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But this kiss… It’s different from before. A shift from desperation to pure passion. No rush. No overwhelming need to devour. This kiss is soft, achingly slow, and by the time I nearly shatter against his fingers, he tears away from my mouth and presses fiery kisses down the length of my body until his face is tucked neatly between my thighs.

Power courses through me at the sight of Quill Godrickson, my mate, soon-to-be vampire supreme and one of the Seven, on his knees between my legs as if he’s readying himself to pray to me. He licks my center in one devastatingly delicious swipe, and I cannot stop myself from bucking into him. He tsks, a smile dancing in his eyes as he reprimands me. “Good girls only come when they behave.”

Those words unleash an unexplored craving within me to be praised, and I lie still, obedient, as he dips his head once more. With a grin on his wet lips, he pins my legs apart and feasts upon my core. His attention to the way my body reacts to him is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Every moan, every tightening of my fists, every hitch of my fake breath, dictates how he pleasures me.

“I’m so close,” I pant. I am so close to coming, so close to bursting with his name on my lips and the taste of me on his tongue, that it aches.

Come for me, love. He hums against my core. Pressure builds within me, and as his next words fill my mind with the heady image of his length filling me entirely, I do as he commands. That’s a good girl.

Desire swells in me once more at those words and at the sight of his perfect mouth glistening with my need. He licks his lips, and my body goes boneless as he says, “You taste so fucking divine, Rory. Your blood, your come. Every bit of you is ambrosial.”

“Is that your way of saying I’m the best you’ve ever had?” I tease.

“Yes,” he growls, crawling back up my body. “You are exceptional.” A kiss to my navel. “Addictive.” A drag of his tongue between my breasts. “All-consuming.” He presses tender kisses along my collarbone, teeth grazing my skin.

I want him to bite me again.

I want to taste his blood again.

I want I want I want.

“Now, Quill,” I gasp. “I want to feel you inside me.”

Quill leans back on his haunches and unlaces his pants, springing himself free. He teases my entrance with the tip of his cock. I arch into his touch. I want to taste him, want to take him in my mouth the way I did that night in the manor, but if the gentle way he’s worshiping my body is any indication, tonight isn’t about fucking.

It’s about making love.

He settles between my hips as my body stretches to accommodate his length, inch by delicious inch, until he’s fully sheathed inside me. He rocks into me slowly, tenderly.

Our lips meet, but our teeth do not clash. Instead, our kisses are a dance between lovers, between mates, holding a whisper of forever. A promise that we can take our time because we have an unlimited amount of it. It’s freeing and scary and unknown, but I grasp that promise, cling to it, and hold it tenderly in my heart.

My fingers gently drag through his hair, nails down his taut back, until they rest there. His muscles ripple beneath my fingertips. I break the kiss to whimper his name as he picks up his pace, pounding into me.

I moan, I scream, I come.

And so does he.

Quill longed for me for centuries before he found me, and something about that makes a phantom warmth spread through me. A warmth like the bright, morning sunlight shining through the windows, casting a rainbow of colors across us.

My mind lights up with an idea, and I prop myself up on my forearm. There will be no moment more perfect for us to accept our bond more than right now after an evening of lovemaking, and the whisper of forever a ghost on my skin.

My hands shake as I trace a faint scar along his bicep. “I would like to partake in the Pledging.”

He casts me a sideways glance. “Would you now?” The sun bathes him in a wash of gold, and though we are creatures of the night, he is even more heartbreakingly beautiful during the day. “There’s no rush.”

He’s right, of course. There isn’t a rush. But Vivvy, King Joal, and the rite robbed me of precious moments I’ll spend a lifetime trying to retrieve. Partaking in this vow could be the start of something new. Something I choose for myself without being on the brink of death. Something that is further proof my pathetic mortal life wasn’t a waste but was merely an extremely bumpy part of the journey leading to this very moment.

“I want you,” I say, more sure than I’ve ever been about anything. “I want to accept you as my mate.”

He… frowns. It is one of dread, of unease, of rejection.

“As much as I love hearing those words fall from your lips,” he says carefully, gaze focused on the ceiling, “it’s too soon.”

“It’s not.”

“It is.” His stare slides to me once more, and it is riddled with rejection, and suddenly, I’m too bare, too vulnerable, before him.

This want. This desperate desire to belong, to be loved by him, is embarrassing.