I replace my tail with my fingers, desperate and needy to touch her, my skin gliding over her clit as I continue to fuck her from behind.
“I can’t stop touching you,” I whisper, leaving another trail of kisses down her neck. “Kissing you. Being inside you and fucking you so perfectly and just… oh, fuck. That’s… Westlyn, I’m…”
All my words are tangling up, spiraling out into the ether as I lose myself in the feel of her wrapped so perfectly around my cock, her body rocking softly against mine, the fire crackling, my fingers circling her clit harder and faster as she pulses around me, so close, so fucking close to that white-hot end…
“Jude,” she whispers, a prayer rather than a curse, her hand wrapped tight around my arm, squeezing me as hot tears fall on my skin. A sob wracks her body, but she’s still arching back against me, still chasing bliss. “You feel so good. You feel… I want… I just want to scream.”
“It’s okay, darling.” I press a powder-soft kiss to the shell of her ear and cover her mouth with my hand. “No one will hear you. So for tonight, right now, just let it all out. Your fears, your nightmares, all the things still tying you up in knots. For Rook, darling. Let it all out.”
Here beneath the shadow of our stone gargoyle, I feel her draw in a shaky breath and hold it, tears still hot and wet on my arm.
But then, all at once, a sob finally bursts free from her chest, her cries muffled against my palm, and her body tightens around me, trembling and hot as she rocks her hips and I fuck her harder and faster and bury my face in her hair and whisper her name over and over as I come inside her, hot and hard and devastating, claiming her with everything I’ve got, the very last, very best thing in this whole bloody realm.
In my whole bloody existence.
* * *
She’s shivering now, the last of our momentary bliss fading away like the stars in the sky. I’m still inside her, but I’m not ready to leave yet. I reach behind me for her blanket, drawing it across her naked form and arching a wing over her.
But then I feel it.
A sudden chill in marrow of my bones. A prickling in my nerves.
My wings, sensitive to even the slightest breeze, are suddenly numb. And so is my arm. My chest is tight, lungs burning as I try to suck in a breath.
“Jude? What’s—”
“Move. Now!” I shove her off the couch and leap to my feet, the movement sending a bolt of pain up my spine, straight into the base of my skull. I grab my head to keep it from fucking exploding.
It’s the last fucking thing I feel.
A dark, devastating horror sweeps across Westlyn’s face, and I know.
I’m stone.
“Jude!” she cries. “No. No, no, no. Come back, Jude. Please come back. Come back to me. Come back. Come back! Tatiana, help!”
She snatches up her clothes and hastily dresses, calling up to the other witches, her eyes frantic.
But before anyone else can respond, there’s a flicker of movement at the bar, and then…
He’s here. An apparition come to life, sauntering toward us with malice in those terrible silver eyes.
Verrick.
I’m trembling with fury… At least, Ishouldbe trembling. Itfeelslike I’m trembling. But it’s not possible. Nothing inside me will fucking move.
“This is but a taste of what awaits you unless you surrender yourself and the Codex to me now,” he says.
Westlyn’s gaze darts to the Codex, sitting on a shelf behind us. When she looks at Verrick again, the horror and fear are gone from her eyes.
Now, there is only rage.
“I’m not yours to claim,Verrick,” she hisses, calling a ball of glittering magic into her hands. “And neither is the Codex. So release whatever spell you’ve cast on the gargoyles, or you’ll get a taste of what awaitsyou.”
Verrick’s power seems to flicker in response, black veins darkening beneath his eyes, like he’s crying tears of ink.
Like he’s trying desperately to hold on to it, but doesn’t have the strength.
