The vines shifted us through different positions—playful, exploratory, finding what made us cry out. Every configuration brought new sensation, new connection, new ways to come apart together.
When my climax hit, it was like being struck by lightning—every nerve ending electrified at once, current racing through my body in waves that left me trembling and gasping his name. Through the bond, I felt his release follow, felt the way it broke something open in him, something he’d kept carefully locked away.
The vines lowered us gently to the soft moss. We were thoroughly sated—covered in glowing mushroom paint, flavored leaf residue, flower petals, and the evidence of our pleasure. My hair was full of blooms I’d unconsciously created, and his marks had left temporary shadows on my skin—dark where he’d gripped me, darker where he’d kissed me.
“That was,” I started, then laughed because words seemed insufficient.
“Revolutionary,” he finished, smiling against my shoulder.
“Definitely revolutionary.”
We lay there for long moments, breathing together, heartbeats gradually slowing to something approaching normal. The garden had dimmed slightlynow that the intensity of our desire had passed, returning to its baseline glow.
“Grandma Jo definitely had sex here,” I said eventually. “Multiple times, probably.”
He laughed, the sound vibrating through where we were still pressed together. “Almost certainly.”
“That’s… actually kind of sweet. In a weird way.”
“Your family has excellent taste in pleasure gardens.”
“Apparently, we also have excellent taste in impossible fae lords.”
“Impossible?”
“Impossibly stubborn. Impossibly dramatic. Impossibly hot.”
“The last one redeems the first two.”
“Barely.”
“I’m going to make you regret that.”
“Promise?”
He kissed me, thorough and deep, and I felt the promise in it—that this wasn’t just once, wasn’t just the garden, wasn’t just hormones and aphrodisiac pollen.
“We should probably clean up,” I said eventually. “Before someone comes looking for us.”
“There’s a spring nearby. The garden is designed for… aftercare.”
“Of course it is.”
The spring was clear and surprisingly warm, fed by some underground source that kept it perfect. We washed the evidence from our skin—mushroom glow, leaf residue, the physical traces of what we’d done. But nothing could wash away the marks Kaelren’s corruption had left on my skin, or the flowers still blooming in my hair, or the way we couldn’t stop touching each other—small contacts, reassurance that this was real.
“As whatever you want us to be.” His hands stilled on my shoulders, turning me to face him. “I’m yours, Elle. However you’ll have me.”
“Even knowing your time is limited?”
His jaw tightened. “Especially then.” He turned me back around, continued working the laces with careful precision. “I told you before—my corruption is accelerating. I have enough time to see you through the convergence. To make sure you survive what’s coming. After that…” He didn’t finish.
He didn’t need to.
My chest constricted, an ache that had nothing to do with the marks at my collarbones. Of course. Of course I’d finally find someone who looked at me like I mattered, who made me feel something real, and he came with an expiration date stamped across his soul.
My mother died when I was two. Too young to remember her, but old enough to spend my whole life feeling the absence.
My father checked out after that—physically present but emotionally gone, lost in grief that had no room for a daughter who looked too much like the woman he’d lost.
