When she could hardly remember her own name, he shifted. Large hands gripped her hips and moved her over him. His cheek pressed against hers. He moved, pressure building at the place his fingers had touched moments past. With every moment, every motion, he pushed farther into her. Opening. Breaking. Unmaking.
When she cried out, he stilled.
“Does it hurt?” he rasped.
She could hardly breathe.
“Starlight, tell me, and I’ll stop.”
Auryn shook her head. “It’s…you’re…everywhere…”
He kissed her, pushing farther.
“Don’t stop. Please.” She opened her eyes, pulling his forehead back to hers. “Stay, Kailorien. Stay with me.”
As though her words were the breaking of a fever in him, his body shuddered. His eyes closed, and he pushed all the way inside. Her nails dug into his arms.The edges of her vision turned white. She whimpered, overwhelmed from all directions.
Tears welled in her eyes. Their gazes locked. She took a ragged breath.
“It’s alright,” she said. “I’m alright.”But her tears kept flowing, as though a waterfall had broken free.
He moved inside her then. Slow. Gentle. Steady. And soon, a full-bodied ecstasy started building in her core. She cupped his cheek with a trembling hand, her thumb brushing the edge of his mouth. Her whole body quivered around him, yearning to pull in not just his body, but his heart, his soul.
“Kail…I love you,” she said.
The world stopped.
The steam in the room stopped whispering. The ripples in the water around them evened to stillness.
Everything paused.
He stared at her like he had that day in the Moores, when she’d said his true name for the first time.
“Say it again,” he rasped.
“I love you.” This time, her voice trembled. “I never told you. I thought you’d always know. But—”
“No,” he choked. “I didn’t know. Ihoped. Iprayed. But I didn’tknow.”
He moved again. Not faster. Not harder.Deeper. Like her words had changed the shape of their world. Likehehad changed shapein hearing them. She whimpered, sobbed, and clung tighter—legs tightening, arms holding, lips brushing his shoulder.
“Don’t stop,” she begged. “I know I’m shaking—I know it’s too much—but don’t stop. Please. Let me have this.”
“You have me,” he vowed. “All of me. Forever. Please, Auryn—please say it again.”
“I love you, Kail.”
He thrust inside her, and she keened, losing all sense of space and time, falling into bliss with no wings to save her from the drop. She needed none. Not withhimhere. He would catch her. Always. Without fail.
“I love you, Auryn. I’m here. I’m never leaving you again,” he promised, his voice low and strained. “Let go. I’ll catch you.”
Auryn’s eyes rolled back. He rocked into her, pulsing, taking—giving—until she forgot where she was, forgot all the pain of the past decades, forgot everything except the Bond between their souls.
“Let me take you to the end. Let me break you and make you whole again.”
And so he did.
Unmade her.
