Molding, cradling, grounding me in ways I didn’t know were possible.
With her wrists bound in vines, her ankles gently held apart, she should look vulnerable.
Instead, she looks like a queen accepting tribute.
And I am more than willing to kneel.
“This is torture,” I mutter, voice rough as gravel as I drag my gaze over her, slow and reverent. “The sweetest kind the earth has ever witnessed.”
Her hips flex, testing the vines.
They tighten just enough to keep her in place, and she moans—low and helpless.
The sound hits me like a quake.
“Dagan…” My name on her lips is prayer and demand all at once.
I smooth my hands along her thighs, thumbs tracing idle circles at the insides, so close to where she wants me.
Her skin is warm, the faint tremor in her muscles betraying how hard she’s fighting not to arch up into my touch.
“Will you do as I say, Oona?” I ask softly, leaning over her, letting my hair brush her collarbone, my breath warm over her lips. “Will you keep those sounds for me alone?”
She nods, swallowing hard. “Please, Dagan.”
“Words, Oona, my little quake,” I murmur, brushing my mouth over hers without quite kissing her. “You know what I want.”
Her eyes flutter shut, then open again, molten and dark. “Yes. I’ll do as you say. Just—please don’t make me wait anymore.”
That plea tears the last of my restraint clean away.
“Good,” I rasp. “Because I’m done waiting too.”
I lower my mouth to her throat, tasting the frantic flutter of her pulse. She gasps, back bowing, the vines holding her just enough that she has to feel every inch of my control.
My tongue traces the line of her neck to her shoulder, then lower—over the curve of her breast, the delicate peak already tight for me.
“Dagan…” she breathes, the sound barely there.
“Softer,” I tell her, closing my lips around her and drawing a sharp cry from deep inside her. “Let only the earth hear who you belong to.”
The Marches answer.
I feel it—the hum running through the stone beneath us, the deep, thrumming echo in the roots twined through the walls.
They recognize her. They approve of her. They send that knowledge up my spine in a wave of heat.
“You feel that?” I murmur against her skin. “They already love you, Oona.”
Her fingers curl into fists, vines creaking softly.
“Good,” she whispers, voice shaking. “Because I’m not going anywhere.”
Pride and something far more dangerous swell inside my chest.
I trail one hand down, over the curve of her ribs, the dip of her waist, the soft give of her hip. I take my time—memorizing the path, the texture, every little shiver she can’t quite hold back.
When I slip my hand between her thighs, she’s already trembling, already slick with want.
