Page 7 of Aria's Ascension

Once the last one was detached, he stroked the hair back from her face, tracing his fingers over her delicate features.

“Come back, my song,” he rasped.

With every beat of his hearts that she did not open her eyes, he lost a little more of himself. With every breath that passed her lips without her whispering his name in that husky, lyrical voice of hers, another piece was consumed by the darkness.

A long, excruciating minute later, her eyes fluttered open. He thought he was imagining it at first. It wasn’t until she reached up to still his restless touches on her face that he believed she’d come back.

“Aessa,” he groaned, relief flooding him so strongly he was dizzy with it.

Tirox tried to snatch her away, but Kix held on, lifting her higher against his chest. Cupping her chin tightly in the crook of his hand, he parted her lips with his thumbs and dove at her, roughly sweeping his tongue into her mouth. He needed to taste her, to feel her heat before he could accept what his eyes were telling him.

Instead of pulling away from his aggressive assault as he expected, she moaned and kissed him back with matching hunger, her blunt nails digging into his shoulders to pull him closer.

Fire ignited in his veins at the first sweep of her tongue against his. His cock hardened, growing too long and thick to fit its sheath in the span of a single heartsbeat. The cool air of the lab felt like a shock against his heated length, but his natural lubrication slicked his shaft, lessening the sting.

Her hard nipples brushed against his chest with every breath, and the scent of her arousal made his mouth water. Her nudity had inspired fury only moments ago, but now it was all he could think of. Knowing there was nothing covering her cunt, nothing stopping him from lowering her body and ramming his cock inside her was driving him mad.

Crux, he needed her more than he needed to breathe.

He wanted to forget the danger around them, pin her to the wall, and fuck her until she sang for him over and over again. Only when she was hoarse from screaming her pleasure would he allow his own peak. Only then would he fill her with his spend until her cunt was full and he could see it dripping down her thighs.

Kix was so lost in her—in the feel of her bare body against his, her taste, her clutching hands, in fucking her mouth with his tongue, showing her what he wanted—needed—to do between her legs—that he didn’t realize he’d moved forward and had her pressed against the lab wall with her thighs wrapped around his hips until Tirox’s angry growl sounded in his ear, and he felt the sharp edge of the male’s arm spikes pressing against his neck.

Breaking free of her lips, he froze, panting hard as he stared down at her. Blinking, he realized he had one hand fisted tightly in Aria’s hair and the other wrapped around his shaft, aiming it at her opening.

He could feel the heat of her cunt against the sensitive frills of his cockhead and, for a moment, the idea of killing Tirox for interrupting them seemed perfectly reasonable.

It was that cold willingness to murder a friend—more than a friend, Tirox was one of his aessa’scajasiira—that broke through the mating haze clouding his thoughts.

Tirox must have read that flash of deadly intent, because he rumbled a low, menacing laugh and threatened, “It would be a shame to kill you when Aria seems to enjoy you so much, so instead I will cut off your cock if you do not hand over my mate, bright one.”

Kix ignored the warning for a moment in favor of scanning Aria’s face. Was she upset he’d lost control? Did she know he’d considered, even if only for a moment, killing her mate rather than give her up?

Does she know I would cut out my own hearts for her?

She gazed up at him, her green eyes dark with lust, her lips wet and swollen, but past the arousal was shrewdness. Through their bond, she could sense what he felt, so her perception didn’t surprise him. There was no hiding anything from her, and even if he could, he did not want to. What did surprise him was the understanding he saw on her face. It wasn’t approval, but neither was it condemnation.

She simply understood, andthatallowed him to release the breath he was holding. The worry she would find him deficient, that she would finally become aware of just how much darkness he was hiding, eased.

Kix went to her readily when she tugged on his neck, taking the gentle kiss she gifted him with a fanatical kind of gratitude.

She pulled back and glanced at Tirox, signaling her desire to greet him. Kix forced his hand to relax its tight grip in her hair so Tirox could take her. And when she went to him with a smile, Kix was not jealous.

She’d seen the feral side he hid and hadn’t looked upon him as if he were damaged.

That was more than he’d ever dared hope for.

Chapter 4

Aria took her time kissing Tirox, not to be fair in her affections, though that was probably something she needed to think about if this unconventional relationship of theirs had any chance of working. She took her time because she needed to feel him just as much as she needed to feel Kix.

She had to touch them, taste them, to be certain they were real.

The fear she might’ve lost them was still riding her hard, and the devastation she’d experienced at that possibility made a few things painfully clear.

She realized it didn’t matter if their chances of having a happily ever after were about as good as an owl delivering her a letter. Hell, that was even more reason to embrace this weird-ass relationship wholeheartedly, to say fuck it and just go for it. It didn’t matter that they were different or that she had no clue how to be in love with more than one man. They’d figure it out as they went.

She’d been seriously thrown off-kilter when she woke up in this place, and the knowledge that she wasn’t in control of her life here previous to that forced her guard up, but she’d always prided herself on being adaptable and unafraid of taking risks. It was time to remember that.

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