My breath catches.
I definitely do want to give them a welcome kiss.
Nathaniel’s fingers tighten around mine.
Cassian leans in on my other side.
“We said we would follow you into death,” he murmurs. “And that’s exactly what we did.”
My body reacts before my brain catches up. Heat blooms low and sharp and immediate. It coils tight, like I’m not dead at all.
Talon steps fully under the willow, branches brushing his shoulders as he closes the distance. He crouches in front of me.
“We will be together forever now, Little Grim. This whole place? It’s ours for eternity.”
I hear it, but I don’t. It sounds too beautiful to be true.
Cassian’s hand slides to my jaw, fingers curling as he tilts my face toward him.
“Feel real to you?” he asks.
I shake my head before I can stop myself.
“No matter. You’ll feel it soon enough.”
And then he kisses me. His tongue pushes in, demanding, and I open for him with a broken sound I don’t recognize as my own.
Nathaniel doesn’t let go of my hand. Instead, he shifts closer, his other hand sliding up my arm until his fingers curl at the back of my neck.
“You did amazing back there,” he murmurs against my skin. “We’re so proud of you.”
Talon watches us for half a second longer before he moves in too. His hand grips my thigh, dragging me forward just enough to unbalance me between them.
Cassian breaks the kiss only to drag his mouth down my jaw.
“Good thing you’ll never have to do anything like that again,” he mutters against my skin.
Nathaniel’s lips find the other side of my neck. His tongue traces a slow line upward, and I shiver violently between them.
Cassian’s hand slides down my body, over my ribs, my waist, lower—
straight between my thighs.
I gasp, my back arching instantly as his fingers press against me.
“Wet,” he says, almost surprised. Then darker: “Already fucking wet.”
Heat floods my face, but there’s no space for embarrassment. Not with Nathaniel’s mouth on my throat, not with Talon’s hand sliding higher up my thigh, not with Cassian’s fingers pressing harder, rubbing slow deliberate circles through the thin fabric between us.
“Tell me this isn’t real,” Talon murmurs, leaning in, his lips brushing mine but not quite kissing. “Go on.”
I can’t.
Cassian’s fingers slip inside.
I break.
A sharp, helpless sound tears out of me as his fingers push into me, slick and easy, like he belongs there.
