SERENNA #3
Serenna glared at him as stone filled her vision, but she dismissed her wings.
Without their weight, her body dropped into his hold. Vesryn’s arm locked tighter around her waist. His wings hammered once, driving them through the cavern’s opening before folding against his back.
Wind roared past them and crashed into the far wall, bleeding the violence from their descent. Vesryn hit the stone on his feet, Serenna landing beside him hard enough that one ankle nearly buckled before he hauled her upright.
For one breath, his chest pressed hard and warm against hers.
Then Serenna shoved herself free.
“You—”
Vesryn advanced one step.
She backed toward the cavern entrance, open sky at her shoulders.
Another step.
Her shoulders struck something solid. Arms closed around her waist before she could turn, a familiar body fitting against hers.
Serenna tipped her head up. Fenn grinned down, crimson eyes glowing.
Low flames curled around a shallow ring of stone behind Vesryn, Fenn’s druid fire casting a steady warmth without wood or smoke.
Mineral pools glimmered farther inside, blankets and bedding spread along the ground.
Food and wine were set out across a low slab of stone, the chamber arranged with considerably more care than either male would admit to.
Serenna stared up at Fenn and removed the gold tether from her finger.
Essence flooded back into her Well. The bonds followed hard enough to steal her breath, Fenn’s satisfaction tangling with Vesryn’s amusement.
“You both planned this,” Serenna chided. Fenn’s fangs flashed and she narrowed her eyes. “And you left Sharyne with Koln.”
“He likes having someone who thinks his bad ideas are excellent ones.” Fenn shrugged. “And he still owes me for helping convince Kaedryn that teaching half the orphanage to pick locks counted as practical education.”
A laugh escaped Serenna. “That was him?”
“Who else?”
Cheers carried across the open air from the trials, muffled by distance and wind.
Serenna turned toward the strip of open sky beyond the stone. One spread of her wings would launch her back to the course.
She stayed where she was.
“You abducted me before I even made it to my post this time.”
Vesryn leaned against the cavern wall. “Technically, you chased me halfway here.”
Serenna shook her head.
Three years, and this was what their lives had become.
Fenn plotting to hide them away on a floating island for an afternoon.
Vesryn assisting while claiming the scheme belonged entirely to Fenn.
Food waiting. Blankets spread beside a mineral pool.
An ambush built from every comfort they knew she wouldn’t ask for.
“Both of you are impossible.”
Fenn’s hands slid from her waist to the base of her neck. “And you’re tense.”
“I am not.”
His thumbs pressed into the first knotted muscle, pulling a hiss through her teeth.
Fenn hummed and worked deeper, following the ache Skyshatter had wrenched through her neck and shoulders. Serenna held against the pressure until the effort became ridiculous, then let her head bow beneath his hands.
A groan slipped from her.
Vesryn closed the space between them, his fingers brushing the torn leather at her shoulder before tracing its ragged edge to the first buckle. His thumb lingered there without opening it.
Serenna met his eyes. “Take it off.”
Twin flames of desire surged through the bonds.
Fenn reached past her and shoved Vesryn’s shoulder impatiently.
Vesryn snatched his wrist.
Fenn smirked. Instead of pulling free, he let Vesryn hold him there, crimson eyes flaring as they dropped to the fingers around his arm before rising slowly to Vesryn’s face.
Vesryn’s grip tightened.
Serenna knew that look. Sometimes it ended in an argument. And sometimes it ended with one of them against a wall with considerably less space than the quarrel required.
She laughed. “If this little ambush involved getting me out of my armor, you’re both wasting an alarming amount of time.”
Vesryn released Fenn and reached for her buckles.
His fingers moved quickly now, stripping away leather and the clothing underneath while Fenn’s palms kneaded a slow path over her shoulders. When the last layer fell, the cavern’s warmth settled over Serenna’s bare skin.
She rolled her neck as Fenn’s mouth brushed the place where shoulder met throat.
After hours silenced by gold, every touch seemed to land twice, pleasure returning through the bonds until familiar hands felt almost unbearably vivid against her skin.
Serenna exhaled and relaxed into it.
“Better?” Vesryn asked.
“Getting there. You haven’t quite justified the abduction yet.”
Fenn’s laugh warmed her neck. “I can think of several ways to get you to forget the trials.”
“Really? And do you plan to demonstrate?”
A fang grazed under her ear before he turned her in his arms, eyes glowing brighter than the firelight as his gaze traveled over her with enough intent to draw a slow ache low in Serenna’s belly.
Fenn sank to his knees, claws wrapping around her thighs as he bent his head to the inside of her leg, one fang skimming her skin.
His gaze lifted. “My turn to taste you, she-elf.”
Vesryn filled the space behind her, chest warm against her back, one hand settling at her hip while the other swept her braid aside. His lips landed on the slope of her neck as Fenn’s mouth traveled higher.
Serenna tipped her head back against Vesryn’s shoulder. Touch blurred into touch, pleasure passing through the three of them in overlapping currents, each sensation colliding between the bonds until Serenna could no longer tell which response belonged to whom.
Another horn sounded beyond the cavern.
Serenna turned into Vesryn’s kiss and wove her fingers in Fenn’s hair, drawing them both closer as her chest filled with warmth.
The sky could call.
She was already where she belonged.