"I want you to burn for me. Not because you're losing control, but because you're choosing to. Because you trust me enough to let the fire out."
Stellan's whole body is trembling now, war happening inside him playing on his face with perfect clarity. The fear of letting go battling against the desire, the need, the hunger that I'm deliberately stoking with every word, every touch, every pulse of my essence.
"What if I hurt you?" Stellan whispers, the vulnerability in his voice breaking me a little.
A rich, dark laugh falls from my lips. "Baby, I'm an Incubus. Your fire doesn't hurt me. It feeds me. The hotter you burn, the better I feel."
To prove my point, I pull his hand to my chest, pressing those too-warm fingers against my skin directly over my heart. "Feel that? Feel how my essence responds to yours? We're compatible on a level that shouldn't be possible. Fire and hunger. Destruction and consumption. We fit." What he doesn’t know is that my appetite for essence has been growing.
That ever since I met these five and even more since Stellan shifted, I need more.So. Much. More.
Stellan's hand tangles in my hair, pulling me toward him. I lean in, closing the last inch between us, and the second we kiss, his fire essence bursts free in a wave of orange and gold that wraps around us both. It’s not destructive, though. This is different. It's passionate and intense, but controlled.
I rise to meet it, my tail manifesting and wrapping around Stellan's leg, my horns growing solid and curling further around my ears. I feed on the fire essence like a man dying of thirst finally finding water, and push my own essence back into Stellan.
God, this new energy is intoxicating. Stellan's fire is pure and strong, and the more I take, the more there seems to be. My skin feels feverish, my cock already half-hard from the rush of essence flooding my system. This is what I've been starving for.
When I break the kiss to look at Stellan, needing to see his face, I gasp.
Phoenix wings have manifested behind him, massive appendages made of white-gold flames that don't burn but shimmer like living light, each feather perfectly distinct.
"There," I breathe, running my hands over his shoulders to where the wings emerge, feeling the heat and power concentrated there. A purr rumbles from my chest, loud enoughthat Stellan definitely hears it. "See? Youcando it. You can call parts of it without losing yourself."
Stellan's eyes widen a little, glowing orange from the inside out, but he's aware. Present. In complete control, even while his essence blazes around us both. His hands find my waist, pulling me closer, and the heat should be unbearable but I've never felt better. My body responds to the contact, arousal mixing with hunger until I'm not sure where one ends and the other begins.
"Do it again," I say softly, pulling back just enough to watch his face. "Call them back, then dismiss them. Let's see if you can control it."
Stellan's brow furrows in concentration, and the wings flicker, growing brighter before fading completely. He lets out a frustrated sound. "I don't know how I did it the first time."
"That's okay. We'll figure it out together." I press a gentle kiss to his jaw, then another to the corner of his mouth. My hands slide down his chest, feeling the heat radiating through his shirt. "Try again. Focus on how it felt when they came out."
He tries. The wings flicker back into existence for a moment, before disappearing again. Stellan's frustration bleeds through his essence, and I taste it on my tongue. It does nothing to dampen my arousal. If anything, the emotional intensity makes the hunger worse.
"Hey," I murmur, tilting his face to look at me. "You're not as quiet as you used to be."
Stellan blinks, confusion crossing his features. "What?"
"When I first met you, you barely spoke. You were always trying to make yourself smaller, quieter, less noticeable." I trace my thumb along his cheekbone, enjoying the way his breath catches at the contact. "But right now? You're telling me what you're feeling. That's progress."
"Because our mates need me," Stellan says quietly. "And I'm trying to be more than just the guy who's afraid of his own fire."
The words hit me harder than I expect. "Stellan..."
"It's true though, isn't it? You're all so strong and I'm just..." He trails off, but I can taste the self-doubt in his essence. It's sour, wrong, and completely at odds with the powerful being standing in front of me.
"You're a phoenix," I say firmly. "You're literally made of rebirth and transformation. And yeah, our mates need you right now. But they also need me, and I'm trying. Trying to be more than just the Incubus who takes and never gives back."
Stellan's eyes soften as he cups my face with both hands. "You give more than you think you do."
The kiss this time is gentler, but no less heated. My body presses against his, seeking more contact. When his wings manifest again, they're more stable, still flickering at the edges, but holding their form for longer. The sight alone is enough to make my cock throb.
"There," I whisper against his lips. "You're doing it. Try to hold them."
We spend the next hour working through trial and error. Sometimes the wings come easily, other times they refuse to appear at all. I learn that touch helps ground him, that gentle encouragement works better than pressure, and that feeding on his fire essence in small amounts actually helps him stabilize rather than lose control.
And I learn that watching him succeed, seeing those wings hold steady, affects me in ways that have nothing to do with hunger. My arousal never fully fades, a constant throb of need, but it mixes with something deeper. Pride. Affection. Something dangerously close to love.
At one point, Stellan manages to hold the wings for a full minute before they flicker out, and he lets out a triumphant laugh that makes my stomach flip.
