Page 36 of Return of the Nine

“I am fine. I was just unprepared for your memories. They overwhelmed me.”

He frowned but spoke gently. “Put the dagger back in the stone and we are officially wed.”

It took her two tries, but when the dagger slipped into the stone and it lowered beyond her sight, she sighed with relief. Her body was still weak and tingling from the wash of memories, and when he lifted her in his arms, she smiled as the feeling of being secure and protected surrounded her.

He walked to the edge of the shielded area, and when Rothaway saw them coming, he opened the barrier.

He tried to block Tonos’s progress, but to Tiera’s shock, Tonos’s wings hummed, and they lifted into the air.

The feeling of security kept her calm as he flew them across the gardens that filled the centre of the ship, and they approached the zone of the People of the Air. They flew down halls and past startled occupants as they flattened themselves against the walls to allow him to pass.

Tiera was afraid of distracting him, and his intense face was far too grim for her to interrupt him while he flew.

He settled lightly in front of a door that had a strange glyph on it. “Open the lock.”

She blinked and smiled as it came to her that he had put her biometrics in his rooms already.

The door slid open, and he walked inside with a long stride. The interior was a mix of soft gold, greys and blues. They were the same colours that were active in her gown.

He set her on her feet, and she looked around quickly, taking in the location and the view of the gardens from the wide balcony windows.

“You could have just flown here.”

He chuckled and came up behind her, pressing his hands to her shoulders and kissing her neck. “I could have, but then you wouldn’t know where we lived, and that would make your knowledge of the area incomplete.”

A tear came to her eye as she realised that his courtship, the tour, it had all been part of easing her into knowledge of the mother ship.

As his lips trailed up her neck, and he turned her in his arms, she looked up into his green eyes rimmed with the red of his rut and smiled, “Now, Tonos, you can answer a question for me.”

He smiled down at her, and his gaze heated as she moved close to him, rocking her hips against him and sliding her arms up his back, stroking the base of his wings lightly.

“What can I answer for you, bondmate?”

She blushed and leaned up to whisper against his neck, “How many ways can a man with wings have sex? I have to admit that it has been a pressing question for me.”

His body went rigid for a moment before he lifted her up to meet his gaze eye to eye. “I will do the work, you keep count. Fair enough?”

She laughed, and he carried her into his bedroom, demonstrating that he was far more familiar with the clothing that she was wearing than she was.

When the final layer of silk was all that stood between her skin and his, he slowed down and caressed, touched and kissed each inch of her that was exposed while removing the final obstacle.

She shivered with heat by the time he moved over her and joined their bodies. They rocked, twisted and writhed together, and he held her arms over her head when her caresses on his wings became too much for him.

Her mind spun as she started to come back to herself after leaving her body and whirling through the stars. The best part had been that Tonos was with her, and when he looked into her eyes with his own clear, green ones, she leaned up, kissed him and whispered, “One.”

His grin ceased before he pinned her to the bed and rolledher to her side. As he lifted her leg and entered her again, she shivered at the intensity that rolled through her.

By morning, the count was up to five, and it only stayed there because she was not willing to have him with her in the lav. Having a seat on the vanity to allow him in was tempting, but she was sore, sticky and as she told him, “There are so many more days before us.”

When she tiptoed out of the lav with a sheet covering her, Tonos smiled and gestured to the delivery slot. “There is a new dress for you as well as some shoes.”

With a little help from him, she managed to get herself dressed as a woman of the People of the Air, or Air Folk if she was feeling casual.

“How do I look?”

He grinned, pulled her in for a kiss and said, “You look like mine.”

She laughed. “I am glad that you think so, because we are going to have to go to Gaia to prove to my family that you are mine. Ziggy may be held her as the Potential, but I am not, and my mom is a little confused as to why I would fall for a man I had just met.”

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