His wings sharply cut through the air, taking him away, until he found himself at the towering mountains wrapping around the archipelago. Where rock met grass, then sea, water fell steadily from a hole in the side of one of the mountains. A private place he used to come to be alone.
He shrugged off his clothes until he stood nude underneath the falls.
The stone ran red with the blood that washed from his body. He tipped his head back, closed his eyes, and his hand traveled down his stomach until he gripped his hard length, a groan tearing free and echoing off the stone around him.
Graves fisted himself harder, and as the blood was washed away from him entirely, he stroked himself to the thought of her. Wicked thoughts—thoughts he would never share with her, for the others would have his head.
Thoughts of her, under him, coated in blood, while the dead eyes of her enemies watched.
He came on a guttural cry, his release coating his hand and breaths loud with exertion.
Blood darkened the stone under his feet as he stood there, staring at the walls and letting the water crest over him.
The power of which he had come to care for her troubled him deeply. And so did the realization of the lengths he would go to keep her safe from whoever dared to cause her harm.
Graves smiled.
Let them come.
He would kill whoever tried.
47
STARRY PINNACLE OF PLEASURE
LUELLA
Luella’s flying lessons did not happen immediately. Of course, it took her pressing the issue to see a change.
Days after her abduction, on the first day of her lessons, they stood among the trees on Graves’s island. Sorill was there, gifting Luella a kind smile, all while her Vincire watched her failure.
Graves stood before her, a steady pillar in the harsh wind. Sorill was by his side, after she’d made the promise to keep quiet unless needed. Vale and Tharen paced the length between two trees as they watched her. As usual for the vampire, Bastian was at ease, languidly resting atop a few thick blankets he’d brought outside. He drank from a stone cup, but when he pulled it away from his lips, they were stained red. He had not drunk from her since their time aboard the ship.
Was her blood not good enough?
After pressing a fierce kiss to her lips, uncaring that Sorill stood right there, watching, Az leaned against a tree, arms crossed over his large chest. His amber eyes intently scoured her, as if awaiting the first instant she might need him.
The wind was a punishing force, whipping her hair and the soft fabric of her flowing gown. Her wings rippled behind her.
Restless, she fisted her gown and rolled her shoulders back, feeling the twinge from her bandaged upper arm, and asked, "What do I do first?"
"The first step to flight is never flight," Graves said, voice warped due to the wind. "Remember when I taught you how to walk again?" He stepped closer, circling her. She nodded. He disappeared behind her. "How do you think you can fly, if you cannot even stretch out your wings?" His bare fingers brushed the back of her left wing, and her knees grew weak. He tugged, and she felt the pull deep into her back muscles, reminding her how untrained she truly was.
Graves finished circling her, standing right before her—too close to be proper. "To fly is to be free," he said lowly. His arm brushed her cheek as he reached for the tip of her wing, poking over her back. She couldn’t hide the way her eyes grew dark with desire from his touch. "And right now, you are caged."
Her jaw locked as she stared up at him. "Not voluntarily."
"Of course not."
It became just Luella and Graves. The angel and the Fallen.
She was no longer aware of the others, watching as they were undoubtedly doing.
Luella had something to prove. To him… and to herself.
Graves moved to stand behind her, and without telling her, he palmed her wings with an adamantine touch. She gasped. Loudly.
"I’m going to stretch them," he told her.
