“Barely,” I whisper.
And then I laugh. It bubbles out of me, breathless and startled and too full of everything. He grins, fangs flashing, and my body tightens all over again. The mark on my back hums. Like it knows we’ve never been this content. Maybe ever.
“Kay?”
“More. Please.”
His smile fades slowly into something deeper. His skin is hot beneath my hands. Hotter than mine but not burning. Just alive. All ember and tension and need. He slots his cock against my entrance and presses into me slowly, reverently. I feel the stretch, the slide, the sharp gasp that leaves both our mouths at once. My hands clutch at his shoulders, his back, needing something to hold onto, something real. And this is.Heis.
At first, we don’t move. He braces above me, muscles trembling, letting me adjust. His eyes search mine, wild and dark, Flame flickering somewhere just beneath the surface.
“Okay?” he breathes.
“Yes,” I whisper, even though I’m not sure the word is enough. “Yes. Perfect.”
He kisses me. Not gentle. Not rough. But deep, true. His hips move, tentative at first, and my breath stutters in my throat. He rocks in again, deeper, sure of his welcome. And gods, I feel all of it. Every inch of him, every burn of contact. The way he fits against me, inside me, like he was carved by the same hands that hollowed me out. His tail curls around my calf, anchoring me. I wrap my legs around his waist and pull him deeper. He groans into my mouth.
The rhythm builds, slow and aching, until it’s not. Until it’s messy and desperate and ours. I break the kiss to gasp for air, and he buries his face in my neck. Not to hide. To feel. His lips drag along my throat, catching at my pulse point. He doesn’t bite, but his fangs graze me with intent. I arch up into him.
“You said you weren’t a vampire.” I pant the words into the room and he laughs, breath hot against my skin.
“I am Daemari.” And then he bites me anyway. Lightly, just hard enough to make my hips jerk, to drag a moan from my lips thatsurprises even me. “But I cannot stop myself.” I scratch down his back, and he hisses through his teeth. “You are going to end me,sâl.”
“Good,” I pant. “Then we can both die together.”
He thrusts harder. Deeper. My body bows. My mind blanks. His name is the only word I remember how to say. I sob it into his shoulder, into the heat of his skin and the smoke of his breath, again and again.
“Look at me,” he demands, voice frayed.
I do and it nearly destroys me. His eyes are black. Full and endless, smoke and shadow and flame swirling in the center. His embermark is glowing faintly across his cheek and throat, trailing down to where our bodies meet, pulsing with each thrust like it’s alive. Like it knows.
“I see you,” I whisper. “All of you.”
His pace stutters. The heat crests between us, blinding and sweet and so much more than want. This is something deeper. Something bigger. Something binding us together. I think I’ll remember the shape of his hands, the feel of his touch until my final days.
He presses his forehead to mine. “Don’t forget this.”
I kiss him like it’s a promise. “I won’t.”
And then we fall together, sharp and shuddering and silent, like a prayer whispered through flame. For a moment, we don’t move. We just breathe. Tangled in sweat and smoke and limbs, bodies still pressed close. His tail tightens once around my thigh, then slowly unwinds. One of his hands cups the back of my neck, the other still gripping my hip like if he lets go, I might disappear. My fingers curl into his hair, tracing the ridges of his horns, the curve of his ear. The silence is thick. Sacred.
“I told you I’d bite you,” he murmurs against my cheek.
I laugh, wrecked and weightless. “You were right.”
He shifts to lie beside me, pulling me against his chest like I’m something precious. I go, willingly, settling into the heat of him, my cheek pressed to his shoulder. He kisses my temple, once, then reaches over the edge of the bed. When he returns, he’s holding a dark thread, shrouded in dark purple shadow.
“The next trial,” he says, offering it to me. “Umbral.”
He reaches for the pendant still humming around my neck and pulls the tiny stopper at the bottom. I wait for the green thread to shimmy out, but he just slides the purple in. When it falls back on my bare skin, it feels heavy. Cool.
“Stay with me,” I whisper.
He doesn’t hesitate. “A pride of Ember Maw could not make me go.”
And for the first time since stepping into this cursed, burning world, I believe it.
“Sleep, Kay.” And I do.
