Page 45 of Flight of Fate

A growl of agreement builds in my throat, but I swallow it down, opting for a simple nod. Through my shirt, her palm heats my skin like a ray of sun spilling from behind the window, and from the depths of my heart, another thread springs to life.

Ayna’s eyes widen. “The bond,” she whispers.

On instinct, my hand covers hers, holding it in place as, originating from the touch, the thin thread of our mating bond weaves through me.

At first, it’s a tingle seeping into my tissues, spreading like honey melting in the sun until warmth turns to heat and heat to searing fire. My breath hitches, but I don’t as much as blink as she holds my gaze, unflinching, unafraid. My mate.

“I love you.” She says it like something she only just remembered, but the blazing light radiating from beneath her palm tells the story of a love that can never be forgotten. A love so fierce it could melt steel and stone and the frozen rock my heart used to be.

I don’t shut my eyes against the brightness either, stunned by the force of the mating bond rushing through me, sliding against my skin, seeping into my flesh, my bones, until nothing exists outside this room, outside Ayna and me, the two of us a fated unit meant for eternity.

“Mine,” Ayna whispers, and I can’t help the groan reverberating through my chest at that single word. Proof she feels it, too, this earth-rocking moment confirming that this—that our bond—can’t be taken away. Not even by the gods who willed it.

“Mine,” I echo, my voice near guttural as I strain to keep that foot distance between our bodies, our hands against my chest the only point we touch. For long heartbeats, I wait. Wait for Ayna to close the gap. She doesn’t move, but those gray eyes bore into mine, unearthing the pain of the past weeks, the fear of never being able to hold her again, and I break, my voice hoarse as I speak what’s been tormenting me from the moment the first shock of her shifting ebbed.

“Never again,” I say, securing her hand more tightly to my chest. Never again will we be separated by anything or anyone. Never again will I fail you. Never again will anyone attempt tobreak our bond and keep you from me. I don’t say all those thoughts because I read them in Ayna’s eyes the same way she reads them in mine.

In a whisper of wind, my power strokes my mate’s cheek, brushing away the single tear falling from her lashes, but her gaze is no longer full of sorrow. Determination has taken over her face in a silent promise.Never again.

And when she leans closer, her palm pushing me against the unyielding oak door at my back, what I had left of my restraint snaps, and I pull her against me with a yank of my magic. Ayna’s soft gasp tickles the exposed skin at my neck, sending a shiver of pleasure straight to my core.

Before I can wonder if it’s too soon, if she feels too foreign in this new body, or if the trauma of being trapped in her bird form is too heavy a weight, she kisses the sliver of bare skin where my shirt cleaves open at my collar bone. A soft, tentative kiss.

I hold so still my tendons might snap my bones, but I don’t dare move an inch for fear she’ll pull away again, or turn into smoke and feathers and all of this will have been a dream.

“I promised you a tomorrow.” Her words are a murmur against the hollow beneath my throat, and the shiver turns into full-on blazing heat at what her words imply. Sliding her other hand around my neck, she tilts back her head so she can look into my eyes.

My heart starts pounding at the way Ayna’s lips curve into a wicked smile as she reads from my eyes what I’m ready to deliver.

“It’s time for you to honor your own promise.”

And I pounce.

Twenty-Eight

Ayna

Myron doesn’t giveme the opportunity to stumble back as he pushes away from the door, the hard lines of his body pressing against my curves, his arm sweeping around my waist as he spins us around so my back is against the carved wood.

“I’m ready to honor any promise I ever made to you,” he growls an inch from my face, so close his features blur, the scent of him remaining an anchor as the rest of my senses strain to feel-feel-feel.

The powerful beats of his heart sound through me, urging my own heart into a frenzy, and as he skates his lips against mine in a kiss that I know he wants to be a question but brims with primal need, I let go of anything human still left in me.

I delve my hands into his hair, savoring the texture running between my fingers like liquid silk. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined I’d live to see this moment, to breathe each other in.

Myron’s answering groan as I lick along the seam of his lower lip makes my bare toes curl on the smooth tiles, his hand tightening at my waist while the other grasps my thigh as he grinds into me right where I need it. My shirt slides up as I lift my knee to give him better access, and he adjusts his hand onmy thigh, his calluses scraping along my skin so deliciously I moan into his mouth as he opens for me, devouring the sound. His tongue slides against mine in a dance as old as time, instinct guiding me in a clash of teeth and tongues.

Within a heartbeat, my hands are on his shirt, fumbling with the buttons, but my new fae body doesn’t do well with patience, so I end up ripping the fabric off him, hands exploring his body anew, tracing the muscles of his chest, his shoulders, his back, all the way to the waistband of his pants. They linger there, sliding to the front, to the hard proof of his desire straining against the leather.

Myron beats me to undoing the laces of his pants before I can tear those off as well, and when his cock springs free, I marvel at the velvet feel of the hard steel between my palms. He goes still as if waiting to see what I’ll do, but his patience seems to spread as thin as mine, so all it takes is a nip at his bottom lip, and he lifts me by the backside, fingers digging into my flesh with delicious strength. I hold onto his shoulder with one hand, the other one guiding him to my entrance while his mouth roves my neck, licking down my chest where my shirt hangs open to the middle of my sternum. Through the fabric, he sucks at my nipples, teeth scraping slightly until my throaty, needy moan escapes into the sunlit room. My head is against the door, back arching to give him better access. But I need him inside of me more than anything else. I need that relentless abandon, the luxurious heat of him filling me. I need any space between us gone, and I need it now.

As if he hears my silent plea, Myron thrusts into me, a hard and thorough stroke drawing a scream from me. I don’t recognize my voice, don’t remember I own a voice, because it doesn’t matter. Right here, right now, nothing matters but Myron’s body moving against mine, the strength of him enveloping me as I meet each of his thrusts with a roll of myhips. The violent, tossing sea of emotions gushes through my chest as the mating bond spreads and spreads until there is no place within me that doesn’t belong to him.

A fulfillment of a promise, but also a claiming. His mouth is back on mine, moving with demand and affirmation as pleasure builds and builds in my core.

I don’t have words, don’tneedwords as long as this doesn’t end. As long as he keeps driving into me, wild and breathless. An unleashing for both of us.

All those weeks since Erina tried to un-mate us, all those weeks of being trapped in my bird form—I let them go as Myron increases the pace and my mind goes blank from a spike of pleasure. I might have moaned, might have screamed his name as I climax, Myron following a heartbeat later, but we’re not done. In no way are we done.

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