Lifting her up, Alora’s legs locked around his waist. Her arms wrapped around his neck, her center pulsing against his skin. And her breath, by the Abyss, her breath was fire against his tongue. She gasped, the sound raw and guttural, dragging from the depths of his chest like it hadn’t seen daylight in centuries.
He leaned closer into her, invading her air. Bracing himself against the table, the sound of wood beneath his clawssplintered.
Alora’s eyes flew open, and she looked down. “Did you break my table?” she asked, laughing breathlessly.
Rune blinked, momentarily thrown off balance. Then his lips curved, fangs flashing. “It was in the way.”
Shadows parted as he carried her to the bed and he laid her down. Climbing over her, Rune pinned both of her hands above her head. Her legs wrapped around his waist as if she wanted to get closer. Demanding it. He kissed her like a man starving. Like a man at the end of the world, because that’s what this was. The end of everything he could no longer control.
He had been for centuries to taste defiance on her lips and would not waste a second of it.
He kissed her again, slower now, hungrier,deeper,trying to memorize the shape of her soul through her lips. To draw out the power humming in her soul.
He ground against her core, the heat of her turning him into a savage. Alora whimpered and her hips rolled instinctively against his. He didn’t care that she could feel how hard he was, howwreckedby her he’d become.
He licked her skin, up to her jaw, then down her neck. grazed his fangs over her nipple which he nipped,earning a gasp and a desperate clutch of his cloak.
Her fingers tangled in his hair. He ground into her, slow and hard, and she moaned his name like a song she wasn’t ready to sing yet. Damn it all, he wanted to sink into her. But a thought, a reminder tugged at his fogged mind, whispering he couldn’t.
Not when he still hid behind a mountain of lies.
“Rune…”
The soft sound nearly made everything in him go still.
Her fingers brushed his cheek. She looked up at him, dazed. Needing, breathless, quivering, but not from fear. All he sensed was exhilaration. Wonder. The kind of aching hunger that matched his own.
She wasn’t running. Wasn’t telling him to stop.
Neither of them wanted to.
The shadows coiled tighter. Possessive. Protective. Insatiable.
Take her, they hissed.She’s ours.
But he stopped, panting, teeth clenched, every muscle coiled like stone.
He searched her eyes, waiting for her to change her mind. “I…haven’t broken the Sleeping Curse yet,” he said, half-jesting.
She tugged at his trousers, removing his belt. “Tomorrow’s problem.”
Rune chuckled, his breath ragged by her want of him, but he knew better.“Tempting.”
Her eyes held his, challenging.
Then her fingers tugged at the stays, dragging the waistband down his hips.
Rune caught her wrist before she could reach for him, breath rough. “Not yet.”
Her eyes immediately dropped but his shadows swarmed around his waist, veiling him. There were parts of him she had not yet seen.
Sensing his hesitation, Alora whispered with a little smile, “You would deny me now?”
The air turned thick with magic. Lust. Longing.
Of something ancient reborn.
Her light flared brighter, but it didn’t burn. It was soft and gentle. Wrapping him in a warmth he had not felt since the world’s creation. She was the purest thing to ever exist in his world. An untouched beauty he would relish in spoiling beneath him.
