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“Is everything okay in there?” came Nektas’s muffled voice.

Either Ash hadn’t heard him, or he was ignoring the draken, because his answer was to flick his tongue over my heated flesh again.

My hips jerked, and my toes curled.

“I’m starting to get worried,” Nektas said.

I shuddered as he ran a finger through my wetness. “Ash.”

He drew back just enough for me to see his glossy lips. “Everything is fine.”

There was barely a chance for me to take a breath before his head dipped once more. He closed his lips over me as he worked a finger inside, wringing another gasp from me.

“Are you sure?” Nektas asked. My head turned toward the door. “I thought I heard screaming.”

“You didn’t.”

I gripped the blanket as Ash slowly moved his finger in and out.

“I’m pretty sure I did,” the draken insisted.

Ash’s finger eased from me. I started to rise onto my elbows, but his hand came on my chest, just below my neck.

His eyes pulsed with eather. His other hand went to my shoulder. “I’m not done with you.”

My breath caught as my gaze locked on his savage stare. I looked down where his cock remained, thick and heavy.

“What did you say?” Nektas asked.

Ash’s head whipped toward the sound. “I said I may kill you if you don’t get the fuck away from that door.”

My eyes widened. As I took in how still his chest was as he drew his hand down the center of mine, I thought maybe he would do that.

“Rude,” Nektas drawled. “I assume your uncalled-for threat of violence means that both of you are awake, alive, and well aware enough of each other that you’re…getting reacquainted?”

Ash’s head dipped, and a low snarl rumbled from him.

“I’m—” I clamped my mouth shut, muffling a moan as Ash drew my nipple into his mouth. “I’m fine.”

There was a pause. “You don’t sound fine.”

“I swear I am.” I reached down, grasping the back of Ash’s head as he moved to my other breast. “But I really think you won’t be if you don’t leave.”

There was a gap of silence, and then I heard a chuckle. “I am relieved to hear you are fine,” he said. “Meyaah Liessa.”

My Queen.

I gave a start, the implication of that—of what had happened—finally sinking in. What I’d seen. The voices I’d heard. My body locked up, and my lips parted.

My heart began to pound as Ash lifted his head from my breast. Somehow, I’d Ascended without the embers of life killing me. And they weren’t just inside me now. They weren’t even a part of me.

The embers of life were me.

I was the Primal of Life—the true Primal of Life.

The…the Queen of the Gods.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE