Page 5

I adjust my grip on her hips, relishing the feel of my fingers bare against her soft, warm skin, my cock sliding deeper inside her until her mouth parts, lips wet. I don’t think she realizes—while she was both climaxing and growing wings—that I haven’t come yet.

That’s alright. Her needs always come first.

“I had a feeling you were Päivätär’s daughter,” I tell her, my voice dropping even lower as I continue to rock her back and forth on me. “The Goddess of the Sun. The God not present at the meeting in the grotto, the one who could have infused you with all your bright light, the protector of birds…little bird that you are.”

Her eyelashes flutter as she takes in my words, as I push up deeper insider her, enough that she has to lean forward, her hands on my chest, one breast popping out of her torn gown. In the back of my mind, I know we aren’t dead, that we must find a way out of here and stop our impostors, but I also know the path ahead of us won’t be easy, and this might be the last time I get to feel her like this.

The way I have always dreamed of.

A way I’ve always felt unworthy of.

“What does this mean?” she asks, her voice trembling slightly.

“It means you know who your real mother is,” I tell her. “And when we get out of here, we’re going to find her.”

She lets out a shaking breath, throwing her head back. “And if we don’t get out of here?”

“Then I’m going to make this count.”

With a grunt, I grab her waist and lift her off my cock before turning over and laying her on the ground beneath me. I know it’s cold and dirty in this dark cell, the only light coming from the sunmoonstone crystal, but we don’t get to be picky.

“I’m going to feel you every which way I can,” I murmur to her, placing my hands on her soft yet firm thighs, spreading them beneath me. Her body was sinful from the beginning, from the first moment I had her in my bed, but now, she has powerful muscle, a hint at the Goddess she is, under soft flesh that has brought me back to life.

I run my palms up over her skin, savoring her, knowing we either have all the time in the world or no time at all.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter, so long as I have her.

“Tuoni,” she whispers to me, her dark eyes full of something wild, something like glory. It looks like love—the way she says my name sounds like love.

And shehadsaid it.

She had said those words.

I love you.

Yet, even in this darkest hour, why is it so hard to believe?

Why is it so hard to believe that someone, especially someone like her, could truly love me?

“Tuoni,” she says again, reaching up to place her hands on either side of my face. “We need to get out of here.”

“We will,” I assure her, my eyes closing at her touch while my knuckles graze the soft hair between her legs. “But I will no longer be denied what has been denied to me my whole life.”

My voice comes out rougher than I meant it to, but when I open my eyes, I only see understanding in Hanna’s gaze. She knows how much this means to me.

She also knows I’m a stubborn beast.

“Then have me any way you want me,” she says, her eyes damp and glittering in the faint light.

I can’t help but smirk at her permission. “How I want you,” I say gruffly, letting another knuckle brush closer to her cunt, causing her to moan, “is achingly slow. How I’ll take you is with my own pleasure in mind. I will savor you like the finest wine. I will bask in you like a man deprived of the sun.”

I place my palm against her thigh and press down, widening her cunt for me. My gaze drops to the sight, so fucking pink and gleaming wet that I’m salivating for a taste as my cock swells, wanting to shove inside her so terribly that it hurts.

Instead, I take my finger and slowly, with deliberation, run it along her wetness. The feel of her most womanly and intimate parts against my bare finger sends a shockwave up my arm and down my spine, and the silver lightning lines burn in response. But it doesn’t feel like millions of mortals are dying at once—instead, it feels like I’m coming fully alive.

As I told her, I take my time. I explore her, reveling in the slickness and heat of her body. I find her wonderfully responsive clit, already thick and puffy, and tease it, eliciting a gasp from Hanna’s lips that sends a thrill of pleasure through me. I glance up at her, her eyes hooded with desire, her breath coming in short little pants, and I feel my own hunger boiling up, threatening to overtake me.

But I hold back, wanting to savor every moment of this exquisite torture.