Page 117 of Silver & Smoke
‘Furies save me,’ she cried out as he hit that spot deep inside that set her alight.
Every stroke was a brutal claiming, a declaration. ‘No gods here, Embers,’ he growled, reaching between their sweat-slicked bodies. ‘And I’m not going to save you. I’m going to ruin you.’
As the rough words left his lips, his fingers found her clit.
Wren shattered.
For a moment, her vision went white, and she thought her heart might burst right out of her chest. Torj kept fucking her as the waves of her climax washed over her, causing her to shudder against him.
‘Torj,’ she breathed into the crook of his neck.
‘Husband.’He ground out the correction. ‘I’m.’Thrust.‘Your.’Thrust.‘Husband.’Thrust.‘Tell me, wife. I need to hear you say the words. Who do you belong to?’
‘You. Always you.’ Tears stung her eyes. He tasted of home, of hope, of everything she had always wanted. ‘I—’
‘I know, Embers,’ he murmured against her lips. ‘I know. I love you too.’
His words washed over her, their pleasure entwining down the bond, the force of that ancient magic fusing together, dancing in gold across their skin.
And then he followed her over the edge, spilling inside her with a shout and a rumbling moan.
Wren kept clinging to him, vowing that she’d never let him go.
CHAPTER 60
Wren
‘The crucible teaches what words cannot: perfect timing. Too brief a heating leaves potential unrealized; too long burns away possibility’
– Alchemy Unbound
‘IWISH WEhad more time,’ Torj said, showing her the tremor in his hands as he dressed.
‘That’s what I thought as well. It shouldn’t be happening like this,’ Wren told him, turning to face him. She brushed a lock of silver hair from his brow and smiled sadly, the golden bond materializing between them, shimmering in response to their roiling emotions. And then she paused, toying with the gilded ribbon between them, realization hitting her hard.
She had felt his pleasure as her own. At the end of the first battle at Drevenor, she had felt his pain... They could speak, mind to mind through the connection. They were linked. Always.
‘The book said we could share physical sensations. That’s the whole reason you tried to break the bond in the first place, isn’t it?’ she said slowly. ‘What if, by instinct, you’re preventing the poison from spreading to me? What if you’re using up your strength, your reserves, by stopping the poison travelling through the bond?’
‘That’s a bit of a leap, isn’t it?’ he said, staring at her hands as they covered his.
‘Is it? You’re a protector, Torj. You were long before you became my guard. And I’m your soul-bonded. It makes sense that a certain level of instinct would take hold...’
Torj stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. ‘If that’s the case, then we need to be asking a different question.’
‘Which is?’
‘Did Silas know? Did he somehow know about the soul bond, therefore targeting me in order to get to—’
Torj’s breath shuddered out of him, his gaze becoming distant.
‘Gods,he actually told me. I’m so sorry, Wren. I’m so stupid. There was a moment, during that first attack on Drevenor, when I had the dagger sticking out of my chest. Silas said, “I can get to her through you.” Those were his actual words. He told me then and there. Fuck.’
‘This isn’t your fault,’ Wren replied fiercely. ‘And now we know. We know you’re not growing weaker because of the poison itself. You’re expending your Furies-given strength stopping it from going down the bond.’
‘Is this where you tell me to stop? Because Embers... that’s not going to happen.’
But to her own surprise, Wren shook her head. ‘I won’t tell you to stop. I’m not sure you could even if you wanted to. The bond has a mind of its own when it comes to instinct.’
