Page 22

The vial the East Star had given Icarus almost burned a hole in his tunic as he flew to his palace. His spirits greeted him with their usual ebullience when he landed in the gardens. Heat flared through Icarus’s belly. He blinked.

“Is Ivmir here?”

“Yes,” the spirits sang. “He awaits your presence in your chambers, Master.”

Icarus swallowed. He was still getting used to the strange sensation in his soul core. The one he’d started experiencing during Ivmir’s visits lately.

“Can you prepare my bath?” he requested breathlessly.

“As you wish, Master.”

Icarus headed slowly inside the palace, his mind spinning at the decision he’d finally come to. By the time he reached the open air bath that graced the center of a private courtyard, the surface was already steaming and the fragrant scent of herbs and flowers suffused the air. Icarus stripped and headed down a set of shallow steps.

The water made his skin tingle when he sank into it. Icarus submerged himself to his chin, his face hot. He was already sporting a splendid erection and he hadn’t even seen Ivmir yet. He counted stars until his aroused flesh settled and had nearly finished washing himself when a voice came from somewhere above him.

“I was wondering where you were.”

Icarus whirled around and looked up, the water sloshing around his hips where he stood in the bath.

Ivmir was leaning his elbows on the balustrade of the second-floor gallery that encircled the courtyard. “I sensed your presence.” He vaulted over the railing and landed lightly on the terrace.

Icarus looked blankly at Ivmir, the demigod’s words echoing in his mind.

Wait. Does that mean he feels the same thing I do in my soul core?!

He didn’t realize he’d said the words out loud until Ivmir drew a sharp breath.

“You can feel it too?”

Icarus dipped his head, his pulse racing.

“Oh.” A strange expression came over Ivmir.

Icarus realized he was staring at his body. More precisely, he was studying Icarus’s revived erection where it broke the surface of the water with the kind of rapt focus that indicated he was immortalizing this moment in his mind.

Icarus gasped and spun around, mortified.

He squeezed his eyes shut when Ivmir’s footsteps came closer.

There was a soft splash. Ripples washed against Icarus’s skin.

Then Ivmir’s heat was all around him as he embraced him from behind.

“Don’t hide from me,” Ivmir whispered in his hair. He parted the damp strands clinging to Icarus’s nape and pressed his lips to his skin. “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Every inch of you takes my breath away. I could look at you for hours, nay, days.”

Icarus shivered, the storm of emotions and physical sensations sweeping through him so intense he had to bite his tongue to contain a whimper.

Ivmir squeezed him with his arms. “Tell me, Icarus. Tell me what I long to hear. Tell me you will be mine.” His husky tone was laced with a desperation that tugged at Icarus’s heart as he pressed his brow against Icarus’s quivering nape.

An ache built inside Icarus when he felt Ivmir’s erection against his buttock. The only thing separating their naked flesh was the tunic Ivmir wore. And Icarus wanted desperately to be rid of it.

Icarus shuddered. He could no longer deny the wishes of his heart.

He opened his eyes, twisted in Ivmir’s hold, and clasped the demigod’s face with trembling fingers. He stared into his sparkling, cobalt gaze and whispered,

“Yes. I will be yours.”

The heat that seared Icarus’s core in the next instant drew a gasp from his throat and was reflected in Ivmir’s widening pupils.

Icarus was confident then that their meeting had been predestined.

That their connection would be something special.

Because he could feel a bond forming between their souls.

We are ?—

“Soulmates,” Ivmir breathed reverently. His voice shook as he beheld Icarus. Tears of joy and wonder pooled in his eyes. “You are my soulmate.”

Icarus’s vision blurred and his breath hitched.

Ivmir lowered his head and gently kissed the silver tears tumbling down Icarus’s cheeks. Icarus grasped the demigod’s shoulders, rose on his toes, and fused their mouths in a frenzied kiss.

“Make love to me!” he begged brokenly against Ivmir’s lips. “I want to feel you!”

Ivmir flushed with desire. The hungry sound that left his throat making Icarus weak at the knees. Then Ivmir’s tongue was inside his mouth and his hands were on his naked body and the world faded around Icarus on a sparkling, white wave.

Ivmir’s lips. His tongue. His fingers.

They ravaged Icarus and seared his nerves until he became a being of pure sensation, at the mercy of his lover’s whim. He moaned wantonly when Ivmir nosed his chin up and pressed a hot trail down the column of his throat to the pulse beating frantically at the base.

Icarus cried out when Ivmir sank his teeth into his skin.

Ivmir grazed his nipples with his nails, the contact so electric Icarus couldn’t help flinching as his belly clenched painfully.

“I knew they’d be pink,” Ivmir mumbled.

Icarus’s eyes rounded when Ivmir ducked his head and sucked his left nipple into his mouth. His cock throbbed. Something thick and sticky oozed from his body.

Icarus pushed Ivmir away, stunned. “What—what was that?!”

Ivmir’s gaze dropped. A smile stretched his lips. “That was your pre-ejaculate.”

To Icarus’s everlasting shock, Ivmir traced the pearly drops crowning his quivering manhood with a fingertip before bringing to his mouth and sucking on it.

Ivmir grinned. “Sweet, like the finest nectar.”

Icarus dropped his hot face into his hands.

“My soulmate is a pervert,” he groaned.

Ivmir burst out laughing. He pulled Icarus into his arms and kneaded his buttocks with his hands.

“We’ll be doing more perverted things than this before the night is over,” he promised in a heartfelt voice.

A wanton shiver raced down Icarus’s spine when Ivmir’s erection pressed into him.

Ivmir turned his attention to Icarus’s nipples once more, his lips, tongue, and teeth teasing the stiff nubs until they were swollen and exquisitely sensitive. All the while, he ground their groins together, his hips mimicking the act of sex as he slowly rocked his pelvis.

“More,” Icarus moaned. He tipped his head back, his blind gaze lost in the night sky as Ivmir taught him pleasures he had never known before.

A savage growl erupted from Ivmir. He ripped his tunic off his body and cast it on the terrace before grabbing the back of Icarus’s thighs and lifting him up so he could hook his legs around his waist.

“ Oh! ” Icarus’s eyes almost rolled into the back of his head as their naked bodies kissed intimately from their chests to their groins.

Ivmir’s manhood was hard and thick and hot where it pressed against his trembling stomach.

“Icarus, my Icarus,” Ivmir chanted huskily. He worshipped Icarus’s face and throat and chest with his lips.

Icarus’s hole twitched. An ache was growing inside him, one that centered on his lower half and parts of him that had never known another’s touch.

Ivmir carried Icarus across the open air bath, lifted him out of the water, and sat him on the edge. Icarus gasped when the cool marble ledge kissed his heated flesh.

Ivmir claimed his mouth hungrily before taking hold of his erection and stroking him.

“ Ah! ” Icarus hissed at the electrifying friction. He looked down and flushed at the sight of Ivmir working his stiff member.

“Does it feel good?” Ivmir nipped at his chin.

“Yes.” Icarus’s body was growing hotter with every beguiling motion of Ivmir’s hand. “I—I want to do that to you too!”

“Later,” Ivmir said. “If you touch me right now, I’ll go off like a shooting star.”

Icarus glanced at Ivmir’s erection. He gulped.

“Ivmir?”

Ivmir nibbled on his collarbone. “Yes?”

“Hmm, Nildar gave me a vial of nectar from the Fenoa flowers. I still don’t think that is going to fit inside me though.”

Ivmir froze. “Where?”

Icarus blinked. “What?”

Ivmir raised his head and narrowed his eyes, his fingers stilling on Icarus’s straining cock. “Where’s the vial?”

Icarus indicated his tunic where it lay at the side of the bath. “It’s in my pocket.”

Ivmir lunged for his clothing and removed the item Nildar had gifted Icarus. He clenched it tightly and squeezed his eyes shut briefly.

“Thank you, East Star!” Ivmir met Icarus’s confused stare. “I’ve been trying to get hold of some for ages,” he confessed. “I’m in Daphne’s bad books at the moment, so it hasn’t been easy finding this stuff.”

“Do I want to know why you are in her bad books?” Icarus said in a resigned tone as Ivmir returned to his side.

“Not right now,” Ivmir admitted guiltily. He put the vial next to Icarus and clasped his rock hard cock once more. “Where were we?”

Icarus sighed as he surrendered to the wicked sensations Ivmir was eliciting from his hot flesh. He flushed when his member oozed more of the pearly evidence of his pleasure, slicking Ivmir’s strokes.

A feverish tension ignited inside him. It stiffened his spine and thighs and belly. Icarus moaned and started rocking his hips, powerless to resist his body’s instinct.

“Ivmir!” Icarus gasped. He met his demigod lover’s intense stare, his fingers digging into his solid shoulders.

“You’re close.” Ivmir kissed him softly. “Come for me, Icarus.”

Icarus’s body tightened like a bow as Ivmir quickened his motions. Wanton sounds left him as he thrust his sensitive manhood shamelessly through Ivmir’s firm grip, reaching for something.

Something he knew would wreck him yet that he still craved.

Fire blossomed in his soul core, the flickering flames matching the tautness washing and ebbing through him. Icarus whimpered as he neared the dizzying crest of what he’d been seeking.

His hole contracted and his stomach knotted painfully when he finally tumbled into an ocean of devastating pleasure.

Icarus was barely aware of his shout of ecstasy as the pressure in his lower body exploded into streaky, pale jets that spurted from his cock and anointed Ivmir’s fingers. His wings snapped open, the feathers trembling violently as they reached for the sky.

Icarus sobbed and gasped, his hips jerking fitfully and his passage pulsing as he rode the endless waves of blinding sensation, the world fading until all that was left was his body and mind and soul drowning into a river of red, hot pleasure.

It was a while before Icarus’s awareness returned. He roused to find Ivmir raining tender kisses down the side of his neck. He was clinging to the demigod, his heels digging into the back of his thighs, his arms and wings wrapped tightly around his shoulders.

Ivmir straightened and wiped Icarus’s sweat-soaked brow. “Was that good?” he asked huskily.

Icarus nodded numbly. “It was so good I—I thought I was going to die!”

Ivmir bit his lip. His shoulders trembled.

Icarus squinted. “Are you laughing at me right now?”

“No,” Ivmir denied in a strangled voice.

Icarus punched him lightly on the shoulder.

Ivmir grinned and collected the vial of nectar. “How about we take this to the bedroom?”

Icarus’s breath caught when he swung him up into his arms and walking out of the bath in all his naked glory.

“I can walk,” Icarus mumbled.

Ivmir kissed him tenderly as they entered the palace. “Your legs are still shaking.”

Icarus flushed. Truth be told, he’d never felt so weak-limbed and sated in his entire life.

He became aware of his spirits peering at them curiously from behind columns and the corners of the hallways they were navigating.

“Do not disturb us,” Icarus told them with flaming ears before burrowing his hot face in Ivmir’s chest.

“Yes, Master,” they murmured glumly.

Icarus groaned when the spirits’ low whispers reached him.

“Poor Master is going to get violated,” one mumbled dispiritedly.

“That’s one giant cock,” another said, sounding more than a little impressed.

Ivmir swallowed a snort. He winced when Icarus pinched his chest.

“I told you that demigod was up to no good,” another spirit hissed. “Now look! He’s going to insert his enormous manhood inside Master and wreck him.”

Icarus bit his lip. Being wrecked by Ivmir was exactly what he wanted. Not that he’d ever admit that out loud.

“You know, I don’t think Master minds,” another spirit observed shrewdly. “You heard the sounds he made just now. He was definitely not in pain.”

Then Ivmir and Icarus were inside his chambers.

Ivmir kicked the door closed and burst out laughing.

“It’s not funny,” Icarus grumbled. “They are going to lose all respect for me.”

“Yes, it is. And no, they won’t.” Ivmir grinned and put him down on his feet. “They love you.” He walked Icarus backward into the bedroom, his lips landing hotly on Icarus’s eyelids and cheeks and lips.

Icarus gasped when Ivmir pushed him down on the bed and dropped the vial of nectar next to him. Ivmir climbed atop the sheets and studied Icarus broodingly where he knelt on all fours above him.

“Touch me,” he commanded gruffly.

Icarus hesitated before raising his hands and stroking Ivmir’s chest lightly. Pleasure painted red flags on Ivmir’s cheekbones. He hissed when Icarus touched his nipples, his pupils blowing until they were dark pools of desire.

His reaction made Icarus grow bolder.

Icarus lifted his head off the pillow and kissed Ivmir’s throat. He caressed his shoulders and arms and his wide, strong back before working his way down the solid ridges of his abdomen, his fingers tracing invisible patterns on Ivmir’s twitching skin as he teased a path to his groin.

Ivmir jerked and hummed when Icarus cupped him. “By the Gods, that feels good!”

Icarus swallowed at the weight and feel of Ivmir’s erect manhood. Though he found it impossible to imagine how his thick girth would fit inside his body, he very much wanted to experience Ivmir’s possession.

Icarus explored the veins and silken skin of Ivmir’s shaft for breathless moments, learning his shape and the way he liked to be touched.

A lustful groan left Ivmir, his expression telling Icarus he was reaching his limits. He kissed Icarus before clasping his errant hand and pinning it above his head with his other wrist.

Icarus moaned when Ivmir lowered his frame and pressed him into the bed. He discovered that he relished the feeling. Being subjugated in this fashion, his arms trapped and his pliant body crushed and exposed to his lover’s touch, felt sublime.

And touch him Ivmir did.

Icarus gasped and trembled and whimpered as Ivmir explored every inch of him with his fingers and mouth. The demigod played with his nipples until Icarus begged him to suck them, only for him to cry and dirty the sheets with his pre-ejaculate when Ivmir gave in to his pleas.

By the time Ivmir kissed a path down his quivering belly, Icarus was a hot mess. His trembling cock had oozed a sticky, pale pool that had gathered around the root of his shaft and trickled down his balls and taint.

Ivmir’s hooded gaze locked on Icarus’s feverish stare as he worked his hands under his knees and lifted them.

Icarus sucked in air when Ivmir parted his legs and kissed the inside of his left thigh. Ivmir settled on his belly, propped Icarus’s knees on his shoulders, and stretched him nice and wide, exposing his most sinful part to his gaze.

Icarus licked his lips as Ivmir studied his hole with a devout look.

“This part of you is so pretty I want to immortalize it in a painting,” Ivmir declared in an impassioned voice.

Icarus dropped his head on the pillow and covered his eyes with his hands.

“How in Heaven’s name can you say such things with a straight face?” he groaned.

He stiffened in the next instant.

Ivmir’s breath had just danced across his erection.

“Ivmir? What are you—?! Ah! ”

Icarus’s shout echoed across the bedroom as Ivmir licked a scalding path from the root of his engorged cock to his twitching tip. His hands found Ivmir’s hair and his gaze Ivmir’s sultry stare.

Ivmir repeated the motion, heedless of Icarus’s fingers digging into his scalp, his clever tongue tracing the veins on the underside of Icarus’s shaft.

Icarus had read of this practice. He’d just never imagined anyone doing it to him.

It was filthy. Obscene. Wicked.

And Icarus loved it.

He hissed when Ivmir circled the head of his erection with his tongue before flicking his oozing tip.

Then Ivmir swallowed him inside his mouth and Icarus fairly lost his mind.

All he could do was feel as Ivmir worked his rigid member with his lips and tongue and the most exquisite suction of his powerful jaw and cheeks.

Icarus’s body soon fell into a rhythm as old as time as Ivmir continued his ardent ministrations, his hips undulating sensuously off the bed.

Pleasure soon blinded him. He gripped Ivmir’s hair and began thrusting his cock wantonly inside his mouth. Fire pooled in the pit of his belly, bringing with it a tension that made Icarus’s every nerve ending tingle.

“Ivmir! Please, I beg of you!” he panted.

Ivmir reached for something as he continued eating him to his heart’s content. Icarus heard the pop of a lid and gasped when a few drops of a warm liquid anointed his hole.

The sweet scent of flowers assailed Icarus’s nostrils.

He stiffened, his eyes rounding.

Ivmir was stroking the slick pad of a finger across the tight folds protecting his entrance.

Icarus bit his lip and shivered at the sinful sensation.

His body tightened like a bow as Ivmir worked his front and his back, the demigod sucking him lustfully while he rubbed and circled his twitching hole.

Then Ivmir widened his jaw and swallowed Icarus’s throbbing manhood all the way to the back of his throat at the same time he pushed a finger past his softened folds and inside his body.

Icarus’s core flashed as he detonated like a star.

He ejaculated violently inside Ivmir’s hungry mouth, his guttural cry of pleasure echoing in his ears, his passage clenching fiercely around the stiff intruder piercing him with gentle thrusts. Ecstasy wreaked havoc upon Icarus’s senses as he convulsed on the bed, his cock throbbing and jerking inside the hot confines of Ivmir’s cheeks.

Ivmir gulped and swallowed his seed, his finger still working Icarus’s entrance.

He finally let go of Icarus’s pleasantly spent cock and straightened so he could sit back on his knees, his cheeks flushed and his eyes dark with passion.

The look he gave Icarus as he poured more of the Fenoa flower nectar on the place where he was penetrating him made Icarus shudder as he lay panting on the bed, his legs propped on Ivmir’s shoulders and his body weak with pleasure.

Then Ivmir stretched his opening with his thumbs and ducked his head to flick his tongue across his quivering folds.

“ Ivmir! ” Icarus gasped, shocked.

Ivmir growled, a sound full of need. He grabbed Icarus’s calves, spread him wide, and hitched his lower body off the bed so he could feast on his hole.

Sparks of electricity stabbed Icarus’s passage as Ivmir rimmed him thoroughly. His cock swelled with fresh arousal, his toes curling in mid-air at every sinful motion of Ivmir’s wicked tongue.

Icarus whimpered when Ivmir lifted his head and lowered him to the bed before pushing two fingers inside him. To his surprise, they went in easily, his hole and insides slick with the nectar of the Fenoa flowers and Ivmir’s spit. He met Ivmir’s torrid stare as the demigod plundered his body, getting him used to the feeling of being penetrated.

A hiss left Icarus as Ivmir scissored his fingers, spreading him even more open.

“I’m coming in,” Ivmir said gruffly a moment later.

Icarus’s heart thudded violently as he watched Ivmir slick his cock with a generous amount of nectar.

Then Ivmir crowded the cradle of Icarus’s body, spread his thighs wide, and wrapped his legs around his hips. He leaned down and took Icarus’s mouth in a scorching kiss as he pressed the head of his cock to his entrance.

Icarus moaned when the rock hard intruder pierced his body, his hole stretched impossibly wide. A burning sensation scorched his rim. He winced.

“Breathe, Icarus,” Ivmir whispered against his lips. “I promise, this gets better.”

Icarus panted and nodded tremulously. He gazed into Ivmir’s breathtaking eyes and did as he instructed, focused on loosening his body. His passage prickled when Ivmir finally breached his entrance and sank inside an inch.

“Ivmir!” Icarus whimpered. His nails scored red lines on Ivmir’s arms where he’d pressed them on either side of Icarus’s body.

Ivmir groaned and squeezed his eyes shut as he stilled and waited for Icarus’s body to adapt to his girth.

“It feels so good inside you,” he mumbled.

Sweat dripped from his face and splashed onto Icarus’s belly.

Icarus’s heart clenched at Ivmir’s taut expression. He could tell he was holding back so as not to cause him pain. Icarus raised a hand and caressed Ivmir’s face.

“More,” he whispered. “Give me more, Ivmir.”

Ivmir opened his eyes. The fire smoldering in the blue depths should have scared Icarus. Except it didn’t.

“Are you really alright?” Ivmir asked.

“I won’t lie to you,” Icarus said softly. “It hurts. But I still want this.”

Ivmir swallowed. He clasped Icarus’s wrist and kissed his palm as he nudged his hips forward. Icarus’s mouth opened on harsh gasps as Ivmir slowly filled him, their gazes locked on one another.

Then Ivmir was in to the hilt. The demigod took a shuddering breath, his body quivering with tension.

Wonder danced through Icarus at the fullness inside him.

It felt alien and hot and a little painful still. He could feel the Fenoa flower nectar working its magic as it soothed the soreness.

There was something else there.

A banked heat that throbbed in tandem with his soul core.

It expanded when Icarus tentatively squeezed Ivmir’s cock with his passage.

“Icarus,” Ivmir groaned. A bone deep shudder shook him.

“Yes?”

“I’m trying to be gentle,” Ivmir pleaded, “so keep still.”

Icarus licked his lips. “I can’t.” He gripped Ivmir’s thick member with his hole and was rewarded with a colorful curse.

The pain had faded. In its stead was a slow growing fire.

Then Ivmir pulled out and punched back inside Icarus in a motion that stoked the blaze inside him and drew a shout from his lips.

“ Ah! ” Icarus’s hands found the sheets above his head as Ivmir began rocking his hips in a tempo that scorched his senses and sent his mind spinning. “Oh! Hmm! ”

Ivmir grunted and gnashed his teeth as he thrust in and out of Icarus. Their heated gazes met.

“Tell me this feels as good for you as it does for me!” Ivmir leaned down and sucked on Icarus’s lower lip. “Because I have never experienced pleasure like this before!”

Icarus clasped Ivmir’s face and kissed him hard, his heart thundering and his ears ringing with the sound of his pounding blood as he lifted his hips and met Ivmir’s thrusts.

“It feels—it feels wonderful!” he panted. “I don’t want you to stop! Ah! Fill me up, Ivmir!”

A wild look came over Ivmir. He fixed Icarus’s hips with his hands, his thrusts growing increasingly savage as he plunged his rigid manhood in and out of Icarus’s hungry body.

Icarus matched him stroke for stroke, his heels digging into Ivmir’s buttocks.

“ Yessss! ” he hissed. “Like that! Harder, Ivmir!”

“By the Gods, Awakener!” Ivmir growled. “You would have me turn into a rutting beast!”

Icarus flushed and bit his lip as he beheld Ivmir’s untamed expression. Seeing Ivmir lose control was the most singularly arousing thing he had ever seen.

The flames licking Icarus’s insides set his nerve endings ablaze as Ivmir claimed him with ruthless passion. His cries and moans filled the bedroom at the exquisite pleasure pulsing through his passage.

Gold flashed in Ivmir’s pupils, his own face growing taut with ecstasy.

“Let’s come together!”

Icarus whimpered when his soul core throbbed with sweet violence. From the way Ivmir gasped, so did his. The bed rocked as their motions accelerated, their bodies bowing and straining as they ascended the towering cliff of pleasure they’d created with their lovemaking.

Ivmir’s animal shout underscored Icarus’s scream when they peaked the heady crest and fell into an oblivion of wild ecstasy. Heat flooded Icarus’s face as the scalding evidence of Ivmir’s pleasure filled his insides. His own seed anointed Ivmir’s belly in pearly jets, his manhood jerking as it throbbed and emptied itself.

Icarus trembled at the powerful convulsions quaking through him.

Ivmir continued moving.

It took Icarus a moment to realize the demigod was still hard.

“Ivmir?!” he mumbled.

Ivmir leaned down and kissed him, his expression desperate.

“More! I need more of your sweet taste! I swear I will lose my sanity if we stop doing this right now!”

Icarus shivered. He clung to Ivmir as he claimed him again, drowning him in ecstasy so fierce his throat soon ached from shouting.

Ivmir flipped Icarus onto his front and showed him the pleasure of being taken from behind, his hand tugging Icarus’s long hair until his back bowed beautifully where he knelt on the bed. He plundered Icarus against the wall, in a chair, and with him standing and leaning forward at the waist while he gripped the footboard of the bed, the demigod rutting wildly as he pierced him repeatedly from behind.

Time whiled away as they returned to the bed and mated with wild abandon, the sheets growing damp with their sweat and seed. Every time the waves dragged Icarus under, every time his conscious flickered, Ivmir was there to bring him back to life with a savage thrust.

Taking him. Wrecking him. Driving him senseless with ecstasy.

Ivmir’s motions gentled when he finally appeased the frenzied hunger that had come over him. His lovemaking grew slow and sensual, his touches and kisses so tender Icarus could not help but shiver. Ivmir’s eyes sparked gold as he danced above him, his hips rolling at an unhurried pace, as if they had all the time in the world. He stared in wonder as Icarus shattered under him again and again, at times lowering his head to swallow his sultry moans and gasps with his mouth.

It was a few hours before daybreak when they finally collapsed onto the sheets, their limbs entangled and their bodies heavy as they succumbed to a deep slumber.

Icarus stirred at first light. It took him a moment to register who was in his bed.

Ivmir’s chest rose and fell softly with his breaths where he dozed soundly beside him.

Icarus’s cheeks grew warm at the memory of the wicked things they had done together. He shifted and winced.

An unfamiliar soreness throbbed through his nether half.

Even though they’d used over half the vial of nectar Nildar had given him, he could still feel Ivmir’s shape inside him. The demigod had done a splendid job of deflowering him, showing him little mercy even though it had been his first time.

Icarus pursed his lips. He pinched Ivmir’s nose lightly with his fingers.

It took a moment for Ivmir to stir, his brow furrowing a little in his sleep.

Icarus let go and propped his chin on his hands where he lay on his front, his lips curving in a wry smile.

You wouldn’t think he was such a beast looking at him now.

He moved carefully so as not to wake Ivmir and braced himself on an elbow so he could watch him sleep.

Dawn soon poked pale rays inside the bedroom. Bird song sounded in the gardens as the light fell on Ivmir’s face.

Icarus’s heart ached as he observed his handsome features. He traced the hard line of Ivmir’s nose and the rigid angle of his cheekbone with a featherlight touch before pressing his lips tenderly to his mouth.

He was a storm that had blown into Icarus’s world. A fool of a demigod who had changed his entire existence with a single kiss. Loud, reckless, brazen. And yet so precious Icarus could hardly breathe as he gazed upon his sleeping form.

“I make a promise to you,” Icarus whispered. “I shall love you always, across the eons and through the ages. And I vow, with my power as an Awakener, that I will protect you whatever may come. That I will save you when you need me the most.”

Icarus blinked. Wonderment resonated through him at the heat that flared inside his belly.

He could feel a spell forming between his and Ivmir’s cores.

Icarus took a shaky breath.

“None will break this bond,” he pledged. “Even if our souls were to shatter, even if Heaven or Death were to tear us apart, we will reunite, in another world and another life.” Icarus kissed the spot over Ivmir’s heart, the love searing his being so overpowering his breath hitched. “I am yours for eternity, my beloved.”

The divine spark that bloomed into life inside Icarus’s core was reflected by an answering flash deep within Ivmir.

Ivmir stirred. His eyelids fluttered open, exposing his hauntingly beautiful irises.

A dazzling smile curved his mouth. “Good morning, my love.”

THE END