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His lips moved slowly over each one, as if he might imbue his love into the void where her wings used to be.

“What you’re feeling right now,” he murmured against her skin, “is me loving you. Not your wings. Not your power or your prowess. Not your reputation or your bloodline or anything other than you.”

Something inside Elyria gave way.

She twisted to look at him, her hands going to either side of his face, pulling him up so their lips could meet in a desperate clash of tongues and teeth. She darted one hand down between them, reaching into Cedric’s pants to wrap her fingers around his pulsing length. His intake of breath was sharp as he rose to his knees and shimmied his waistband down, freeing his cock.

His panting breaths turned needy as she pumped him hard and fast, then slow and gentle, alternating the pace of her strokes and the pressure of her grip. Her other hand was at the back of his head, her fingers twisted in his hair.

Elyria soaked in the sheen of sweat beading on Cedric’s temples, the crease between his brows as he attempted to hold himself together. One side of her mouth tipped up as a particularly rough stroke had him stuttering a curse and trying to throw his head back. She kept him in place with a tug of his hair, and he cursed again.

“A dangerous game, Trouble,” he eked out between heaves of his chest, though the warning was belied by the desperate grunt that came soon after. “If you don’t slow down, I’m going to⁠—”

She immediately withdrew her hand. “Well, we can’t have that yet, can we?” she said into his mind, delighting in the pitiful whimper that came from him at the loss of contact.

It only lasted a second. Because before Elyria had even decided how she wanted him to take her, he was flipping her around again, pressing her upper body into the soft, cool bedding.

“All right?” His voice in her mind was nothing but want as it filtered down the bond, his cock already notched at her entrance, his body shaking with barely controlled restraint.

She grinned into the sheets. “Better than all right. Necessary.”

And that was all he needed to hear before he thrust into her.

Elyria’s pleasure-filled cry was muffled by the mattress as Cedric sheathed himself entirely in one stroke, one hand gripping her hip, the other smoothing down her spine.

The stretch of him inside her was glorious. She didn’t need time to adjust, to accommodate his girth, despite how deep it was like this, how thoroughly inside he was.

“You’re so wet,” he panted, the thread between them alight with their combined pleasure as he thrust again. “So tight.” Thrust. “So stars-damned”—thrust—“motherfucking”—thrust—“perfect.”

“Flatterer.” Elyria had never been more grateful for the ability to speak directly into his mind. She didn’t think her tongue was capable of forming actual words at that moment, so consumed was she by the heat of him, his familiar, grounding weight behind her, the slap of his balls against her cunt as he set a deliciously punishing pace.

Her hands fisted in the sheets by her head, Elyria was overcome by the rightness of it all—of him inside her, of her surrounding him, of them being woven within each other. The speck of Cedric’s light held within her chest flared, warmth flooding her veins, spreading through her body. When Elyria looked at her hands, the thin veins on the underside of her wrists were illuminated.

It was only the coiling spring of pleasure deep in Elyria’s core that pulled her awestruck gaze away from it. Thoughts unspooled in her mind as Cedric hit a spot inside her just right, and her head snapped back.

Here.

Together.

Alive.

Mine.

Ours.

“Fuck, I’m so cl—” she cried in her mind, unable to even finish the thought before one of Cedric’s hands slid around her front. His palm splayed flat against her belly, pressing into her just under her navel, even as he continued pumping. The added pressure sent Elyria careening over the edge in an instant, screaming his name in her head and outside of it.

A growled shout tore from Cedric’s throat moments later as, with one final thrust, he spilled inside her with a shudder.

“Noctis light my fucking funeral pyre, Elle,” he breathed after he withdrew, collapsed onto the bed, and immediately pulled her into him. “That was . . .”

“I know,” she said, equally breathless. She clenched her thighs together as she lay on her side, face-to-face with her solimaeus, like it might help keep him inside longer. She buried her face in his chest, mildly embarrassed at the instinctual reaction. It was silly—the annual contraceptive tonic she took still had more than half a year left before she needed to dose herself again, and Solaris knew the two of them had never even had the chance to talk about that. Did Cedric want children of his own? Did she? Elyria had never really thought she did, even if the celestials decided they would bestow one upon her. It was still a rare enough thing for the fae, after all.

Still, if it was his child, Elyria couldn’t say she necessarily despised the idea. She was convinced she’d make an absolutely atrocious mother, of course, but Cedric would be a wonderful father. The best, in fact.

“I can feel you grinning. What has you so delighted?” Cedric’s voice was amused as it bounced around Elyria’s mind, and she only wriggled farther into him.

“Don’t worry about it. Well, actually, who am I talking to. Of course you’re going to worry about it. But there’s nothing to worry about. I’m just . . . happy.” She shrugged against his chest, and his arms tightened around her.