Page 111 of Dark Destiny: The Turning Of The Loom

"What?"

"You said that by the time you are done preparing me, I will be so wet that you will glide inside of me effortlessly." She smiled. "You were wrong. It took a great deal of effort, but that was five thousand years ago, and I was a virgin, and a great many things have changed since then. I am not fragile, sa-mu. I do not need more preparing. I am ready for you."

"Did I hurt you? I mean back then?"

"A little. And then a great deal, and then not at all. You were very worried about hurting me, but it was the best day of my life. We were not married yet, and I conspired with Uncle Ekin to arrange for us to be alone. He lent us a bedroom and forbade his servants from entering that entire wing of the palace. I remember every moment of our first time, and I want you to remember every moment of this first time as well. I am not a virgin, my heart, and I am more than ready."

He pushed up off her and sat back on his heels, and for a moment she thought he was retreating. Then he pulled his shirt over his head, dropped it off the side of the bed, worked the drawstring of his pants loose, and shoved them down and off with a graceless impatience that made her smile.

When he came back over her, there was nothing between them, and he was as hard as he had been in the bathroom, and she took him in her hand and guided him to her.

He pushed into her slowly, watching her face, and she watched his.

When he joined them fully, the feeling that washed over her was hard to describe.

Five thousand years.

The number had been said so many times that it had lost its meaning. The enormous span of time was incomprehensible, but now that wait was finally over.

Khiann was home.

"Sa-mu," she whispered.

"I am here, my love. Always and forever."

"Yes. You are."

It was not the same.

On some level, she had known it would not be, and she had braced for it, telling herself that it did not matter, and it did not.

The Khiann who had taken her in Ekin's bed had been all about restraint, a young god holding a leash on himself so tight that his arms shook. This version of Khiann moved in her with a patient, curious attention, as if every stroke told him something about her, as if he were reading her, and did not want to miss anything. When she gasped, he did the thing that had made her gasp again. When she arched, he changed his angle to meet her. He was learning her, and it was so incredibly arousing.

Then the slow, patient rhythm changed, and instinct took over thought. His mind might have forgotten, and he had to be reminded of what lovemaking was, but his body did not need to relearn this because it had never forgotten what it was meant to do.

The sound of them together filled the room, and the glow of his eyes lit the pillow beside her head while the glow from hers shone on his face.

His fangs were fully elongated now, but he was holding back the bite, perhaps because he was scared of hurting her, or maybe because he was waiting for a sign from her.

She reached up and put her hand on the side of his face. "Now, my love."

"Not yet." His voice was rough. "At the peak. Not before."

"Then bring me to the peak. Do not make me wait."

He let loose, and as their lovemaking became frantic, she felt her climax building. When it broke, she cried out and sank her nails into his back, her whole body clenching around him.

A loud hiss was her only warning before his fangs sank into her throat.

For one instant, there was the familiar searing pain that five thousand years had not erased, and then the venom hit her blood, going through her like lightning.

Khiann climaxed too, and his fangs stayed in her, pumping more venom as his essence flowed into her.

Every nerve she had lit up at once, and one climax rolled into the next until she could not tell when one ended and the next began, and under all of it the bond throbbed.

The thread she had thought was frayed to almost nothing was pulled taut between them and sang like a struck string.

Then she was floating, passing over the familiar but nearly forgotten alien landscapes, with the colors that did not exist on Earth and the ghostly entities who smiled and waved at her as she glided above them.