Page 150 of A Dance With Fire
All the while his hips moved, pushing into her channel, and every thrust against her clit was done with a restless need, a fierce certainty. Every other moment in their lives was unpredictable, but not this, not their lust for one another.
The need expanded into a restless energy, and when that sensation exploded into an orgasm that made her see more than fire, more than light? Her magic exploded with it, raining sparks down against their skin until everything was bright. Perfect.
And as Shula’s body climbed down from the euphoria, she felt Ryker’s teeth graze her neck. It was a silent request, the final step to seal their bond.
She swallowed against his lips.
“Do it.”
Make me yours.
Teeth elongated into canines that bit into the soft part of her flesh. Pain was immediate, but then so was the bond. She felt it slam inside her like a separate entity, like a foreign magic taking root somewhere deep inside her soul.
Above her, Ryker bared his neck, bared a rare space with no scars.
Shula leaned up and willed out her canines. The moment they made contact with his skin, she bit, piercing past his tan flesh. Blood burst against her tongue. Blood and magic.
And the bond finally settled.
And they were officially mates.
* * *
Ryker’s fingerspushed aside her hair and slid along the edge of her curved ear. It took everything within Shula not to shy away from his touch, to get used to the caress.
She’d hid them for so long, saw them as human for years, that she’d all but forgotten what it was like to have them elongated like his.
Her own fingers reached up to touch his ears, the sharp points of them. He shivered at the contact.
Shula took her bottom lip between her teeth and chewed on it before Ryker’s thumb pressed against the indent in the middle of her lip.
“What are you thinking?”
The breath loosed slowly out of her lungs. “About how much the surgery hurt. About how I’m missing what I used to look like right about now.”
He touched her ears again. “There are some half-Fae without the pointed ears…”
“I’m not half-Fae,” she interrupted, feeling a flush creep over her face.
She’d never been ashamed of what she’d had to do to survive, but she had always been self-conscious about her ears. She always hid them behind head scarves or long hair. Somehow it felt more vulnerable to bare her ears to him rather than her body.
She supposed he felt the same way about his scars.
Her fingers slid over the new scar against his neck. A bite mark, still fresh and pink, slowly healing, but just another mark to add to his collection of old wounds.
“Do you…” She trailed off, unsure if she should suggest it right then.
“What?”
“Do you think you could heal them?”
He paused. “I suppose it’s possible…” He bent her ear, looking at the scars behind it, the proof of what she’d done and what humans had always seemed to overlook. “Scars are just the evidence of wounds. If I healed Mairin’s body when her soul was gone, I could try to reverse this.” He pulled away. “But think about it first. I—”
“I want you to try it.”
He blinked and her flush deepened. “You’re sure?”
Because this was big. It was finally leaving behind a life she thought she’d been happy in. It was leaving behind her humanity for good. No more hiding behind surgically altered anatomy, behind a façade that had never belonged to her. It was leaving behind Piriguini’s Circus, Fanny, a life of hiding.
