His hands came up, his palms pressing flat against my inner thighs, holding me open for him. He gave a low hum of approval against my flesh, a possessive thrum that resonated deep inside me. His tongue traced a slow, deliberate path upward over my slick folds. The tip of his tongue brushed a single, hard point of flesh that sent a jolt straight through me. My fingers dug into the cold stone at my sides.
A thought cut through the haze, sharp, but intoxicating.I am the one being cherished now. I am the one who is divine.
Then I felt the hard reality of a talon ghosting against my entrance. He paused, once again giving me the chance to turn him away. I couldn’t speak any longer. Instead, I only gave a slow, deliberate nod.Yes. Please.
Phonos slid one finger deep inside my body, angling the sharp point of his talon perfectly away so only smooth skin caressed my tender flesh. A strange sense of familiarity washed over me. This feeling… This terrifying, thrilling act of being opened, of trusting him with my most vulnerable self… It was the same seamless, soul-deep rightness I’d felt the day I’d let him past my walls and into my heart. It had been scary then, and it was scary now, but the satisfaction of it, the rightness, eclipsed everything else.
“Phonos…” The two simple syllables escaped my lips, a broken sound of pure adoration.
His hands clamped down on my hips, holding me firmly against him as he answered my plea. The gentle caress of his mouthvanished, replaced by a deep, frantic, undeniable pull. He drew me into his mouth as if he meant to consume me whole, his tongue working a desperate, maddening rhythm. I couldn’t have withstood it to save my life.
My orgasm ripped a scream from my throat, a shattering of the past that left me boneless and utterly remade. Ecstasy raced through me, a rush of cleansing fire that burned away the last phantom touch of fate’s threads. In that blinding moment, I was no longer “the seer.” That faded title crumbled to ash, leaving only a new, stronger truth in its place.I am his.
As the last aftershocks subsided, Phonos pulled away. In quick, efficient motions, he discarded the elegant clothing he’d worn at the bride market. Even dazed as I was, I couldn’t help but revel in finally seeing him bare in front of me.
At last, after what seemed like forever, Phonos positioned himself between my legs. He lowered his head, his forehead resting against mine. His eyes glowed in the gloom, seeing straight into my very soul.
The lingering haze of pleasure sharpened into a fierce, possessive need. I wanted him. I wanted this joining, this final, unbreakable seal. I gripped his jaw, my own need a desperate whisper. “Now. Please.”
Phonos didn’t disappoint. In a single powerful thrust, he buried himself inside me. He filled me, stretched me, claimed me, until I could see nothing but him. And just like that, the dream I hadn’t even known existed came true.
For my entire life, I’d been a wanderer. Always searching, never safe. But as Phonos started to move inside me, a single, absolute certainty settled in my bones. I was home.
His first movement was a slow withdrawal, a deliberate retreat that left my inner muscles clenching around the ghost of him. Then he pressed back in, deeper this time. It felt like instinct, like a rhythm my body had always known but had never before experienced. This was what I was made for.
He pulled back just enough, his gaze burning into me. “Are you with me?”
The profound disbelief in his voice, the awe that mirrored my own, silenced every thought in my head. How could something so perfect, so right, actually exist in a world that had only ever shown me hardship? I arched up to meet his next slow push, my body gripping his length in a possessive answer. “Always.”
A low growl rumbled deep in his chest as his control shattered. The pace broke into something harder, faster, more frantic. And I met him with equal fervor. This was the freedom I’d craved when I’d first set foot in his city, a wild, untamed release that set my soul alight.
Phonos was no longer just my protector, my worshipper. He was a predator, and I was his willing prey, reveling in the savagery of his claim. The slick sound of our bodies slapping together echoed in the vast, empty hall, a primal rhythm that seared our presence into the marble.
He drove into me one final time, his entire body shaking as he filled me with his seed. My own orgasm crested, a wave of light that obliterated my senses.
In that same instant, Phonos threw his head back. Arching his neck, he unleashed his screech.
This sound… This music… It was what I’d heard in my last vision, when I’d been on Charon’s altar. Powerful, yet brutal, it reached inside me and squeezed. The soul song.
The Loom erupted, the threads responding to each beautiful note. The light wound around us, tying us together, until I no longer knew where he ended and I began.
And then, the hall vanished, and I was back at the Keres Spire. A monster of hellfire lunged from the smoke, and I flashed forward to protect my sisters. I lay on the ground, fading away, as my mother came apart like a tapestry being unthreaded. I stared at an avalanche of threads, wondering,Why not me? Why do I not have a mate?
It wasn’t my question, but Phonos’s, and the entire hall heaved with the weight of his memories. I wanted nothing more than to pull him closer, to anchor him inside me, like he needed to be. But then, I felt it. The shift. His knowledge that I was the one. And the current reversed.
A jolt of agony shot through my core, but it wasn’t mine. It washis. The splitting headache of a thousand screaming futures slammed into him, joined by the bone-deep loneliness of theforest cottage and the fear and relief I’d experienced on Charon’s altar. A part of me wished I could have kept this agony from him, but at the same time, I knew I couldn’t. My pain was his, just like his was mine. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Throughout it all, the Loom continued to weave. I couldn’t even bring myself to hate it any longer. Not when it had welcomed Phonos’s soul song with such ease.
At last, the blinding light receded, leaving a heavy stillness in its wake. I was still wrapped around Phonos, our bodies slick and intimately joined. A strong, visceral tremor ran through him as he carefully pulled out of me.
He collapsed beside me on the stone, but only for a moment. He immediately turned, pulling me against his chest, his arms wrapping around me with a new kind of urgency. “Look.”
On the back of my hand, a pattern was forming. Lines of soft, amethyst light bloomed on my skin, weaving themselves into an intricate mark. A gentle, living warmth hummed from it, a physical manifestation of our two souls now woven into one.
“My claim.” He lifted my hand to his lips, pressing a kiss over the glowing mark. “My promise. My song, written on your skin for all eternity.”
He wrapped his massive, dark wings around me then, enclosing us completely, blotting out the world. There was no Loom, no Moirae, no cold hall. There was only the darkness, the scent ofhim, the steady beat of his heart against my ear, and a perfect peace. Just us and our future.
