Page 70 of The Highseer's Mate

I lay my head on his shoulder as the fluttering in my chest leaves me light-headed. Varek has changed me completely and all I want to do is bask in the joy that he brings. And a family?

How could something I had never considered before sound like something I can’t live without?

“You should not have offered to take my punishment,” Varek says.

My hands tremble around his neck, stroking his short hair down to his mane. “I would do it again.”

He grits his teeth. “You would be best to obey me, Paige.”

I pull back and cup his cheeks. “You wouldn’t like me nearly as much if I did,” I say.

His frown slowly morphs into a smile. He captures my mouth and everything blurs.

The kiss isn’t slow or tentative—it is raw and urgent. The release of all the tension that had coiled tight between us. Our mouths move together in a frenzied rhythm, lips parting, breaths mingling.

Starved. We’d been starved for each other.

It’s a flood of everything we hadn’t been able to say before.

Relief, passion, the fierce need to hold on now that we have the chance. It’s messy and imperfect, our mouths colliding with more hunger than grace, but it is ours.

Warmth rocks through me and a soft whimper escapes my lips.

Varek freezes. We lock eyes and his are dark—those amber depths shining with something devious.

Suddenly, I’m all too aware that we are still in the Luminary and very much on display.

I lean in and tease his ear, squeezing my legs around his waist. “Take me home,” I say. “I’ve been dying for your touch.”

Varek grunts and begins walking, holding me steady beneath the thighs and teasing up and down my throat with his nose.

“And my bulb?”

I suck in a sharp breath, a fluttering feeling settling between my legs. All of the sudden I do feel empty. Needy. Hot for his touch.

I nod, arching into his muscled chest.

Varek picks up the pace, jogging through the glowhollow to our chamber. We leave everything behind in the Luminary.

Our fears. Our past. Every moment of uncertainty.

All we’re left with now is the fire and passion between us and a future filled with more happiness. Finally, Varek ducks inside our chamber, the leathers heavily falling back into place behind him. He lays me down in the furs and tears off my leathers, tossing them aside. They flutter to the ground half shredded.

“Hey!” I whine as he pushes me down, his hand flat against my sternum.

Varek only chuckles. “A Highseer’s mate will wear leathers that bear my markings. You will receive new ones when I am finished with you.”

“Are you always this demanding?”

He smirks. “I will be this time. If you aren’t carrying my spryt now, you will be after this.”

Chapter 27

Paige

Varek undoes the ties on his leathers and pushes them down, his thick cock springing free.

My mouth waters as I enjoy his physique. Even after a grueling week down in the mines, he looks like a God—untamed, primal, and mine.

---