A divine ritual.
Necessary.
Above all, not optional. As Auryn looked at the naked Companions on the divans, her heart withered in her chest. It hurt so much to know he’d touched them, whispered to them,kissedthem.
This time, the pain came in her throat.
It sealed shut as though someone had clamped their hand around it.
She whirled. Again. To run. To flee.
“Do you not want truth, Sokâr?” Shu’Khan asked, so close this time that his mouth was near her ear. When had he come up behind her?
“Stay. Watch. Learn. Do you not wish to know more about your Resh’Agar?”
Auryn flinched.
His breath waswarm. Too warm. Like everything else around her. The air. Her skin. The ache between her legs. Her throat stung with it. She didn’t answer him. Couldn’t. Her lips parted, but no words came. Only the faintest exhale.
She turned back toward the veils and the drumming. Toward the scene.
A young Attendant sat in the corner of the room, beating a black leather drum. Beside him, a Priest bowed low to the ground, muttering prayers to the Void.
And that was when she sawhim.
Kailorien.
Not clothed in Morvane or brooding in silence like the man she knew. Not even like the one who came to her in dreams—mouth soft with longing, voice gravel and thunder.
No. This man…thisgod…knelt at the center of the room like an effigy of war and lust. Runes glowed along the carved lines of his arms, his back, his sides. His body was bare, wet with sweat and oil and painted symbols. Muscles corded and flexed beneath his skin with every motion. His head was bowed over one of the Companion’s shoulders, the black silk of his hair curtaining the place where his mouth moved.
A low sound rumbled from his chest. Not words. Not a moan. Agrowl.
Auryn’s nails bit into her palms.
Thiscouldn’tbe him.
Except it was.
The link between them wrapped around her ribs like a serpent, tightening with each thrust of his hips, every curl of his tongue, every trembling sigh from the women he touched.
Pleasure spiked through her spine. Her knees nearly gave out. Her vision doubled. Runes, light, heat. Her own heartbeat echoed with his rhythm—an unbearable resonance clawing through her flesh.
One of the women cried out, arching. Another knelt behind him, kissing his back, her fingers trailing down his spine. And Kailorien—no, theResh’Agar—did not stop them. He leaned into it.
Hewantedit.
He finished with one. Drained her dry of mana and tossed her onto the divan like a discarded empty flask. Another Companion crawled forward, wrapping her mouth around him. Taking him in. All of him. He fisted his hands into her black hair, hard enough to pull.
But she didn’t cry out in pain.
She moaned inbliss.
Auryn’s thighs clenched again. The place between her legs pulsed as if his touch had found her from across the room. Her breath came in gasps now—soft, desperate, ashamed.
I could never take him like that.
I’m too small.
