“Then come here so I can claim you as mine.”
CHAPTER 27
ONE LITTLE DEATH AND ANOTHER VERY BIG ONE
Damien didn’t need to have Amma’s tongue or anything else on him to be pushed to the edge, the adoration in her eyes, that sparkle under the moonlight that said she wanted him, was enough. He released her hair, taking fingers to her chin and guiding her to sit up.
Moonlight splashed over her breasts, pink-tipped and swollen, and down along her trembling belly to the warm place he intended to fill. He only wanted to look on her a moment, to burn her into his mind like this, but the restlessness in her small, fidgety movements had to be tamed. He slid hands under her thighs, pulling her forward to straddle him, her knees pressing in on either side of his hips, but he kept her aloft, sliding fingers through the wetness coating the bottom of her thighs and gripping onto her ass.
She gasped as he teased her entrance with the head of his length, mouth devouring hers. Amma wriggled, trying to shimmy downward, but he refused to allow her. Instead, he drew himself back, sliding up over the spot she liked for him to play with so much, and drew out one of her enticing whines.
“Eager, little thing,” he teased, pleasuring himself against how slick she was, making her head fall back as she cried out. He was just as eager, of course, but watching her writhe and listening to her moan in anticipation was almost as nice as he imagined being inside her would be.
Amma fell still then, eyes opening and finding his. “Please, Master Bloodthorne,” she mewled, “I need you.”
“Of course, my sweet.” Damien brought his mouth to her neck, her pulse quickening under his lips, and purred up against her skin, “For you, anything.”
He lifted her just enough to draw out a delighted squeal, and then his length found where it belonged. Arms trembling, he fought against himself to thrust wildly into her, instead savoring her slow descent until he was fully sheathed in the warmth between her legs.
Damien had been wrong. Watching her squirm and listening to her plead had been exceptionally nice, but it was leagues behind howthisfelt. Soft and warm, he was captured completely by the grip of her, held, possessed, consumed, and it wasgood.
Amma took deep breaths, breasts rubbing against his chest as her fingers tangled themselves in his hair, eyes heavy with a drunken ecstasy, but she held herself still against his lap. Damien had never thought too terribly much of fucking someone during the act—it was simply using or being used with the expectation to feel awful about it later—but this was like being held, being consumed as he had wished to be, and by the person he had longed for in the deepest Abyss of his heart.
“In the wildwood,” Amma breathed, hips shifting slightly so that he moved inside her.
He could only grunt out an inquisitive noise.
“When I knew for certain,”—she swallowed and inhaled raggedly—“that I loved you.” Amma pressed up, sliding him to his tip and then settled back down to the base, eyelids fluttering as she repeated the move with more force.
Damien lifted a hand to the back of her neck and gripped tightly, holding her still. “How?”
Her eyes opened again, and she pressed her forehead to his. “I couldn’t bear to be without you.” Licking her lips, her fingers traced over his jaw, his scar, and finally held his face. “When you returned, I knew I could never let you go again because I lovedyou.”
Damien took her mouth with his, laying her onto her back, and drove deeply into her. She cried out, and soon their voices matched as they moved together, pulling bliss from one another. Amma’s legs wrapped around his hips, and he braced himself on an elbow as he worked a hand between them to lay his fingers on the tender spot that would break her apart along with him.
“Together,” he husked.
She nodded, bucking desperately under the play of his thumb. There was arcana in the room with them, not under either’s control, primal and filling up the air, and the two came undone before collapsing into a sweaty, unbecoming heap. A jumble of limbs and wetness, they slid against one another, the magic dispersing, and then laughter bubbled up out of them when she poked him in the side too hard with an errant hand, and he slipped and squashed her.
After more thoughtful shifting, they fell into stillness, breaths caught but hands still exploring clumsily. Damien felt her fingers on his hip and back as he traced around her breasts and neck with his own. There were shadows shifting languidly in the knots of the wood that made up the walls, and within them, tiny leaves had sprouted up out of the boards. That was going to be difficult to explain to the innkeeper, surely.
They found their way against one another, drained but gratified, and Damien tucked Amma into his chest with a quiet murmur of sentimental words he would have never dreamed he could muster before, coming so naturally, so easily, so ardently from his lips as she pressed kisses to his collarbone. Quiet hemmed in around them, and then, finally, restful sleep took them both.
Damien woke the next morning in a dreamy, almost tipsy state. Somehow jolts of pleasure still rang through him, and he squirmed, confused at the phantom sensation of the previousnight between his legs. But then he panicked—Amma wasn’t in his arms. Had someone taken her? Was she in danger? Where in the bloody Abyss had she gone?
He tore back the linens to jump from the bed but instead found he was tethered to the mattress by another body. Amma glanced up at him with big, bright, blue eyes, her ass in the air as she knelt between his thighs, his cock in her mouth.
“’Ood ‘ornin,” she said, lips still around him.
“Best fucking morning,” he groaned, eyes rolling back into his head.
An hour or so later, the two were finally dressed but continued to make eyes at one another over bread and sausages in the tavern downstairs. Damien’s urge to toss Amma over his shoulder and haul her back to the chamber forever altered by arcana was strong, but the solemnity of Orrinshire finally dropped its weight on him when a robed figure entered the inn.
He watched the priestess make a delivery to the innkeeper, the holy woman too young to be his mother, but the realization struck him that, of course, that was why he had come to Orrinshire. Amma’s words, her promise, had brought him to his decision the night before—he would seek out Diana, take whatever answer she gave him, and then he would go to Eirengaard to deal with Xander and what fate held for him there.
Orrinshire did not make its temple the central focus of the village. Like Briarwyke, the shrine to the goddess was set off and cloistered at the edge of the wood. Isldrah lorded over health, her followers often caring for the infirmed, and along the pathway that led to the temple stood another building that appeared to be a ward. Damien was glad for the seclusion and for the walk with Amma. It did, of course, give him quite the opportunity to run in the other direction, but her arm looped around his kept him moving forward. When he saw that symbol carved into the stone above the temple’s door, the same thatfloated on the orb that protected Aszath Koth, albeit upside down, he did not turn tail and flee.
“Are you…are you allowed to just walk in?” Damien asked as they came closer to the place’s open entrance.
