Her knees dug into the stone.
Fuck.It was like drowning between them. She’d never breathe again.
Rough scales moved over her. One of the serpents coiled around her hip, sliding between her thighs with a wet, sinuous flick. The other moved higher, winding aroundher ribs, then her neck, tongue flicking just beneath her ear, teasing the underside of her chin.
“Empty night—” The words caught in her throat, crushed by the tightening grip of the serpent around her windpipe.
Fenn’s rhythm built behind her. His hands clamped on her thighs, nails breaking skin as he jerked her back into each thrust.
Harder. She didn’t say it aloud, just flung the word down the tether between them.
There was no yes in answer. Or no. Just a feral agreement in a dark rumbling growl and the next thrust crashing through her, filling her completely. Her head spun, vision blurring as the serpent at her throat flexed tighter with the same rhythm.
Air vanished. Time unraveled. And all she could think wasmore.
More.She cried to both of them.
And then she felthimthere. Low, deep, in the back, where her body had always struggled to take him. Another memory or fantasy. Kaelith, threading himself into her in a way that bypassed every limit they’d ever run up against. She couldn’t see it, couldn’t name how, but her body knew. The stretch, the pressure, the throb—it was him. Like he’d finally claimed a place that had been just out of reach. And stars, shefeltit.
Next time, pet,his voice whispered inside her.I’ll have you here, too, like this…
They’d tried it before, back in the Hearth, pushing and exploring the limits of her body. But Kaelith had always been too much. No matter how gentle or patient, her body refused to take all of him there. Not like that.
But now? Now she swore she could feel him there, so deep, even if it was only in her mind. Even if it was some trick of connection or memory or Kaelith himself, weaving something gloriously filthy into her thoughts. He knew how to twist the limit of sensation until it tipped into belief.
I will have you here,he repeated with a flex of his hips,while the wolf takes his favorite place.
Her whole body tensed, heat blooming fast and ragged. She could feel them both, every inch of them, claiming space inside her, around her, through her. As the pressure built with terrifying speed, her muscles fluttered and clenched down in an instinctive, frantic cadence.
And Fenn—stars, Fenn—was growing inside her with each stroke, stretching her further, anchoring her in something brutal and beautiful. She could barely hold on, barelystay upright. Every thrust sent her crashing forward, throat full, body catching fire in too many places at once.
She wasn’t going to last.
She looked up, vision swimming, and met Kaelith’s eyes. He was watching her—still, focused, devouring. Her fingers curled into his thigh for balance, the taste of him thick on her tongue, the press of her lips slick and hungry. Her head bobbed once, twice, dragging her mouth back and down in measured worship as her body shuddered around Fenn’s next push.
His tongue flicked out over his lips.
“Do you want to come, pet?” he whispered.Blink once for yes.
She couldn’t answer. Her throat worked uselessly, air shuddering around everything she couldn’t say. Instead, she squeezed her eyes shut, bracing against the inevitable—feeling them both, feeling all of it, the ragged limit where her control was already unraveling.
Then she opened them.
She caught the curl of his mouth—just the barest hint of a smirk—before memory rose fast and unbidden. The cloth in his mouth. That first demand, barked across a stretcher, when she'd ordered him to show her the way to the Hearth or die.
Kaelith had been smirking then, too. But now his jaw went rigid, and the corded muscles winding over his stomach rippled before her.
Then the serpent at her hip moved.
It struck without warning, fangs sinking into her mound, right over the deepest point of her core. And every nerve inside her lit up in wild, blinding arcs. She barely registered the snarl behind her before Fenn drove forward, hips snapping against her, hard and final.
Her scream punched free from her throat—ragged, half-choked—just as the serpent around her neck uncoiled and released.
Oxygen rushed in like a flood. Her whole body seized.
The sounds hit next—Fenn, roaring behind her, and Kaelith’s voice in her mind as he spilled down her hot throat, the same wave crashing over all of them.
And then, all the stars, something changed.
