Page 148 of Ulune's Daughter

Kellan chuckles. “Love you, Teddy. Kiss the babies for me. Tell Gabe if he doesn’t text me the second you go into labor I’ll kick his cupcake ass.”

Teddy laughs and ends the call.

I nip my mate’s soft nape. “I don’t breathe that loudly.”

“Teddy’s part of a natural quaternion,” Kellan tells me. “She channels all of her husbands’ Elements. Her husband Gabe is an Air-mage at least as strong as I am. Teddy can hear a gnat sneeze at the other end of a football field.”

Annoying. And something to keep in mind for when I meet them.

She shifts and slowly rolls over, until she’s lying on her back, looking up at me. “Okay, I made my call.”

“You did,” I agree. The heat in my mate’s eyes fires my blood. “And I have held that thought.”

She swallows, her soft throat bobbing. “The last man I said, ‘I love you’ to married my sister.”

“I’m not him. I’m not faithless. I’ve never said those words to any woman but my mother and sister. I’ve waited for you, Kellan. I know you don’t feel the things I do. Let me be certain for you. Let me be your faith. I will not fail you.”

She reaches up and cups my cheek. “I love you, Lawson.”

I smile at her with my whole being. “I know.”

She pinches my earlobe with her claws. “Say it back. I want to hear it again.”

“I will. All night long. I’ll say I love you with my body and my words and my heart. I will leave you in no doubt as to how deeply you are loved or how completely your feelings are reciprocated. Come eat with me. Drink with me. Be part of my family and then let me spirit you away to my bed and have my way with you.”

Her fingers slide around the back of my neck. She pulls me down and rubs cheeks with me. “Yes.”

Chapter45

The Crow Queen’s Mate

CAILEÁN

My warrior rocks over me, pushing me slowly over the edge.

He thinks I’m drunk. It’s true a great deal of Faery wine swirls through my blood. It slows my body’s reactions a little. But my awakened mind is clear, taking in every detail of my consort as he worships me. Our mingled scents of fur, musk, blood, juniper, and mist. The ruddy flush staining his cheeks and throat. His swollen lips with a bead of blood welling along the seam where I’ve nipped him. Sweat glistens on his brow above his hooded eyes, on his upper lip, along his sharp jaw among the patches of short, golden stubble he always seems to miss when he shaves.

I flick my tongue out and lick, enjoying the salt of his body and the slight roughness of his stubble.

He groans. “More.”

I nudge his head back and kiss my way up his throat, biting at the pulse points to hear his breath break, feel the tempo of his pounding hips pick up. He’s so intent on our pleasure, my warrior. I lift my knees and cross my ankles over his pumping ass, nudging him even deeper inside me. A deep, rasping purr rumbles up out of his chest.

“Breed me,” I whisper to him, nipping at the lobe of his ear. “Take me as you need to.”

His wonderful rumble vibrates all through me, sending little shocks through my core. He gasps when I tighten around him and throws his head back. If there is a view of a man that stirs me most, it’s his view: eyes squeezed closed, head thrown back in pleasure, strong throat working. His shoulders shake and I wrap my hands around them, claws digging in, filling my hands with his strength.

“It will hurt you tomorrow, my queen,” he groans.

“But it will feel so good now,” I whisper in return. “Breed me, daddy.”

He roars, plowing into me, his spines flaring deep within, pinching, scraping, setting off an inferno of pleasure that burns us both to embers. He wraps his arms around me and holds me close, his face buried in my neck, our bodies still locked together in a rapturous spiral.

“I want to fill you with my kits, Caileán,” he murmurs, moving in me, spines raking, fucking his seed deeper into my womb.

“I’m greedy for them, our little ones. I can’t wait to see you hold them in your arms.”

Another deep, growling groan tears out of him and he flexes within me, grinding his root against my mons. He rubs on me until the hot spasms tear through me again. I pull him close and glory in the sweet aftershocks of our mating.

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