Something soft pressesagainst my skin. Something softer, against the little feather on my cheek.I’m sorry for leaving you, Little Bird.
I pry my aching lids wide as Lore wraps the towel around me before scooping me into his arms and carrying me out of the humid bathing chamber.
After he sets me down on the bed, he shucks off his battle leathers and boots. His armor and vambraces, I note, are already gone.
He climbs over me, taking my mouth in a hard kiss filled with such exhilaration that I can feel his heartbeats on his palate and in his tongue. He pours them into me and chases them with so much affection that my rigid spine begins to soften.
I raise my hands to his neck and my legs to his waist, and pull him flush to me. The heat of his kiss warms my skin and pools desire low in my belly. Desire that only grows as his bulge quarries my towel, trying to breach the purled cotton.
When I begin to rock my hips, he growls and grips my ass, angling it up to force the towel to fold. As it bunches around my waist, his cock springs into me and I gasp.
He groans a sigh of deep contentment that flutters the walls hugging his shaft and then he groans again as he pulls out. I feel like months have gone by since we last came together.
“The moments during which I’m not buried between your legs will always feel too long,” he murmurs.
I lock my ankles around his waist, pressing his thick cock back into me. This time, I’m the one who sighs. I know we cannot spend our immortal lives making love. After all, my mate’s not an idle man. Could neverbean idle man.
I flick aside a lock of black hair gilded by the high sun outside my windows, then raise my head to kiss the little feather on his cheek.I love you so much, Lore.I know I speak in Crow because my voice crackles over the coarse syllables.
My declaration sends his mouth crashing into mine with such might that it knocks my head back against the fluffy pillow. Tongue sweeping against mine, he roots himself inside of me. The sunshine seems to brighten as he moves, turning so blinding that my mate looks haloed in its glow.
My heart vibrates as hard as the walls he stretches and strokes. I drink in a deep breath and arch my spine as the friction sparks a shudder in my very marrow.
Just as I think he will push me over the edge, he melts into shadows, leaving me cold and wanting.I’ll be right back.
Are you fucking serious?I glare at the perfect globes of the ass walking away from me.
With a wicked chuckle, he vanishes inside my closet. I consider getting dressed and depriving him of an orgasm like he’s just deprived me. And I would’ve, had my muscles not felt like jelly.
He returns a minute later, cock at half-mast and glistening. I pout as he climbs back over me, collects my left hand from the bedsheets, and tows it up.
He brackets my hips between his knees and sits back on his heels, then presses a kiss to my knuckles. Molten eyes locked on mine, he says, “Fallon Báeinach of Shabbe, I know you carry the mark of my people on your skin but will you do me the immense honor of carrying my mark on your finger?”
I blink at him, then at the ring he hovers beside my nail. The stone is pale pink like the sands of Shabbe and cut into the shape of a raindrop.
Like my name.
But also like the ones that fall from the storms my mate can coax from thin air.
How perfect.
“Phoebus and Sybille spent days sifting through the trunks of uncut stones I keep in the coin tower until they agreed on this hunk of a diamond, which my mother then chiseled herself. It’s never graced another finger, Little Bird. It was made for you. Just for you.”
I already thought it was the most arresting jewel I’d ever seen, but now, knowing how it came to be . . . Gods, it outshines the very sun itself.
Shall I remind you, my love, that now that you’re officially a Crow, you only have one god.
You’re wrong. I’ve two gods.
He pulls his head away from mine. “Shabbins don’t venerate deities, only the Cauldron.”
“I meantyou. You and Mórrígan. I’m on the fence about the Cauldron.”
His flushed mouth bends. “Don’t say that too loudly for we wouldn’t want to offend the almighty source of all magic and risk having it seal itself off again.”
My lashes sweep high. “It’s open?”
“Yes.”
