Page 164 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

I tore myself away from her throat, the taste of her blood still thick on my tongue. For one endless moment, her eyes met mine—and so much honesty passed between us, both of us exposed with only our flesh and our desires and our primal impulses.

“Yours,” I ground out. “It’s yours.”

My blood. My body. My soul.

I had given her all of that a long time ago. I even had given her my life.

And I’d do it all again.

I urged her head down as our bodies writhed around each other, rushing to the end. She accepted eagerly, her mouth falling to my throat again, drawing in a deep mouthful of my blood.

I felt her swallow, and then, a moment later, felt her climax take her. A desperate cry, one she didn’t even try to stifle, rang out against my skin—long, whimpering, holding fragments of torn-up curses and pleas.

“Raihn,” she choked out, like she was hurtling through oblivion and desperate for someone to anchor her.

I knew that, because I felt it, too.

I know,I wanted to say. But my own orgasm stole the words, my cock buried deep inside her, muscles seizing. She was shaking, whimpering, as her body tensed through wave after wave of aftershock.

I held her, and filled her, nestling my face into the space between her throat and shoulder as we both relinquished ourselves.

For a few incredible seconds, everything disappeared in a hazy, soft mist of her.

When the world returned, it all felt... different.

I’d had plenty of sex before. Some bad, some good, much of it ill-advised. But this didn’t feel like sex. It felt like a religious ritual—like finding faith.

Oraya had collapsed against me. A sudden wave of exhaustion hit me—and with it, a fresh awareness of the pain of my wounds, which I’d strained something fierce in all the activity. Not that I could bring myself to be too broken up about it.

Her breath was deep and hard. My hand fell to her back, rubbing softly.

Finally, she sat up. She licked my throat with a little flick, cleaning off the rest of the blood. I tipped her head back and did the same, relishing the final tastes of her. The shift of her hips with the movement reminded me that I was still inside her. Another kiss, another minute, and I could’ve had her again.

But that blood-and-sex-drunk weariness had settled over me, and I could tell Oraya was fighting it, too.

I fell back onto the bed, turning on my side and gently guiding her down to the blankets as I slipped from her.

She curled up on her side and I folded around her, our bodies fitting easily together.

Already, I sensed her heartbeat slowing, her breath calming.

Already, my own eyelashes were fluttering.

I kissed her shoulder, her cheek, settled down in a nest of her hair. Her scent surrounded me. Oraya had always smelled so damned alive—not the scent of incense or withered flowers like so many vampires, but the scent of spring.

I felt the overwhelming urge to say something to her, even though I wasn’t sure what that would be. But Oraya’s hand fell over mine, and that touch somehow seemed to mean more than all the words put together.

Maybe for the best, because sleep took me so fast, they slipped through my fingers like sand, anyway.

46

ORAYA

Iawoke to soft kisses over my cheek, my ear, my neck.

These last months, waking up always felt like a battle, as if I was being dragged back to the land of the living kicking and screaming.

This was not a battle. This was a gentle summons, sweet and tender.

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