Page 161 of Sanctuary with Kings

CHAPTER46

WHAT NEXT?

Soft fingers combed through my hair, a familiar spice on my tongue. A gentle voice hummed an old, merry melody. I was dreaming, of course, but it was a dream I'd searched for, longed for, missed for centuries. Golden hair like mine, a wicked, laughing smile, but this time there were tears in her eyes, little diamond drops that clung to her beautiful cheeks. Tears of abandon and of elation.

"Where were you?" I asked.

She cleared in my vision, not a blurry figure but a crisp and recognizable vision. I looked like her, except she was untamedperfection, and I was flawed and real, baring scars and fine lines. She was made of delight and wild exultation, and I was living, digging through sorrow and joy and piecing them together into experience. Half of me was made of her, but half of me touched the earth, whether that was gentle grass or brutal stone.

There are paths in life I cannot tread, daughter. You were out of reach.

She laughed, not cruel, but happy to have me back again. I wept as she stroked my hair.

* * *

"No,sweetblodyn bach. Don't cry,cariad. Wake, please wake."

Feather soft kisses grazed over my cheeks and I hiccuped, sucking in a lungful of Hywel's drowsy, smoky scent. And then I laughed through the tears, squirming and finding myself stuffed, stretched and filled on two cocks.

"While I was sleeping?" I teased, opening my eyes and grinning through shaky, wet breaths to stare down at my dragon.

Hywel gasped, eyes lighting up, and then groaned and surged up into me, his mouth sealing over mine in a hungry, desperate kiss. I sighed and parted my lips for his tongue, rocked back into his thrusting hips. Our teeth bumped and our rhythm didn't match and the moment was messy and full of gratitude and reassurance. I gulpednéktardown eagerly, aware of the hollow ache in my belly, the sore and paper-thin stretch of my tired skin.

"I couldn't find you," Hywel rasped, rolling us on the bed, pecking kisses over my jaw and groaning as he plunged inside of me. "I couldn't get into your dreams. I thought we'd lost you."

"Hywel, are we in the hoard?" I asked, glancing around us.

"Blodyn bach," Hywel growled, and then he kissed me once more, hitching my legs around his hips and shifting the angle until I was whining and clinging to him.

I laughed and tried to focus. "The others?"

"Willwait," Hywel snarled, taking my face in his hands. He licked into my mouth to stifle my objections, and I moaned as he claimed control of my body from head to toe.

He pulled away, glaring down at me as I cried out, "Hywel! But Asterion—"

"Evanthia, you are mymate, yes?"

My eyes fluttered shut on a long sigh as Hywel found a lovely, dizzying spot inside of me. "Yes," I breathed, although the word belonged in answer to his questionandthe height he was driving me to.

"And are you wearing my mark?"

"N-no?"

"No. You are not," he bit out and then groaned, his chest collapsing onto mine, mouth skimming damply against my cheek as he whispered raggedly, "You nearly died,blodyn bach."

The mark wouldn't have saved me, I thought, but decided it would be wiser not to say. I turned my cheek and found Hywel's mouth, his eager kiss, the soft broken sounds drawn up from his chest as his arms wrapped around my back. He was barely tucked inside my ass, more focused on grinding deep in my core, but the hot pull there made me shiver with every short stroke.

"Where will you bite?" I asked, tugging on his bottom lip with my teeth.

"You know where," he murmured.

I pulled from his kiss, arching to offer the left side of my throat that he had once claimed as his. Had Conall known to bite the right side, or was that simply luck?

"Do you love me, Evanthia?" Hywel asked, slowing, lifting his face. He arched his eyebrows as I startled and glanced up at him. "You haven't said."

Have you?I thought, but Hywel hadshownme, had observed all the courting rituals of a dragon, had done all but bite.

I had no courting rituals, no ceremony. I could only offer one thing.

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