“Soon,” Bo echoed. A slow, insistent pull from the ivy, dragging his knees up until they were held bent and tucked toward his chest. He started to whimper, to say“fuck, Ever, fuck,”but what came out, shaking and ravenous, was, “Your Summer King. Yours to take, to spend, to worship.Yours.”
Faerie fucking breathed with them. Everglowed, the winding path of his blue-silver scales shimmering like he was underwater. Bo, bound in vines, that crown of oak still on his head, and the bed of moss a fuckingaltar, glowed with him. The fucking sun in summer. Summer King.
Didn’t think about it. Couldn’t. Could only feel. Feel, as thenot enoughof Ever’s fingers became the slick slide of his cock. Slow as before, unhurried and unrelenting, taking more and more and more. Bo waited, shaking. So did Faerie. The anticipation in the air thick as honey, sharp as Ever’s teeth in the moment, serrated and sharklike.
And sex–
Sex didn’t feel like this.
Wasn’t shivering vines on an altar of moss and stone. A bright song that twisted through him: snowmelt and river mist, old earth and sunlight. Beneath it all, something tremulous and eager. An ancient, hungry power.
“Bo. My Bo. My Summer King. I do. I worship you,” Ever whispered, his body trembling with tension. Beautiful, above him. Fangs and filigree.
“Your sacrifice.” Bo didn’t recognize his own voice.
And he was going to lose his mind if Ever didn’t start moving. But this, thishadto happen. It had always happened this way.
“If willing.” Fingers, clawed again, gentle with it over vine-covered thighs. The plants shuddered, leaves and tendrils yearning toward his touch. “Permit me? My king. Summer yields only if you will it.”
Bo shuddered again, or maybe he’d never stopped. His response was there on his tongue, waiting to be said, tasting like electricity and ripe fruit.
“I yield,” Bo breathed, as flowers blossomed along the lines of his arms, his sides. “Summer yields to his Holly King. My kelpie.” That last came out fierce, the words from Bo alone. Softer, when he spoke again. “My Ever. Take me and keep winter safe. Give me everything.”
Ever whimpered, a low, desperate sound. His eyes, wide, moonlight and dark water. His scales glittering silver as he moved. Finally,finally, fucking into Bo with slow, deep thrusts while the worldbrokearound them.
They were in a sheltered room of moss and ivy. No, they were under the stars, with wheat high and ripe around them. The heat of the noonday sun on Bo’s face and chest, and the cold of a winter night nipping at his fingertips.
And through it all, Ever fucking him. Taking him.Slow. Bo fucking lost to it. Electric heat. Ragged gasps and shuddering whimpers. Ever pressed deep. And his hand, when he reached for Bo’s cock, was gentle torture, smooth and sweet as Ever himself.
His kelpie. His Ever, a crown of holly pushed back in his hair,needing.
“Bo.Bo. Let me? Incredible. You’re incredible.” A helpless tumble of begging words, Ever’s voice his own now, even as Faerie rode them like the river. “Your kelpie. Your soulbond. Yours.”
“My fierce fucking kelpie.” His words, now. He’d already said what must be said, what was always said. Left his tongue free to beg as each slow thrust shuddered down his spine, left him gasping. “Fuck, Ever, fuck, harder? Please, fuck me faster, more, Ever, fuck, please.”
Ever didn’t make him wait. Faster. Harder. Driving in with whimpered restraint.
His soulbond. His kelpie. (His andhisandtheirs.)
The protective alder trees reached toward them, branches turning gray-brown and curved. Bo caught a glimpse of white blossoms unfurling behind Ever’s gorgeous fucking face, their centers the color of orange segments. Orange blossoms. Tasted them as surely as he did their bond, true as Ever’s voice and dark eyes, tangible as the kiss of Faerie’s magic, filling him and in and in.
Bo lost himself to it, to immediacy and eternity andmore.The slow roll of shattering apart, ecstasy and wet heat over Ever’s hand and the ready ivy, Bo bound and unraveling, broken cries of Ever’s name andyours,raw on trembling lips.
Woven through it, throughhim, Faerie’s own anticipation spiraled, the waiting rush still building, as eager and ravenous as either of them.
Deeper. More. Heat and friction, each new shift of Ever’s body punctuated with a fresh shudder and gasp. No careful slowness, no measured depth to satisfy just Bo but unshackled need. Ever greedy, the way Bo needed him.
Perfect. Bo in pieces, oversensitive and spent. Ever fucking him, pressure on the vines tugging them closer, letting him rock into Ever’s final, ungentle thrusts.
A kelpie on a riverbank. Bo’s kelpie, taking what he’d been offered. Shuddering, whispering, “Bo, sweet Bo,” his hands tight on Bo’s hips as he did. Perfect, Bo in pieces.
Faerie spilled through them, filling Bo even as Ever did. A river of power. More, too much, binding him to Ever, dragging him under with pleasure. And Bo, human flesh, couldn’t finish again this soon. Knew he couldn’t.
But Faerie murmured while Ever held him beneath the rapids. Sunlight and ice. Life and death. Bo and Ever.
Couldn’t. But he did. Faerie taking. Overflowing. Drawing it out of him, his lips parted in a soundless cry. And summer gave himself to winter with a spill of liquid heat.
Chapter twenty-one
