Fia did not argue, merely bent her head to capture his bottom lip with her mouth. He pushed aside her underthings to where her pleasure blossomed. He slipped one finger inside her ready wetness, then another. She gasped against his mouth, rocked against his touch. Murmured meaningless words likepleaseandmoreandyes. Her easy, sweet surrender to him unraveled a measure of his control, and he suddenly could not bear to be anywhere else but inside her.
She made a noise of complaint when he drew his hand away. But the rest of him was already nudging against her, his proud length seeking her heat. She braced her hands against his chest, then eased down onto him with aching slowness.
Irian held himself perfectly still, his eyes locked on Fia’s face and his arms bracing her weight. He clung to the last of his restraint as they fused—face to face, chest to chest, belly to belly. No longer just themselves, but something more. Somethingwhole. Thenthe sensation of her around him—glorious wetness and agonizing tightness and wonderful warmth—finally shattered him.
His hands tightened on her rear as he closed the last inch between them with one powerful thrust. Together they fell, like the seasons or the rain or the stars unlatched from the high heavens. It was a descent they both made willingly—a dissolution, an unraveling, a splendid undoing. A controlled dive into the depths of each other.
Fia fractured, her sharp cry of release belling between them. Her legs strangled his waist as she rode out the waves of her climax, and he fought not to follow her over the edge. Not yet. Petals rained around them, soft as memory and sweet as song. Irian buried his face between her breasts, breathing in the euphoric scents of crushed moss and new leaves. When Fia softened against him, he rolled briskly atop her, covering her with his frame as he thrust even deeper inside her. She drove him on with her heels in the small of his back, her hands on his shoulders, her lips dragging perilous kisses against the column of his throat.
“Colleen,” he growled, even as he kept his pace careful. Exacting. Excruciating. There was already so much heat, so much want, so much yearning between them. Any more, and he was sure to lose himself. “You are not making this easy on me.”
Her laugh was little more than a gasp. “You have never enjoyedeasy, my heart.”
“When you put it like that…” His thumb brushed over her lower lip. “I never do refuse a challenge.”
She parted her mouth and drew his thumb between her teeth, swirling her tongue over the tip. All the iron will of him hardened—he pushed ever deeper inside her, driving her toward another peak. She arched against him, writhing and bucking as the lantern light splintered over their sweat-slicked bodies. The garden sighed a midnight melody, buoyant and breathless as it blossomed in profusion, scenting the air with a thousand luminous flowers.
“Wait.” Fia could not catch her breath. “Wait for me, and I will come with you. One more time. But you must give me a moment.”
Painstakingly, Irian slid out of her. He braced her stiff fingers between his hands as she shuddered, kissed gently down her neck as she gasped and moaned. His need for her was a clamor he could hardly deny. But he would never demand anything of her she was not willing to give.
“Colleen,” he murmured against her salt-damp skin, when at last she stilled. “Can you take me now?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Irian,please.”
Her words broke him. Or perhaps remade him. She rolled onto her stomach, lifted her hips once more to his. He twined his fingers in her short tresses. Kissed down her neck, kissed the length of her shivering, quivering spine. Kissed over the curve of her perfect rear. His need was an unflagging press against her tenderest spaces.
He was reduced to sensation. Or, perhaps, elevated beyond thought. There was nothing but her earlobe in his mouth. His chest between her shoulder blades. Her skin, molded to his. His hard cock moving inside her. His palm over her stomach; the ecstatic glide of his hand between her thighs, moving in rhythm to his unfaltering thrusts.
He climbed toward the sublime, his movements turning relentless. Stars burst behind his eyelids as his climax struck him like a blow to the chest—insistent, insatiable. He bowed over Fia as if in prayer, clinging to the sanctity of this joining. An apotheosis of all that they were to each other. All they had been. All they might never be again.
And in the end, it was just him and her.Them.Gasping and pleasure racked as they lay in the easy circles of each other’s arms. Beyond their circle of light, the garden had run riot, resplendent in the night. Above, stars wheeled like the gateway to eternity.
At last, Fia turned to him. Irian pillowed his head upon one arm as he slid the other over her waist and tugged her close, until their faces were inches apart. He glanced at her ring—it had begun to dim. They did not have much time left. Something in his gaze betrayed him—Fia’s eyes shifted, her lingering pleasure melting away beneath something akin to dread.
“Irian, please.” The repetition of the earlier plea that had brought him such pleasure now brought him only pain—a reckless spill of rage and sorrow. Fia blinked, as if to quell tears. “What did I say about bitterness? I do not wish tonight to be a goodbye.”
His hand tightened, his fingertips digging divots into her waist. “Then you are indeed to be torn from me.”
She swallowed—he could not bear the trembling bob of her throat. She leaned forward until her forehead was pressed to his chest. His heartbeat thundered, too fast and too loud.
“No—do not tell me how. For then I will be forced to try to stop it. Only tell me how I am meant to bear it.”
“This is how.” Her lips inscribed the words upon his skin. When she drew back, her expression was composed. “On the Longest Night, I forced a promise from you. Tonight, in exchange for our wedding vows, I release you from it. Irian, my heart—it is time to let me go.”
Abruptly, the pressure in the air shifted, popping his ears. Briefly, a great weight was lifted from Irian’s shoulders, and he felt impossibly free. The livid scars of all the nights shielding himself against scales or claws smoothed away; the ragged bruises of holding Talah off as she writhed silver-eyed above him faded. All that remained was the wonderful lightness of Fia’snowness—her smooth softness in his arms, her sweet glow in the wake of their lovemaking, her threadbare strength in the face of looming tragedy. He savored it—he savoredher.
And then he reached up and settled the familiar weight back down upon his shoulders.
He was strong enough to bear it.
“No.” Gently, he tilted her head back, forcing her eyes to his. Fia had once called him a poet, but he suddenly found words the poorest weapon in his arsenal. How did he express to her that no force in the universe could keep him from his oaths to her? He would throttle the stars, destroy destiny, defeat death itself if it meant he could butholdher like this. Forever. “Would you unbindme from every promise I have made you, mo chroí? For I have sworn to love you for all your sharp thorns and churning shadows. I have vowed to adore you through all the seasons of our lives. And I have pledged not to let you wander alone—I care not whether that means I walk beside you or carry you in my arms or yearn for you from a distance.”
Fia bit her lip, as if to hold in words she feared to speak. In the flickering lantern light, her mismatched eyes were glazed with unshed tears.
“No, Fia. I will never let you go.” Irian’s hands cupped the nape of her neck, the curve of her cheek. “Rather, I will make you one more promise: Even if you must go where I cannot follow, I will find you. Even if I cannot see you, I will yearn for the sight of your face. Even if I cannot hear you, I will long for the sound of your voice. Even if I cannot remember you, I will still love you with every throb of my heart. And when at last we find our way back to each other—and wewill, whether in this life or the next, in this form or another, as sifting ash or distant starlight—I will revel in the chance to relearn your name. Colleen.” He cupped the back of her head and kissed her, long and slow. “Mo chroí.” He kissed her again, deeply. “Fia.”
The air shimmered with the force of his geas. His lips tasted of the salt of her tears. The darks of her pupils shone with the choices she would reckon, the sacrifices she would make, the lives she would save.
