Page 8

Rowen and I made our way through the low-lit village to his dome. Our dome? Hell, I didn’t even know anymore. We hadn’t had a chance to discuss living arrangements since he’d claimed me, body and soul.

“What happened to your clothes?” Rowen asked with a strangled moan. “Did he touch you?”

“No,” I replied, and the tension in his shoulders released like a bowstring. “But he dressed me in his shadows.”

Rowen’s eyes darkened, rivaling the black cloth that had once adorned my skin, and a low, murderous growl rumbled through his chest. “He sought to mark you, that sick bastard. If you hadn’t imprisoned him, I would torture him slowly and with frightening efficacy, leaving him alive, but only just, in agonizing pain until he begged for death. ”

“He’s done so much damage,” I murmured, recalling the lifeless forest, dead bodies, and extinct starwings. “Erovos destroys everything in his path. He deserves to pay for his crimes, but I have no idea how. My Light didn’t hurt him, Rowen. He doesn’t have any weaknesses.”

Rowen’s face paled, but he remained resolute, offering me strength where I felt I had none. “We will find a way. Your brilliant mind found a way to trap him once. If he escapes, you will be able to do it again.”

“I don’t know how I managed it,” I said, grasping for handholds as I fell down the well of my mind. “And now that I’m back, I can’t make sense of anything. Everything feels so . . . dark.”

Rowen’s eyes flashed with empathy. “Keira, no matter how dark it gets, remember there is a way to find your Light again. Even if I have to make you find it myself.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” I smiled, keeping a far enough distance to prevent any accidental touches. It defied everything in my nature to pull away from Rowen physically. “How did you know I was back?”

“A bright light, similar to what I’ve seen you do before, filled the sky.

It was the most intense I’d ever seen it.

The flash of light was there and gone, like how you used to appear to me in the night.

” His jaw clenched. “I knew it was you, Keira. After not being able to breathe for months, seeing your flash of light in the sky lifted a weight from my chest. Sabra sensed you as well. She hasn’t left Ven’s side for anything.

When she charged towards the light, I knew it had to be you. ”

“I’ve never felt so powerful yet entirely useless,” I said, my bare feet padding along the dry pathways. “I knew something was wrong when Sabra wouldn’t let me touch her. I’m just glad she’s all right. I didn’t think she’d make it.”

“Thanks to the healing noxlilies you brought back to life. You are so much stronger than you are giving yourself credit for. Your power—I saw it. You were magnificent, Keira. You looked like a goddess raining down from the heavens in your dress of stars, but then I saw you descend into doubt, and you disappeared in a haze. You were a being of pure light, as if the moon rested just beneath your skin. I charged into your glow, and it was the last thing I saw before I passed out.”

“Passed out” was a nice way of saying knocked out. By me .

My abilities were out of control. I once had to beg for the Light in me to surface, but now it raged like an exposed wire above my skin. I was a live, walking, and talking electrical shock waiting to happen. I wasn't strong enough to contain it.

“Your hair. It’s longer,” he said, his fingers reaching to touch my lengthened tendrils, but he stopped midair. “I’m told it nearly covered all of you until Takoda placed the blanket over you. But your other changes, Keira. I think you’re a?—”

“Don’t,” I said, barely a whisper. “Not yet.”

The changes in my appearance troubled me, but as Rowen’s dome came into view, a lump of emotion formed in my throat. I wanted nothing more than to disappear within its wooden walls.

Rowen opened the circular door, grimacing as he led me through. The beautiful dome was in shambles. The canopy that once hung from the ceiling lay in a heap on the ground. Books, paper, and weapons were thrown and scattered on the floor. My gaze slid to his, knowing exactly what had happened.

Rowen appeared embarrassed and cleared his throat. “I was not doing well with your absence. Excuse the mess. I will take care of it while you rest.”

“You don’t need to apologize. I’m sure I would have done way worse.”

“I shouldn’t have done it, but your scent lingered on the sheets for weeks, slowly fading every day. I nearly brought the whole dome down the day it disappeared completely.”

“You don’t need to explain.” I gulped. It seemed so unfair that what only seemed like a few days for me had been months and months of agonizing torture for him.

“What I would like to know is how you managed to get bigger. It seems like you’ve done nothing but work out. You’re huge! So is your beard. ”

“Trimming my hair was not high on the list of things to do while you were missing. Pushing my body to the brink of death seemed like the preferable option.”

“I’m so sorry. I wish I could give you beard scratchies to make up for it,” I said, my nails begging to run through his thick hair.

“Beard scratchies, huh? So, you like it then?” he hummed.

I crinkled my nose with a smirk. “Did I say that?”

“That’s a polite way of saying you prefer it as it was.” He grinned, a crooked smile pulling at his full lips. “I’m beginning to see you have very specific desires for my facial hair. The last time I shaved it off, you nearly punched me in the face.”

I laughed, remembering how furious I’d been when he’d gotten rid of it. “Don’t mess with perfection.”

“Spirits, how I’ve missed that laugh,” Rowen groaned, his voice a husky whisper filled with longing.

Every part of his body, essence, and awareness reached for me, but he remained where he stood, fighting the urge to claim me as if it were the greatest battle he’d ever fought.

“I’ve missed every part of you. Your smile, your taste, your laugh, your strong-willed spirit. ”

“I’ve missed you,” I whispered, scanning every perfect line of his face and body, fighting my own silent battle.

Rowen approached me with the tenderness of a man handling a delicate yet wild creature.

He removed his overcoat from my shoulders and eyed the blanket covering my body.

His jaw ticked through his dark beard. “How I wish I could strip you of this and touch every inch of your skin that I uncover.” His voice was rough yet fluid, like a tumbling of unpolished stones.

“I wish that too,” I exhaled with a breathy moan when suddenly, memories of Erovos making me strip in front of him flashed through my mind, and I clenched the sheet tighter.

Rowen’s emerald eyes didn’t miss a thing as he assessed my body language. “What is it?”

“Erovos made me take off my clothes in front of him. ”

With a darkening, murderous gaze, he asked, “Do you need me to override that memory?”

I nodded, grateful he knew the exact treatment that would heal me. I wanted his precise and wild love to guide me away from this darkness. I needed his hands, mouth, and tongue to bend my body and pleasure to his will. “Yes.”

“Then undress for me and only me,” he commanded, his eyes blazing with a fire that promised to both scorch and heal me. “Anytime you remove your clothing, you will think of me and no one else. Do you understand? That memory will hold no power.”

Knowing we were playing with fire, I eyed him with a hunger that wouldn’t, couldn’t , be sated tonight. I lowered the sheet over my bare shoulder, revealing my collarbone and the swell of my breast.

His eyes darkened thunderously. “Don’t toy with me, Keira. Take it off. At least let me admire what I can’t touch.”

I let the blanket tumble down my body and pool at my feet. A low groan rumbled deep within him as I stood in his full view, allowing him to drink me in. “You are so fucking breathtaking,” he said without taking his eyes off my alabaster skin.

He stepped toward me, the air pulsing between us. His breath washed over my face and chest, and he watched with satisfaction as my nipples hardened and my breasts turned heavy.

An unrestrained moan passed through my lips as he lowered his mouth to the soft flesh just under my ear.

I was so sensitive that even without his touch, my body still responded to him.

“Lie on the bed,” he whispered, his lips hovering painfully over my skin as he trailed a breath down to my pebbled nipple.

Coming out of my trance, I asked, “While you clean?”

He chuckled. “I said I would do that while you rest. Right now, I have other plans for you. I need your scent back in my sheets.”

“How?” I asked, gesturing to the distance between us.

“I don’t have to touch you to make you come, Keira.”

My brows furrowed in confusion.

He chuckled again. This time, darker, deeper. Depraved. “Your hands will do my bidding,” he said as he stalked toward me, forcing me back until my legs hit the bed.

Realization dawned on me as warmth pooled between my thighs. “Oh,” I said as I lowered onto the sheets without breaking eye contact. I’d never done anything like this before, but my aching body begged me to try. “I might be bad at this.”

“That’s impossible,” he said, his gaze pinning me to the sheets. “Just do as I say. I want to watch as my words make you unravel. Now, lie back and run your hands along your body.”

His voice radiated through me as I laid down and traced my body with my fingertips. I watched his eyes taking in every inch of me, leaving no part of my skin uncharted.

All his intense focus was centered on me. It was intoxicating.

I arched my back as I drowned in the power of commanding such a formidable warrior. My undoing was the only thing that could claim his complete and utter attention.

“My hands are at your perfect breasts,” he said, and my fingers found and pinched my nipples. “Good girl,” he praised, his voice a tortured gravel.

“More,” I moaned.

“My hands are tracing along your waist, lowering to your hips, where I squeeze you,” he said, and my hands mirrored his orders. “I’m grazing past your hipbones, slowly teasing open your pretty thighs. I’m in between your knees now, pushing them apart. Further.”

I shamelessly spread my legs wider, my mouth watering for more of his commands. Rowen’s nostrils flared at the scent of my desire. “Don’t stop,” I begged.

“By the spirits, you take my breath away,” he said in a throaty rasp.

I writhed under my own touch as his words caressed me with powerful energy. But would it be enough?

“I can see how wet you are from here,” he hummed approvingly. “I’m going to touch you now. Slowly, as I trace you up and down. That’s it.”

My touch lowered to my aching core, mirroring his every word.

Spirits. I was wet.

After a few strokes, I touched myself where my budding need demanded it most.

“Uh-uh, Keira. Aren’t you impatient? I want to take my time with you.

” The absence of his touch tortured me, but the fear of him telling me to stop ached just as badly.

I needed his words, needed them as badly as I needed oxygen.

My fingers would be his instrument as he played me like a fiddle. “Don’t you dare speed up.”

“Please,” I groaned, stroking myself. His mouth hovered over my pussy, his breath washing over my wet thighs as my whimpers filled the dome. I was begging for the missing fullness that should be buried deep inside me.

“Open yourself for me,” he ordered, and I obeyed, easing out my throbbing clit. “How I wish I could feast on you, Keira. Kiss those lips until I lose myself in your taste, but until I’m able, I think I should like you to take a finger.”

I whimpered as he made me deny myself, but it was as if I was possessed and he was inside my brain, controlling me.

I knew what I needed for release, but his words held me captive as I slipped a finger inside myself. My hips bucked the air in front of him, and his eyes watched with a dark fire that blazoned my blood. It was his own private show, one that he was orchestrating from the front row.

“So tight,” he hummed. “How I wish it were me sinking inside of you.”

“Rowen, please,” I begged for mercy as I slid in and out, my finger coated in my arousal. I was floating, throbbing, begging him to let me speed up.

“Take another finger,” he commanded.

I groaned uncontrollably as I filled myself with my own fingers, small and delicate, not nearly as rough and calloused as I needed.

“Can you feel me, Keira?”

“Yes,” I panted. “Yes, I can.”

“Don’t stop. You’re so close. Show me how you like it.”

His eyes, words, and commands touched me in the way his body couldn’t, and my hips jerked against my palm. “Come with me,” I begged. I was so under his spell I couldn’t see straight, but the thought of him coming undone from watching me sent me over the edge.

I heard the metallic clink of his belt.

“Yes. Look at me,” I breathed, hypnotizing him with my body.

A primitive growl erupted from his chest. “You’re so beautiful. Don’t stop.”

The depravity of how I lost myself in front of Rowen was exhilarating.

My legs spread farther apart as I pleasured myself.

There was no shame, no embarrassment. Only the tether of his voice orchestrating me, building me up for a crescendo that I prayed would come soon; otherwise, it felt like I would die.

“You’re going to make me come, Keira. I won’t last much longer,” he rasped, stroking himself.

“Yes. Oh God, yes,” I panted as I took my other hand and pressed where my blood demanded it most .

We cried out in unison as our bodies convulsed side by side in waves of ecstasy. Our pleasure collided across the distance that separated us. In the fabric of space, where our pleasure met, we were together. At least there.

My peaked breasts heaved as Rowen crashed down beside me—an eternally long twelve inches apart.

“When I get my hands on you, I’m going to take you in every way. No part of your skin my tongue won’t taste, no part of your soul I won’t mark, no hole in your body I won’t fill,” Rowen ground out, his chest heaving.

“Yes,” I whimpered, my inner walls still contracting. Every part of me screamed for Rowen’s touch, a soul-deep desire that raged for his words to become reality, but the aftershocks of my orgasm pulsed torturously around nothing, and I was left empty.

As my shaking subsided, the aching distance between us grew. The inability to hold each other was an echo of our past, when Rowen had been cursed from touching me, loving me, fucking me.

Now, it was I who was cursed, uncertain if I would ever feel the warmth of Rowen’s touch again. The thought hung between our soaring bodies like a weight, making our fall back down to earth that much more painful.