Page 89 of Blood of Two Crowns

My voice dropped to a low, warning growl.“Mareina…”

She tugged at my grasp, and I allowed one of her hands to break free. I shouldn’t have, but I did.

“Let me take care of you…”

She lowered a hand, brushing the loofah over my hard length and lower, even beneath my balls, before she knelt to scrub down each of my legs. The sight of her kneeling beneath me harkened memories of our nights together in my tent.

When she began to scrub my feet, my tail whipped forward and curled around her waist, lifting her back to her feet. All of my pent-up emotions and desire for this maddening female had every muscle in my body rigid and primed to strike.Or thrust.

I snagged the loofah from her hands as I pinned her arms above her head. My tail pushed her against the shower wall. Unable to resist temptation, I leaned forward to take in her scent.

“Akash, you smell like fucking heaven.”

Both my arousal and emotionburnedthrough me so fiercely my heart clenched and my eyes stung. My words were spoken through clenched teeth.

“Do you have any idea how much I’ve missed you, Mareina? Do you?”

Mareina remained silent as she pulled her hands free from mine before sliding them over my shoulders and my neck and carding her fingers through my wet hair.

“How every moment you were away from me, I felt as though my soul was fucking dying?”

Her haunted gaze held mine. “Four months passed inhellwithout you, and there was not an hour that would go by where I didn’t think about you and?—

Mareina’s words stopped short as her voice cracked, and she was forced to draw in a steadying breath. “Even before Vassileo, when I was here with…” Her voice broke again as her eyes glistened. “With Malekai… Istilllonged for you.”

Like the drawback of a wave upon the shore, my eyes searched hers, frantically scouring her gaze for sign of anything that might stop this cresting tsunami of agony. My jaw worked desperately to hold back the swelling of my emotion. “I’m sorry for everything I’ve done to hurt you, Mareina… I am beyond ashamed of how I treated you and tried to?—

My words were cut off as Mareina tugged her hands out of my grip and covered my mouth. “Not right now… Please. I just need you to help me forget. Even if it’s just for a few minutes.Please.”

Chapter

Fifty-Four

MAREINA

Nakoa’s expression was nothing short of tortured as he held my gaze. My hands roamed over his thickly muscled shoulders before curling my fingers around his neck. I didn’t miss the hope and fear infusing his words. “What would you have me do?”

Akash almighty.

Anything and everything.

Iron wings flapped in my belly as I gathered my courage. I knew he desired me. Our bond made sure of that, but after everything that had happened… I was still terrified of opening myself up to him. Perhaps most of all, because, next to Azrael, I couldn’t ignore the fact that so much of this wasmyfault.

But if I had learned anything with Malekai… It was that time was never guaranteed, and I refused to waste a second more of it on fear instead of allowing myself to love and be loved. To give my soul what itlongedfor and demanded.

And just as my soul needed and demandedMalekai, I knew that nothing would ever change the fact that I would always feel the same for Nakoa. No matter what happened between us. We had literally tried to kill one another, and still, it had done very little to quell the soul-deep longing for him.

I rose to my tiptoes and pulled him down to graze my lips across his beautifully scarred cheek.“I love you, Nakoa Solanis. Let me show you, please. Let me fulfill our bond.”

Nakoa’s arms came around me, and in the next moment, the shower turned off, and our bodies were dry. The brush of his magic in doing so made every hair on my body rise. My legs instinctively curled around his waist as he lifted me off the ground.

Nakoa’s lips captured mine as his fingers sank into the globes of my ass to the point of bruising. Our lips and tongues slid together and twined, each caress infused with an aching, soul-deep need.

As he strode towards the bed, his teeth nipped firmly at my bottom lip before sucking it into his mouth in a way that I felt in my clit. With every pass of his tongue and lips, it further coaxed open the floodgates of all our restrained emotions.

All the hurt, unhealed wounds, the lust and desire, the longing. How much we had missed one another. The love and need we shared all crested in a tidal wave, ready to obliterate our feebly constructed walls.

Tears burned my eyes as Nakoa laid me on the bed with shocking tenderness. He pulled back to take in the glistening in my eyes, and caressed my cheek as we both savored this moment. Squeezing me against his chest, he buried his face in the curve of my neck, breathing in my scent.

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