Page 34 of Queen of Stars and Shadows

My brain is screaming very conflicting messages. It feels so right to have his body next to mine, but so wrong to have steel pressed against my throat.

“Why the knife?” I ask carefully, trying to avoid the blade pressing against me any further.

“You are not asking the questions here.” His voice is dark and as sharp as his dagger.

He steps backward with me several steps, keeping the knife firmly in place, and then he turns me around and presses me up against a large tree. The bark of the tree is rough against my bare skin, making me all the more acutely aware of how naked I am. Our eyes meet and I can see the maelstrom churning in his, conflict and anger and a swirl of other things. Silence presses in around us, so intense I can hear the beating of my heart. I can hear Zyren’s, too.

“You have to pay for your crimes,” he finally says.

I stare at him defiantly. “And what crimes are those?”

“Seducing the king. Stealing the throne. Causing chaos in two realms. Attempting to rally enemies against the rightful ruler of Valaron.”

“Avonia?”

“King Jonavus,” Zyren hisses.

“Interesting how Avonia seems to be the one calling the shots,” I growl. “And I suppose somehow the battle last night was my doing?”

He presses the blade further into my skin, and this time I feel a trickle of blood. “Are those your final words?”

“Final words? Are you here to kill me?” My heart flutters, adrenaline spiking through my veins.

“You’re the enemy. You must be stopped.”

I stare into those beautiful pewter-colored eyes. “If you were going to kill me, you would have done it by now.”

A rumble moves through Zyren’s chest, and his hand on the blade shakes ever so slightly. His shadows swirl up and around him, and then wrap around me. The nightmare inside me shivers and makes a matching purr that vibrates through my chest. A pulse of my own shadows mixes with Zyren’s.

He draws his knife back and arcs it down toward me, stabbing it into the tree above my head. Then he grabs me by the waist and presses his mouth to mine as if he’s going to devour me.

I moan against him and wrap my legs around his hips as we crash back against the tree. Zyren’s tongue claims my mouth, hot and rough and desperate. My hands wrap around the back of his head, twisting into his hair, pulling him closer. His arms cross behind me, crushing my bare body against his chest. It feels like we’re going to merge into one being, shadow and magic and vicious pleasure.

One of his hands moves down below me, cupping my ass, and he slowly slides a finger into me even as he continues to kiss me with ferocious and unrelenting intensity. I cry out, the sound muffled against his mouth. When he’s gone in as far as he can, he curls his finger and strokes back and forth deep inside me. Ecstasy spikes through me and I arch off the tree, another moan ripping out of me.

Zyren slows his kiss to match the torturous, undulous movement of his finger inside me. Soft and delicate, teasing me until I’m breathless, shaking and shivering and breaking apart into a million glittering pieces. As I reach that cliff’s edge of pleasure, that tumultuous, earth-breaking release building within me, he pulls back to watch me. And I watch him, too, even as my eyelids start to flutter. I see his wings of shadow unfurl around him, and my inner nightmare claws to the surface, surging on my pleasure. Zyren growls, sensing her, and his eyes go black.

It’s the growl that spins me over the edge.

A cry rips from my throat as I lose myself in magic and pleasure. Wave after wave of bliss roll me under, drowning me in the best possible way. Zyren keeps stroking me expertly even as I shudder against him and fall limp in his arms. He finally withdraws his finger and I feel his lips on my neck, kissing alongthe place where he’d pressed his dagger, kissing off the droplets of blood there. Then he presses his lips to mine again, letting me taste the metallic tang of it, the danger and the death.

“Sarielle,” he growls into my mouth. “Sarielle, Sarielle…”

Just the sound of my name on his lips makes another ripple of pleasure begin to form in my core. He pulls back for a moment and stares at me, running a hand through my hair. “Your eyes,” he says, and I know they’re as black as his, our nightmares riding the shadows that swirl around us, wild and untamable. I grab the hem of his pants and tug them down.

“You will be the death of me,” he says, and then he spins me around, pressing me into the tree, and enters me from behind in one swift movement.

We cry out together, and I feel a surge as our magic blends even further. It feels like midnight and storm clouds and thick, soft fur. Like fire and stars and velvet. Zyren thrusts again, deeper, harder. I brace against the tree, palms splayed against it. One of his arms wraps around me, pressing across the length of my torso, the other presses into the tree next to me. With a growl, he shoves in again, and my head swims as another crescendo builds within me.

He slides his hand down my belly as he continues to move in and out of me, and his fingers find the delicate star above my sweet core. With wicked expertise, he begins to swirl over the top of it as he moves. “Zyren!” I cry, starting to shake already, feeling that sweet, impending undoing find me yet again.

“Not yet,” he commands, slowing his movement. He nibbles along my earlobe, his breath hot in my hair, against my neck. I can feel the movement in the air as his shadow wings arc around us, that electric charge of magic, the animal lust of our nightmares intertwining. I can feel the friction of my inner beast as she fights to take over completely. Zyren lets out a moanand bites into the side of my neck. He intertwines his hand that presses into the tree over mine.

“I remember…this,” he says breathlessly as his lips move down my neck and over the top of my shoulder.

I shudder against him, not able to hold in my pleasure any longer. “Zyren, I can’t…”

He shoves into me hard, apparently unable to wait any longer, either. His hips roll rhythmically, every movement sending another spike of pleasure through me. He begins to shake and shudder, and he kisses back up my neck, burying his face in my hair as he makes several final, powerful thrusts. Bliss explodes inside of me as I hear him cry my name one last time, and we lose ourselves together, lost in our shadows once again.

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