Page 55 of What Whispers in the Dark (Promises of the Marked)

She wanted to wipe that irritating, enchanting smirk off his face as he dawned a tree—a fucking tree —beside him and leaned his shoulder into it, folding his arms over his chest. “You forget, I rather delight in these things. And I do not recall any rules in this little game of yours.” Icy calm rippled off him.

The smug bastard pulled his fist from his crossed arms, examined his nails like he couldn’t be bothered.

Like chasing her was some easy thing. “Unless you need a head start?” A smirk twitched his lips.

She would never accept an advantage, and they both knew it.

Fine. He wanted to play it that way?

Alora didn’t deign to give him a response and scanned the horizon darkened with dancing shadow. Scanned the homes of all their friends and the mountains in between. The tall trees and … and that sky again?—

Mighty wings of starfire unfurled from her back and shot her skyward.

He’d spent hours training her to fly. Now he would regret it.

On the lawn, Garrik vanished again.

In the sky, her stomach tightened with anticipation.

She whirled, spreading her wings wide to hover amidst the clouds of darkness. Her heartbeat was so wild she could hear it bouncing off every bone in her body, felt it in the pulse thrumming through her ears.

The house: a mere grain of sand against the dirt. The lake: nothing but a blot of dark blue. But Garrik …

She waited. Scanning and scanning. Expecting him to appear. To reform of mist and ash and shadow. To hurl himself out of?—

Before she could cry out, darkness raged around her. Out of the storm, shadowy likenesses of his hands parted the whorls and hoisted her legs around his middle, gripping her thighs. In an explosion of Smokeshadows, unfurling from his back in whorls, the night itself transcended.

Incredible wings of darkness spilled into the air behind him.

A mighty manifestation of her male’s magic spread wide as a wall of frigid cold enveloped her the moment he wrapped his considerable arms around her waist, one hand traveling up her back and the other …

the other with a claiming palm on her rear.

She couldn’t even be mad as she angled her eyes up to find Garrik smiling down at her. Alora offered him a slow, elated shake of her head as her starflame wings extinguished and she toweled her arms around his neck. “I love when you look at me like that.”

“Good. Because I intend to continue looking at you for the foreseeable future.”

Alora rolled her eyes. “Garrik.” She giggled, enjoying the smile widening on his face when she said his name.

His silver eyes gleamed despite the darkened sky. “I will never tire of hearing that. Above all else, it is my favorite thing to touch your lips.” His gaze flickered down, narrowing. Never removing his eyes from her mouth as he said, “I would be … most unfriendly if it were not my own name.”

Alora beamed. My jealous male. She thought she might be dying from the way her heart swelled. It joyed her more than she could say—his envy, his hostility toward others, for such a simple thing.

Mmm , she purred. “How about this?” Alora took his face between her palms and placed a tender, cherished kiss on his lips. “I love you, Garrik.”

Garrik made a low, struck sound. Shuddered.

Shuddered more as he deepened their kiss.

If his shadows weren’t holding her to his body, she imagined she would have slipped by the tremble in his hands.

When their lips parted, a note of wonderment—of awe and acceptance and reparation—broke in his voice.

“It seems my previous remark was premature. That is my favorite.”

It was hers, too. Knowing when he said it, it wasn’t a fabrication. Garrik meant it deep in his breathtaking soul.

They clung to each other, staring for a long minute. She couldn’t stop herself from threading her fingers in his hair, from gazing at his beautiful face. “So, my mighty prince. You caught me.”

“That I did.” In emphasis, his hand tightened on her ass. Those shadow-wings flared. “You should know by now, I will always catch you.”

And she would always let him.

“Now that you have me. What do you plan to do to me?”

That gleam in his eyes … “Nothing of honorable intentions, I assure you.”

Good.

She met his savage grin. “And what of those … less eventful little mentions?”

“ Fuck less eventful.” And like the final snap of a tether, Garrik misted their clothing away and pushed the hard evidence of just how done with waiting he was along her center. His hips moved—unhurried and unrushed—and with it, his head glided across her wetness.

Once. Twice.

Alora whined; she could take no more teasing. No more waiting. Naked, as the wind breezed around them, she slipped her hand between them and positioned his cock to bury deep inside her.

His voice turned purely primal. Hardly recognizable. Trembling the skies and everything around them before he made love to her, slow and deep amidst the clouds. She didn’t doubt it was heard back in Elysian. “You’re mine.”