Thirty-Two
Tessa
Kalen smiled as he undid my trousers and tugged them to the floor before freeing my breasts from my tunic. All I could do was lie there as he began to undress, admiring the way his chiseled body rippled as he removed every piece of clothing. When he reached his trousers, I couldn’t help but clench my thighs when his cock slid into view. He was already hard, and the ache in my core intensified.
“Kalen, wait,” I whispered, despite hating the distance between us. “What about my power? I don’t want to hurt you.”
“And you won’t,” he promised. “So far, the power has only come from your hands. But if you don’t feel comfortable, we’ll stop now. It’s your choice.”
I smiled at him, then crooked my gloved finger. “Come here.”
His eyes raked over my body as he returned to the bed. Trembling, I gazed into Kalen’s sapphire eyes. I wanted him. I needed him. Nothing else mattered right now.
His hand found my breast, a soft caress until he squeezed tightly. I cried out, both in agony and in pleasure, my nipples hard and swollen under his touch. He leaned in and teased my nipple with his tongue. I dropped my head against the bed and moaned. Kalen growled, and his breath tickled my hot skin.
“Eager, are we?” he murmured as he moved his mouth down my stomach, pausing once he reached the sex between my thighs. His mouth brushed my skin, licking me, tasting me, sending shockwaves of pleasure through my trembling body. I gasped and pushed my hands against the headboard, digging my gloved fingers into the wood.
“I love the way you taste,” Kalen murmured as he moved back up my stomach, leaving me aching for more.
I opened my mouth to respond, but the words that echoed in my mind were ones we’d yet to say.I love you, I love you, I love you.
As if sensing my hesitation, he paused, not understanding that it had nothing to do with his touch and everything to do with my mounting feelings for him.
“Tell me what you want,” he said. I opened my eyes and looked into his, spreading my legs as I wrapped my thighs around him. The fire and passion were still there in his expression, but his face held a spark of something else. Something far deeper than that. Something that made my heart pound even harder.
“You, Kalen,” I whispered. “All I want is you.”
He sighed against me, squeezing my thighs with his strong hands. Slowly, he filled me, inch by exquisite inch. I let go of everything that had happened in the past few weeks—of all the fear, of all the doubt, of all the pain. I gave in to the sensation of Kalen’s body on mine. And I just let myselffeel. I loved him, desperately so. And even if I hadn’t said it yet, I could tell him with my touch.
I wrapped my arms around his neck as he pushed inside me once again. My back slid against the sheets as he began to thrust harder, but his arms held me against his chest. As we wrapped ourselves around each other, it felt as if we’d become one body, moving in rhythm as our need for each other increased with each passing beat. That thread between us tugged so tightly, it felt as though whatever this was between us, whatever we’d become, it would be a part of me until I took my last breath.
Until all the stars vanished from the night sky.
I shook in his arms, pleasure and emotion building inside me. Kalen groaned as I tightened around him, and he took my mouth in his as I crested the top. Shuddering, my orgasm crashed over me like a wave. My arms and legs tightened around Kalen as he followed in my wake. His roars echoed through the castle—through the city itself.
I was his, and he was mine.
Kalen pulled me to his chest after his climax finished. I curled up against him, like his body might shield me from the outside world for just a little while longer. Tomorrow, we would have to face what was coming for us. We would need to find a way to fight a power far greater than any of us, even combined.
But for now, I just breathed him in, relishing in the soft brush of mist and his steady heartbeat and that lingering cord that kept us linked.
If I might die soon, at least I spent my final moments with him.
Thirty-Three
Niamh
Days passed before the king invited us to another meeting. Days where we had nothing to do but dine in the Great Hall with a gaggle of wary mortals and then wait in our assigned chambers before waiting some more. The king had kept us away from Val, a fact that rankled my ass to the extreme. He’d provided her with her own lodging a floor above ours, and if the overheard words of the guards were true, then she had freedom to come and go as she pleased.
Alastair and I, however, did not.
We were not behind bars, but we were prisoners all the same, and we had no way of contacting Kalen to let him know what was happening. All our communication stones had been taken from us as soon as we arrived in Moonstone, and Alastair was getting twitchy. I didn’t blame him.
My old friend leaned against the door, listening to the murmur of voices outside. I kicked up my boots onto the desk along the back wall, scowling at him. The room itself was large and held two beds, but that was the extent of it. As much as I loved my brother of the Mist Guard, I was sick of seeing his face every waking moment of every damn day.
“Just sit down. They know about our hearing.” The chair creaked as I leaned back. “They’re not dumb enough to talk about anything important this close to us.”
He arched a brow. “People can be dumb.”
