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CHAPTER

TWENTY-SEVEN

Oralia

I had not wondered why Ren did not have his wings in the in-between. He had appeared before me whole except for those long-mourned parts of him he was never sure he’d be reunited with. But as we’d joined and our magic had tangled around us, I thought I understood. Even here in this realm, Ren held onto those broken pieces of himself. In a world where he needed for nothing, his soul was not truly whole.

They had been insubstantial at first, merely shadows flowing behind his back, shivering with each breath he took. But as our pleasure had reached a fever pitch, as magic had shimmered around us, his wings had taken form. Wisps of shadow made real, tangible, until I could reach out to stroke my finger over the junction where black muscle faded into pale skin.

Ren’s hair slid forward to cover his face, chin dipped toward his chest. With each breath he took, his wings shuddered, flexed, responded. His hands, spread wide across his thighs, tensed, then relaxed, as if waiting for a killing blow. I scooted closer, pressing my bare chest to his, to drag my palm over the bend, wrapping my fingers around the silver-tipped talon at the top of the wing.

“They are beautiful, Ren,” I breathed.

Different than Typhon’s feathered white wings, Ren’s were pitch black, thin skin like a membrane stretched out across four narrow bones. Dragging my fingertips over them, I tried to learn the texture—to understand the strange shimmer in the weak light of twilight. In many ways, it reminded me faintly of the souls as they ascended, their shimmering light swallowed by the mist and the dark.

“ Eshara ,” he rumbled, darting out to grip me by the hips.

“Do you not want to see them?” I asked, resting my chin on his shoulder while I continued to explore.

My fingers drifted to the meeting point on his back that had once been merely gnarled scars. Tears glazed across my vision, heat dancing up my face to see him as he should have been. I could only hope he would be the same in our world soon.

Ren gave another muffled groan, and I pulled back, brows furrowed. “Does it hurt?”

Breath ghosted across my face, his chest heaving before his fingers dug deeper into my flesh. A flush painted his cheeks, his midnight eyes going black. Between us, his cock strained against the fabric of his breeches where he’d haphazardly put himself away. Yet he did not respond, only stared at me, lips parted. Slowly, I reached out, dragging one finger across the edge of his wing, and his lids fluttered, a moan slipping through his lips.

“Ren…”

His mouth covered mine before I could ask again as he dragged me onto his lap and speared me onto the head of his cock. My hand wrapped around the bend of his wing, and he moaned, bucking up into me, fingers tangling in the back of my hair to expose my throat.

“You ask me if it hurts, myhn lathira?” Ren rasped, holding me steady against his punishing rhythm.

My belly clenched, heat spiraling down my spine until embers burned across my skin.

“To have you wrap your hand around a part of me I have not had in three centuries, a piece of me you have never known, and yet restored to me with a mere breath…it is bittersweet agony , Oralia.”

Teeth clamped down upon my shoulder, and I cried out, holding myself steady with my grip on his shoulders. This was its own kind of worship. A ferocity Ren could not control. His entire existence was loss—his soul had been broken down piece by piece until he did not know his own reflection in the mirror. And now suddenly, in this place, he was whole again.

I fluttered around his cock, release there, right on the edge. But Ren did not slow his pace, only laving at the bite on my neck. Both hands wrapped around my waist, bouncing me on his lap. All I could do was let go, allowing my mate to use me to his own ends and unleash this part of him he had not relinquished. And when he did, I exploded around him, his name a scream ripping through the air.

I was boneless in his grip as Ren moaned into the curve of my throat, hips stuttering. I leaned forward, sliding two fingers across the wide expanse of one black wing, and Ren cried out, hot pulses of his cock dragging a smaller, gentler orgasm from me. We sat in the quiet for a few long moments, foreheads pressed together, breathing in each other’s air.

“Do you want to see them?” I asked again, sliding carefully off him.

Ren’s fingers dove between my legs, gathering up his seed to press back inside of me, though, of course, it did not matter here in this realm. He cupped my sex possessively. He did not speak for a long time while I ran my fingers through his messy hair, dragging in deep pulls of his scent as if it was the only air I breathed.

“No,” he breathed. “I cannot bear it.”

With a shake of his head, he pushed to his feet, wings flaring behind him. He stumbled slightly with the overcorrection, and I braced him with a grip on his forearm.

“Why not?”

Ren took a deep breath, wincing as his wings responded, before running a hand through his hair. “Because this place is not real. This is not my real body, nor yours. It is more than dreams yet less than waking. And I know when you revive me, it will not be to this body and these wings.”

Closing the space between us, I cupped his face in my hands, stroking across the sharp planes of his cheekbones. “I vow to you, I will do everything in my power to return them, to completely restore you.”

He gripped my wrists, leaning into the touch. “Tell me instead what is happening, what is left, and what you plan to do.”

There was not much to report, only the things he could parse out from his own observations and the confirmation that Samarah had housed a piece of him within her land. There were three more pieces of him scattered, four if I included his wings on display within Typhon’s palace. He asked about my power, the fire he’d seen dancing with the light and shadows, and gave me a strange sort of smile when I told him of my meeting with Zayne.

“He is exactly what you need, eshara .” Ren tucked my hair behind my ears and pressed a kiss between my brows before sliding the fabric of my gown up my shoulders.

I clung to him, a strange pulling sensation beginning in my belly. “Please do not make me go.”

“We must go, sweetling,” Samarah called in her singsong voice, appearing through the trees arm in arm with Asteria.

The latter’s face was reddened, eyes bright and glassy. But Samarah turned with a smile, pressing kisses to her cheeks before reaching out to me.

“Dawn grows near and you must rest,” she continued. “Say goodbye to your mate.”

Ren’s lips brushed my temples, knuckles tilting my chin up to cover his mouth with mine. “You are on the right path. Trust in your magic.”

The vision of him faded, along with the woods at the base of a tall mountain. So did the pleasant ache between my thighs, the evidence of him smeared across my sex. I traveled through strange cities, speaking to strange people with a darkness roiling at my back. Bright sunlight streamed across my face, fading into bitter dark. Someone spoke in a language I did not know, and yet, I understood they spoke to me of danger. In their hands lay a pomegranate, withered and molded with time. I chased Ren through a crowded, serpentine street, darting between humans and demigods, calling out for him until I was unsure if our time in the in-between had been anything more than a dream.

But when I woke hours later to the soft light of dawn sliding through the mist and the sounds of Sidero and Samarah arguing outside my room, I stumbled into the bathing chamber to find a bright red bite where my neck met my shoulder.

Ren’s mark. A reminder that he was waiting for me to bring him home.