Page 168 of With Wing And Claw

Behind her, Thysandra was emanating waves of pride and relief and the faintest hint of nervousness.

Naxi should have looked around, of course. She should have smiled and said thank you a thousand times over – but she stared at the room that had opened up before her, lit by glowing faelights, at the kitchen corner and the arched windows and the plants growing contently over all of it – and something was burning like hellfire behind her eyes.

Home.

Thysandra’s feelings went a little more concerned behind her. ‘Naxi?’

She opened her mouth and managed nothing but a feeble little sniffle.

‘Naxi? Are you crying?’

‘No!’ she sputtered, sounding blubbery.

Footsteps behind her. ‘Youarecrying, aren’t you?’

‘I’m fearsome!’ she protested, hearing the quiver in her own voice. ‘Of course I’m not crying! I’m deadly and—’

‘You’re utterly adorable,’ Thysandra said, arms wrapping around Naxi from behind, hoisting her off the floor. ‘And very much crying.’

They were strong and warm and gorgeous, those arms, and it was hard not to melt into them instantly, because Thysandra had saidadorable, notscary and occasionally homicidal, and Naxi wanted to bask in the sound of that word forever. She buried her face into a muscular shoulder and grumbled, ‘I could reduce you to pleas in a minute.’

‘Really?’ Thysandra stepped into the half-lit living room, nudging the door shut with her foot as she carried Naxi inside. ‘I’d love to see you try.’

‘I won last time we fought!’ Naxi sputtered, sending a slightly teary glare up at her.

A mesmerizingly wicked grin. ‘I’m pretty sure I won. I seem to recall I ended up with a knife against your throat.’

‘Well,’ Naxi said and defiantly sniffed again, ‘I ended up with you, so you’re not going to beat that with all the knives in the world. Checkmate.’

Thysandra wisely did not argue with that.

Instead, she lowered Naxi to her feet and kissed her.

No bribes needed. No vines, either. No pretences of courtly duty and obligation and whatever justifications she had spent so long giving herself. There was just desire inside that beautiful fae heart now, bright and hungry and unrestrained, and Naxi gave into it the way she did everything these days – with all her heart, and just a little bit of teeth.

It earned her a hissed curse and a red-hot sting of arousal.

Demons got bored, butthisnever got boring – the sweet, hot taste of being wanted, a sensation of longing so bone-deep she could have wept from it. Thysandra’s fingers raked through her hair. Fisted around handfuls of curls. Tilted back her head, positioning her just so, and deepened the kiss with an intensity that sent the last of Naxi’s sensible thoughts scattering – and then they were staggering into the room, towards the bedroom door, hands frantic and breath a shared, gasping mess. Naxi fumbled with green satin. Thysandra clawed at her hair ribbons. Buttons and lacing and clasps, the slither of fabric over skin, and they never even made it to the bed; Naxi went to her knees on the plush white rug, and Thysandra followed without question, pulling her farther down.

‘Should maybe …’ She gasped as Naxi clawed at her thigh, arching back against the rug with wings splayed wide. ‘Should maybe close the curtains.’

‘Alternatively,’ Naxi mumbled, out of breath, ‘the curtains can go to hell.’

The plants were already moving around her, vines and leaves weaving across the glass. She’d barely even needed to ask them.

Thysandra let out a strangled laugh as she let her head fall back – that beautiful surrender, given so easily these days. ‘So useful.’

‘And powerful,’ Naxi merrily suggested, crawling over her, the pink tips of her hair brushing over dark skin, pebbling nipples. ‘And extremely pretty. And—’

‘Naxi.’ A throaty laugh. ‘You don’t have to earn this.’

A good point.

Really, averygood point.

Naxi bit her lip. ‘Can I sit on your face, then?’

Thysandra’s strong hands had already wrapped around her thighs, dragging her forward, head coming up a fraction – and then her mouth was on Naxi, and the world shrunk to touch and need and a single, all-consumingyes.