Oh, God, Alison. I’m so close. His hips thrust harder and deeper as she held him with tightened muscles. He kept taking her blood at her neck, groaning, then grunting. A jumble of words moved through her mind, beautiful, fuck, hard, like-a-fist, touch me, oh, God … Alison.
Yes.
Move into my mind. Now. This is it.
She obeyed the command, still panting over his wrist, his blood like small explosions in her throat. But as he retreated from her mind and she moved into his, as she saw the height of his pleasure, as she saw his love for her, a second orgasm barreled down on her, streaking like lightning over all her sensitive flesh. She screamed. Her power rolled from her and once more beat at him.
Then everything changed, shifted. The sudden oneness she experienced with Kerrick in the middle of this profound moment stunned her. She felt all her pleasure. She felt his. She felt him taking in her pleasure at the exact same moment.
As one, each released the vein, the retreat of the fangs sealing the wounds. His gaze locked with hers as pleasure flooded his body, her body, his, hers. Theirs.
Holy shit, he murmured inside her head.
No kidding.
He kept thrusting, hard and fast. She couldn’t look away. She orgasmed, power released, and his mouth opened. I felt your pleasure, he said.
I know. I can feel what you feel. Unbelievable.
She felt the tensing of his back.
I’m going to come, he sent.
She could feel the intense rush of fluid through his cock, the tremendous pleasure of his orgasm as he pumped into her and filled her. His orgasm continued on igniting hers. Fireworks lit inside her brain. She laughed. She cried.
He laughed with her, his body still surging. Oh, shit.
What?
Again, he cried within her mind. I don’t know how but I’m going to come again. She could feel it as well, that he was readying, which in turn fired her up all over again.
At the same time she could feel the thrumming and weeping of his wing-locks. She also saw the connection and she knew exactly what she wanted to do.
No, he protested.
“Yes,” she whispered. She teased the sensitive apertures, her fingers gliding between the hypersensitive ridges between each engorged lock.
“Oh, God,” he moaned.
“Just let it go, Kerrick, because I can feel it, too.” She started writhing as his pleasure rose, which sent her pleasure skyrocketing. His pleasure, her pleasure, theirs. Jesus.
Within her mind she felt his lower back tense, the tightness of his balls, the pleasure riding the length of his cock, then the pleasure riding once more along the tender flesh of her cleft and streaking up her core.
“I can feel your orgasm.” Holy shit.
She felt his wings begin to mount as he continued to plunge into her.
Can’t help it.
The pleasure of wings mounting, of his orgasm, hers, theirs.
Oh. God.
She screamed. He cried out as he filled her with his seed. Stars exploded in her mind. In his. She levitated as his wings took them off the bed, into the air. She held his neck, his buttocks. He held her back and her buttocks. He grunted with each thrust, her fingers gentler now on the ridges. He managed, still surging, though slower now, a loving rock of his hips while he sustained them in midair, the practiced flight of centuries.
Slowly, he drew his wings closer to his body until she felt the bed once more beneath her back. He took several deep breaths and since she was still so deeply connected to him, she felt his body calling the feathers back, one by one, absorbing the intricate mesh-like filaments that created the superstructure. Flight hormones, like sex hormones, drifted through his body. She felt it all.
He looked into her eyes. “How strange is this? I can feel my lips and your lips. I feel my pleasure and yours.”
“Ours.”
He shook his head back and forth. “The oneness.” He slid his hands down her arms until he locked their hands together.
She sighed. He kissed her. She sighed again.
“I love you,” he said. “I love being this close to you, feeling you from the inside out. I knew the breh-hedden would be wonderful, but I sure as hell didn’t expect this. The moment you moved into my mind, I felt everything you felt while feeling everything I felt.” His lids lowered, and his voice was husky. “And can I just say, your orgasms are amazing.”
“Ditto.”
He kissed her hard. Drew back. “I love being inside you.” He rocked into her.
She moaned. “I love you being there.” She moved her hips to feel him better. He groaned, and why wouldn’t he since she could feel the pressure of her body stroking his cock and just how good it felt to him.
She kissed him, suckled at his swollen lips, breathed in the fierce cardamom scent that suffused the room. “I love how you smell.” She put her nose to his thick muscled shoulder and breathed in then licked his skin.
He stroked her cheek and gazed into her eyes. He sighed. “I’m going to remove my mind now. Okay?”
She nodded. He withdrew slowly until his mind separated from hers, but she didn’t feel bereft as she had before.
An odd sensation traveled around her head, a strange kind of awareness. Even though he was no longer in her head, she could feel his location, the way his stomach felt pressed into her hips, the way his forearms dipped into the mattress supporting his torso, the way his lips felt as he smiled his crooked smile. She touched his lips with her fingertips. She kissed him and could feel his lips kissing back.
“This is weird. I can still feel you, even though you’re no longer in my mind.”
He cocked his head. “You’re right. Huh.” He leaned down and kissed her then drew back. “I can feel you as well, but just the exterior of you, your head against the mattress, your fingers in my hair—you like my hair, don’t you?”
“I love your hair.”
He kissed her again. “Yeah, I can feel you.”
“Right now the toes on your left foot are rubbing the sheet back and forth very slowly.”
He lifted his brows. “So they are.” He frowned then smiled. “And I can feel what the pads of your thumbs feel as you stroke my biceps.”
He took her hand and lifted her fingers to his mouth. He kissed each one. “I love your smell. Mm. Lavender.”
“Cardamom.” She smiled.
He remained inside her for a long time, his weight pinning her to the mattress, anchoring her to her new life. She slid one arm around his massive shoulders, and with the other buried her hand in his long hair.
He nuzzled her neck. He stroked her arms gently.
You’re mine, he whispered softly through the euphoric pathways of her brain. I’ll fight with everything I’ve got to stay alive and to keep you safe. You know that, right?
With all my heart.
Later, wrapped up in his arms, in a warm cocoon of love, a great love, a profound love, she fell into a deep sleep.
The dream came again. She wafted her wings as she flew over White Lake, her lake, the lake she now protected as a Guardian of Ascension. She sensed a presence, an evil warning, that plucked on the hairs at the nape of her neck.
She drew up and in the distance she saw squadrons of death vampires heading toward her. She was about to fold, her thoughts full of her need to reach Kerrick, but before she thought the thought, Kerrick appeared in front of her, in flight gear and in full-mount, a sword in each hand, his white feathers gilded by the early-morning sun. The brilliance of his presence rendered her speechless. She could no longer see the approach of the death vampires; nor did she fear them. Her warrior flew as her vanguard.
The lake once more called to her, and she lowered her toes into the water and looked up to see the blue swirling brilliance of Third Dimension above her, calling, calling, calling. She felt a tug on her hand and when she looked to her left to see who it was, Havily was there, smiling at her.
The longing returned in full force. She turned her gaze back up to the blue vortex. She tried to rise, but she couldn’t, even though she felt Havily encouraging her to try.
Not yet, but soon, the man’s voice spoke within her head.
When she awoke with Kerrick’s arm surrounding her, she thought of the dream and what it would mean for the future. She didn’t know exactly but trusted that time would reveal what she needed to know. She drew his arm tighter across her chest and hugged him. He shifted slightly in his sleep, his big warrior body a shield around her, now and forever.
Soft words came to her, a whisper from deep in her soul, so deep she didn’t at first hear them, but they repeated, spoken in that same masculine voice, Tend to Havily’s dreams.
The future gains peace,
In the resolution of the past.
—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth
Chapter 25
The next morning Alison folded to Endelle’s office complex and at first stood stunned outside the massive pyramid-like buildings, each structure embellished with lush hanging gardens on every floor. This truly was a new world, one she hoped she’d be able to explore, one that valued horticulture as an art form.
She entered the building along with a variety of administrative and executive types. She rode the elevator to the top floor.
SWWL SUPREME HIGH ADMINISTRATOR OF SECOND EARTH was printed in absurdly tall gold lettering on a long bank of plate-glass windows.
Tacky, Alison thought.
But quite typical.
The doors swished open, and as she crossed the threshold she was aware of tremendous chaos. A sea of desks spread out in front of her, all occupied, all weighed down with paper. There were no plants in sight, no color on the walls, no pictures of family members. She thought of the classic film Nine to Five.
Toward the back, bundles of papers were stacked everywhere, giving the environment the look of a recycling plant doing a very poor job.
Even so, she could feel an electric excitement in the air and wondered what was going on.
Almost as one, the brigade of administrative assistants, male and female, rose in a sudden wave and applauded in her direction. She turned around to see what kind of dignitary had arrived, perhaps even one of the warriors, but no one was there. She turned back around and found all eyes on her. Oh. The applause was meant for her. She could not have been more astonished. Nor could she keep a blush from warming her cheeks.
