Page 63 of The Reaping Rose

“I know.” He leans forward, planting a kiss on my thigh where skin peeks through the lace.

“I was scared,” I tell him as he bends my knee so he can kiss a path up the inside of my leg.

“What were you scared of?” His eyes meet mine, but his lips don’t leave my skin.

His magic hugs me to the wall, and even as he kneels before me, he’s everywhere.

“I was scared the Rite took my choice away. That maybe what I felt for you was because of the ceremony, or the bind. That it wasn’t real. I was scared to trust it.”

My fingers tighten in his hair as he inches closer to where I’m aching for him.

“Or maybe I was scared because I knew that wasn’t the case at all. I knew what my heart decided, no matter what that meant for my realm, and it was selfish because it doomed my people. But I couldn’t help it. I chose you in my heart, my soul. Long before I found you in the prison, my spirit chose you in the fates. And in the time we were apart, I tried to forget that so it wouldn’t hurt so much to be away from you. But it did.”

A tear slips down my cheek as he pauses, looking up at me. His large palms cup the backs of my legs.

He swallows hard. “It hurt me too. Every second away from you felt like I was barely surviving. Years in a prison is easier than one day without you.”

“I know it’s a silly human thing, but…”

He waits for me to finish my thought from his knees, smirking when he hears the whisper in the thread before I can find the courage to speak the words aloud.

A beautiful smile climbs Wilder’s face. “I love you too, Elorie. It’s you and me from now until the fates unwind.”

He stands, picking me up, carrying me across the room, and setting me at the foot of the bed long enough to strip us both before he climbs over me on the mattress.

Wilder drags my lower lip between his teeth as his hard cock grinds against my slick heat. I grip the sheets with such intensity that my nails rip small frays in them.

From now until the fates unwind.

It might be sooner than I’d like. It might be tomorrow that the Luminess decides we’ve had enough, and the Well finally swallows us whole. But for tonight, Wilder drives his cock into me, and I lose all sense of anything but my mate.

A connection woven through existence.

Wilder hooks his arm under one of my legs and pulls it up over his shoulder, and he’s so deep I can hardly catch my breath. My lungs stutter, and our mouths meet, sealing us together.

He rolls his hips, and magic sparks from my fingertips, winding over his shoulders, wrapping with his aether, ready to play. We’re bound in sparkling threads of light as he thrusts.

Desire turns to need.

Longing turns to necessity.

My back arches off the bed, Wilder’s gold eyes watching me as I press my palm to his heart. It beats too quickly—faster than mine now. I don’t know what that means except that my magic wraps tighter, trying to keep him here.

“Gods, I can’t get enough of you.” He looks down at me, and somehow the rest of the room has dimmed.

We’re a star at the center.

A pinprick of light so bright and endless it dulls all else.

“Then don’t stop.” I moan, wrapping my hand up around the back of his neck and pulling him close. “I need⁠—”

My breath catches.

Thoughts seize.

My chest is expanding with this heat inside me. Magic that slumbered for so long now spills from every pore. Pleasure peaking with his strong, heady thrusts.

“What do you need?” His teeth nip at my lower lip.