He brushed his thumb along her earlobe then unclasped her earring. A tiny pearl he'd gifted her some Cycles past. He replaced it with the emerald teardrop.
"I've never removed them," he said at length, meeting her eyes. "I always felt that, if I did, I would lose the small fragment that made me…human." He took a breath. "It is not a piece of me, Auryn. Void knows, you already carry all of me inside of you. But it is a vow. That I will return. To claim you. Hold you. And never let you feel the sting of loneliness again."
Longing took them, then, piece by piece. Unraveling one knot after the other, stripping them of all the grief, the fear, the heartbreak of the events of the Tribunal and the coming Campaign. Lips met, entangling in a language borne of healing pain and banished sorrow.
He took her to the bed, laid her down on the silken coverlet. Her robe fell open as his hands found her. Not to claim, but toremember. To make a rune of the curving lines of her and etch them into his skin.
His palm smoothed over her shoulder, traced the slope of her arm, brushed the inside of her wrist where her pulse fluttered fast. He pressed his mouth there. Then her ribs. Then her collarbone. The place whereshe always tensed first. Where her body betrayed her nerves even when her voice did not.
Then his mouth found the brand—not with heat, but withgrief.
He kissed it. Pressed his cheek to the scarred flesh.
Don’t look,she whispered through the Bond.Please.
This place is where they tried to silence your breath. To snuff out what you are. You prevailed. Survived. Avenged your honor. There is no shame in that save for my failure in stopping them.
She took a shuddering breath as he kissed lower.
Then lower.
And lower.
He caressed her thighs, enthralled as she opened for him like something wild and blooming. His mouth moved upward, lips brushing sensitive skin, his hands holding her open to his worship.
I want to remember this.He kissed the tender flesh above her knee, his stubble dragging just enough to make her shiver.Every breath. Every sound you make.
You’ll forget. You’ll be gone for so long…
Kailorien looked up at her, his eyes dark with ancient promise.
“No,” he said. “You will live in every heartbeat I carry.”
He loved her with intent, with purpose, making a memory of it that could never be erased. Not with magic, not with time. When they joined in body, breath, and soul, each union stripped them further from their mortal forms.Trappings, the voice inside of Auryn had called it. Gods wearing mortal skin. Yet mortality had never felt so exquisite, so agonizing, so incredible.
Their bodies rocked together in a drawn-out primal rhythm. His arms trembled with restraint, lips never far from hers. Every motion was anecho—adevotion—afealty.
I am yours.
I will return.
You are not forgotten.
My sweet girl. My starlight.
Her fingers clutched at his back, pulling him deeper as she arched into him.
“Breathe for me…” she begged. “Until I know no other taste but yours.”
Once, then again, he took her to ruin and beyond.
Nearly asleep, her eyes fluttered closed, then opened, dazed and shining.
You won’t be gone forever, will you?
He kissed her.
No, sweetfire. I will carve a warpath through the land until Astenos himself begs me to rest…but I will find what I seek, and I will return to claim you…and our freedom.
