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.
Lykor’s heart impaled itself on a rib. Power slipping from the shock, he ruthlessly refortified his control. Shadows churned like a raging whirlpool while he gaped.
It was him.
The elf who’d saved him, the one haunting his dreams. The one he’d recklessly been visiting the military island in search of during the dark hours of the night when Aesar was deep in slumber. The elf that the girl had insisted was called “Jassyn.” If the blade in Lykor’s possession had actually belonged to her friend.
Exiting a colossal tree that was presumably an ancient dwelling, the elf skidded to a halt. He dropped the tome that he was carrying before a violet shield slammed around him.
Aesar had insisted that this location was secure—his twin being the only other with knowledge of this place. Searching the jungle was a risk they’d both agreed to take—surely Vesryn would have no reason to venture here.
But much could change in the century they’d been absent from the realms. The king could very well be dispatching his soldiers to every corner of the world to hunt for the Hearts—or the wraith.
Lykor stalked forward. “How did you get here?” he demanded. A witless question wasting words. Of course the elf had portaled to this miserable jungle. “Are there others with you?”
Surrounded by floating globes of illumination, the elf glanced around and backed away. Raven curls skipped over his forehead as he silently shook his head in response.
Lykor’s shadows thrashed, ready to flay the elf if he so much as moved a hand too quickly. He didn’t temper the growl in his voice. “Did the king send you?”
The elf’s eyes widened before hardening. “This is the only place I could hide from those like him.”
He wasn’t here for the Heart then.
Still on his guard, Lykor’s shoulders marginally relaxed from the reassurance. He retracted the threatening darkness along with his fangs. There wasn’t any reason to act like a feral beast. Judging from the elf’s shifting gaze, he was already nervous enough.
When Lykor stepped forward, the elf retreated another step. Something Lykor didn’t have a name for twisted through his chest like one of those the accursed vines strangling a tree. A strange uncertainty needled at him for being the source of fear. He’d never thought twice about intimidating others before—it was all he knew, birthed from the necessity to instill order when the wraith had turned savage in the prisons.
Cautiously stepping forward to retrieve the dropped tome, Lykor resisted the impulse to leaf through the pages to see what the elf was reading. He extended the volume, offering it back. The elf hesitated, his attention hooking on Lykor’s gauntlet clamped around the book.
Detesting the constant reminder of what he’d endured, Lykor was seized with the temptation to hide the clawed monstrosity behind his back.
The elf’s gaze swept over him, appraising the rest of his armor, flicking over the raw Essence blazing around him. Lykor felt systematically deconstructed, analyzed, and then assembled again. His breath hitched as those fascinating amber eyes lingered on his, the surrounding illumination highlighting flecks of greens and golds. Ears burning with an unfamiliar warmth, the unusual attention made Lykor feel seen for once instead of seen through.
The elf dropped his shield to claim the presented tome. “What can I call you?” he asked.
Lykor blinked, the question slashing through his guard. No one had ever asked him that before. He couldn’t number the years he’d spent raging that he wasn’t Aesar.
“Lykor,” he said, shifting his feet. His spiked boots suddenly felt distractingly heavy.
Following the elf’s lead, Lykor reluctantly released his magic and fumbled for something else to say, drawing on what guidance he assumed Aesar would offer if he were awake. He doubted there were any normal questions to ask a stranger in a forgotten jungle.
