Page 87 of Acedia

“Never.” Was she worried I would? I wasn’t capable of leaving Iris alone.

And then there were no words, because nothing was sufficient and nothing was needed. The feel of her skin on mine, of her breath against my neck, her quiet, desperate moans in my ear… It was everything. She was everything.

Iris was embedded in my heart and soul, mating mark or not. She was lodged so deeply in there that there was no letting go.

“I want your knot,” Iris whined, her pussy clenching tightly around me. “Please, Damen.”

Shit.Don’t knot her.

But she wasaskingto be knotted.

What was I supposed to do? Say no to her? The idea was offensive.

“You know you never have to beg me for anything. Are you sure?”

“Yes!” She wrapped her legs around my waist, digging her heels into my lower back like she was worried I was going to pull out. Probably because I’d said I was going to, though that seemed like a very long ago and idiotic statement now.

I pressed harder against her clit, wanting her to come before I did. I was so overflowing with power from feeding off her that it was nothing to form shadow limbs, sending them everywhere. They wrapped around her arms, her ankles, they swirled and teased her nipples, and formed a barely-there, elegant collar around her neck.

“I want one in my mouth,” Iris whispered.

Fuck.

The moment I sent one thickening shadow through her open mouth and down her throat, I was done and so was she. Iris clenched around me so tightly that it almost hurt, and I rolled my hips forward to lodge my knot into place as it swelled, pumping her full of an obscene amount of cum. The shadow tentacles disappeared as my concentration shattered, both of us breathing hard and clinging to each other as pleasure swept us away.

This time I didn’t cut off my purr as it rumbled to life, filling the room with the sound of my satisfaction.

There was no moving on. There was no letting go. Nothing about this was temporary.

Whatever I had to do to make this permanent, I would do it.

Chapter 25

“Ineed to wash,” I murmured sleepily, dozing with my head resting on Damen’s shoulder. I was in a postsex haze that I had no desire to emerge from, and I knew that a bath would ruin it, but I was very conscious of how wet and sticky I was between my thighs.

“I’ll carry you,” Damen said easily, slipping away and climbing off the bed. He politely didn’t say anything as I wrapped the towel I was lying on around my waist before he scooped me into his arms.

“Am I not too heavy for you?”

Damen scoffed. “No.”

“You must be very strong. I struggle to lift some of the older children at the nursery.”

“You probably haven’t had much of an opportunity to strengthen your muscles, Iris,” he pointed out gently.

Right. No, I hadn’t. I’d never had to lift anything heavy when I was in the attic. Occasionally, Nana said we needed to exercise and we’d go for a short walk, but I knew I wasn’t training the way people in movie montages did.

“Maybe I could start?” I wondered aloud. “I don’t want to be too weak to lift the children.”

Damen mumbled something that sounded suspiciously likethe children can walkbefore clearing his throat. “Astrid and Soren are running training sessions for the ex-Hunters who want to learn to fight.”

“I couldn’t do that, Damen. I’d be a liability.”

Damen’s arms tightened around me. “You’re never a liability. Soren and Astrid are great at what they do—they’ll be able to tailor it to you, no problem. Would you want to learn to fight?”

I nodded, a sudden rush of emotion making it hard to speak. To learn to defend myself was an ability that I never thought I’d be capable of. I wanted it more than anything.

Nana wouldn’t approve of course. Fighting wasn’t kind. The only acceptable form of it was killing Shades, and I had no interest in that, of course.

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