Page 131 of The Unweaver

They held a candle to the darkest part of each other and didn’t flinch.

She rested her palms on his chest and felt his heart beating. A steady thumping that had called to her across Realms. His hands circled her waist, fitting her against him, slender curves and lean hardness. She sank into his embrace.

Heartbreakingly tender, he pressed his lips to hers and stole all her doubts with his kiss.

The piece of a lifelong puzzle slid into place.

A delirium of sensations coursed through her. The softness of his lips and firmness of his body. The gentleness of his mouth sliding along hers. The heat erupting low in her belly. With thesweep of tongues and stroke of hands, the kiss deepened. A kiss better than any dream.

It was over too soon. Loosening his hold, he pulled back. Giving her an escape.

Breaths quick and heart drumming, she looked into his eyes. A beckoning and a warning in their midnight depths. Any deeper into these uncharted waters and she would be pulled under, never to leave the fathoms.

Cora dove in. Tangling her hands in his hair, she crushed her lips to his. The answering caress of his tongue, coaxing her mouth to open, sent a thrill of longing into her core. She moaned. Her nails scored down the muscles of his back, tugging him closer.

“Christ, this feeling…” he murmured wondrously against her lips. “What is this feeling?”

His fingers delved through her mane of unruly hair, stroking down her curves and gripping her hips, pressing her snug against his hardening length. The way their bodies fit together was its own kind of magic. His hands slid up her ribcage, slipping into her robe and cupping her breasts, kneading them, torturing her nipples into straining peaks.

On a long moan, she gripped his biceps and arched into his touch. Heat licked through her, melting her bones like wax, threatening to consume her.What a lovely way to burn, was her only thought.

Mouths fused and tongues gliding in a searing kiss, they were sinking into each other. And, she vaguely realized, to the floor. She was draped across his lap, arms around his neck, devouring and being devoured. The hard ridge of his cock pressed against her bottom. Tension thrummed, winding a tight knot ofneeddeep within her.

His hand smoothed up her bare thigh and grazed her knickers.

Gasping, her eyes widened. His heavy-lidded gaze was scorching as he searched for the answer to his touch’s question. She couldn’t put this burning need into words, and so she kissed him, parting her thighs in invitation. With a featherlight touch, he stroked through her slick folds to her aching clit.

“Fuck,” they groaned.

Clinging to him, her head dropped back with a soft cry at the pressure and pleasure of his touch. He lapped kisses down the column of her throat, caressing her clit in agonizing circles. A long finger eased into her wet heat.

She flinched back and he immediately withdrew his hand, his eyes roaming over her in concern.

“I-I’m not ready,” she said, breathless. His taste lingered on her kiss-swollen lips.

Understanding passed over his features. Breathing hard, he nodded and rested his forehead against hers. “I’ve got a century’s worth of cravings racing through my veins. But I can be patient.”

“I just need time.”

A slow smile spread across his face. “And time we have.”

Cora gazed into his blue eyes, and hope gazed back.

Epilogue: A Regret in the Making

February 1921.

The clock in his office marked an hour of Malachy Bane’s wasted time. The Doomsday Watch in his pocket, however, marked a more sinister time. One tick shy of the countdown’s end.

The end of what remained to be seen. If only it was the end of this pointless meeting.

Fallout from the “London Nightmare” was still crashing down, and largely on Malachy’s head.

While he’d been trapped in the Dream Realm, word of Ikelas’s nightmare had spread across Europe like wildfire, devastating for humans and mages alike. Humans, frightened and desperate for an explanation. Mages, on the verge of being revealed after centuries of institutionalized secrecy and gripped by the fear of impending slaughter. It was not a question of if, but when they would be hunted. Persecuted, like the witch trials all over again.

The end of the world was nigh, and he was stuck in a fucking meeting.

What remained of the London mage gangs had gathered at the Emerald Club to discuss their eventual doom. Unfortunately,the Tribunal had sent their most rabid rule-follower, Master Otto Bittenbinder, to personally chastise Malachy.The Lethe, the German Memnomancer was called, after the underworld river that drained memories.

---