Sex with Draegan has always been off the charts, but this time, it’s so much more than just a physical connection. It’s trust. It’s honor. It’s vulnerability and sweetness and a deep, unbreakable sense of security I didn’t even realize I’d been longing for with him.
But most of all, it’s love.
The love I’ve felt from him for so long—the love he promised me tonight—finally left unguarded, finally allowed to blossom.
Draegan blazes a hot trail of kisses up my neck, across my jaw, finally claiming my mouth once more. And then, with one final sweep of his tongue and a deep, hot thrust between my thighs, he unravels me.
The orgasm explodes inside me, shattering me, ruining me, setting me on fire. I grip his horns and ride out every hot pulse, every throb of pleasure, my body trembling as Draegan shudders against me and comes inside me, filling me, marking me, owning me.
Loving me.
* * *
Exhaustion sweeps over us both, and I yawn and turn onto my side, Draegan’s muscled chest a warm, solid comfort against my back.
“Sleep,” he says softly, kissing my shoulder and drawing me closer, a wing draped protectively over me.
And there, before the fire in a tiny bed in an old cabin in the woods, I relax into my gargoyle’s strong embrace, his arms wrapped tight around me, his lips close to my ear, his final words the softest, sweetest whisper as I finally drift off to sleep.
“You areeverythingto me, Westlyn Avery. And you have my whole heart. You’ve had it from the very start.”
* * *
The Wintermoon sun rises on a new day, and I awaken to find Draegan busy in the cooking area, spooning piping hot oatmeal into two bowls and setting them on a tray.
“I’m no Augustine Lamont,” he says with a smile as he carries it over to the bed, “but the oats were still fresh, and I managed to find some black tea, too.”
He sits beside me and leans in for a deep kiss that almost has me thinking we should skip breakfast altogether.
“What was that for?” I tease.
“Special occasion.”
“Which one?”
“The occasion of waking up to find a beautiful naked woman in my arms, bathed in sunlight.”
I grin at him. Despite the circumstances of our travels, this feels like the perfect start to the perfect day. “Thank you.”
“For the kiss or the tea?” he asks, handing me a mug.
“Both.”
We eat breakfast in companionable silence, a freshly made fire crackling in the hearth, but all too soon, reality sets back in, our little adventure coming to its inevitable end.
We need to get back to the inn. We need to shore up our defenses and figure out a plan.
“There’s no doubt we need to take Verrick out,” Drae says, clearing away the breakfast mess while I get dressed. “I don’t want to leave Wintermoon until we accomplish that.”
“Agreed.”
“But we’ve got a decision to make.” He washes and puts away the dishes, and I push the bed back against the wall and do a quick check to make sure we’re not leaving anything behind. “We can go after him now—see if we can track him. Or we can return to the inn and regroup.”
“He wants us to follow him now,” I say. “He knows we’re less powerful when it’s just the two of us. And I don’t have my amulet, which I think is why he was able to tap into my magic in the cave. When he hit you with that spell? I don’t know. Something tells me he wouldn’t have been able to do it without me. As soon as he nailed you to the wall, I felt it—like a drain on my energy.”
“That could explain why he hasn’t mounted a stronger attack against the group. Jude and Rook… His power might just be accelerating the effects of the curse. He didn’t attack the witches, though—perhaps he couldn’t.”
“Helooksweaker, too. Like this whole thing is taking a toll on him. Another strange thing? Both times when I saw him open a portal—at the inn and again in the cave—his face did this weird flickering thing.”
