Page 51 of Wings of Cruelty and Flame

I scoffed. “I’ve seen no evidence of that.”

His hand flexed on my back. “Is that so? Even after our wedding night, dearling?”

Heat spread through me like ink in water. “I’m not sure I’d use the wordtalented.”

“Your legs shook as you came on my face.”

I pinched his shoulder. “Don’t sound so smug.” But his eyes were light and the smile sat more naturally on his stubbled face. “Anyone could have given me that reaction.”

A little darkness entered his expression. “You think so?”

My heart kicked up when his hands tightened around my waist, yanking me closer. “I do.”

“Let’s rectify that, shall we?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

AMEIRAH

His kiss was like an explosion through all my senses, waking up the parts of me that had become leaden and hollowed by grief. He was here, alive, kissing me, and my soul flooded with relief like a dam had burst. My body sang wherever we aligned, his hands roaming across my body, touching every place he could.

“Ameirah,” he exhaled against my lips, pulling me tighter into him, his kisses becoming feverish, deeper, desperate. I tasted rain and lightning and earthy spices on his tongue. Whatever he tasted on mine made him groan and kiss me harder, every stroke of his tongue frantic like he couldn’t consume me fast enough. “Tell me you don’t still hate me.”

“I don’t,” I gasped against his lips and it wasn’t a lie.

“Hold me tighter, fiercer, please.”

I pressed my fingers into his shoulders, sure I would leave bruises even with the leather between us, and sank my other hand into his hair, gripping ruthlessly as our kiss turned evenneedier. The scent of him invaded my senses with rainwater, leather, and sweat, just a hint of amber and oud.

“Tomorrow,” he groaned against my mouth, his hands finding my ass, dragging me closer, “I want us to fly to Wyfell and get our marriage marks. I can’t wait the extra hours to fly home, I need you to bear my mark as soon as possible.”

The possessive part of mepurredat the thought of Varidian inked with the marriage mark. Every marking was different, decided by the magic in the ink of the mark-scribe. What would ours be? A typical heart, a coin or chain for a mutually-beneficial arrangement, or something more unique?

“I’d mark you here and now, but I don’t have the ink and I’m no scribe,” he went on, lips caressing their way down my jaw to my neck.

“Tomorrow can’t come soon enough,” I replied, my eyes fluttering shut when his kisses scorched my sensitive throat, his hands squeezing my ass until a shock of sensation went through my clit. “Varidian, don’t deny me like on our wedding night.”

“I won't,” he replied, pained. “I can’t. I need you so much I can’t breathe, Ameirah.”

The smirking, seductor was gone and in his place was a desperate, gasping man who couldn’t get me close enough.

“I’ll be gentle,” he rasped, drawing back to meet my eyes, his hands stroking up and down my back. “I won’t make it hurt for you.”

“I don’t care.” It was the truth. I’d had to make peace with the fact he was never coming back, but here he was, kissing me, clinging to me like he’d been every bit as afraid to die as I’d been to lose him. “Make it hurt or make it good or both. I just need to feel you. I really—I thought the storm had killed you, Varidian.”

His eyes squeezed shut, wrinkles of torment cast across his face. “And I matter enough that you’d mourn me?”

“It would have broken my heart. Itdidbreak my heart when I thought you were gone. All those years we were supposed to have together stolen, all that future ripped away.”

His eyes opened, the blue of his irises writhing with shadows of emotion. They were strange like mine, those eyes. Not amber or gold or brown or black. Blue like the sky, like the ocean. “You told me not to die.”

My brow furrowed, my hands feathering up his back, not caring that his leathers were still slick. Caring a little that he still wore them when we should have both been naked.

“Before Mak and I left the ground. You told me not to die, and I made a promise. I wasn’t about to break it.” Cool knuckles brushed my jaw, my cheek. “A promise given to my wife is more binding than law. I’d fight any villain, endure any battle, fly through a thousand storms, to keep my word to you.”

His words hit my soul like an embrace, and more of the pain of grieving him soothed. I tipped my head forward, my forehead coming to rest against his, our bodies aligned everywhere. The frenzy of need paused for a moment, like the ebb of the ocean, and I breathed him in, letting myself relax, accepting that he was really here, whole.

“Keep speaking like that and I’m in grave danger,” I murmured, fingertips playing with the damp hair at the back of his neck.

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