I try to answer, but his other hand is smoothing its way up my thigh and I can’t think straight. It takes three tries for me to answer him.
“I was climbing a tree. Slipped. A branch tried to save me from the fall but we both broke a little.”
He kisses the scar gently, and his palm slides over the right side of my arse, his pinky rings catching on the lace.
“You’re so beautiful.”
The cold air finds my back again, indicating he has sat up once more. He touches the slit of my underpants again and I start to roll to my back. He stops me with a press to my lower back, and then he pulls off the final piece of my clothing.
“Gorgeous,” he murmurs as he lies half on me and half perched on an elbow.
His cock nudges my center. “Is this all right?” he whispers into my ear.
I tremble and nod.
He kisses the back of my neck and slides a hand under me, lifting my hips a bit. Slowly, he enters all the way to the hilt. I bite my forearm to stifle a moan.
He holds still. “It’s not like you to holdback. Are you suddenly bashful?”
“I don’t want,” I say, panting, “to scare the patrons from their party.”
His chuckle makes his cock move inside me and we groan in unison. He thrusts twice and pauses. I am dying of pleasure. Dying of want. Dying of love for this vampire-goblin.
Then he sets his teeth on my throat and moves again. He mumbles my name. “Damn it all, Colette. Damn it.”
My skin is flushed and trembling and I’m going to come right now. His rhythm increases in pace. He is less smooth and more desperate, and something about that and his continued cursing makes it all unbearable.
“Please… Yes. More,” I gasp out.
I finally stop trying to hold out and let the sensations take me leaping over the edge. He follows me, his movements even more uneven. I love the snarl that rips from his throat. He drives himself hard into me until he collapses on the floor beside me. With a rough and tender motion, he tugs me against him as he pants.
I drape an arm over his chest and he lets his hand linger over my hip. My chest aches with how much I adore him in every way a person can adore someone. He had my heart very quickly. My bodywas lost the first time he touched me. My soul is now his too, and I have absolutely no regrets. I might hurt because I love him so much. In fact, I most assuredly will. He will die or I will die. That’s life. Other terrible things can and will happen. But this is living. The pain and the pleasure, both.
The shadow and the light.
Epilogue: Colette
“You have to stop dancing. Your hair is a disaster!” Lysandra pulls the braid she’s been working on loose and snarls at me.
“I didn’t know fauns could snarl,” I say. I love teasing her.
She mutters something and pulls my hair. “Just sit still.”
Tully and Laini laugh, and I join in.
“I didn’t knowlibrarianscould snarl,” Laini says. Her hands are busy with Archer’s and my handfasting piece. It’s in the shape of a bat. Archer doesn’t know that so I can’t wait to see his face when he sees the design.
Tully snorts. “I’ve seen some very impressivesnarling from librarians. I would not mess with you, Lysandra. I can promise you that.”
Lysandra nods in the reflection of my mirror. Her hands work deftly to braid my hair in a crown around the top of my head. Tully flicks her wand, and the woolen flowers Laini gave me earlier appear in my braid—little spots of dark purple to match my dress, deep red for the wine Archer loves, and pink because it’s my favorite color.
Finally, I stand ready to meet my groom. I spin and everyone claps. The candles flicker, and the window shades flap as the inn joins the fun. Mossette leaps onto the bed andmrrrrrowsloudly.
I pet her soft, little head and scratch behind her ears. “There isn’t a softer spot than right here,” I whisper to her. I kiss her and start out the door while Tully begins singing.
“To the woods,
She goes to wed her handsome knight,
