Page 15 of Risen
I’d never kissed someone like this, without holding at leastsomepart of myself back, for fear it would all go wrong.
We moved without words, deeper into the shadows, and I led her to a cave I’d discovered in my lurking.To a bed of soft moss that wasn’t good enough for her, but called to me with the gently murmuring earth magic of this place.She knelt and drew me down.Unfastened my shirt.Slid her fingers over scars and old damage.And when I hesitated, when I froze, she waited.
She kissed the marks I had gained in my time as a slave.Before Robin and the others had freed me.They were too old for her to heal now, an ingrained part of my body.But she sent her warm healing magic through my body anyway, restoring, invigorating, silently letting me know that she would heal all my hurts, if she could.
I undressed her in pieces, each layer a reverent reveal, my dark vision letting me see her, even in the near-total blackness of the cave.The curve of her collarbone.The perfect heavy mounds of her breasts.The strong, graceful lines of her thighs.The soft swell of her belly.I had always struggled to maintain any real belief in the Goddess.But here she was before me, in every perfect line, every soft dip and swell of Ruya’s body.
I moved slowly at first.Every touch tentative, every movement asking permission for more.And she answered me in sighs and whispered yeses and the anchoring weight of her hands on my ribs, smoothing over my chest and back, gripping my cock as if it was made to fit her hand.
There were no words between us.Just acceptance, and understanding, and the kind of love I had never allowed myself to dream of before I met her.A connection I never thought I could have.She welcomed every part of me.My magic.My hesitation.My hunger.
When she drew me down, I went willingly, lying on my back on the springy moss.Ruya straddled me without an ounce of hesitation, gripped my cock and sank down on me as if she’d imagined doing this a million times over.She rode me slowly, eyes fluttering closed, breath shivering from her lips as we moved together.I let my instincts take over and push my caution aside, gripping her hips, thrusting upward, mesmerized by the vision of her taking her pleasure from me here in the dark.
When she came, it was with her head thrown back, her aura pulsing in gold waves that lit my soul from the inside out, and my name falling from her lips.
I had never had sex with a witch before.Had rarely had any encounter of the sort, if we were being honest.But I had heard enough stories that the clutching wasn’t a surprise.Her body squeezed me tight, almost painfully so, and I groaned with tortured pleasure.
My hands smoothed over her skin, gentling her, exploring every inch of her beautiful body that I could reach until she relaxed enough for me to move again.I gripped her hips as she rocked, slowly building up to a crescendo once more.My hand slid down to rest on her soft belly, my thumb pressing against her clit as she rocked into me.I was awed.Overwhelmed by the joy of being able to touch her so freely.To drink in her every sigh of pleasure.
I was so wrapped up in her pleasure that I nearly forgot to be afraid of my own.
I sat up suddenly, wrapping my arms around her to hold her close, as I felt my own climax roll through me.I tried to brace myself for the screaming and terror that would come with my release, even as I crested that peak against my will.Murmuring her name like a prayer, I spilled deep inside her, shuddering as my control slipped and my magic flared, my dark aura lashing out, wild and uncontrolled.
Ruya gasped, her body tensing up, her fingernails digging into my back.But unlike the last time I had come undone in her presence, she kept her wits about her under the onslaught.After one long, frozen moment, she rocked her hips against me again,hard.A little growl escaped her as she took me deeper, her omega magic swelling around us as she somehow seemed to morph her terror into dark euphoria.
The next time she gasped, it wasn’t caused by fear.Her silvery hair spilled around us as her inner walls clutched me tight once more, her orgasm locking us together in a way that made the wild, dark thing inside me mad with delight over the way she claimed us.
Afterward, we lay tangled together, her head on my chest and our legs threaded together as we waited for her to stop clutching.My fingers traced the curve of her spine like it was a priceless sculpture, a work of art.I had never felt so sappy in my entire life.
“You’re not a monster, Dusek,” she murmured sleepily.
“Then what am I, trinket?”
She lifted her head and stretched to press a kiss to my chin, and I could see her smug smile in the dark.“Mine.”
My breath caught.The word was both terrifying and thrilling.I had never belonged to anyone as anything other than a captive magic slave or a useful court member.But she was right.I was completely and utterlyhers.All of me—even the darkest corners of my horrible bubak nature—belonged to this brave, beautiful,patientomega.
I pulled her close and pressed my mouth to her hair, not fearing the little shudder that ran through her body in response to my heightened emotions.It was okay.Her response to me wasn’t the life-ending thing it had once felt like it was.It was just… a part of who and what I was.And she didn’t hate me for it.She accepted all of me.
For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel cursed.I felt…blessed.I wondered if it really was the Goddess I saw in her.Wrapping my arms around her, I pressed a kiss to the top of her head and thanked any deity who happened to be listening.
Chapter 7
Robin
Ipacedtheperimeterofmy borrowed room in the naga’s cave, trying to think past the constant headache that pounded behind my eyes.I was sick todeathof being confined underground, even if our current accommodations were technically within a palace.Checking my watch for the dozenth time, I sighed.It was finally time.Good.This waiting was driving me mad.
I plopped my messenger bag onto a small vanity table and reached inside to pull out the sizeable, but otherwise unremarkable, gilded compact mirror.The metal was textured beneath my fingertips, engraved with art deco designs that echoed it’s age.But more noticeable was the faint buzz of dragon magic that kissed my skin whenever I touched it.This mirror had been my great grandmother’s.It was one of the few relics I had managed to collect that had once belonged to my clan.I had found it in a pawn shop when I was sixteen years old.
Sometimes it seemed my entire life amounted to nothing but attempting to reclaim the scattered pieces of my family’s legacy.To prove to myself that they had ever existed in the first place as the endless years marched by and everyone forgot the dragons who had once been the pride of the city.
Wrapping my hand around the pretty treasure, I did my best to focus through my headache, pouring my intent into the shiny object in my hand.When I flipped the compact open and peered into it, the face that greeted me was not my own.
“Corrin, darling,” I said in greeting, doing my best not to let the weakness of my headache show.“What did you find?”
The fae in the mirror ran a furry hand over one fluffy ear.Unable—or unwilling—to pass as human or hide her true form, and with no strong magic to make her useful to the syndicate, she was one of the forgotten unaligned who roamed the abandoned area near The Fox.
“We were right,” she told me, not wasting any time or trying to make chit-chat.It was why we got along so well.She had agreed long ago to repay a favor she owed me by being my eyes and ears in the city when needed.But she clearly would rather not draw any attention to herself—from me or anyone else.It made her a very efficient contact.“The description you gave me matches one of the routes to the back entrance to the Two Way Inn.And it looks like that waste of oxygen Polst hangs out there almost every night lately, gets there around midnight and doesn’t leave ‘til nearly sunup.He’s developed some kind of infatuation sex workers.”She rolled her eyes.
