Page 29 of To Run with the Wild Hunt

I could feel his pulse inside me, our hearts beating together, and all at once I finally understood the longings of that heart. Nuada was so many things, and had worn so many faces. But deep underneath was a man like any other, who wanted to be loved—not in spite of what he was, but because of it, every sharp edge and dangerous depth.

And I did, I realized, with a sensation like the sun dawning inside of me. I'd always loved him—loved pitting myself against the hunter, dancing on the edge of the world with the call of the void singing in my ears. I was a reckless, solitary, wild thing, and like any tigress I needed a tiger to take me to mate. Keilain had given me a home, and Nuada would give me the danger I craved.

"Come closer," I murmured to the eyes in the darkness, letting myself step up to the brink of eternity.

He let go of my wrists and let my legs drop off his shoulders, lowering our hips to the ground without pulling out of me. I met his hazed eyes, his pupils wide dark pools and his irises merely mahogany once more. Flushed with bliss, I brushed his sweaty hair out of his face, smiling up at him.

He leaned his cheek into the touch, eyes fluttering shut. "Lexi," he said, his voice rough with longing.

"Nykhir," I said, using the name that lay at the heart of his soul, love warming mine. I leaned my face up to his, pausing a hairsbreadth from his lips, my nose alongside his, and whispered, "Surrender."

He shivered, lashes parting so he could meet my gaze once more. "Yes," he said, like it was a promise, and pressed his mouth to mine.

Perfection

Nuada Silverhand

The world vanished in the taste of my soulmate's kiss, the bliss of orgasm overwhelmed by the rapture of being truly seen. It was the moment of loosing an arrow with the bone-deep knowledge that it would fly true. It was the sensation of a Court blooming into life beneath my bare foot, and the absolute relief of my fingers touching the skin of my face after millennia of separation. It was the first breath taken after ages of suffocation, the first step in a dance with a partner who knew me better than herself, the home I hadn't had since my headwaters had been stolen from me by the one I'd loved.

It was all of those things and none of them, the love of a woman who had seen the worst of me and who still wanted me with her whole heart, giving me a place in the world to simply be. I hadn't even known I'd been searching for it since Boenn had betrayed me, but in Lexi's kiss I found the paradise I'd longed for all those endless years.

We'd found our perfect balance as soulmated trueloves, our lives linked indelibly. I would never be alone again. I would always have Lexi, and Lexi would always have Key, my deathless power linking the three of us in an unbreakable chain.

I started laughing, helpless before the joy that sang in my chest like brightly-colored birds, my hands cupping her face and my forehead resting against hers. She laughed with me, tangling her fingers in my hair and pressing her warm body up against mine.

"Thank you for goading me into the chase," I said, unable to stop smiling at her. "I was breaking into pieces trying to keep from harming you."

She wiggled underneath me, making me voice a low growl. "I'm a resilient sort of gal," she said, all but glowing from happiness. "I like the adrenaline rush, and I don't mind wearing a few scars. If you've wrecked my pussy, though, we're going to have words."

I kissed her again, melting into the sweetness of her mouth, letting the perfection of those red lips chase away the world. Lexi looked up at me with soft eyes when I broke the contact, her brown eyes still with a mare's slot pupil. I decided not to tell her, pleased that our mating would leave such a mark on her, and pulled out of her with a quiet groan.

The sight of her open pussy with my seed dripping out of her sent a shock of desire through me despite my softening cock. With my tongue running along the sharp point of my canine, I slid three of my fingers into her, my breath quickening at the grip of her channel on me. "My power is yours," I said, pumping my fingers slowly in and out of her. "Change what I've done to you, if you desire it. I'll merely do it again… and again… and again," I added, my voice dropping to a growl as her lashes fluttered and the walls of her cunt tightened on my fingers, her body clenching down around me.

"Oh, fuck," she moaned, canting her hips up against my fingers, creamy thighs spread for me and a wash of my seed sliding out of her as her core clenched down.

My Lexi looked beautifully ruined, her hair mussed and with streaks of blood on her soft sides. She had a bruised welt on her left hip, the cruel kiss of my whip leaving its love-mark. I hadn't chosen to heal it, and neither had she. Even with the sensation of balancing with her fresh in my soul, that expression of tenderness took me by surprise. She wanted me—everything I was, from the love of a healer to the brutal bite of a killer.

"Love that is red and sharp and wet," I murmured, drawing my fingers out of her and tracing them down her woad-marked skin in wet lines.

"Is that a quote?" she asked, giving me an exhausted smile.

Keilain jumped down from the rocky outcropping in his four-legged form, startling me enough that I didn't catch myself until I was crouched over Lexi in a defensive posture, my teeth bared and a spear in my hand.

He gave me a canine grin, tail wagging and ears cocked. "Part of one," he said, sounding amused. "Though I don't think we'll need the latter half, will we, Nuada?"

I lifted my lip at the hound prince and sat back on my heels as I dismissed the conjured spear, offering Lexi my hand when she pushed herself up. "You need not sound so smug about being right."

"I like being smug," he replied, stretching luxuriously.

Lexi took my hand, smiling at me as I helped her to a seated position, then leaned against my side with the ease of long companionship. My expression softened, all my attention on her again, my bold palomino mare. Moving with care so I wouldn't jostle her, I settled myself onto the ground next to her, plucking a leaf out of her tangled hair with a smile warming my face.

I was as stupidly, gloriously, devotedly in love as Keilain. If the world vanished and I only ever had Lexi to chase, I would never even notice the loss.

"C'mere, Key," she said with her head resting against my shoulder, holding out one hand and beckoning to him.

He relaxed, the tension going out of his spine as he trotted to her side and buried his face against her breasts.

"That's my good boy," she murmured, rubbing him behind the ears while he rumbled in pleasure.

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