Perhaps to start something new this night?
The thought startled me. As a slave, I’d always known that I’d one day bear younglings. My master would have forced me to procreate, most likely with another tragically caged fae. After I’d escaped, I thought only of freedom for so long. When I began falling for Vale, it was difficult to imagine that my reality was true.
But it was. We were in love. Mated. And hopefully, we’d both survive the war to come and begin a new life. Perhaps it would involve younglings.
Not now though. No matter how much sharing that journey with Vale appealed, that day would have to wait. There was too much danger. I would never forgive myself if I became pregnant and something happened to the child. So after we slept a few hours, I’d seek the healers and get what I needed to prevent pregnancy. Later though, I’d dare to hope for a stunning futurefilled with younglings with dark wings and silver hair and my mate’s smile.
Oblivious to the debate going on inside my head, Vale kissed me. I kissed him back, one hand on his face as the other guided his malehood to my entrance.
“I want you inside me.” I shifted to pepper kisses on his strong jaw.
He eased himself inside, slowly, achingly slowly. When he was fully sheathed, Vale lifted both my legs high.
Stars!The sensation multiplied tenfold as he found a new, deeper way to connect. My head tipped back as pleasure coursed through me again and Vale thrust deeper.
He pulled my arse to the very edge of the bed and lifted my legs higher, adjusting the angle to his preference. A low moan escaped my lips, and my mate’s searing gaze went feral.
“Fates. You’re perfect,” he said in the same moment that his soulmate mark glowed.
My heart fluttered. We’d had sex many times since the occurrence when snow and magic swirled around us, but that hadn’t happened again. We didn’t know how it had happened or what made it occur, but I savored the moment that our magics found as special as I did.
Vale’s hands dropped from my legs to my arse, and he lifted me more, shifting his angle yet again, and intensifying the pressure building inside me once more. He was close too, his breathing shallower, his face deliciously flushed.
“I’m there. Neve, are you?”
“Yes.” My voice came out husky, wanting, and I wriggled closer to Vale, not wanting even a hairsbreadth between us.
That slight movement tipped the scales. Light blasted from our soulmate marks, turning the room an icy blue. No, not just turning it blue, covering the walls, the floors, the door with a glittering film of ice! The temperature plummeted, but we barelynoticed as our shared climaxes pummeled through us with the strength of a winter storm. Vale swallowed the cry of passion with a kiss as he came. Our bodies shuddered together, our hearts raced, but the magic coursing through the room vanished.
“That was something new.” Vale pulled me close into his warmth.
Clinging to him, I trailed a hand over the top of his wings. He shuddered with pleasure, making me smile. “At least the bed isn’t covered in ice. Would be hard to sleep that way.”
He laughed and retrieved the towel I had tossed to the floor, and cleaned me first, then himself. Finally, once we were done, we lay in our bed, my back tucked into his chest, as we stared at our room.
The magic we’d expelled was gone, but much of the ice remained, a strange glimmering blue color. Not at all natural.
“I wonder why that happens?” I mused.
“Me too, though I’m not inclined to ask around.”
Awkward indeed. “Few would know anyway.”
Only mates, and those were precious and rare.
“I’m so glad you’re still here, Vale. That we both are.”
He squeezed me closer. “When I go, I feel that it will be with you. That we’ll enter the starry halls of the afterworld holding hands.”
My throat tightened, and the words he’d said once rang through my mind, truer than ever. “And our souls will stay that way until the stars fall from the sky.”
“Until the stars fall,” he echoed.
Interlude
LORD VIDAR VIRTORIS, HEIR TO THE HOUSE OF THE SEA SERPENT
Vidar pressed his palms into the driftwood table and stared down at the map of Virtoris Island, the land on which they stood. His family home. His people. His legacy.
