“You are beautiful,” he says, his voice thick with emotion.
He explores my body with his mouth and hands, a slow, deliberate worship that builds a fire deep in my belly. This is not the frantic, possessive claiming of before. This is the tender, thorough devotion of a mate. And I meet his worship with my own, my hands mapping the hard planes of his body, the corded muscle of his arms, the impossible, leathery smoothness of his wings.
When I can bear the sweet agony no longer, I pull him down to me. “Eoin,” I plead, my voice a ragged sound.
He positions himself between my legs, his own magnificent body a testament to the power and grace of his race. “Call me your mate,” he commands.
“You are my mate,” I sob, my hips arching up to meet him. “Now, please…”
He enters me slowly, a sacred, deliberate joining that is not a stretching, but a completion. Every inch of him is a prayeranswered, a homecoming I never knew I was searching for. He is the missing piece of my soul, and as he fills me completely, a profound sense of rightness settles deep in my bones. Our connection is not a storm or a fire; it is a pure, white light of absolute fusion, a silent song of two souls finally, irrevocably, becoming one.
He holds himself still inside me, his massive body trembling with the effort of his restraint. He rests his forehead against mine, his starless eyes gazing into my very soul. “Elza,” he breathes, his voice thick with a millennia of unshed emotion. “I love you. I have loved you since you stood before me, a defiant queen with fire in your eyes.”
“And I love you,” I whisper, my hands coming up to cup his face, my thumbs tracing the sharp, beautiful lines of his cheekbones. “My monster. My savior. My mate.”
He begins to move, a slow, deep rhythm of love and possession. It is not the punishing drive of our past encounters; it is a worshipful, claiming act. Each thrust is a vow, each withdrawal a promise to return. He holds my gaze, and in his eyes, I see an eternity of devotion. “Forever, Elza,” he vows, his hips speaking the same language as his words, each movement a deliberate, soul-deep caress.
“Forever,” I cry out, my body a live wire of pure, loving sensation. The slow, deep friction is a sweet, maddening agony, building a fire low in my belly. My fingers dig into the hard muscle of his shoulders, my head thrashing on the soft furs. “Oh gods, Eoin… it is too much.”
“It is not enough,” he groans, his control beginning to fray. “I have waited an eternity for this. For you.”
He withdraws, and I cry out at the loss, but then he is surging back into me, deeper this time, his powerful body a force of nature. “Harder, my mate,” I plead, my hips rising to meet his, my voice a ragged sound of pure need. “Please, take me.”
A guttural growl rips from his chest, and the rhythm becomes a powerful, driving beat, a frantic, life-affirming dance. He is a god, and I am his goddess, and in this moment, we are creating a universe all our own. He grabs my leg, hooking it over his shoulder, tilting my hips to give him an even deeper access. He hits deep, over and over, that secret place inside me that is his and his alone, sending waves of pure, shattering pleasure through my entire body.
“Tell me you are mine,” he commands, his voice a raw rasp as he slams into me.
“Yours!” I scream, my sanity unraveling. “Always yours! Take me, Eoin, please, fuck me like you own me!”
“I do,” he roars, his hips a punishing, glorious rhythm. He tangles a hand in my hair, tilting my head back, his mouth finding mine in a brutal, possessive kiss as he continues to drive into me, pushing me closer and closer to the edge.
Our climax is a shared, screaming release, a transcendent supernova that whites out the world. I feel his release, hot and powerful, flooding me at the same instant my own body shatters into a million points of light, my scream of his name swallowed by his own possessive roar.
In the quiet afterglow, we lie tangled together, his body still buried deep inside mine, a warm, heavy weight that is no longer a violation, but an anchor. My heart feels too big for my chest, overflowing with a love so fierce it is a physical pain.
He feels it, too. He lifts his head, his eyes wide with a stunned, dawning awe. “The Fading…” he whispers, his voice filled with disbelief. “It is gone. The bond… it is healing me.” He looks at me, a profound understanding dawning on his face. “And I am giving you my years. We are… balanced.”
Equals. In every way.
Tears of joy track silently down my face. We are not just mates. We are a miracle.
“What now, my fierce queen?” he murmurs, his lips pressing against my temple.
I think of our people, our new home, our uncertain, hunted future. And then I think of Lyren, safe and asleep nearby. I smile, a real, true smile that reaches my eyes.
“Now,” I whisper, my hand coming to rest on my flat stomach. “I think Lyren needs a brother or a sister to chase through these woods.”
He throws his head back and laughs, a sound of pure, unadulterated joy that I have never heard before. As we lie together, watching the first, faint rays of the rising sun begin to pierce the darkness, our psychic link is a warm, steady cord of pure love and contentment. Our future is a dangerous, unknown country. But we will face it together. A family. Finally, truly, a family.
ELZA
ONE YEAR LATER
The sound of the forge hammer is the heartbeat of our new home, just as it was at Haven. But here, the beat is stronger, more certain. We named this valley Aethelgard, a word from Eoin’s ancient tongue. It means ‘First Home,’ a place of new beginnings. And it is.
I stand in the center of the training yard, a circle of packed earth surrounded by the towering, ancient trees of the Gloomwood. Before me are two dozen recruits, a mix of my surviving people from Haven and a growing number of Vrakken outcasts who have sought us out, having heard whispers of Eoin’s rebellion against the Matriarch. They are a strange, beautiful, and sometimes volatile mix, but they are ours. They are the beginning of a new world.
“Again,” I command, my voice ringing with an authority I no longer have to force. “The shield is not just a barrier; it is a weapon. Focus your will, push your energy outwards. Like this.”
