“I think you’re the last person who’d harm me.” Serenna touched his face, his expression full of concern. “I want you,” she breathed, heart twisting,conflicted with what she felt for the prince. She hadn’t yet abandoned all hope that he’d find her.
The heat flaring in Fenn’s eyes returned Serenna’s focus to him. She swiped her thumb over the angles of his cheek. “I…” she began, unsure how to finish the thought.
Everything about him confused her, making her question what she thought she wanted. But there was something about him—something about Fenn’s honesty and friendship that had filled a void she hadn’t been aware of until he’d entered her life. He’d made her feel special, like she was the center of his universe, even though she wasn’t the only one who he shared his heart with. Guilt carved a path through Serenna’s chest—similar circumstances had inflicted jealousy before, polluting what she felt toward the prince.
“I want you,” she repeated, falling into the fire in his eyes. It was all she had the courage to admit.
Fenn’s knuckles grazed the swell of her chest. “You have me, she-elf.”
Breath hitching, Serenna’s pulse skipped from excited fear as Fenn’s wicked claw gently cupped her breast. The danger he controlled sent her heart hammering, knowing he could effortlessly cleave her in two. A moan escaped her as his thumb drifted over her nipple, rolling the bud under the safety of his talons.
Fenn’s innocent fascination with surveying her body sent heat blazing out in waves from everywhere he caressed. His talons and eyes trailed a fiery wake across her chest, down her ribcage and over her stomach, across her hips, skimming all the way to her soaking core.
When Fenn tucked his claws away into a fist, Serenna arched into the pressure he offered against her center. Rocking against him, she frantically met his mouth, ready to ignite as he coiled her pleasure into bliss.
Fenn shivered, swearing something nonsensical when Serenna slid her palms between them to return his touch. She couldn’t help but stare, the elongation of her fingers the only reason they met as she enveloped his girth. A brief flicker of doubt had her wondering if he was right to be nervous about harming her. Some primal desire overrode that concern—she intended to find out.
Stroking the steel length of him progressively more vigorously with every pass from root to tip earned Serenna approving growls. As they both quivered with desire, she didn’t feel the need to wait any longer.
Steadying herself with a hand braced against his chest, Serenna lifted herself, lining her center up with the point of him. Fenn pulled back, going preternaturally still, unblinking as he tracked her motions.
Taut like a pulled bowstring, the wall of his abdomen trembled when Serenna lowered herself a fraction. They shared a sharp inhale as the broad head of his arousal skated through the wetness pooling between her thighs.
Fenn’s eyes went feral, chest rising more rapidly than her own as she aligned him, angling to guide him in. He released a guttural groan, throwing his head to the ceiling as her slick folds enveloped the first inch. Talons anchoring on her hips, his mouth returned to claim hers.
Fenn’s arousal twitched in her entrance, his lips tilting in response. “Be gentle with me,” he said against her, muscles shuddering with restraint. Holding something back. Their gazes locked, his eyes flaring brighter than the magma below.
Serenna’s breath hitched as she slowly lowered, taking him in, adjusting to his girth. She gasped from the smallest sting of pain, overtaken by a shock of pleasure as her walls clenched around him. Fenn somehow seemed to have a harder time than her, gritting his fangs, breathing harshly through his nose.
Serenna took her time absorbing every inch, spurred on by Fenn’s growling curses. The way his body stretched hers, molding her to him, was bliss and devastation, ecstasy and annihilation. She threw her arms around Fenn’s neck, panting against him when there was no space left between them.
Impatient for more, she circled her hips into his, grinding their bodies together. Serenna kissed him as they moved together, sliding back and forth to meet every thrust. His arousal hit every inner wall, every nerve, striking chords deep in her body that she wasn’t aware she’d possessed.
“Fenn,” Serenna whispered as she rocked against him, riding every wave. Legs clenching against his waist, her movements became erratic as the pressure inside of her spiraled. Fenn’s eyes met hers, ruby gaze blazing with a conflagration of lust. “Bite me,” she breathed.
He didn’t need to be told twice. If anything, he’d been waiting for her to ask. Fenn dove to the slope of her throat, his fingers tightening against her waist. Serenna shuddered as his canines skimmed the sensitive skin below her ear.
She seized the muscles on his back with a gasp, body jolting when his fangs pierced her, sinking into her flesh. A soothing flood of ice chased away the brief prick of pain.
Serenna’s eyelids fluttered as the coolness raced down her neck. Reaching her heart, the venom transformed into a warmth, trickling through her veins, limbs going weightless as they relaxed.
Fenn withdrew, his mouth brushing against the punctures. He trailed a kiss, moving across her jaw, returning to her lips. Claiming the rhythm, Fenn clutched Serenna tightly to his chest, guiding each stroke. She collapsed into him feeling more buoyant than intoxicated, elated rather than hazy.
His body drove exactly where she needed, rekindling a molten fire in her core. Every sweeping roll struck her inner walls, the angle of him providing friction against that sensitive spot between her thighs.
The sparks igniting between them had Serenna peaking toward combustion as she rode the motion of his hips. Every thrust, every retreat, threatened to cast her over the precipice of release. She sensed Fenn reading her writhing body, the change in her ragged breathing.
He answered her unspoken question. “I’m right with you, she-elf.”
Serenna clutched his shoulders as his movements became frantic, more urgent, driving a faster tempo, steering them toward oblivion. Vision splintering, Fenn’s name was on her lips as she shattered. Her center clamped against him as she detonated and dissolved, disintegrating into a thousand stars.
Arms wrapping around her back, Fenn crested the same wave. He seized and shuddered, tumbling off the cliff alongside her. His arousal swelled, stretching Serenna further, throbbing as he spilled his warmth deep into her body. Clutching her, he shivered and groaned her name, resting his head against the space between her neck and shoulder.
The world faded as they held each other, hearts beating in time, recovering their broken breathing as the tremors of pleasure subsided. Still buried in her, Fenn drew back to meet her eyes, his warm breath fanning across her skin. Serenna returned his smile, slowly piecing herself together with every lungful of air.
Fenn cupped her face, thumb stroking her cheek. “Serenna,” he began, his voice barely there. He searched her eyes with a gentle intensity that had her blood surging for a different reason. “I…I think I’m falling—”
Serenna took the coward’s way out before he could say anything else, kissing him to smother what would undoubtedly be flowery words. She wasn’t ready to give the feelings a name—to twist her heart further into a knot. Not yet.
Before the kiss turned into anything else, Fenn lifted her in a fluid motion, pulling himself out. Serenna gasped, unprepared for the sudden emptiness.
With laughable ease, he flipped her over, pressing her stomach against their shed clothing on the stone bridge. Spreading her knees with his, the heat from his torso pressed into her spine.
Fenn’s mouth swept across her neck, his tongue brushing the tender spot where he’d lodged his fangs. The heartbeat in his chest drummed against her back, his weight on top of her a pleasure of its own.
Hooking an arm around her waist, Fenn jerked her hips up to his. His canines grazed her shoulder, the primal threat of his fangs pinning her down. Serenna inhaled sharply, forgetting to breathe as his arousal nudged against her entrance, still slick with both of them. He apparently didn’t need time to recover.
Claws curling against the rocky bridge, Fenn’s talons scraped out chips of stone in front of her eyes. “Grab my wrists.”
Serenna’s pulse lurched. His order had her going liquid all over again, this time without his venom. She’d comply with any command, so long as he didn’t plan to stop. Reaching forward, her fingers shook in anticipation, obediently clamping down.
A ricochet of pleasure blazed straight through her as Fenn’s body slipped back into hers. Moaning, Serenna writhed against him as he dove into her slowly—torturously slowly—stretching her, letting her body readjust to every inch of his girth.
When he extracted himself, she released a breathy protest. Her objection quickly became a shriek of pleasure in a voice that definitely wasn’t her own as he seated himself fully with one smooth, brutal plunge.
Fenn’s words morphed into a growl. “Hang on, she-elf.” Setting a vicious pace, his body slammed into hers over and over, building speed faster and faster, the restraint he’d displayed earlier completely gone. “We’re going to see stars.”
CHAPTER 48
LYKOR
With a slash of rending, Lykor hacked through a vine in the wretched jungle. The infernal heat in the humid forest only intensified his deteriorating mood. Despite the overwhelming desire to eradicate this unnatural pocket of life in the Hibernal Wastes, he refrained—such destruction might endanger the Heart of Stars.
The clearing he sought was where the wraith had taken refuge after fleeing from the prisons. His muscles spasmed in protest. Those whispering grasses harbored too many torturous memories.
After Kal and Mara had excavated the golden spikes from his spine in the squalor of the dungeons, an infection had ravaged and burned his body. When the fire in his back had become unbearable, Lykor would collapse in a stream near that fucking glade. His shoulders had never fully recovered—the flesh around his bones a gnarled mess like the knobs on the surrounding trees.
Hauling his mind away from the past, Lykor scowled at the darkening night stretching through the endless forest. In hindsight, he should’ve dumped the elf and Fenn off here and remained in the keep.
Water dripped from monstrous leaves, splashing into his face. Swiping the obnoxious moisture away from his eyes, Lykor’s boot snagged on a root. He cursed as he lost his balance, stumbling forward. Spinning around, he blasted the offending plant into the next realm with a punch of force.
The spray of soil showered Lykor’s armor as he strode off through the vile jungle, aiming for the clearing that he’d ironically avoided the entire time. It was the only “shade of a glade” that he could think of—assuming what the girl had heard through the Heart was correct. He and Aesar had been scouring this forest for weeks without a clear sense of what they should be looking for.
Lykor doubted his luck would have another relic gallivanting into his lap like it had with that shaman spawn. He could only hope the elf and the lieutenant’s fucking around would finally lead to something productive—ideally locating the artifact that might be in the keep. Between the encroaching humans, the elven patrols, and the restless reavers, the wraith were overdue to abandon this side of the world.
A dim glow from the moons bled through the canopy of leaves, scattering splotched pools of light across on the loamy forest floor. Flashing glowbugs whirled around Lykor like overbearing chaperones. He slapped the audacious insects away from his face, staining his gauntlet with streaks of their luminous entrails.
An unexpected pulse of magic flared to his left. Alarmed, Lykor pivoted, wrenching on his entire sea of Essence. Darkness exploded from him, a veil of death, ready to defend.
