"Try what?" I pant.
“I will bring you so much pleasure that you can never bear to leave my side again. I need your touch every second. I think about your fingers wrapped around me, about how you squirm when I take you, the noises you make when you come. I want you to suffer with need when I’m not inside you.”
I’m about to come right there as he teases my most sensitive area with the tip of his cock. The vines have me at the perfect height for him.
His voice is husky. “Every plant here answers to my command. Every warrior here answers to my command. But I cannot command you. That is the problem.” He rubs me with the tip of his cock, sending shocks of pleasure through me. “Stay with me, Elena. Tell me you’ll never leave.”
I tremble on the edge of peak pleasure as I pant, “I need you.”
He slides into me again, slower this time, until his body presses against my entire core. “I need you safe. And I need you like this. What have you done to me?” he groans. “I would do anything to keep you.”
The vines move out of the way for his hands. He braces me with one hand on my back, the other on my hip, rolling his pelvis so every ridge and swell of his cock drags across my swollen flesh.
I can’t move my arms or legs, but I lean into him, desperate, nipping and licking his neck.
The pressure builds, hotter than before. I buck against him, chasing my own pleasure. He feels it and speeds up, driving into me as the vines hold me tight.
When I come, it’s so hard I think I might black out. He comes with me, the pulse of it so strong I feel him everywhere—inside, outside, under my skin, in the squeeze of the vines still holding me.
He holds me through the aftershocks, his body trembling. He kisses my hair, my forehead, my lips as his hands roam my body. The vines rise and wrap around us both in a soft cocoon.
We float together for a while. The world is reduced to heat and breath and the taste of each other.
Eventually, he carries me to the furs. He lies beside me, his hand on my stomach, fingers splayed wide. There’s nothing there. Not yet. Maybe there never will be. But for one dangerous second, I can see it anyway. A small home in the jungle, where the two of us raise children. A life that doesn’t begin with orders or bargains or survival.
A life I haven’t admitted I want.
“Rythar. You asked me once why I gave you the antivenom. Why I saved you.” My voice comes out steady. I’ve been running from this answer since I climbed on his dying body. “The world without you in it wasn’t a world I could live in. I just couldn’t admit it yet.” He doesn’t answer with words. He takes my hand, presses it over his heartbeat, and holds it there.
“Mine,” he says roughly. One of his favorite words, but it’s never sounded like this.
I’ve fallen in love with an alien. Taken him as my mate, forever. Taken him into my heart. I want to tell him that I love him.
Instead, I say, “You done being mad at me?”
One corner of his mouth lifts. “For now.”
I curl into him, letting the warmth of his body soak into mine. “What happens next?”
“Vorak is dead. The High Lord will have to act openly,” Rythar murmurs against me. “And we will need to prepare. There is a place I must take you. But it is not ready yet.”
I take his hand and press it over my own heart, covering his hand with mine.
CHAPTER 30
SUMMONS
ELENA – IN FLIGHT
We fly backto Rythar’s fortress in a skiff, the jungle canopy below us a lush green sea of life—life that Rythar can wield as a fearsome weapon. We descend into the heart of the stronghold, through a hidden hangar door.
I want nothing more than to sink into a hot bath, then sleep for a week. But Sophia is still out there.
Xytheos has other plans. As we step off the skiff, Rythar takes my arm. "We are expecting company."
"Who?"
Rythar’s eyes narrow as he scans the corridor ahead. "Concord ships are already on their way. They lifted off when we did.”
