Page 73 of Elysian

“Faster,” I moaned, hiking up to take more. Sliding my hands down to his waist, I sank my fingernails into the muscle at his sides. “Cassiel,” I moaned.

His pace stuttered; instead of growing faster, he forced it back into a slow glide. The swell came abruptly and harshly, my channel clamping around him.

‘My need for you is a desperation that I will never escape.’

He uttered such sweet words that I did not want to hear. He could say all this and never understand what he had broken.

His fingers curled into my hips, his head falling back. His sharp fangs flashed from between his parted lips.

“How I loathe you, Lord Cassiel Draven,” I whispered.

‘I never want to escape you.’

Still, he continued.

I gritted my teeth and rolled my hips, taking another inch of his length inside me. All in an effort to stop his declarations. Cassiel moaned, and even the sounds he made caused such a visceral flush through my veins. Deny it as I might, he was rewriting me into something I had no wish to become. My channel fluttered around him and I took his knot.

Moans escaped from me as the pressure increased and the angle left me feeling full. I stayed pressed down on his base, rolling my hips in circles to feel every inch of his cock inside me.

He hissed and seated his knot into me, stretching me with it. He ground against me, keeping us flush. The rub against my clit shot me into another release.

My mouth had become bone dry.

The soft swell of release took me to another realm. Cassiel fell over me, his weight heavy and suffocating. I grunted, and he scooted half of himself off, keeping his arm tossed over my body. His knot kept us locked together.

We lay panting in a tangle of limbs. I hovered between the line of ecstasy and sleep. I ran my hands down his arms, caressing the deep slashes of claw-marks running down them.

“I have fed on animals only when necessary,” he said dryly. “It is not a preference of mine. They taste of dust.”

I hummed. Not having the energy to speak.

My draw to him was unmistakable. The barrier I had raised, the misgivings I clung to—neither survived what he did to me.

I tangled my fingers through his tawny hair.

“No, I do not believe you still have poison in your blood. You need to be completely healed. I did not want to weaken you.” He yawned, bucking his hips against mine, grinding his knot inside me.

My breath caught.

His length twitched, and his knot gave. A flood of moisture slicked between our sex. He groaned, a shiver cresting across his back.

He unmade me, turning me into this needy, unrecognizable creature. Even so, resisting the pleasure held no appeal. I waited for his soft exhale and the rhythm of his breathing to steady.

I lingered in his arms . . . What was I doing sitting here caressing him? It was a boundary I must not cross. After sliding out from under him, I tiptoed away from the slumbering Warlord, only pausing to collect a gown from the open wardrobe.

I escaped to a different chamber I claimed as my own, refusing to slumber in the same bed as Cassiel. For all my weakness for him, I insisted that this was a matter of the body and nothing more. Ours was a connection of convenience . . . and necessity.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Translation

Ihuddled over the desk in the study, taking a break from the translation.

After what had passed between us, I could not sleep. I roamed the halls, found a dust-coated kitchen and study, then bathed once more. After I had tired myself, I collected the satchel left in the bathing chamber, then sought out parchment and quill to begin my translations.

I had begun transcribing from the start in a new journal, since the other should be nothing more than ash. Dawnlight had come, turning to bright sunlight. I had finally completed scribbling down the information from the page outlining designations, then had begun a fresh page of new-to-me information.

I finished transcribing it before moving on to the next section that had been titled: Omegas.