Page 77 of Feathers From the Sky

“You think I know, Gwyn?” He speaks against my skin, his lips pressed to the wound he’s made. “I need all of you.” He groans as he drinks from me, and he slides an arm around my back, pulling me close.

“You—you shouldn’t have done that,” I stutter out, arching beneath him as his free hand slides between us, rolling my nipple in his fingertips as he drinks from me.

“I know,” he agrees. “Fuck, do I know, baby.”

When he kisses me again, it’s desperate. It’s consuming. It tastes of my blood and his defeat. His acquiescence to what he can’t control. But if he is defeated, then what am I?

Destroyed.

I am shattered as he adjusts us, moving me beneath him. It is ruination when he slides down my body, when his fangs prick the sensitive skin of my breast, when he pulls my blood into his mouth. He swirls his tongue over me, soothing the ache as his lips caress my tender flesh, and I grab a fistful of his hair. He disintegrates my hesitance as his lips move down my stomach. When he licks a path lower, pressing a kiss to the soft skin between my legs, I am dismantled.

“Show me where you want me. Tell me what you need,” Roman demands as he drags my hand down, down, down. He spreads me open, gliding his fingertip from that sensitive spot downward over impossibly wet skin. My breath hitches as I move my hand down and stroke my clit.

“Here,” I breathe. “Need your tongue here.”

“Mmm. And how do you need it, Gwyn? Soft and sweet? Firm and fast?”

“Surprise me,” I say. “Just stop talking and start doing.” I squirm beneath him. Feeling his breath on me is torturous, and I can’t help it when a whine escapes me.

Roman laughs but doesn’t make me wait for long, swirling his tongue over that sensitive spot. His fingertips rim my entrance as he takes my clit into his mouth. Starting soft and sweet, Roman moves idly, as if he’s savoring me. When he sucks me into his mouth and gently nibbles, I start panting, raising my hips to meet his movements. I can feel my fangs grow, sharpened tips lengthening. When he finally settles on firm and slow, exactly how I need it, my breathing grows faster. Roman makes a low sound in his throat. Satisfaction.

“I need to bite you, sweetheart. Let me taste you like you’re mine.” His sharp fangs glide over my skin, and I don’t know what possesses me when I thrust against them. He pulls my clit into his mouth, but then opens wide, letting those dangerous points pierce the plump triangle of flesh above. I shriek, pushing my head back, but then the pain has passed, and Roman is sucking and teasing and licking and laving. Everywhere and anywhere he can touch me. When he sinks his fingers into me, I’m already close to the edge.

“Need you inside me,” I say. “Finish with me.” With him drinking my blood,choosingto swear himself to me, I know everything has changed. And before I let myself think about it, I need these few moments of bliss. I want to share this with him before there is only devastation left.

His defeat is my annihilation.

After a moment, I push his head away, and he stands. The faintest curve of his lips softens the glare he shoots at me as he shimmies out of his boxer briefs. I grab his waist before he can climb back over me. “Let me get it ready. Come here,” I say. Propping myself up on an elbow, I look up at him where he stands. His expression has shifted to both adoration and hunger, and when I grab him and pull him to my lips, his low growl makes me clench around nothing. Sticking my tongue out, I slap his hard dick on it, tasting a drop of pre-cum as it drips into my mouth.

My satisfied moan is all too real.

When I take the tip of his cock between my lips, he groans, tossing his head back. His hand slides into my hair and he pushes into my mouth hard, control lost. Swallowing him as deeply as I can, I work him up and down. Firm. When one of my fangs presses into his fragile skin, I pull away, not wanting to hurt him.

“Do it,” he grits out, thrusting into my mouth harder. It takes me by surprise, but I do what I’m told, letting my fangs graze along his shaft. I don’t press down, but it still scrapes against delicate skin, and he jerks forward, shoving his cock to the back of my throat. Warm and rich, his blood goes down easily, and I groan around him. “Fuck, Gwyn,” he mumbles, eyes closed. I swirl my tongue over him, lapping up every drop from his already healed skin, watching how he reacts to each long trace of my tongue. He doesn’t let me continue for too long, gently stepping back as he inhales deeply. An open-mouthed smile creeps over his face, and I’m thankful he’s never gifted it to me before. It’s too much.

The smile softens, but he doesn’t let it revert to its usual smirk when he climbs over me, on his knees between my thighs. When he reaches between us, I cup his face with my hand. I can’t stop myself when it comes to him. “Look at me. I want to see you,” I say. Roman’s brows lift as he nudges my entrance with his cock. When he brackets his arms on either side of me and tilts his hips the tiniest bit, I revel in his relaxed expression. He is always so angry, so intense, so determined. To have earned this vulnerability, this unburdened version of him, gives me hope.

Slowly, he sinks into me, exhaling on my lips. He grinds on top of me, barely pulling out as he shifts his hips, rubbing exactly where I need it. Methodical, careful, he brings me to the brink in only a few rocks of his body against mine. I am close, edging into those moments when the heart stops between panting breaths, and it fills me with want for so much more.

“Roman, I—”

He circles his hips, and I’m grateful when my moan breaks off my words. I can’t say what I want, can’t breathe to life what flits around on broken wings deep in my mind. It’s too delicate, too early. A thought half-formed and a wish ill-gained. Roman drags a kiss from my lips as he moves slowly. I swallow hard as I gaze up at him. This is the first time we’ve been face to face during sex since the night he changed me. I think we’ve both avoided it for a few reasons, but I cannot avoid this truth any longer. As every sense grows white hot and I tip over the edge, the truth is just as searing. When he kisses me, when he caresses me, when he whispers my name, it proves what I already know.

Roman Sauveterre has broken me.

28

ROMAN

“You’ll bethe one to put her down if he finds out.”

Margot’s words still ring in my mind during our drive to Wisconsin. Pulling me aside, she’d given me a piece of her mind on the way back from the bar last night. Though my friend didn’t see what I did, didn’t watch me lose my mind and swear an oath to Gwyn, she knows I’m in too fucking deep.

I resent her for being able to read me.

The clock is ticking down, and I’m running out of time. Even though Bjorn thinks I’m protecting my assets while I finish up my investigation, he has already told me my time is up the moment he returns. He has planned a ceremony in which he will eat Gwyn’s roasted heart in front of the coven. It’s an unnecessarily gory display, referring back to his ancestors, our ancestors, and their acts of revenge served gruesomely.

I haven’t quite figured out how to fool him.

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