Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 107720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
The terrible weakness I’d carried since Ashfall Cliff simply vanished. Strength flooded my limbs, my blood, the very nucleus of my being.
His rutting turned fierce and shallow as smoke exploded from his back with those ember-etched wings. They swallowed up the strange world we existed in, blotting everything out as we rocked and moaned and fucked.
We healed each other. Fed each other from the polarising forces in our blood. We became a closed loop of pure, primordial magic.
“You’re glowing again,” he grunted. “Fuck, how am I supposed to stop when you feel this good?”
His hand cupping my breast caught fire just as a buffeting gust of flames broke free and scorched the sky.
“I might be glowing, but you’re the one who’s burning.” I moaned, pushing back against him, taking him deeper. “Less talking, more fucking.”
He chuckled at the same line I’d told him by the river the first time. “Such a demanding little thing. You want me deeper? Fine.” Leaning over me, he sank his teeth into my shoulder. “I feel you. I feel all of you. Take it, Rook. Take my fire. Take my soul. I’m all yours. I’ve always been yours.”
The bond blazed so bright, I could barely breathe. I heard his thoughts, felt his pleasure. I was him and he was me, and power detonated between us.
Another orgasm built—far more devastating than the others. “Come with me,” I gasped. “Please. Lucien—”
I tightened and spiralled and when the release hit, I almost passed out with euphoria.
He growled my name and followed.
My scream mixed with his roar and the bond exploded with a cataclysm of silver and gold. Divine, unbreakable power flooded back into our bodies as the sky cracked and thunder crashed.
For one breathless second, we were weightless.
But then, we plummeted—
Reality caught us hard.
Stone walls, iron bars, and black sheets.
I couldn’t get my bearings as I glanced around the cage where all of this had started. Everything was the same but also...couldn’t be more different.
I groaned as Lucien shifted behind me...inside me.
My eyes flew wide as I looked down to his arm lashed around my waist, pulling me against him as we lay on the mattress. Our clothes were still mostly on—my nightgown pushed up my legs and his trousers pushed down to his hips.
Unlike in the fantasy where we’d been naked and Lucien took me on all fours, here we were partially dressed and spooning.
“What...?” He cleared his throat, his cock twitching inside me. “How...?” He didn’t finish either of those questions as we fell silent and took stock of how this had happened.
I had no answers to the thousand questions of what was happening to us. I tried to speak but only managed a shaky whimper.
My body felt deliciously alive, and the terrible weakness was mostly gone.
The ice was back where it belonged, encasing my heart with wintery potential.
I caught snippets of his thoughts as he tried to unriddle what all of this meant.
I shifted, making Lucien groan behind me. His arm tightened, pulling me flush against him. “We’re still...connected.”
His hand slid down my stomach, possessive and gentle at the same time. “I have no idea what we just did or how, but...I feel as if I’d just had the best medicine of my life.” The tiniest flames danced around his fingernails, flickering against the white of my nightgown. “The fire is back. I don’t feel so pathetically weak anymore. And—” A huge yawn cut him off just as a wall of heavy exhaustion smacked into me.
The sedative afterglow of multiple orgasms turned into the worst sort of anaesthesia.
I tried to fight it.
Tried to stay awake.
We needed to untangle ourselves and run, but...my eyelids grew too heavy.
I had just enough energy to tap Lucien’s scorching arm and mumble, “Now what’s happening? I can’t keep my eyes open. I—”
Too late.
The darkness stole me.
Chapter Fourteen
I WOKE WITH A VIOLENT JERK, my entire body burning as if I’d been thrown into a bonfire.
My eyes flared wide, narrowing against an unfamiliar room.
Where the hell am I?
For a second, I had no memories, no bearings, but then Rook mumbled in her sleep, and everything slammed back.
Brimstone. Leaving Whisper. Rook being shot. Unable to stomach food. And then...sex. Mental and physical sex that led to both of us passing out as if we’d been drugged.
Glancing down, I traced my fingers from her belly to her breast, cupping her through her nightgown. I shuddered with vicious gratitude because...she was cold.
Wondrously, freezingly cold which meant...it hadn’t been the craziest dream of my life.
Pulling her tighter against me, I buried my face in her neck and breathed her in—frost and sex and that faint trace of winter honey that was uniquely her.
The agonising ache in my chest eased a bit.
I hadn’t lost her.
She was still alive, still perfect, still mine.
My arm locked around her waist as I hardened against her backside, wanting her again, needing a repeat of what we’d shared the moment we—