32
Borrowed Breath
The vision shatters around them, pieces of reality flying in all directions like a dizzying array of shooting stars. Kailorien stumbles back a step, one hand clutching a nearby table for balance. His breath comes fast, sharp—like he’s just surfaced from drowning. Auryn stands at the center of the room, swaying, silver blood trailing from the corners of her eyes.
And then she looks at him.
Void, the way shelooksat him.
Beyond his armor. Beyond his skin. All the way into hissoul.
“Kail…” Her voice is hoarse. Hollow.
He doesn’t recall moving, but suddenly he stands before her, pulling her against him—into him. Her hands rise, find his face, fingers threading into the thick onyx waves of his hair. She is shaking. Sure. Terrified.Craving.
“I can feel you…” she says, “in my skin. I can feel every breath. Every...”
…thought.
He leans down.Ourforeheads touch, eyes never breaking contact. Silver to blue, like foam within the ocean tide.
Auryn. My Auryn—his voice rumbles betweenUs. Not in sound. In Bond.
Her voice comes like an echo. Gentler, sweeter.
Kailorien…my heart…my breath…
Weshiver in unison, panting, swaying.
“This want,” she whispers, “thisneed...it’smore than what you’ve shown me. It’s hotter.Darker.”
I don’t know if I can survive it.
You can. You will.
“Give into it.” His voice breaks on the words. “We’ll drown in it together.”
And then his mouth was on hers—urgent, starved. Lips melting. Moans and sighs passing betweenUs—a sacred language onlyWecan understand.
One hand slides around her waist, pulling her flush against his chest, the other tangling in her braid. Holding her steady while he takes his time exploring every corner of her heat.She gasps into the kiss, welcoming his tongue, tasting him, relishing the flavor of need and lust and rapture.
That tether—theBond—flares betweenUs, fever-hot.
His yearning lives within her fingertips. The heat of his thoughts under her skin. Answers to a thousand questions defined in the way his restraint had been shattering formonths.
“Show me everything,” he rasps, breaking the kiss only long enough to breathe her name like an oath. “Your pain. Your strength. Your purpose. I never saw you clearly. Not once. Not until now.”
His hand splays over her back, guiding her down to the furs on the bed. He kisses her again, softer this time, until she whimpers beneath him. He draws her bottom lip into his mouth, grazing his teeth on the petal-soft flesh. In return, she tastes her own skin, discovering her own beauty through his eyes.
Ourlips.Ourhands.Ourbreaths unite.
His hands nudge aside her tunic, tracing the edge of her ribs. He groans at the feel of his own calloused fingers on her skin, the shared sensations so powerful his vision darkens. She arches, body singing against his.
Ourlimbs tangle—clothes half-removed, kisses falling like droplets in a rainstorm. He worships every inch of her with trembling hands and hushed gasps. Knowing her. Seeing her. Finding her, shocked he’d never realized how lost he’d been without that knowledge.
“Auryn…if we go further—”
She silences him, her leg sliding along his hip, pulling him flush.
