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“No.” Her admission leaves me aching to follow up with another question, but Jace’s gaze darts to mine.
“We need to keep her warm, or the lines will be wavy,” he says. He has to know her reaction’s because her body instinctively recognizes she’s our mate, doesn’t he? He must scent her arousal, her need.
It fills my senses, and my body can’t refuse her. I soothe a slow hand along her spine, bringing a wing in close. “Tell me if I crowd you. I can be anywhere in the room to read the invocation spells.”
“Stay,” she whispers, and I lock onto the word. She wants us both here. It’s enough for now.
Jace switches paints, pulling an indigo stroke down the elegant slope of her neck. I pick up a brush and start the detail work, chanting as I go. Candle light flickers over her skin, casting an amber glow across our work. She’s magnificent. Each line and angle flows along her spine, a spell of its own in the way I’m captivated by every breath she takes, how they go shallow the lower we move.
She twists her hands in my sheets, her knuckles going white by the time we finish the design. When she squirms, her back arching, I have to clench my jaw to keep from begging her to let us help with the tension. She’s killing me with those quiet whimpers. I haven’t kissed the woman, and this ritual has felt damn near orgasmic in its sensuality.
“Finished with the runes,” Jace finally announces.
Thank fuck. I wrap up the final invocation.
“I can’t tell if it worked,” Rosemarie says, a near whine in her voice that tugs at my heart. Our strong mate has been pushed to the limits tonight.
“Let it dry,” I reassure her. “It’ll lock into place, and you’ll be able to understand everyone as easily as you did with the translator. You’ll even hear and understand more now that the magic is part of you.”
“Can I block out the Bridge’s crying?” she whispers. “Just for a little while.”
Oh gods, she can hear the Bridge. More than that, she’s in tune with it so much that she can’t ignore its ruin. She’s the queen the prophecy promised. We’ll be her kings before this ends—her mates, her lovers. I try to lock down my hope and lust before I lose control.
“I hurt,” she adds.
Jace’s gaze snaps to me, worry plain in his eyes.
“Tell me where,” I demand, my voice going rough on a growl because I know exactly what unsatisfied lust feels like. I feel it every moment around her, and the aroused scent perfuming the air makes it so dense I can almost taste the sweetness. There’s a sour note beneath, a bite of acidity to our queen. I can’t wait to lick it from her.
“Everywhere,” she confesses, keeping her face to the pillows, but I don’t miss the whimper working up her throat.
“Tell us what we can do to ease your pain, Rosemarie.” The snap in my voice gets her moving instead of the constant squirming that’s wreaking havoc on my control.
“Do you need a healing potion?” Jace asks.
“No.” She lifts to her knees, knotting her hair atop her head to keep the strands out of the paint. “It’s an ache.” Her words weep with want and yearning.
Jace’s distressed expression looks as if he might go out of his mind. His wings shudder, and his tail curls away from her as though he needs to put space between them to keep from touching her.
“Whatever you crave,” I tell her, “we’ll give you. Anything. But you have to say it.” Her pleasure would be our honor to serve especially if the mating call has seized her in its vise as tightly as it has us. “Make your demand, little queen.”
She doesn’t look my way but keeps her eyes on Jace. “A kiss.”
With her simple request, that one sweet ask, the events she sets into motion, she has sealed our fates. At least one of us might be mated to her before the coronation. The quiet agony ripping through me is the unasked question I don’t want answered—if her mating bond selects only one of us, which will she choose? The dread thrumming through my body taunts that it won’t be me unless I manipulate this game in my favor.
23
ROSEMARIE
THE EMPRESS: EMBRACE YOUR DIVINE FEMININE TO CREATE A LIFE FULL OF LOVE
After the exquisite agony of having the twins wash me, care for me, and then anoint my hyper sensitive skin with oils before painting magical runes along my spine, I’m aching with need.
Whatever super-potent fragrance the twins are rocking, it makes me dizzy and drunk, the palpable flavor burning my tongue with sweetness and want. I tingle from my scalp to my toes, and my core has gone so warm and wet that I squirm for relief. The ache in my breasts and my core pulses along with my heartbeat, heavy and demanding to the point of near pain.
A kiss.
That’s all I’d asked for.
