Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 242728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1214(@200wpm)___ 971(@250wpm)___ 809(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 242728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1214(@200wpm)___ 971(@250wpm)___ 809(@300wpm)
Whale jawbones and swordfish flukes.
Creatures I’d conjured, now burned.
There was no sound, no air, no light or breath or life.
Just me.
Wandering a world that I’d slain—
“Get out!” I shouted in my head. “Leave me be.”
Darro stilled, his fingers still deep inside me. His eyes hooded, watching me like a hunter ready to eat his prey. He licked his glistening lips, groaning at the flavour of my arousal, but then his gaze darkened. “Your attention strayed. While my tongue was inside you, your attention split—” He shook his head and withdrew his touch. With a heart-breaking sigh, he shifted until he sat on his knees, looking down at me. “Tell me. Tell me what was strong enough to take you away from me.”
My heart clenched at the sublime beauty of Darro kneeling with his hands upturned, two of his fingers wet, and his jaw tight with barely controlled rage. His hardness looked fierce and angry, spearing upward.
He’d fought for me since the day in the grasslands. He’d tossed me over his shoulder as if it was his divine right to claim me.
I struggled to hold onto that.
I wanted to fight for him.
To not let another vision scare me or Quelis’s haunting despair to stop me.
Sitting upright, I shifted until I mimicked his posture, our knees touching. I hung my head and told him a little but not everything. “You’re right that the flames are speaking to me. They’re angry that we haven’t taken heed.” I still didn’t have the words to confess that one day, some day, I might be the cause of mass extinction. “But you are the only one I want, Darro. Regardless of what they say.”
My heart stuttered with sudden discomfort.
A single misstep but it made my breath catch and worry flare.
The bind...
Aktor.
Darro let out a heavy groan, raking both hands over his face. “You’re thinking about him.” His lips curled into a snarl. “You’re thinking of him while your essence coats my tongue.”
I rubbed my arms as grief cloaked me.
I cursed how sensitive he was.
He’d learned to tap into our link in ways I hadn’t yet mastered.
I hated that I’d hurt him. Again. That even here, in this wolf den where we first sank into knowing, I’d found a way to ruin everything.
My heart tripped again, barely there, hardly noticeable, but then it fisted with agony as Darro dropped his hands and shook his head. His every thought and insecurity, his every anger and hope painted his handsome face. Shadows danced over his bareness, highlighting ropes of power in his forearms, chiselled planes of his stomach, and old scars on his ribcage.
My mouth dried up as my stare went between his legs.
To the part of him that stabbed upright, heavy and hard, glistening with need.
He stilled as I studied him.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his incredible body. His magnetic power. His absolute mastery of who he was becoming.
“I’m only thinking of you,” I whispered.
His chin dropped and he sighed. “That’s a lie.” His tone darkened with fury even as his face cracked with pain. “And the fact that you thought you could do such a thing shows me just how—”
I didn’t let him finish.
I wouldn’t let Quelis’s visions, my tripping heart, or my fears of what I would do ruin this. I fell forward. I bowed over his lap. And I did to him what he’d done to me.
He grunted with shock as my fingers latched around his velvet length and my mouth encircled the tip. The scent of his musk and the tang of his lust exploded in my nose, followed by the salty erotic taste of him.
His thighs turned to stone as I licked.
He snarled as I sucked.
His hands sank into my hair, gathering the curtain of white, twisting it into a tight rope, holding me, keeping me locked over him. His breathing turned harsh as I sank my hand down his rigid length, following with my mouth.
He groaned as his hardness nudged the back of my throat and jerked as if lightning had found us as I hollowed out my cheeks.
“Runa...fuuuuck—” His head fell back as I drew up, doing my best to gift him pleasure. Wanting to worship him, thank him, prove to him that my thoughts were full of him and not—
I sat looking at the moon.
At the distant mocking moon.
Its silver light and night shadows wrenched bone-deep sobs from me.
I fell to my side onto the lava rocks my power had conjured, hugging myself as I broke.
Agonising sorrow wracked me.
I cried until I couldn’t breathe.
I cried until grief welled up and choked—
He stilled as my fingers paused on his length. His scent of night sky and earthy woods seeped stronger as if power gathered in his belly, ready to ignite.
Had he sensed my mind had fractured again?
Did he see the visions I saw?