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“No,” she says immediately. “You’re sleeping here. And forget about the pjs, I like you better without them.”

With that bold claim, she shimmies out of her robe and settles herself naked against the pillows. With one brow arched provocatively and all that smooth, luminous skin on display, she looks like nothing less than a goddess.

I immediately head back to the bed, lifting off slightly with my wings to land directly on top of her. Caging her beneath me, I rest my fangs on her throat just over the mark I’ve left there.

“Tempting little witch,” I tease, licking her skin. “You like me like this?”

“Yes,” she moans, raising her hips up toward me.

I chuckle at her eagerness, even though I know that rest will be better for the both of us tonight. “Sleep, Allie.”

Pressing one last kiss against her neck, I roll over and tuck her body against mine, draping a wing over her to keep her sheltered and safe. She lets out an irritated little huff, but curls herself into me.

“Can you take care of the candles?” I ask, genuinely curious.

“I…” she starts, thinking about it for a minute. “Yeah, I think I can.”

She closes her eyes in concentration and a moment later every candle in the room sputters to darkness.

“My clever witch,” I say, holding her close until we both drift off.

Chapter 24

Allie

Morning comes with a faint light filtering in from the stone archway leading out onto the mountain, and a pleasant, cool breeze blowing across the nest we’ve made for ourselves.

I don’t know what time it is, but it seems early. Or at least early enough that Eren is still fast asleep beside me. In the few quiet moments before he wakes, I let myself study him.

Handsome, as always, and already becoming so familiar to me. The elegant lines of his horns, the drape of his wing over me, even his long tail winding itself around my leg like he doesn’t want to give me the chance to sneak out of bed like I did yesterday, all those distinctly un-human parts of him already seem so… natural.

If I’m being honest with myself, I’ve never really found them strange at all. They’re just… Eren. Part of his entire, sexy package.

Beyond the physical, there’s something about the way he folds his wing over me in sleep, the way he always seems to be touching me, the obvious care and concern he’s shown me, which tugs at the center of my chest. His words from our first night together echo in my mind.

Mates or not, Goddess-blessed or not, there could never be a life in which I did not know you as my own.

Could it be that simple?

I continue to watch him sleep and there’s a moment, just one, where my heart skitters a little bit away from me. It sees Eren—sleepy and rumpled and looking so utterly delicious here beside me—and tumbles over itself to extrapolate this moment into a lifetime.

In that lifetime, we’d wake like this every morning. He’d look at me like he did last night, like I was gifted and precious and important to him. And I’d look at him like he’s the precise answer to a question I can’t quite put into words. We’d get out of bed and have coffee and bagels—or whatever passes for breakfast here in the demon realm—and that would be that.

Contentment. Bliss. Whatever you call the absolute, unquestionable knowledge of having a partner who loves you and never intends to leave. The certainty that you’ve been claimed, and that your claim has been accepted in return.

It’s too soon for that, I know, but laying beside him in the pre-dawn quiet, it’s hard to remember the reasons I still feel so hesitant and confused about everything.

“It’s too early to be awake.”

Eren’s rumbling voice jerks me out of my thoughts, and I laugh softly, letting him pull me back against him.

“It’s morning,” I whisper.

“No,” he murmurs, already half-sleeping again, not even bothering to open his eyes. “It’s absolutely not. Back to sleep with you.”

I scoff a little, but with full dawn still a ways off and my eyelids already feeling heavy in the warmth and the comfort of his embrace, I snuggle back in for a few more hours of sleep.

The next time I wake is decidedly less cozy.