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I sank down onto him in one fast slide.

A raw, broken grunt tore from his throat, and if I hadn't been soaked yet, that would have done the job – that throaty cry of lost control. His wings unfurled, sending a faint draft of air downmy back. His hands tightened on my bottom, lifting me off him, dragging me back down, filling me to the hilt in that one deep thrust.

I smothered his next groan with my lips, our ragged breaths mingling.

Coherent thoughts lost their meaning. I rode him hard, desperately, steered by his fingers on my hips and the rhythm of his moans; every other sound fell away around me, drowned out by that intoxicating melody of his pleasure. His cock was throbbing steel inside me. My body strained, stretched by his need – a sensation that was neither pain nor pleasure but something far more glorious, something that smouldered hungrily at the core of me.

And nothing else mattered.

Just him.

Just me.

Just the flames under my skin, ready to burn the whole damn world to ashes.

He came with my name on his lips, flooding me with hot seed as he slammed me down over his cock one last time. I followed half a second later. We clung to each other as we rode through our release in a haze of moans and trembling limbs, hands clawing at slick skin, tongues tangling in breathless kisses – until I was nothing but a sticky, sated mess and so damn happy I could explode with it.

Andstillhis voice was there, grounding me even as I sobbed and trembled, even as the bed and the night ceased to exist for one small eternity.

‘Emelin.Emelin…’

He did not let go of me as he lowered the both of us into the blankets, arms and wings wrapped tightly around me, face buried in my hair. He did not let go of me as he whispered my name once more, as if he couldn’t stop testing whether his voicewas still there, whether there would be more than empty air in the motions of his lips.

A hundred and thirty years of silence, and he was talking again.

One day, I swore to myself, I would make him sing again.

We curled up in the bed together, huddled close in the darkness, my back pressed so tight against his chest that I could feel his heartbeat like my own. His fingers brushed along my shoulder, my arm. And just as my eyelids grew too heavy to keep them open, just as my thoughts began to scatter into dreams, I heard his voice one last time.

‘Liria.’ Even breathed so quietly, I could make out the Faerie word.My love.

And I slept.

Chapter 6

A sharp, incessant knockingwoke me, forcefully dragging my mind from the depths of my dreamless slumber and into the bright, noisy reality of wakefulness. I was sitting straight up in the blankets before I’d even opened my eyes, grabbing for the nearest black surface.

Only then did other sounds reach me. Running footsteps in the distance. Clamouring voices within the home. Next to me, Creon shot out of bed with feline swiftness, snatching his blades from the nightstand before he seized his trousers from the floor – taut bronze skin, rippling muscles, yet I couldn’t quite marshal the usual appreciation for the deeply alluring vision of his naked glory. The knuckles against our door hadn't paused their urgent, pressing rhythm for a second.

‘What is it?’ I yelled, shoving myself out of bed, shooting into my underwear, and plucking my dress from where I’d dropped it last night.

The knocking abruptly stilled.

‘Developments at the Golden Court.’ Tared’s voice made its way into the room muffled by the layer of wood separating us. ‘The Moon fleet finally attacked fifteen minutes ago. We’ve started evacuating.’

I froze.

Attacked.

The word seemed too far removed from this safe, quiet room with its piles of leather-bound books and its plush, roughly-woven blankets, too far removed from the safety of Creon’s arms. It took a determined effort to drag my mind back into the deadly world above, where the Mother’s armies swarmed the archipelago – that world that wouldn’t let me escape, no matter how hard I tried to forget about it.

‘Do you need help?’ Creon sharply said, and I jolted all over again at the unexpected sound of his voice.

‘We’re managing so far.’ Tared sounded tired; I vaguely wondered if he’d had any sleep at all tonight. ‘So not urgently, no. I just figured you would want to know that Agenor—’

Agenor.

The paralysis shattered.