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“I think I’m starting to like you, too,” I confessed with my small voice, throat so tight with need that I could barely speak.
He grabbed my hip and held me down onto the mattress while grinding against me. Each thrust was a spark. Over and over until I was a field aflame in the middle of the night. The heat would consume me and leave me charred, but I didn’t care.
Nothing mattered more than removing my clothes so that our skin could slide together, so that he could find his way inside me, so I could climax and scream his name. Arven seemed to read my mind. He tore at the sash of my bathrobe. He could have parted it, but even that wasn’t enough.
Tearing it away from me, he flung it across the room. When he leaned back, I almost yanked him into me for a kiss. Then I realized he was taking off his shirt. I stared, transfixed by the myriad of moving muscles flexing across the planes of his body. His skin was crisscrossed with scars, but he wasn’t the only one.
His gaze traced the scars along my ribs, over my stomach, on my thighs. We’d both survived so much to bring us to this exact moment in time. I would cherish each and every scar because it meant that I’d survived.
I’d survived and found my way back where I belonged.
I waited for the person I’d become to argue with this idea. My entire life had been dedicated to being self-sufficient. It seemed to go against everything I was to let myself sink into Arven this way. And yet…I didn’t feel like I lost anything. This was not the kind of relationship that would force me to kneel. He would not wrap me up in pretty dresses and parade me around as a symbol of my home’s power,hispower.
Arven and I were on the same level. We were equals. The was Fate’s gift to us after all we’d been through.
Hands sliding across Arven’s scarred chest as he hovered above me, I waited with bated breath for him to position the head of his cock at my opening. When the moment stretched too long and the sweet sensation never came, I almost growled with frustration. That was when Arven lowered himself so that he could kiss his way down my stomach.
I inhaled sharply with his lips grazed my folds. He slid his rough hands under my hips and wrapped his arms around me so that he could pull my groin closer to his mouth. The man groaned at the first taste of me. I almost missed it because my own moans nearly drowned him out.
He summoned such pleasure within me with only a flick of his tongue. When he lapped at me with the full power of his hunger and intention, I melted in his arms. Every coiled muscle that had been prepared to attack suddenly let go and left me a boneless heap on the mattress. I stared at the bob and sway of his head as he continued to stroke the flames of my pleasure higher and higher.
Any moment now, he would break the growing dam of sensation deep within my core. There was no one other than him who would hear the realm-shattering scream building in my throat. I didn’t have to hold back for any reason.
The screech of the wolpertinger shattered the moment. Barely a heartbeat later, the realm shuddered. The walls bowed and threatened to break. Arven moved to cover me with his body. I dug my nails into his shoulders as the throbbing need in my core faded into a pulsing ache that I fear would never be satisfied.
“Locke’s tracker found me,” I growled as I slammed my fist into Arven’s chest.
I’d known that retreating to my realm would be risky. It was why I tried to stay in cheap apartments whenever I was on a mission.I knew better.
With the snap of my fingers, clothes wrapped around my body once more. Sleek leather covered my thighs, and a protective bra cradled my breasts. Arven made a small sound of disappointment when my breasts vanished.
He sighed. “I’m sad to see them go, but you’re going to need more than that.”
I gave an appreciative nod and summoned a sturdy leather jacket to cover the rest of my torso.
Despite the rattling walls, I couldn’t help but smile. Arven and I clasped hands. He helped me to my feet where I instinctively summoned my crossbow. Feet spread apart, I waited for someone to break through so I could aim and attack. That’s what they were trying to do…
Right?
It was hard to tell from the inside. If my realm collapsed, everything inside would be lost, even my cache of weapons—I summoned them from a room within the realm. The crates that I’d just rescued from Locke’s warehouse would be lost, too.
My stomach hit the floor. That’s how he’d tracked us. It wasn’t my magical scent. I ran over to the crates and ripped the first one open. Instead of the books and globes that I’d found last time, the crate held nothing but carpet scraps and a single piece of gold.
Arven snatched up the piece of gold and held it to his nose so he could sniff it. I figured that meant there was an enchantment on it when his lips curled in a monstrous snarl. I yanked the gold piece from his hands, marched over to the kitchen where the wood hearth still burned, and chucked the enchanted token into the flames.
The walls rattled again. Books tumbled from their shelves. The wolpertinger screeched and flitted to Arven for safety. Turning my attention back to the hearth, I watched the flames flicker bright red, blue, and violet as the fire ate away at the enchantment.
“That’s not going to stop them now that they know where we are,” Arven warned.
I scowled at the crates. The walls were crumbling now. Pieces of plaster hit the ground and shattered. My mugs tumbled out of their open shelves and hit the stone tile floor. I managed to catch one, a blue and white hand-thrown mug that had little flecks of gold all along the outside. Perhaps it would be the only thing I saved—my plush cat!
“Shit,” I hissed under my breath.
The realm shrank around me. The walls were closing in. Locke was going to crush us in here if we didn’t move. Even as I ran back towards the loft, the pillows on the floor shoved into one another and became a squished heap.
“Delphine!” Arven shouted.
In the loft, I dropped to my knees and frantically tore at the blankets and bathrobe pile in search of my stuffed cat toy. I knew that it was a foolish desire that would get me killed, but I had so little left of my home that I would rather die than lose that last little piece.
