Page 50 of Silvan

“That was the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.” He helped her off the bed, and when her knees buckled, he carried her to a nearby chair.

“But did it work? Please… this has to work.” Romy didn’t know who she was praying to. She didn’t care. Any god who would listen. Any god who could heal.

“Romy? Is that you?” Thora said, her voice small but resolute. “Romy?”

Forgetting her exhaustion, Romy rushed to Thora’s side and gathered the girl in her arms. “Oh gods, Thora… you’re awake. You’re… alive.”

“Ro… I can’t… see.” Tears pooled in the corners of Thora’s eyes and fell onto Romy’s shoulder. “I… can’t see.”

Thora will be different.Silvan had warned her this could happen, that Fenrir’s Rose might alter Thora somehow. Whatever the cost, it was worth paying. He was right. If her sister was blind, at least she was alive. “We’ll figure it out, sweetheart. I promise you.” She glanced over her shoulder. “My parents, Dane. Can you get them?”

“On it.”

Moments later, Cassia and Cyril embraced Thora, reassuring her as Romy had that they’d find a solution to her blindness, but no debility could take their joy.

“Aren’t you going to tell them you healed her?” Dane whispered.

“No.” She shook her head and caught her father’s gaze. Cyril suspected something, and if he had questions, it would only be a matter of time before Cassia did too. Romy needed to find those answers. “Not yet. We’ve got some mysteries to solve first.”

Romy waited as longas she could stand it. She had to see them. Both of them.

First, she went to Bastian in the Dusk Gardens, their gardens. She was certain he’d be there… he was always where she needed him to be. Always. Romy wanted to say so much to him, yet words seemed too fragile to explain what had transpired between them. Palm to palm, lifetimes together flashed before them in the darkness. She saw him as a boy and her as a girl wading along the Orkney coast, curtains of color swaying in the night sky. She saw them atop a limestone cliff in Rocamadour—an elderly couple sojourning to the land of their ancestors. And she saw them in the future, lying together on a bed of stone… but they weren’t by themselves. Silvan and Dane flanked their sides. Each one there for Romy—yet it was more.Theywere more. There was lust, but there was love. So much love.

Bastian’s fingers squeezed tighter and tighter as if she was the only tether in this world keeping him to the ground. He knew she would go to Silvan after she left him. He knew what they would do, yet he remained. He squeezed her hand seven times.

You are mine, and I am yours.

Romy closed her eyes and exhaled. When she opened them, she’d be at the shack next to the dock where Silvan had tied their boat. Bastian would watch them.

When the sun set behind Lake Salvador’s horizon, Romy opened the door to the shack. As it had been with Bastian, she knew Silvan would be there… ready for her. Ready for them. She looked to her left. Bastian nodded, offering Romy the approval she didn’t need but desired. He wanted this as much as she did. He wanted her happiness, her ecstasy. He wanted her fantasies fulfilled and her dreams realized. Even if he wasn’t the source of it, Bastian wanted her to know this intimacy, and for the first time in her life, Romy knew someone—a man—loved her thoroughly, completely. And she loved him.

“I didn’t know if you’d come,” Silvan said as she stepped inside. Hundreds of candles blazed before her and gave the room a heavenly glow. “I hoped you would.”

Her voice was husky when she spoke her first words. “I had to see you.”

“How’s Thora?” He took a large step to close the distance between them.

“Blind.” She placed her hands on his chest and felt the muscles tense underneath her touch. “But alive.”

His lips pursed into a frown. “I’m sorry. There’s a chance it could eventually resolve itself. Did you tell your paren—”

Romy’s thumb went to his lips, and her head moved back and forth slowly. “I didn’t tell them. I will, but not now. We have so much to discuss, but I don’t want to talk, Silvan. Do you?”

“No,” he exhaled, his breath hot on her neck. “I don’t. What do you want to do, Romy?”

“You know.”

“Tell me,” he persisted. “Tell me what you want me to do to you, Romy Delacroix.”

“I want…” She blushed, embarrassed of her desires. No. Romy would not be ashamed. These longings were genuine and valid. Her feelings were real. His race only mattered because other people said it did. “I want you inside me, Silvan.”

Silvan stepped even with her and caressed her face, a finger trailing from her mouth. “Are you sure?”

“Completely. I’m scared, Sil. Because I’ve never done this before, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want you. So don’t stop. Never stop.”

Romy watched as he transformed. A mortal man. A carnal wolf. Her man… her wolf. Silvan was hers. And she was his. With skilled hands, he laid her down, careful to kiss each place he uncovered. He tugged at her bra, exposing a nipple, taking it to suckle. Romy moaned from the pleasure that rippled within. Wave after wave, her need built until finally, he lapped at one side and pinched the other in tandem, and she came. His mouth trailed downward to her sex, licking her exactly the way he had on the island, except now there were no inhibitions to hold him back. In error, she’d assumed the first time would be the best time, but the instant he stuck his finger in her mouth and then worked it slowly into her ass, Romy knew she hadn’t even begun to indulge in what this man could offer.

With his finger in her ass and his tongue lapping at her pussy, Romy spread her legs wider. “More, Sil. Please, more,” she begged. “You. I want you.”

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