Page 108 of A War of Three Kings

She leans down until her face is all I can see. “You stay still and let me pleasure you. I will stop if you threaten to open your wound. Understood?”

Her commanding tone does sinful things to me. My mouth dries out and I have to swallow multiple times before I can reply. “Yeah.”

Keira’s hips rock, gently, lovingly, passionately. The slow pull and tug of her core as my cock glides in and out of her is something completely different from the hard, brutal sex we have had in the past. It draws out the sensual intensity of every thrust, each building on top of the last in leisurely, teasing surges.

The roll of her hips has those generous breasts jiggling and pressing together, and I become fascinated by their movements. With each downward thrust, I delight inthe way her curvy ass seats itself on my hips and thighs, loving the softness and fullness of it. The way her fingernails dig into my chest where she holds onto me.

Tension coils tighter and tighter within me as the pleasure grows to an almost unbearable point, ricocheting through my entire body like liquid fire. Then her core tightens around me, and she tosses her head back, spine arching as her body shudders. A strangled cry peels from her lips as her inner muscles spasm around me. As she comes on my cock.

The ecstasy on her face, the fact that I can drive her to that point—it is the sexiest thing I have ever known.

It shatters me in the best kind of way, and my entire body stiffens as I am thrown off a precipice, spiraling down the intense bliss of my release.

I am left panting hard, sticky with sweat, and half blind as my vision turns white. Keira laughs. The sound is of elated, full of relief, and I drag my arms around her waist and cradle her against my chest, her legs still wrapped around me. We lie like that for a long time, feeling our heartbeats slow against each other’s chests.

I could die a happy man right here, like this, with her. But nothing short of our entire lives together would be enough for me. I can’t deny it was a relief when I discovered that her life span would be as long as mine.

Keira pulls back just enough to brush a light kiss across my lips, then she jerks up, reaching over me. “Dammit, Aldrin. Your ear is bleeding!” Her light touch grazes the bandage, causing the skin to sting, but her movement has put her bare breasts in my face again.

I place light kisses across her skin, anywhere that I can reach. “I don’t care if the entire cursed thing falls off right now.”

She sits back on her haunches, smirking down at me. “Is your lust ever satisfied? Or is it a bottomless pit?”

“Oh, you satisfy it very well, but then you go and stoke it up again almost immediately.”

She climbs off me and gets out of the bed. I leverage myself up as she dresses with agitation, her primal form slipping away and the glamoured mask of the woman I first met replacing it. I love both versions of her, but I rarely get to glimpse her rawer, less controlled side.

“Where are you going?”

“To get a healer to check your wound.”

My smile widens. “Maybe you should help me bathe first. As injured as I am with this nicked ear, I couldn’t possibly do it alone.”

Her hands freeze on the buttons of her long, thin dress, still leaving much of her cleavage exposed. “It’s more than a nicked ear! I saw how you looked when you rode in.”

“Itwasmore than a cut ear. It hardly hurts anymore. Come back to bed.”

I endure her changing the bandage before she agrees to lie down beside me, curling into my side.

“Thank you,” I whisper into her hair.

“For what?” She squirms until she is peering up at me, her head nestled on my shoulder.

“For allowing me to see and touch your primal form. For feeling safe enough with me to show that vulnerability.” I tighten my hold around her waist.

A silence stretches out while her nose crinkles. “Aldrin, why do fae have primal forms?”

I let out a long breath. “It’s a legacy from the gods. The fae gods that created us by breeding with humans, not the ancient ones. The Tuatha Dé Danann have primal forms that take shapes of the elemental magic they were born from. My ancestor was of the trees and beast spirits. That’s why I grow a crown of twigs and take on stripes and claws when I tap the depths of their magic within me, or their rage. Your ancestor was of fire anddecay. We make a formidable pair—the new life of spring and the death of autumn for rejuvenation.”

Keira lets out a choked laugh. “I hate that my power is death. I would prefer the power of life, like yours.”

“They are much the same.” I wrap a fire-red curl around my finger. “One without the other would lead to chaos or ruin. All things that live must die to pave the way for the next generation. There is good and evil in magic that is born of life and of death. Only fae with the strongest of Tuatha Dé Danann blood have primal forms.”

“Do you ever wonder what happened to them? Why they abandoned our realms?” She turns those doe eyes on me, and I swear the ghosts of fires burn within them. “I have been thinking a lot lately about the Tuatha Dé Danann wanderer Nissien, who sired my line. Why he came to your realm when the rest of his kind had forgotten it.”

“I try not to ponder the gods who turned their backs on us.” I let the words hang, drawing idle lines on her arm. After an age, I let the thoughts darkening my mind slip out. “Sometimes, I wonder if the sickness in my realm originates from their world. If something plagues them. Something hungry. They sealed shut all the portals after their last visit, but if you touch the moonstone, there is an inexplicable pull of one’s magic into it, like there is a vacuum on the other side.

“When feeding raw power into the gods’ portals, it all disappears like it never existed and a person cannot retrieve it. We have been forbidden from opening the portals to the gods’ realm by the Tuatha Dé Danann themselves, but it must still be possible, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. I believe they are trying to protect us, their children, and it is a warning I will heed at all costs. Perhaps Nissien’s visit was to check how we fared without their guidance.”

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