"That's right, my little mate. No matter what, you and that sassy mouth of yours are going to be mine forever," Tenebrys growled, one of his big hands wrapping around her throat and collarbone. Possessive and protective at once. He pressed two thick fingers into her mouth with his other hand.
Delphi licked and sucked them as he worked them in and out of her mouth like he was fucking it. Her fingers were twisting in his fur on his massive shoulders. She was already feeling drugged on his scent, his heat, the feel of him stretching her, dominating her.
Tenebrys pulled his fingers out of her mouth and licked the drool off her chin. "You can be so obedient when you want to be."
"Hmm, don't get used to it outside of the bed chambers," she replied.
"I wouldn't dream of it," Tenebrys said and kissed her. His tongue plunged into her mouth as his soaked fingers teased her ass. Delphi's whimpers were smothered against him as his fingers moved away to be replaced by the tip of his spur. Their lips broke apart, both of them moaning as she sank further down onto him.
"That's it, my queen, my Delphi," Tenebrys groaned, fisting her hair. "Take all of me. My knot has been swollen for days, yearning for release. This sweet cunt of yours is going to be fucked until it's inside of you, and I'm filling you so full of my come that it will be leaking out of you for hours."
"P-Prove it," Delphi said, rocking her hips. His dirty mouth and promises made her wild for him like they always did. His eyes flared, unable to resist a challenge. He flipped her onto her back and tossed her legs over his massive shoulders. He thrust harder and faster into her, making her cling to his horns and cry out with every deep stroke of his cock.
"I love you so much, Delphi," Tenebrys said, desperation and yearning in every word.
Delphi's body lit up as she came hard, clinging to him. She pushed all her burning emotions through their mating bond so he couldn't ever doubt what she felt for him. "I love you too, my beautiful beast."
Tenebrys kissed her cheeks tenderly before his smile turned mischievous. "Then catch your breath, my love, because we are just getting started."
Delphi laughed with pure happiness, and the magic inside her heart burned even brighter.
38
The grave was barely a mound of earth at the far edge of the property, just outside of the protective wards, where the manicured gardens gave way to wild grasses and the Mistwood beyond.
Delphi stood before it, her arms wrapped around herself despite the afternoon warmth. They had buried what was left of Narcisse here—not in the family crypts beneath the château with Tenebrys's ancestors, but out here in the liminal space between civilization and wilderness. It felt appropriate somehow. Narcisse had always existed in the margins, in an area as gray as his morals.
The wound on her palm had healed when she used her witch fire, but Delphi could still feel the ghost of the place where her blood had burned into Kaelis's face, and flowers bloomed from her fury.
She flexed her fingers, watching sunlight play across her skin. No flames danced there now. The witch fire slept quietly in her chest, a banked coal waiting to be stoked.
"I should feel something," she murmured to the unmarked grave. "Grief. Relief.Anything."
When Delphi thought of Narcisse, there was only a hollow anger, the kind that had settled into her bones over decades of disappointment. He had lied about everything. Her mother's death—no, her mother'smurder.
The pyre in Montcrillon. The way he had forced Delphi to watch a woman burn, smell her flesh char, hear the crowd's bloodlust and never told her it was her own mother screaming. She tried to remember Cassia's face before that, but like always, there was nothing but a blur. There were only her screams in her head.
Delphi's hands curled into fists, claws pricking against her palms.
"You bastard," she whispered. "You made me watch her die. You never told me it was her. Had she left you already? Is that why I can't remember her? Is that why you never tried to save her?"
The worst part was that Delphi knew what Narcisse was as she got older, and she had stayed with him. There had been a pathetic part of her that kept hoping he would finally see her. Love her. Be the father she desperately needed him to be.
Delphi's throat tightened. She wouldn't cry for him. He didn't deserve her tears. She wasn't sure that Cassia did either. There were still too many unanswered questions, gaps in the story that would probably haunt her forever.
What had Cassia been like before coming to this place? Before Kaelis took her magic? Had she loved Narcisse, or had that been another lie? Did she ever hold her infant daughter and look at her with love? Or was Delphi another reminder of what had been stolen from her?
"I'm sorry I will never know your side of the story," Delphi said, softer now. She didn't know if her mother's spirit could hear her, didn't know if such things existed beyond the veil but she needed to say it anyway.
"I'm sorry he traded you like you were nothing. You deserved so much better than him, and all that had happened to you."
A breeze stirred through the grass, carrying the scent of roses from the grove where Rosemerta stood with her beloved consort Mercurius. Delphi chose to believe it was an answer and let it comfort her.
She took a steadying breath and turned away from the grave. Maybe it was better not to know. Maybe some truths would only carve her open wider.
What mattered now was the future it was one she would forge with her own hands.
The fae wouldn't stop. Kaelis would keep coming for her, desperate to reclaim the witch fire that should have been his. Delphi had humiliated him, scarred that perfect face, driven him back through the gateways. Fae lords didn't forgive such insults. He would gather his strength, call in ancient debts, and return with an army at his back.
