Page 119 of Mantle

He needed to take control, but uncertainty flickered in his gaze and he hesitated as he held me there, positioned to take him with one definitive thrust.

“Fuck me,” I uttered, the intensity of the moment rolling over me, the intensity all over him bleeding into me.

It seemed to be exactly what he’d needed to hear as, in the next moment, he tightened his grip on my thigh then sank inside me.

“Ah… shit… damn…” he uttered, holding still deep inside me.

I stroked his horns carefully and he threw his head back. “More…more,”he pleaded.

Tightening my grip, I rocked on him.

The moment I did, he not only fell into it, he pulled almost all the way out, then slammed back inside me.

And he didn’t stop.

Fucking me into the wall, his eyes blazing at me with need and the reclamation of power that should never have been stripped from him in the first place… reclamation of his body as his, not theirs.

It was rough and hard, but so overwhelming passionate and emotional, and I crushed my mouth to his. His tongue tangled with mine, taking and receiving in equal measure, as his need built and built, until he was trembling with it, while never breaking his determined rhythm.

Pleasure surged oh-so quickly and I was crying out blissfully, uttering his name.

He shifted his weight to hold me up with one hand, then dipped the other down between us, making me jolt at the sparks of glorious sensation as he dragged his fingers through my folds.

Something about it, about what was happening between us, had me coming so quickly, soaking his hand.

“Fuck… oh my God, Halo,” he breathed in rapture.

His hands were all over me then, tugging at my hair, roaming all over my highly-sensitized skin, as he filled me over and over, getting lost in it.

His rhythm faltered, a haunting and profound roar tore from him that was much more than just sexual release, and then I felt him spill inside me.

A long moan escaped him and he slipped from me, then held me to him and buried his face in my chest.

I wrapped my arms around him and stroked his hair through it.

“It’s okay. It’s all okay. I’m here.You’rehere.”

“Thank you, Halo,” he uttered, all choked up.

“I’ve got you. We’ve got you. Forevermore.”

“I know. And it means everything to me.”

Silence fell then, but it wasn’t the worrying kind like before.

And I just held him like he needed, staying in the moment with him.

24

~Vorzyr~

I wasn’t wearing my high-collared crimson and gold coat anymore.

In fact, I’d burned it with my dragon fire a few nights ago with my loves bearing witness to it and being there for me, understanding what it meant—my rejection of House Titanus and my parents. My acceptance that I no longer belonged to the Dracoryn Realm and that it was better this way. I had a different life now. A fuller life. A life that was my own, one without brutal expectations and, instead, full of actual care and love.

I sat with the sleeves of my white henley rolled up as I listened to Professor Vaelthorne’s introduction to today’s class.

Kai was sitting to my left, Ariana on my right, and Nyx beside her. She’d been holding onto him in some way or the other since we’d sat down. Actually, since the shower thing that Nyx had told me and Kai about. He had his first appointment with that special Healer today and Kai being Kai had managed to have her agree to actually come here to campus, to somewhere that Nyx was very comfortable with. They would be meeting inside Hollowshade Hearth—he loved that place.

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