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After a moment, his tension dissolved, and he lowered his head to me again. I was intensely aware of his mouth on my other breast, the warmth of it ribboning to my abdomen. Breathing hard, I unbuckled his belt. He raised his head, and our lips came together. I slid off my underwear—his hands joined mine—and then it was only me in his arms.

He looked at my face for a long time. Even as I tensed in expectation, I almost lost my nerve. I was so different from what he knew.

His gaze moved down my body. I held still. A human might have whispered in my ear, told me I was beautiful or perfect, but not him. For a long time, all he did was look, opaque, eyes on fire. When I was sure the silence would last forever, when the tension of waiting would snap me in two, he drew me against him, into the moonlight. It illuminated my hair, transfigured it to flame, and ousted the few shadows that had draped me.

He could see every part of me. Every inch, down to the last scar and freckle. Another chill of reserve almost made me glance away. To counter it, I placed my hands on his chest.

“What are you thinking?”

Speaking eased my nerves. His calloused palms came to rest on my waist first, then the fingers he had almost lost.

“That if wanting you is treachery,” he said, “then let me always bear these scars.” My arms circled his neck, and his lips grazed my jaw. “Let them be a badge of pride, not shame.”

I thought it would undo me, hearing his voice that deep, that close. When we melted onto the bed, he was careful not to trap me, never holding me too hard. Before long, there was nothing human-made left on him. Just long contours of limb and muscle. I had been so lost in his embrace that the æther had almost faded from my notice, but now I reached out to it, and it magnified every touch, every breath. The golden cord seemed to surround us.

This could not be wrong. Every instinct in me spoke of rightness, of balance, of synchrony.

As his breath warmed my ribs, I tilted my head back and exhaled. Doing this—crossing this line—might snap the constant pull between us. I yearned for that pull. It steadied me.

And yet I wanted more. I had waited enough.

His kiss made the skin of my abdomen shiver. His hands cradled the backs of my knees.

“This,” he said, “is an overture.”

His voice was little more than a tremor in his throat. I felt it everywhere.

“Learning a duet entails time. And patience. Calls for us to move as one.” He found a sensitive place at the back of my thigh, and I breathed his name. “I want you to show me where to touch you. I want to know—” he rolled a thumb over the wing of my hipbone “—how to make your body sing.”

He already did. I couldn’t remember how to breathe, or what it was to not be burning.

His hands returned to my knees. I trembled as he guided them apart, my head tilting back in anticipation.

“Do you want this?”

“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes.”

Arcturus pressed a kiss to my thigh. I breathed in as the powerful muscles of his back shifted, and then I was lost in a new and exhilarating language. A song that only we could share.

He knew what he was doing. Rephaim must not be so different from humans in some respects. Heart pounding, with his hands on my hips, I threaded my fingers into his hair. All reserve had disappeared at the first touch, transforming into want, into vastness. It seemed impossible that my body could feel this much,bethis much, and somehow not break into pieces.

Small, instinctive sounds passed my lips as he carried me to the edge of a precipice. I cleaved to him, afraid to let go, every limb fighting the call to surrender. Surrender had no place in war.

But this was no war. Not here, in this room.

He never rushed. As my hips surged and my hand twisted into the sheets, I thought of the bird in the music box, and the golden key that wound it. He coaxed me closer and closer to the brink, and there he held me until the bird came to life and took wing.

****

We lay still and soft-limbed after that. As much as I wanted to draw him into me, it was enough, for now, to be in his arms. To look up and always find him close enough to kiss.

We both had our dark rooms. Now we had this one, too.

My back was against his chest, my head supported by his arm. A calloused hand smoothed up my waist. I felt heavy enough to sink through the bed, yet my senses were as light as air.

His voice broke a long stillness. “You would tell me if I hurt you.”

I looked at him over my shoulder. “You didn’t think those were sounds of discomfort, did you?”