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My heart raced, but I bared my teeth at him, my faerie guardian twitching on my arm. Ever since I’d reunited with my sisters, my full faerie powers had reappeared. I could release my griffin on him in an instant, and it would rip him to shreds. “Step away.”
His gaze landed on my faerie guardian. His shoulders dropped, and he stepped back, throwing up a dark smile, his shadows pulling into himself. And like that, he’d transformed himself into the smooth, unflappable Ornan I’d first met outside the throne room. “That’s the thing about the future—can you ever truly know if you have thwarted it?” His eyes flicked over my body and his smile turned knowing. “Enjoy your night of pleasure, your majesty. If you find him lacking, I shall gladly let you take Macha’s place in our bargain. Just say please.”
That drew a snarl out of me. Ornan only laughed as the shadows enveloped him and he was gone.
I remained there, staring at the spot where he had disappeared, trembling.
“Chels?” Dagda’s voice brought me around. “Is something amiss?”
I sucked in a breath. He stood under the glow of the lanterns, a golden light casting over his features, his bare feet, his trousers, his shirt that hung from him, wide and untucked. That gentleness in his gaze that took me in.
My mouth opened, but that is as far as I got. Ornan’s deal held strong.
I pressed my lips together and looked out over the emptiness in front of the Rowan tree. “You’re early,” I said. “The others—”
“Are not coming,” he said.
Oh, thank god. “You knew?”
A low laugh huffed out of him. “Once you disseminate news to the court, there is no possible way tonotknow.”
I retook in his loose shirt, his bare feet with new meaning. “I wanted to—”
“I know what you wanted to do. And while the mating ritual of the oncemate bond was something in which Dagda and Morrigan of old participated, neither you nor I, in our present forms, are interested in having an audience.”
The air slid from my lungs in a low whoosh. I stepped over the ring of roots in which I stood and moved toward him. He watched me. His vast gaze taking me in, swallowing me, swooping me up into the night sky above.
I stopped right in front of him.
He reached up, his fingers caressing my arms, a vulnerability to that desire that raged in his eyes. “You do not have to do this, Chels.”
Damn. He was so… I slid closer, our bodies brushing against one another like a soft stroke of air. "Dagda.” I whispered his name, and his eyes closed. “I have wanted you since the moment I found you sitting on that bench telling me love stories in the stars.” Reaching under his shirt, I slid my palm to his chest. His breath hitched, and I pressed harder. “I desired you the day you first kissed me and again that night when you shoved your body to mine.” My palm inched over his pecs, down onto his stomach, where his muscles bunched and hardened under my touch. “And I have craved you ever since you made love to me on the floor of that throne room.”
I drew my other hand up his neck into his hair. Dagda’s eyes opened and there was such an all-encompassing heat there. My whole body warmed under his gaze. I rose onto my toes and pressed my lips to his. His shoulders lowered and the tips of his fingers grasped my sides.
A low groan escaped him as I pulled back and lifted the hand still under his shirt, the fabric bunching upward. I untangled my other hand from his hair and pulled it up over his head. He moved with me, raising his arms and lowering them. The heat from his chest barreled into me, the muscles in his core hard as adamant.
His shirt balled in my hands and I struggled to keep my breaths from going ragged. “You cared for me before I thought myself worth loving. I’ll always love you for that.” A wave of vulnerable burning blasted into me, an affection so deep it made my eyes sting. I shut them, feeling Dagda’s response rolling over me through the bond, accepting it. That he cherished me.
A wicked smile curled my lips. The shirt slid from my grasp and I ran a finger over his broad shoulders. “Besides, I recall a promise—something about not stopping till I cry out your name?”
The wanting in his expression grew. “I always keep my word.”
“Yes,” I murmured. I drew one strap off my shoulder and then the other. The loose dress dropped, pooling around my bare feet, leaving me standing naked before him. “I had hoped so.”
I raised my eyes to his and the fire raging in that vast gaze stole my breath.
“May I make love to you, Dagda?”
He closed the last little distance between us, the warm skin of his chest pressing into my breasts. His mouth on me, on my neck, on my throat, closing over my mouth. I kissed him back, harder, harder. I pushed my tongue between his lips, into him, curving to meet his. A groan rumbled up from deep within that sent shivers through me. His arm wrapped around me, tensed, urging me closer. Ever closer. His hips aligned with mine and I found myself pushing into him. Wanting more pressure, more of him. I lifted a leg, and he caught it, hitching it up to his waist. His lips dropped to the hollow of my throat and I threw my head back. My arms circled his neck, then I raised my other leg, wrapping them around him. Tight. I needed everything tighter, closer, harder.
Dagda braced me between the small of my back and my buttocks. His breaths were uneven, his eyes wild. I kissed his neck, his shoulders. He rushed forward, underneath the Rowan tree, into the circle of roots, where he laid me among the soft soil and leaves. In one smooth movement, he shucked off his pants and stood above me.
He stared down at me, my legs open before him, a thick wetness pooling out of me at the sight of him. Holy hell. He stood there, utterly naked, every part of him defined and corded in the dim starlight.
Then he was on his knees. His hands reached out, almost reverently, as they slid over my thighs. He leaned between my legs and kissed my abdomen, right above the belly button. I twined my fingers into his hair as his lips moved lower even while his hands moved higher up the inside of my thighs, closer to the pulsing apex, my stomach curling in anticipation.
I couldn’t breathe. Oh god. My chest burned, and I found my gasps coming in quick short bursts.
