Page 29 of A Queen Of Broken Realms
Ashen’s hand lays on my face and I look into his eyes, the red rings fading around the lapping black flame. “Yes, vampire. I did. I do and I always will.” Ashen’s other palm rises to my cheek, and he frames my melancholic smile between his hands. “I am still a demon. Rage and destruction are in my nature. And when you were taken, the shadow it cast was so all-consuming that it could only be driven out by the return of your light.”
I lace my fingers behind Ashen’s neck and draw him down into a kiss that’s slow and rich, one that takes its time to build the heat between us. Ashen’s lips still taste like mint, I still smell the ink that drifts from his skin on the sandalwood steam. He takes his time with his calloused hands to follow the line of my back and the curve of my hips and the swell of my ass. Like always, he places his heart in his palm when he touches me. He might think he fell too far into darkness, but he’s still my Ashen.
“Can you fly?” I whisper against his lips. I pull back enough to look into his eyes as the wings rustle through the water behind him.
“I don’t know. I was too preoccupied to try,” Ashen says. I smile as I lock my grip behind his neck and hook one leg over his hip and then the other. His erection twitches against me as his hands grip my waist. “Vampire,” he moans.
“Try,” I whisper, nipping at his lip. “Maybe we’ll fuck up there, weightless in the mist. What have you got to lose?”
With that, the massive wings rise from the water, stirring the swirls of smoke and sparks as they spread to their full width. Water slides back into the pool and drips across the patio stones, dousing some of the candles whose flames hiss as they die. Ashen’s wings beat in long, elegant sweeps. The light between the scales brightens, fed by the current of air. And then we’re lifting from the water, and the pool disappears beneath the fog.
We wobble just a little at first, but it doesn’t take more than a few pumps of his wings before Ashen seems to gain confidence and even comfort in the movement. I keep my legs clamped across his back and Ashen grips my thighs as we float through the heavy fog. It’s our own magical realm, where there’s just the white curling mist and the rhythmic whooshing of Ashen’s wings. The higher we go, the more the shroud thins and the air brightens.
And then we burst from the fog.
We hover over the thick cloud bank that billows in rolling plumes, the surface around us stirred by Ashen’s wings. The fog covers everything, stretching to the horizon and the setting sun that colors the surface in muted yellows and pinks. Above us, blue sky, deepening in color the further it spreads from the light of the sun. The first stars are starting to glimmer in the distant indigo.
“Have you seen the sky here before?” I whisper as we slowly spin, taking in the sea of clouds.
“Only once,” Ashen says. He folds a lock of wet hair behind my ear. He’s not looking at the world around us. His gaze is skimming my features as though cataloging every detail before landing on my lips. “When I was at the house on the cliffs. It was the night before I returned to Sanford. It was late but I couldn’t sleep. I was looking up at the skylights, trying to convince myself not to go back. The breeze was rolling the fog across the glass. But suddenly it swept back, and I saw the stars, just for a moment. The fog closed around them again and I got up and left for Sanford.”
“Ashen of House Urbigu. Are you saying some kind of divine intervention is why you chose to come back?” I tease, releasing one hand from around his neck to trace the line of his cheek with my fingers.
“No, vampire. I’d already decided. I just stopped trying to change my own mind.”
We stare right into one another for a long moment. The red rings have dissolved from Ashen’s eyes. The fire within his pupils brightens with crimson wisps among the languid black flame. He knows how hard it is to both live in darkness and let go of it. I felt the same, not that long ago. When I was lonely, I was safe. But I couldn’t stop myself from taking a risk on him. And he couldn’t stop himself from doing the same for me.
“I love you, Ashen,” I say. My fingertips trace his lips, over his chin, down the column of his throat. They flow between his collarbones. They follow the black edge of his mated mark. “All your brightest stars. All your deepest darkness. I love it all.”
Ashen’s breath shudders as my fingers continue down between us, following the line carved between his abs, down through the soft curls that trail to his hard erection. His wings give a stuttering beat as I grip his shaft and glide the tip across my slick folds, circling my clit.
“You’d better not let us fall, Reaper,” I say between kisses to the plains of muscle that span Ashen’s chest. I center his sex to my opening and slide down onto his cock as he moans. My flesh stretches around his girth and I relish the fullness, sighing with pleasure as I envelop his length. He braces one arm across my back as he grips my ass with his other hand.
“What, you mean like this?” Ashen’s wings fold around us and we drop several meters as I squeal and laugh. They splay wide and beat hard, lifting us above the mist once more.
“I take it back, that was great,” I say, breathless with the rush of adrenaline and the warmth of the kisses he presses to the pulse surging in my neck.
I lift and lower my hips, taking his full length with deep strokes as he pumps his wings, raising us higher above the cloud bank. Ashen gives my skin a little nip and I feel his desire curl at the edges of my mark, a silent, gentle question. I bring my wrist to my lips and bite down before offering it to Ashen’s mouth. He takes it greedily, sealing his lips over the wound. His deep sigh hums within my flesh, warming my veins.
I place a cool kiss to Ashen’s mark and then slide my fangs through the gold tattoo. His breath stalls. A deep growl of pleasure rumbles in his chest. The spiced sweetness of his blood floats over my tongue and slips down my throat, warming me from the inside. I keep drawing it out with deep pulls as I ride his cock, the pleasure building with the more blood we both take. The mated connection between us heightens the depth of each sensation. Every rub of my clit against him, every time my walls clench around his girth, every simple touch of intimacy is like harnessing the power of the realms and trapping it in my very soul.
I let go of Ashen’s mark to move my lips higher, clamping my fangs to his shoulder so I can grind my body to his as the pleasure grows closer to the breaking point. “Christ, vampire,” Ashen hisses as I take a long pull of blood. “I won’t be able to stop myself from filling you for much longer.”
“Then don’t,” I whisper when I pull away. I ride his cock harder, faster, pushing us both to the point where the climax will be unstoppable in its release.
Ashen lets go of my wrist, my blood coloring his lips. His forehead presses to mine. His moan is not just the sound of pleasure winding tighter as I grind on his erection. It’s the relief of connection, of holding fast to something you thought you lost. The crimson rings in Ashen’s eyes hold fast to mine as I trace my fingers across his face and whisper his name.
My sex tightens around Ashen’s cock as every stroke pushes me closer to coming apart. He threads his hand into my hair and pushes my face back to his shoulder, and I drink from the open wound. “Fangs,” he says breathlessly, and I slide them into his flesh as he moans. His other hand grips my wrist, ready draw it back up to his lips as I grind on his sex, taking as much of this length as I can. “Are you there? Are you ready to come?”
I nod and squeeze my eyes shut as my nerves start to burn with the impending release.
“Then hold on.”
Ashen’s wings wrap around us and we plummet. Their soft leather caresses my back and his blood fills my veins and I come apart, crying out into his flesh with the adrenaline-spiked pleasure. I open my eyes to watch as we fall through the clear air and into the fog. Ashen’s cock thickens as my pussy clenches, like my body is desperate to keep him, and then I feel him release into me, spilling and pulsing and falling as he lets go of my wrist to let out a feral, rapturous roar.
I’m still immersed in waves of my orgasm when Ashen halts our descent with heavy beats of his wings. We hover in the mist, both still consumed by sex and fear and trust. We just stay there a while, recovering our breath and kissing the blood from one another’s lips. When my heartbeat finally slows, Ashen lowers us through the fog and right into the pool, his wings draping into the water with hissing steam.
“I like the wings. Can we keep them?” I ask, smiling as Ashen sweeps the hair away from my face and kisses a line from one cheek to the next, crossing the bridge of my nose.
