Page 132

Her eyes widened, wetness pooling at her center as she watched him stroke it—once, twice—before leaning forward to brace himself with his other hand next to her head, then notching himself at her entrance.

And then there was only bliss, only the exquisite stretch of him inside her as he sheathed himself in her dripping heat, filling her in a single thrust. She cried his name as he pulled back, then drove into her again, and again, and again.

She could feel everything. Feel all of him. His throbbing cock inside her, his breath on her skin, his murmurs in her mind, his magic in her blood. She didn’t know where she ended and where he began. At some far-distant point in the past—incomprehensible to consider, really—there had been her, and there had been him. Now there was only them, and them, and them, and them, and⁠—

“Cedric,” she gasped, wrapping her legs around his waist, drawing him even deeper.

The groan that burst from him vibrated straight through her. “Elle,” he breathed, hoisting her up and flipping their positions, seating himself on the end of the bed with her straddling him. His tongue laved against her bondmark, and that alone almost sent Elyria careening over the edge. As did the primal sound he made as he sucked more of her essence into his mouth. Cedric’s fingers dug into her sides as she rolled her hips, feeling every inch of him against her inner walls as she dragged herself back, then plunged forward again. Her shadows burst free, dancing across their skin, wrapping themselves in the wisps of sunfyre emanating from him.

Stars above, it was the most miraculous sight.

Shadow and sun weaving together, the darkness meeting the light. A whole new kind of braided cord—created just for them, by them.

Elyria’s nails raked down Cedric’s back as pleasure coiled tight and hot behind her navel, every sensation sharpening. There was the brush of skin on skin, the quiet grunts, the low whimpers he made, the way his grip tightened when her own breath hitched.

He felt it all too.

She knew he could.

Elyria dipped her head back to his neck, relishing in the power that shot through her as more of his drugging blood washed over her tongue. They were both so close, and that feeling in her core was spreading through her body, washing through her veins, her muscles, coursing down her spine, her shoulder blades . . .

And that’s when Elyria felt it.

Felt them.

The magic that kept her wings vanished melted away.

They appeared.

But they were not loose and limp against her back.

Not an adornment or a decoration.

They were lifted up, flared wide over her shoulders—fluttering, undulating, like they meant to wrap up Elyria and Cedric both, cocooning them in glorious swaths of purple and green, a miniature aurora all their own.

That wasn’t all, though.

That braided thread of shadow and sun snaked along each edge, ran across the surface of each stained glass wing.

Bolstering.

Tempering.

Strengthening.

Elyria couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. Not as she flexed the muscles along her shoulder blades, and her wings moved.

A sob tore up her throat, that deep hollow place behind her ribs filling in, closing up.

Still buried inside her, Cedric froze. His gold-brown eyes were wide and his hands were tight on her hips as Elyria let her wings open and close, furl and unfurl, rise and fall.

They moved without effort, without strain—solid and responsive and alive, like they’d never been severed from her in the first place. She felt the drip, drip, drip of the tears spilling freely down her face, splashing onto her collarbone. And then she was laughing, the sound buoyant and joyous and free, and Cedric was burying his face in her neck, his shoulders shaking with happy sobs of his own.

Elyria leaned back so she could cup his face in her hands and bring his gaze to hers.

“Solimaeus,” she murmured into his mind.

“Solimaeus,” he whispered back, before crashing his lips to hers once more.