“Yes,” I whisper. “Always. El om ze pera. Lohanran tu gra.”
She pulls back, and I see the question in her eyes, the recollection.
“I was supposed to tell you what that means when we were in Malgros.”
She nods, eager for me to continue. “It means,there is no other. You are my only temple. I love you, Raina.” I’ve said those words before, when things were different, but tonight, I can see that she hears me. That my words are etching themselves across her heart. “I meant it,” I tell her. “I swear I have loved you all my life. And when we are gone from this world, I will love you still.”
“I love you the same,”she signs, and I cannot stop the smile that breaks across my face. My heart feels discovered. Like a lost thing finally found by the one meant to hold it.
Tears fill her eyes, and when they fall, I kiss them away. Again, we begin our dance, making love as though we might never have the chance again, lost in a euphoria that makes it feel as though we’re floating among the stars.
Suddenly, a strange feeling comes over me. I grip her hip.
I can feel her.
I can feel her through the bond.
Clasping her face, I stare into her eyes. Now, when I look for her in my mind, she’s there. As though she never left.
The threads of our magick begin weaving together, a tight braid chasing along the bond.
I shake my head, confused.
“I healed the bond,”she signs, laughing and weeping.“I did not know if I could.”
It is impossible to express the joy I feel. I’m not certain even Raina would understand it. But this—being with her—feels like my fate has finally arrived. The overwhelming relief of this night is incalculable, because the thing most precious to me in this world is with me, in my arms, and she’s mine.
Hungered like never before, I turn her over, pressing a kiss to the smooth skin beneath her delicate collarbone that used to bear her rune. That still does, I suppose. Inside.
“I hope you aren’t sleepy,” I tell her as she completes the tangling of our magick.
She smiles and shakes her head, and I bury myself inside her “Because tonight,” I whisper, “we’re going to rattle this city.”
2
RAINA
Time blurs thanks to the haze of Fever Lilac passion.
Alexus makes love to me, slowly torturing with his body and his magick. Worshiping.
His temple. Hisonlytemple.
I believe those words.
Our bodies move in perfect time, every kiss and touch marked by its own intimate desperation. The need we share is so intense that tears of relief spill from my eyes with each orgasm that crashes through us.
It happens three brutal times—once with Alexus on top of me, another with him lying behind me, and a final event with me astride him, so lost to sensation and connection that time seems to stop when we finally climax.
After that third collision, we come down from the high of bliss for momentary rest. That’s all it is, though. A few short minutes of reprieve.
“I need water before I wither.” Alexus leans over me, that dark, enchanting face so entrancing. “You?”
I shake my head, fist my hand in his hair, and drag his mouth back to mine. He tastes like sex and the vanilla of the Fever Lilac flower carrying us through this perfect night. I can’t get enough.
But he pulls away. “Water,” he says with a smile in his voice. “Then more sex.”
A pout twists my face as I trail my fingertips down his muscled chest, his abdomen, and into that silky trail of glittering dark hair below his navel. I don’t want water. I wantonething, and he’s about to take it away from me.
