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"Strong enough to make you lose your goddamn mind," I told him, reveling in my own cockiness.

He rose, suddenly, his body in between my legs, his hand moving his tunic out of the way as he dragged his hard, hot heat against the inside of my wet thighs, finding the drenched junction. He dragged the tip of himself through my folds, and we both stared at the mesmerizing motion of mushroom-headed flesh parting through my fields.

Then he stopped, the tip of him catching against my opening and we both sucked in a breath at the same time, joined together in our urgent need to bang.

"I..." he hesitated, his eyes lifting to catch mine.

"If you don't fuck me right now I am going to rip out all of your feathers, one by one, and braid them into my hair," I said.

He let out a guttural sound, and then we both were gasping as he pushed into me, the head of him popping through and sliding into my tight channel, strengthened by years of hard labor that required all of my core to get through the day.

"Too tight," he grunted as he pushed, barely inching in.

I relaxed my muscles, and he slid in all the way, bottoming out as the head of him bumped into my cervix with a pressure that was only pleasurable because of how aroused and desperately needy my body was. Then his arms were around me, and my legs were around his hips, and he was lifting me up as he stepped up onto the table and launched us both into the air.

I let out a scream that was also a laugh as his wings beat into the air, lifting us into the vaulted dome of his massive bedroom. My surprise was quickly overwhelmed by pleasure. As we rose in the air, he pulled out of me, all the way to the tip, then slammed back. He moved with the beats of his wings, keeping us hovering in the air as he moved his body and mine together, apart, together, driving into me over and over again. I was being carried, lifted, and utterly fucked all at the same time and there was nothing to do but enjoy the ride, to be consumed by the experience, to be pounded as the sound of our wet flesh slappingtogether was a counterpoint to his wings beating in the air, keeping time with a sensory overload of delight.

Then I was quivering, coming, clenching as the waves of my own pleasure hit a new high.

He was moving faster, more erratic, and we were back down on the ground, and my back was down against the table, his hips slamming into me in one, two, forceful thrusts that kept lifting me up along the never-ending cascade of my peak. Heat filled me as I felt him drive deep into me, his length twitching and pulsing inside of me as I clenched hard around him and he filled me with his seed.

Then we were lying there, sweating, his wings lifted open above us, him leaning on his elbows over me as we both breathed hard in the aftershocks of our mutual, explosive, pleasure.

"Holy shit," I said.

Epilogue

CRYSTALLO

“Pulse,” Nora said.

A burst of wind came out of nowhere, catching the flames and spiraling them up into a mini tornado of flame. I grinned with delight. I hadn’t even thought to suggest that and she took her familiar’s wind power and combined it with the flame spell without a second thought.

"You're a natural," I said, kissing the top of Nora's head.

She grinned at me as the flames danced in a mini whirlwind upwards out of the circle of stones, fed by her magic and the spell she had just learned to cast.

"Being a natural is about effort plus time," she said. "I could have learned this years ago if that damn school had been willing to teach me anything."

"They can't teach this," I said, smiling as I watched the fire dance. "Chaos magic requires being true to yourself, to your feelings."

“What if my feelings are dark and full of rage?” she asked.

I didn’t have to think twice to find the right words. “Then I will teach you to burn the world.”

"Crystallo," Nora said, and I looked down to see that unspilt tears glimmered on the edges of her eyes as she stared up at me.

"Nora," I replied, waiting to see what surprising thing she would say. Every day with her was a joy. I didn't know when the final battle would arrive, and even though my people rushed about with last-minute preparations, the wheels had been set in motion for long enough that my days had enough time in them to spend hours with Nora, teaching her and delighting in her company. I found myself coming back to her, over and over again, wanting to be near her, wanting to spend every moment of my free time with her.

"Thank you," she said, blinking as a single tear rolled down her cheek. "For saving me."

"Thank you," I repeated back to her, smiling with all the warmth that radiated from me.

"For what?" she asked, wiping the tear away just as quickly as it arrived.

"For existing," I told her. "For staying. For giving me a taste of pure happiness in a world where such things are bogged down in complication and fear for the future. Being around you is an utter and complete joy. Being inside of you is a heaven I had been denied for so long."

"You're welcome," she said, smiling back up at me. Then she looked back at the flames. “Now how do I make this bigger?”