Page 17 of Flight of Fate

Silky black hairtickles my neck as Myron kisses the sensitive skin beneath my ear, sensual lips nipping, teasing until a trail of fire runs straight to my core. A moan escapes me, my fingers digging into the muscles of his back, nails scratching, claiming. Myron’s responding groan makes my body arch against his. My human body.

When I changed back, I can’t remember, and does it really matter when he’s worshipping every last inch of my human skin, hands roaming along my chest, circling my breasts, stroking my stomach, gliding lower until they coast my hips?

“I’ve missed you, Ayna,” he growls against my collarbone as he chases the fire all the way down to the heat between my legs, and when his tongue brushes up my center, I scream.

I scream so fucking loud I might have woken up half the palace, but nothing stirs in the darkness surrounding us.

Myron’s answering chuckle is a ghost of a touch as he waits until I settle back into the soft sheets. “If that’s your response to one touch, I want to know what you sound like when I have you teetering the line between bliss and desperation while I keep you on the edge of your release.”

He’s talking entirely too much, but every word—everybreath—brings me closer to said line until my thighs are shaking and my hands are tangling with his hair, practically begging him to bestow upon me that magic touch of his tongue.

And when he does—Guardians, when he does, I forget I’m alive, or that I was wondering a moment ago how I returned into my human form, how Myron wasn’t surprised to find me naked in my human skin in his bed half an hour ago. I forget my name and where I am and what I might have been. The only thing I don’t forget is Myron’s name as I scream it when he closes his lips over that sensitive bundle of nerves at the apex of my thighs and I writhe beneath him, splintering into a million pieces.

Myron chuckles, the sound running through me like a dark summons melting my core so deeply all I can think of is that I need him to fill me or I’ll burst into tears for lack of words. Myron knows it, too, because he rises above me, kneeling between my legs and stripping out of his black pants. His shirt, I freed him of earlier, my hands eager to touch his warm skin.

“Please,” I moan as he hovers there, an inch from my entrance. “Please, Myron.”

Something snaps in his all-black eyes as he sheaths himself inside me, shadows spilling from his hands where he grabs my hips to lift them for a deeper angle. I nod at him, encouragement enough for him to thrust into me at a relentless pace that has me seeing the silver light of release beckoning on the horizon all over again. Guardians, I missed this. I missed the perfect fit of him when he slides in, the firm, yet gentle grip of his hands, the darkness enveloping him as he brings us closer to the edge with each thrust.

“Ayna,” he growls as I start rolling my hips in time with his, a warning that he won’t be able to hold back if I keep it up.

I don’t care. My hands are reaching for his face, pulling his mouth to mine. His tongue meets mine in a dance of devastationand delight as we both steer for a cliff I know there’s no coming back from.

“Not yet, Ayna,” he whispers as if he knows something I don’t. “Not yet.”

But I’m so close. And I want him to lose that final bit of control keeping him from letting go, from leaping into the unknown beyond.

It’s too late to stop myself as I rush into the oblivion of ecstasy, and Myron’s groan reverberates through me like an afterthought of my own pleasure as he follows suit, finishing with one final, mighty thrust.

“Ayna,” he whispers my name into the darkness now fully enveloping us, and his touch becomes a memory, my exhausted limbs heavy and distant, like this isn’t my body and I’m not really here.

“Myron?” My voice is swallowed up by the cold and empty space surrounding me, and there is no answer.

No answer when I scream his name into the void—and my scream becomes a caw.

When I open my eyes, I’m back in my bird form, panting tiny breaths as the dream puffs into smoke, and I’m not certain if it was a reprieve from the torture this form has become or a nightmare meant to be a torment by reminding me of what I lost.

“Are you eating this?” Kaira shoves my cookie plate toward me on the low table by the silver brocade sofa. “Not that you have to. I could get you meat pie instead. I’m sure the cook doesn’t have a problem delivering some of those tasty, savory…”

“Shut it, Kaira. I’m trying to think.” Clio lounges in an armchair, her copper hair a wild waterfall over her shoulder and in entirely too stark contrast with her vibrant pink shirt.

“I guess she picked the wrong spot for thinking,”I note, relying on Kaira to supply my comment to the Fairy Princess.

Kaira smirks at me as she drawls, “Ayna says you shouldn’t even try. It might hurt your pretty head.”

With my beak, I pick up a crumb of cookie and hurl it at my sister while cursing at her in my head.

Clio gives me a bored look. “You probably said the exact opposite and Kaira is being a pain in the ass,” she suggests, and I dip my beak so low I nearly get stuck in the cookie before me.

“I want meat pies. Now.”I don’t need to add that my bad mood isn’t exclusively because of what happened in the forest but because last night’s dream still clings to me like a sheen of the desperation Myron quoted. Even when he came to save me from Gus and the twins… Saving is all he can do. There is no version of this where I can be close to him like in that dream.

I’m still struggling to understand what exactly happened when my instincts took over in the forest, but from what Myron said when my tossing woke him after l couldn’t fall asleep with that dream still clinging to my thoughts, it must have been my bird nature taking over, shoving back all human remains. Apparently, the rush of adrenaline when Gus captured me combined with the fear for my life brought out the real crow in me, and had it not been for the connection through the mating bond, however thin it might be, I might have lost myself for good. Trust Myron to swoop in and save my ass while simultaneously messing with all sorts of emotions that can only be of human origin. Surprising heat rushes my neck, and I’m for once grateful for my feather coat.

Kaira only chuckles darkly but doesn’t comment as she unfolds herself from the sofa and makes for the door. “Anythingfor you, Princess?” She waves a hand at Clio, who shakes her head.

“Unless it’s about six and a half feet tall, extraordinarily built, and has hair almost as pretty as mine, no thanks.”

I cackle a half-hearted laugh.

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