Page 54 of Aria's Desire

Sin glanced at her as though asking for help. Aria smirked and shrugged. “You heard him. You can’t give up before you try.”

He gave her a sour look, but there was a considering look in his eyes as he stood.

She watched closely as he let his lids close, an expression of concentration settling over his features. Moving her gaze to his back, she squinted, waiting. For a second, nothing happened and then his skin moved, rippling in a downward wave like water disturbed by a stone.

Her lips parted on a gasp as his flesh stretched outward then tore, thick bones emerging, growing, splitting off into smaller bones, before being rapidly sheathed in a thick leathery membrane.

In the span of less than a minute, a set of huge, black wings were fully formed, extending at least six feet to either side.

“Jesus, Sin,” she breathed, stunned. “You did it.” Walking forward almost in a daze, Aria slid her fingers over one midnight black wing, feeling the warm, leathery skin shift under her touch. “They’re beautiful.”

Rellik made a noise of shock and stepped up beside her, eyeing Sin’s massive wings with an expression of slack-jawed astonishment. He grinned suddenly and stepped around to pull Sin into a congratulatory hug. “Gaia’s horns! Do you think they’ll carry you?”

Before he could answer, the little boy pushed between them, looking as proud as if he’d grown wings himself. “See? I told you you could do it! You did real good, monsrr!” He gasped, his eyes popping wide, as something seemed to occur to him. “I gotta tell my siser I taught you how ta grow wings!”

The three of them laughed and Rellik muttered ruely, “The entire village will be regaled with the tale of how he taught themonsrrhow to grow wings for years to come.”

Becoming aware that they held more than a little attention, Sin got an uncomfortable look on his face and quickly closed his eyes, concentrating to retract the huge wings back into his body.

Peering up at him, Aria realized that, while being the center of the kids’ attention didn’t bother him at all, being the center of adults’ did.

She felt suddenly protective of him at that understanding. Moving to stand in front of him, blocking most people’s view, she scanned the crowd for Hampha. Spotting her, she reached back for Sin’s hand and led the way to the long table where places for them had been set.

They spent hours celebrating, feasting, dancing, and accepting too many congratulations to count. After the first hour or so of the feast, the children were sent to bed, including the little boy who they learned was Hampha’s son, Rellik’s nephew, explaining the familiar shade of his orange eyes.

As soon as the children were gone, the celebration turned… livelier.

* * *

By the timethey made it back at the castle, it was the middle of the night. In spite of the exhaustion dragging at her, Aria knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. She was too keyed up, felt twitchy and restless and… horny, damnit.

That was entirely Rellik and Sin’s fault.

She knew Rellik genuinely thought the unattached males, as he called them, would be discouraged from pursuing after seeing how enthusiastically she fought for him and how readily he accepted her claim.

He’d been wrong.

Aria had felt downright hunted. She’d been beset by offers to pleasure her, some subtle, but most had been explicit, the males describing in shocking detail how they’d please her with mouths, hands, cocks, and, in a few cases, their horns.

The ‘courting’ hadn’t stopped there. She’d been offered gems, weapons, clothes, jewelry, food, and anything else they could find or make.

She politely declined all of them, not wanting to encourage anybody, but she’d been seriously tempted by a few of the offerings. Two in particular caught her eye: a pair of butter soft, hand-stitched leather pants with built-in hidden pockets, perfect for stashing a knife or six, and a stunning gold cuff meant to be worn on the upper arm. Aria wasn’t a big jewelry person, but that had been beautiful.

Others showed off their skills, including cooking, flirting, craft-making, fighting, and dancing… if you could call what they did dancing. Their movements were wickedly erotic, more like an imitation of sex or a striptease than any dance with which she was familiar. Aria hadn’t realized she was staring at them in a slack-jawed daze until Sin growled and closed her mouth for her.

They reminded her of sex-deprived peacocks, preening and flashing their proverbial feathers to try and lure her in.

Once her men realized what was happening, they stopped socializing and stayed close to her, for which she was intensely thankful. The problem was that the males weren’t at all put off by their nearness or blatantfuck offsignals unless they were stuck to her like glue and clearly commanding her attention.

So, they fed her, touched her, and danced around the bonfire with her.

Now, here she was, almost painfully aroused all over again, but that wasn’t the only thing keeping her keyed up.

She’d been tense after the ceremony, once the pleasurable lassitude and endorphins wore off, both because she was nervous about the talk she was going to have to have with her mates but mostly because she expected Rellik to behave differently.

She even went through the trouble of working herself up about it, stressing herself out over imagined scenarios about how he would demand a promise of forever or want to talk about moving in or want to sneak off to a back room for sex or look at her with expectation in his eyes like everything was settled and she’d essentially agreed to marry him.

But he hadn’t.

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