Page 51

Summer

W e stumble toward the bathroom, grappling not with ghosts this time, but with each other and the thrill of being alive. Of being together.

I fumble with the faucets, then I’m in Wyn’s arms, my back hitting the shower wall. He laughs, tripping over his feet and nearly tumbling us over the edge of the tub.

“Tell me again that nightmare is really over,” I breathe, letting the warm water stream over my face, washing all the dirt away.

“It’s over,” Wyn says. “You’re with me now. You’re safe.”

He presses closer and wraps my legs around his waist. A red mark is turning purple along his jaw, one of the many places where Landolin’s shadows struck him. “Does that hurt?” I ask, brushing my fingertip over it.

He doesn’t answer.

Instead, he cups my face with one hand, his thumb teasing the curve of my cheekbone, eyes greedily devouring me, like he’s checking I’m real, not a dream.

Above the shower head, the floating, mangled body of a squirrel rotates lazily, like it’s enjoying the mist and the show. I throw a washcloth at it. “I swear on my last clean towel, if you don’t fade out in three seconds, buddy, your fuzzy little ass will be exorcised next.”

It squeaks and disappears as Wyn laughs into my shoulder.

“When you dug me out of the grave, I didn’t get to say it at the time, given Landolin’s interruption,” he mutters.

“Say what?” My voice comes out hoarse, sounding smoke damaged or maybe just turned on. Probably both.

His gaze is blistering. “That I would’ve stayed buried in Dorthadas’s soil for you. Would’ve stayed there forever if it kept you safe.”

I let out a breath that begins as a laugh and ends as a sob. “You almost did, idiot.”

“Didn’t.” His forehead tips forward, resting against mine. “You called me back.”

He closes his eyes for a moment, as if the trauma, the weight of it all, has finally caught up to him. “I didn’t think I’d hear your voice again,” he whispers. “Not in this world.”

“I’ll always be here for you,” I murmur.

“I’m counting on it, Summer.” His fingers glide down my neck, gently massaging in soap suds.

My knees shake at the longing and desire evident in his rough voice.

“Wyn.” I release a trembling exhale, my fingers skating across the hard ridges of his stomach. “Are you hurt badly?”

“I’ll tell you if you hit a tender spot. Keep checking.”

I huff a breath. “That’s not an answer. ”

He laughs into my mouth. “Okay, barely. Anyway, I don’t feel pain when you’re with me. Haven’t I told you?”

His lips feather over the pulse on my neck, his teeth teasing, and then he bites down hard. Like a wolf claiming his mate.

“Mine,” he growls. “Only mine. I’m going to fuck you so hard and make you forget every shitty thing about the last week. You’ll remember only me. The feel of me inside you, making you slicker and slicker—losing yourself to everything except how I make you feel. Understand?”

“Yes,” I moan. “Sounds perfect.”

“ You’re perfect. And mine. Did I tell you that, too? Another man touches you, ever , and I’ll rip his throat out. Eat his entrails for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

“Way too much information,” I say between ragged breaths as I fist his hard length, squeezing and sliding up and down, my thumb circling the tip.

Groaning, he watches me work him over, water and soap sluicing down our trembling bodies.

I tug his head up by a fistful of wet hair and kiss him, the sweet glide making my mind spin.

His tongue slides into my mouth, and the kiss changes.

No longer sweet or gentle. It’s hungry and wild.

A clash of lips and teeth and desperation that ends when he pulls away slightly, muttering breathless words.

“What?” I ask. “What did you say?”

“Nothing.” His fingers tease along the seam of my entrance, then swirl over my clit, eliciting sighs and moans that I can’t hold back. “Don’t know what I’m saying,” he rasps. “Can’t think straight. All I want is to be inside you, little sun. Always. Can we do that?”

“Might be complicated,” I tease .

“Fuck,” he says, half-laughing, half-groaning.

“Only you—you’re the sunlight warming my grave.

You’re the roots that tether me to every realm, keeping me alive, feeding my soul.

You’re my everything . I would die for you.

Kill for you. Do anything you asked of me.

But right now, I need to feel you come on me while I howl your name out loud. ”

“God… what are you waiting for?”

Strong hands raise my hips, slowly impaling me on the glistening head bobbing against my stomach. We gasp, our eyes fixed on the sight of me stretched around his tip.

“Hold on tight,” he says, then slams into me.

We moan between wet kisses as he sets a punishing pace, his body pressing mine against the tiled wall, one hand on my throat, the other on my breast. His head ducks low and he draws one nipple into his hot mouth, then the other, suckling and biting like a hungry wolf.

Every movement is frantic and greedy, peppered with laughter and low curses. He bangs his shin on the side of the bath. I hit my head on the wall. We don’t stop or pause. Neither of us cares.

At one point he mutters something against my throat that sounds a lot like “seven hells I missed the taste of your skin,” and I pretend not to hear it, so I don’t fall apart then and there.

I slide my hands down his muscled back and dig my fingers into his ass, making him jerk. “Sweet Dana, I can’t take much more of this.”

“Dana?” I gasp as Wyn’s pace becomes erratic and everything inside me tightens despite my best efforts to hold the intense orgasm at bay. “Who the hell is she ? ”

“A goddess. Nothing compared to you. We fae only speak her name to beg and complain. Right now, I need all the help I can get not to lose control… not to finish before you do.”

He lifts my knee higher, spreading me wider, realigning his hips, and picking up speed. Water splashes off our bodies and all over the bathroom as the sound of slapping flesh fills the air, almost drowned out by our groans.

Wyn watches my breasts bounce with each pump, drives into the perfect spot that increases my cries and makes my nails dig deeper into his skin.

“Tell me there’ll never be another. Only me,” he demands.

“Only you, Wyn. Forever.”

“Good. As it should be.” His teeth clamp around the long muscle of my neck as he gives one last delicious thrust, grinding his hips into mine.

Crying out, I crash over the edge. He growls my name low in his chest and tumbles after me, wrapping me in an embrace so tight I nearly pass out.

“No knotting this time?” I tease when I finally catch my breath.

“Later. Too tired. But thank you,” he says, dropping tender kisses along my jaw, my temple, my lips.

“What for?”

“For finally seeing me, loving me, remembering me, trusting me. If I had to wait a hundred more years, you’d be worth every torturous moment.”

“Anytime. It’s a pleasure, honestly,” I joke.

Later, our limbs are tangled in my sheets as I lie on my side, tracing a scar on Wyn’s hip with my finger. For a while, we don’t speak. The rise and fall of his chest slows, and I press my foot against his toes under the covers.

“I should feel a lot better now that she’s gone, right?” I say.

“Your mother? Do you?”

“No. I still feel… scarred from her selfish way of loving me… or not loving me. You know what’s wild? I’ve spent years thinking there was a good chance I murdered my parents. Now it’s hard to put that guilt back into its box.”

“You’re allowed to stop punishing yourself anytime now. You never did anything wrong. It’s time to heal. Let it go,” he says, hugging me tighter.

“You’re right. And, hey, at least my mother’s not floating above my bed critiquing my posture anymore.”

“She had a point about the slouch.”

I pinch the sharp blade of his ear playfully. “Get out.”

Wyn smirks. “Make me.”

“You couldn’t be bothered doing the knotting thing before.” I give an exhausted laugh. “I can’t be bothered to kick you out. So just shut up and go to sleep, wolf-boy.”

He squeezes my waist. “Anything you want, little sun. And you should sleep, too. We have a lot to talk about tomorrow.”

The sheets are still damp from the shower, but I don’t care. Wyn’s scent is in them now—clean earth and pine—and I feel safe and warm.

Loved.

“You’ll still be here when I wake up, won’t you?” I ask, my eyelids already closing against my will.

He doesn’t answer right away. Just wraps himself around me, tucking me against him. Then soft lips press against my forehead.

“I promise I’m not going anywhere without you, Summer. Never, ever again.”