My cum spills from her, and my cock twitches with the need to bury myself back inside, to fill her again, and again, until she can’t hold a single drop more. Her body needs it. My shadows crave it.
But she’s already sleeping, hell in her bones and fire dancing along her skin.
So, I breathe through the ache, kiss her shoulder, and clean her up with careful hands. She trusted me. Let me have her. Let me in.
And now? I’ll spend forever trying to be worthy of her.
Even my shadows twitch and reach, curling around her thighs, starving for more.
I hush them with a thought.
She’s given enough tonight.
She deserves rest. Peace. Time to hold what she’s become.
When I’m finished, I cover her with a blanket and step into the shower. Warm water pours over me, but I’m still shaking. I can’t stop thinking about the way she dragged her tongue along my skin, honoring the kill and tasting the truth of what I am.
There’s no mention of that in any book. No footnote explaining what it means when a Daughter tastes blood and smiles.
Except I knew her in that moment—where blood-memory brushes against constellatory reverie, where names don’t matter, only what’s written in stardust and pyre ash.
Maybe some things aren’t meant to be explained, only shared.
I’ll write these questions down tomorrow. But right now, all I can think about is her hunting beside me. Not afraid. Not disgusted. Just … with me.
I’ve never had a partner before. Not one who stayed. Not one who tasted what I am and didn’t flinch.
After my shower, I climb into bed and pull Aurora against me. My shadows reach for her instinctively. Even they know the stars pale beside her, that she burns in ways the cosmos envies.
They wind around her legs, her arms, her ribs, slipping possessively around her waist.
If I move, they tighten. If I shift, they cling.
Pathetic, I think distantly, as warmth curls around my body and something inside of me finally goes still.
I nestle into the curve of her neck and breathe her in.
Honeysuckle. Sweet briar. Rain-wet earth.
Joy.
Love.
Home.
She smells like everything I was never supposed to want.
And fuck, I’d suffer every millennium of blood and loneliness all over again if it meant ending up here, wrapped around her, finally at peace.
Because for the first time in billions of years, I’m not fighting.
I’m not running.
I can just … rest.
A few hours later, I wake to the slow, teasing drag of delicate fingers running along my already aching cock. My shadows stir instantly, shifting against the walls, pulled toward her the way blood answers a heartbeat.
Fuck, that feels good.
