Any other day, it would have been confusing. But the next thing I knew, Phonos began a deliberate, open-mouthed trail down my body. And I couldn’t think about anything anymore except how good it all felt.
My back arched off the feathers as his tongue traced a wet path over my collarbone. A sharp, choked gasp escaped my lips. When his mouth closed over the peak of my breast, the gentle scrape of his teeth sent a bright shock straight to my core. It felt like he was pulling on the very strings of my soul.
The bed of feathers beneath me started to move, to shift. The soft barbs began to stroke against my back and legs, moving in perfect time with his worship. They were alive, an extension of his will. A low whisper seemed to rise from them, a thought that was not my own brushing against my skin.
This body. This soul. They have always been mine.
The hum of his satisfaction traveled up from the feathers, a deep thrum that met the heat of his mouth as he moved lower. He settled between my legs, parting the folds of my flesh with his thumbs.
Then his tongue swept over my folds, a single, deliberate stroke. My world dissolved into pure, humming sensation. He didn’t stop, lapping at me with a relentless rhythm. “Phonos...” I cried out, the name a breathless anchor in a sea of overwhelming pleasure. “I...”
The feathers themselves seemed to answer me, their rustle a triumphant confirmation against my back.
Yes. You feel it now. The song of my claim.
The whispers from the pallet enveloped me, possessive and all-encompassing.
It sings inside you. A melody only I can play. A rhythm only you can feel.
The ecstasy sharpened, building from a steady pulse into an unbearable, exquisite pressure. My muscles drew tight, coiling into knots as the air vanished from my lungs.
Let go. Give yourself to the sound. To me.
The frantic tension in my body only spurred Phonos on. He zeroed in on the small bundle of nerves that drove me crazy, hismouth more demanding, more seductive. I tried to hold on, to prolong the moment, but it was a losing battle.
All too soon, he pushed me past the point of no return. A mind-melting climax ripped through me, and it shattered every lock that had remained between me and Phonos.
I was wide awake, alive in a way I’d never deemed possible. I was his. And for the first time, I could feel exactly what that meant.
Daphne was beautiful in her pleasure. I’d known that before, but seeing it now, after the silence and the cold, was a different kind of miracle. Her skin was flushed, her breath coming in ragged gasps against the black bed of my feathers. The sight of her, so vibrant and alive, was a heavy, grounding weight in my chest.
But beneath the joy, a dark, cold outrage simmered. We should have had this from the beginning. Weeks ago. Before the lake, before the rot, before fate and its cruel, immutable laws had stolen her from me. The Weave had no right to take her, or to turn our bond into a vicious trap.
But the threads had lost the battle, as had Asphodelia’s own laws. This moment was for us, and through us. Nothing and no one else had a say in our lives now.
A fierce defiance rose in my chest, and the words came to my lips before I could stop them. “Thanatos has blessed Asphodeliatoday. The most beautiful bride since the Shift treads the market.”
It was an echo of a ritual that no longer applied, something Phix might have said an eternity ago. But the sphinx would never speak the words now, not about Daphne. Because the only bride market Daphne needed was the one we were in today, and the price I’d bought her with was that of my own grief.
My hand swept down her side, claiming the shape of her against the dark backdrop of my wings. “Daphne of Dodona,” I murmured, a name from a different life, poorly suited for the one we’d start anew. “Not death-touched, but free of death. Free of fate.”
I settled between her legs. A furnace of energy radiated from her body, burning hot and bright beneath her skin. Now more than ever, I needed to claim Daphne again, brand her as mine for a second time. To make her Daphne, Phonos’s mate, and nothing else.
Charon had rebuilt her body. The Moirae had rewoven her flesh. But the brand on her hand, the one that had marked our connection, was gone. I’d mark her again, in every way that mattered.
Daphne didn’t flinch. Her gaze sharpened and she lifted her hips, a deliberate invitation that wasn’t a surrender, but a demand. “What will you trade for me, then, Phonos of House Keres?”
I pressed the head of my cock against her entrance and shot her a quick, dangerous smile. “Everything,” I promised, and unleashed a powerful screech.
In the Weavers’ Hall, my death screech had lit up the Great Loom, binding us together. Now, the air remained empty. No golden threads spun from the shadows. If it could hear me, the Loom didn’t respond. And I thrust inside her, triumphant in the knowledge that I didn’t need an artifact of fate to claim my mate. My soul song was enough on its own.
Daphne’s new body welcomed me like it had been made to match mine. She was tight and hot inside, almost viciously so. Death energy coursed through her flesh and into mine, crackling in a maddening dance of destruction and creation.
The feathers beneath us sizzled, every individual spark brought to life by the power she emanated. I desperately wanted to maintain control, to shower her with the reverence she deserved. But my restraint was fraying more and more by the second.
Daphne’s hands tightened on my shoulders, her nails digging into my flesh as I moved inside her. “The threads are gone. I am free. And so are you.”
I understood exactly what she wanted, what she was telling me. The whole time, I’d been holding back. But at the core, underneath our aristocratic trappings, even the Keres were monsters. Perhaps the most dangerous monsters of all.
