Page 106 of May: Bloom & Bane

Ashán, Sage says quietly. It’s alright.

I did not know it would feel like being alive.

I know, he pauses. Now you do. She gave that to both of us.

Her small fingers slide into my hair, holding my skull against her collarbone.

“Take your time,” she whispers. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I lift my head, my eye flaring possessively.

“I am going to ruin you, ash’kaela.”

She smiles and runs her fingers through my hair. “I’m waiting.”

What an odd little creature. This small, impossibly warm thing sitting split open on top of me, saying I’m waiting like I have offered her a cup of tea.

I lift her an inch or two and let her sink back down onto every rib of me. And gods, the sound she makes. I do it again. And again. Watching her face the entire time, hunting for the exact moment pain would show, and finding none—finding only her mouth falling open, her copper lashes fluttering and that gorgeous ruined little furrow between her brows.

“Look at me,” I command.

She blinks slowly, her green eyes glassy and blown wide.

“Do you see what you’re taking?” I lift her again, higher this time, dragging every segment of the skal against her walls on the way out. She keens, and I pull her back down onto me in one heavy stroke. “Say it.”

“Y-yours⁠—”

“Say what it is.”

“Your cock—” Her nails carve down my chest. “Your—ughhh, Ashán. It’s moving again.”

“Because you want it to,” I groan against her pulse. “Because you’re dripping and shaking and my cage knows what your body needs before you do.”

“You’re so big.” Her head tips back.

The corner of my lip pulls up in a dark, skeletal smirk.

“Do you know the best part, ash’kaela?” I press a kiss to her throat. “Every segment of my cage secretes venya. Which is why you’re so comfortable right now. But any second now—when the numbness wears off and the heat kicks in—you’re going to feel very, very high on me.”

On cue, heat pours out of me and into her, filling her, and the effect is instant. Her eyes go unfocused. Her mouth goes slack. The keening turns into something wordless and desperate, and she starts fucking herself down onto me faster than my hands are guiding her.

“There she is,” I breathe. “There is my greedy little sinner.”

“More. Ashán, more⁠—”

My hand slides between us, over the soft swell of her belly, down to where she is stretched wide around me, and I press the cool pad of one bone finger against her swollen clit.

She cries out.

“A bit sensitive this morning, aren’t we, ash’kaela?” I circle it slowly, savoring the way her thighs jerk, watching the shadows churn faster inside me where our bodies join. “Do you know what I have watched him do to this sweet little kísh the last few days? Do you know how many times I memorized the way you fall apart, and thought—when it is my turn, I will do it better?”

“Ashán—”

“He worships you like a garden. Soft and patient.” My other hand, Sage’s hand, closes over her breast, rolling her peaked nipple between his soft fingers. Her spine arches into my palm. I lean in, my fangs grazing the shell of her ear. “I am going to worship you like a grave, mí’maru. Thoroughly. Six feet deep. Forever.”

Her walls clamp down around every rib of me.

“Oh, you liked that.” The smirk pulls across our shared mouth. “My little sinner likes being buried.”