Page 97 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

“Sure, laugh,” he grumbled. “We’ll see what your walking looks like soon. Here. Alright if I help?”

I hesitated, then nodded.

“It’s hard at first to figure out how to isolate the right muscles. But…” Gently, so gently, his hands moved to the underside of my wings, where they met my back. “You’re stiff. If you relax your muscles, they won’t fall off. I know it feels like they will.”

His hands slid up, applying gentle pressure along the way, coaxing them to spread. My instinct was to move them myself, but Raihn said, “Don’t you dare. I don’t want to get stabbed in the eye again. Just… relax.”

Another stroke, at that tight knot of muscle. I twitched as his thumb ghosted over my skin.

He stopped immediately.

“Did that hurt?”

I didn’t answer right away. “No.”

No. It was the opposite of hurt. Awkwardly so.

“Do you want me to stop?”

Say yes.

But it had been more than a month since I had felt safe. Longer than that since a touch had felt… comforting.

I found myself answering, “No.”

He resumed, slow, running along the muscle. Even through the thin layer of my shirt, I could feel the warmth of his hands. The roughness of his callouses.

“Just let go of it,” he said softly. “Let me support the weight of them. I’ve got you.”

As if he could hear the inner fight I was having with my subconscious. And slowly, slowly, with the help of his hands braced beneath my wings, the muscles relaxed.

“There you go,” he said. “Not so hard.”

I didn’t speak, mostly because I didn’t have words for how good it felt to have someone else bear some of that burden. I hadn’t realized how heavy it was until the weight was lessened.

Suddenly, I was exhausted.

Raihn’s touch traveled farther up—where the limb gave way to the delicate, softer skin of the wing.

I stiffened. Right away, he withdrew his hands. “Did I hurt you?”

I was so grateful he couldn’t see my face. It felt hot.

“No. It—it’s fine.”

He hesitated. Then his hands fell back to my wings, light and gentle.

“Open for me,” he said.

I didn’t even have to tell my body to obey. They just… unfolded beneath that barely-there touch, like flower petals.

“Beautiful,” Raihn murmured, as his fingertips ran all the way up the soft, sensitive underside.

This time, the pleasure was unmistakable. No longer hidden beneath the surface, no longer ignorable. This was intense, a shiver that ran up my spine—up my inner thighs, into my core. Like his mouth had once felt on my throat or my earlobe.

Like desire incarnate, echoing in my entire being.

My exhale trembled.

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