his arms. The edges of her vision turned white. She whimpered, overwhelmed from all directions.
Tears welled in her eyes. Their gazes locked. She took a ragged breath.
“It’s alright,” she said. “I’m alright.” But her tears kept flowing, as though a waterfall had broken free.
He moved inside her then. Slow. Gentle. Steady. And soon, a full-bodied ecstasy started building in her core. She cupped his cheek with a trembling hand, her thumb brushing the edge of his mouth. Her whole body quivered around him, yearning to pull in not just his body, but his heart, his soul.
“Kail…I love you,” she said.
The world stopped.
The steam in the room stopped whispering. The ripples in the water around them evened to stillness.
Everything paused.
He stared at her like he had that day in the Moores, when she’d said his true name for the first time.
“Say it again,” he rasped.
“I love you.” This time, her voice trembled. “I never told you. I thought you’d always know. But—”
“No,” he choked. “I didn’t know. I hoped. I prayed. But I didn’t know.”
He moved again. Not faster. Not harder. Deeper. Like her words had changed the shape of their world. Like he had changed shape in hearing them. She whimpered, sobbed, and clung tighter—legs tightening, arms holding, lips brushing his shoulder.
“Don’t stop,” she begged. “I know I’m shaking—I know it’s too much—but don’t stop. Please. Let me have this.”
“You have me,” he vowed. “All of me. Forever. Please, Auryn—please say it again.”
“I love you, Kail.”
He thrust inside her, and she keened, losing all sense of space and time, falling into bliss with no wings to save her from the drop. She needed none. Not with him here. He would catch her. Always. Without fail.
“I love you, Auryn. I’m here. I’m never leaving you again,” he promised, his voice low and strained. “Let go. I’ll catch you.”
Auryn’s eyes rolled back. He rocked into her, pulsing, taking—giving—until she forgot where she was, forgot all the pain of the past decades, forgot everything except the Bond between their souls.
“Let me take you to the end. Let me break you and make you whole again.”
And so he did.
Unmade her.
Shattered her.
Poured his molten essence deep inside her until the fullness nearly made her spiral one more time. Everything spun out of focus, and a ringing filled her ears.
She drifted.
Floating.
Rocking.
Until she realized she wasn’t dreaming.
She was in his arms.
He stroked her hair and kissed her cheek.
Whispered.
Crooned.
“Easy, love. Just breathe now.”
She shivered, and he rubbed her back.
A warmth built in the space between their souls. Mana, soft and golden, curled through the places where they touched. As he took a breath, she took one too. As his heart beat, so did hers. All stilled—
—and as life resumed, their hearts now beat as one.
She gasped. “Kai—”
Beneath her cheek, his chest rose with a sudden inhale. “You feel it too?”
The Bond between us.
It’s returned…I thought it lost.
“No…” she said, her voice trembling. “It never left. I just couldn’t hear it over the silence.
For so long, I thought this Bond was what pulled us together,” she whispered, her voice cracking.
“When it vanished, I thought I’d lost you.
But now, even without it, even with so much missing, we still found our way back. ”
He wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her neck.
“Let’s stay like this,” she kissed his chest, his neck, his cheek. “Just a little longer.”
“As long as you want, sweetfire,” he said. “I’m not letting go.”
“You still see me,” she murmured, barely audible. “Not as a relic. Not as a thing to be worshipped. Just me.”
“Because you are mine. My Auryn. And that’s all that matters.”