He flew around the untouched, quiet side of the archipelago. The vines curling around the pillars on his tiny, private island palace fluttered as his feet touched the ground, wings unfurled to keep him steady after being in the air so long.
Vale and Bastian greeted them.
A last moment of shared intimacy, she met his eyes, still held in his arms. He let her go carefully, and she slid down his body, bare feet touching the stone as she winced. Bastian caught her, hugging her to him, as his scarlet eyes swept down her frame and searched for the source of the blood. When he found her cut arm, his lip curled, fangs flashing.
Quietly, she said, "I’m okay, Bastian. Really." She coughed again. "It could’ve been much worse." As she faced away from him, Graves saw her exposed back, wings matted and skin scraped, like she’d been dragged over the ground.
His nails bit into his palms. Bastian quietly spoke with her, and over her head, Graves met Vale’s green, burning eyes.
Are they still alive?
One is,the King replied.We wanted to see the nature of her injuries before we gave him the mercy of death.Vale stepped toward Luella and Bastian. The vampire had lifted her in his arms, her legs hooked around his waist, and the ends of her wings draped over his arms as he carried her inside.
Vale forced them to stop with a raised hand. Luella shrank back into Bastian’s side, but the King merely reached for her arm, holding it up to the light. The bracelet on her wrist gleamed. Her fingers were bruised and swollen. Smoke streamed from his lips. He brought her arm up to his mouth and kissed the inside of her palm, gently, carefully, as if she were made of glass.
Luella’s breath hitched. "Vale…"
"Never again, darling." He said something too low for Graves to hear, and he couldn’t help but feel a smidge of jealousy well up. She’d been in his arms for hours. He could share her.
They all needed her.
Something between them had shifted—at first, he thought it had been just between the two of them, but watching her with Bastian and Vale, Graves realized it was between them all.
Bastian carried Luella inside, and she lay her cheek on the vampire’s chest, half-lidded blue eyes finding Graves, where he trailed after like a dark shadow. Something fierce burned in his chest at the sight, his hands flexing by his sides—a mix of relief that she was safe, devotion to her, and jealousy that she was no longer in his arms.
45
GENTLENESS
LUELLA
"Iwant to learn how to fly."
Tharen’s hands stilled on Luella, and her lids shuttered closed as tension blanketed the room.
She knew she should not have said it—or at the very least, waited until the torment of being taken had worn off.
She sat in the cozy bed, the curtains pulled snug, blocking out the dimming sun. Her gown had long since been removed, replaced by a comfortable shift that reached her upper thighs, the back of which was open to accommodate her wings. The blankets pooled around her waist, and cool air teased her nipples, soft zings of pleasure rippling down her chest as she kept her eyes shut.
Tharen’s calloused fingers dug into her shoulder blades, utterly still in the wake of her declaration.
She breathed, feeling the coolness invade her lungs.
Vale’s voice rippled through the room like the soft whoosh of the curtains as the air rustled them:
"Why?"
One word, and she tensed.
Luella didn’t open her eyes. Her head hung low, fingers curled in the sheets around her waist. The action made her swollen fingers pulse with pain.
Tharen broke from his stupor, reaching down to untangle her hands from the sheet with a soft tsking sound. "What did I tell you, lamb? Try not to move your hand much. You’ll only aggravate it further."
She opened her eyes then, attention trained on his large, scarred hands, where they covered hers. His fingers flexed against hers, and she lifted her chin to meet the Prima’s eyes. She remembered their last words and deeds, etched into his face and the way he held her hands—precious, yet strained.
There was no judgment in his eyes, but a similar curiosity that she felt niggling in her soul from their bond. Each of her five felt so vastly different. She could recognize them by feel, alone. There was no mistaking the iciness that clung to the thread stretched between them.
She couldn’t ignore the ash drifting from the fiery thread between her and Vale, where he stood by the headboard, fist against his mouth, smoke drifting through his fingers.
