jumped and danced across the walls and in his eyes. Shea felt the enormity of what they were about to do settle on her shoulders.
This wasn’t about sex.
Or at least, not solely about sex.
This was about taking a step toward what she was meant to be. To do. This was about undoing what she had done so long ago.
And instantly, her mind dredged up the image of the vision she’d had hours ago. Of standing beneath bolts of lightning with her sisters, calling to the darkness. A chill rushed across her skin, pebbling her flesh with goose bumps. She remembered the taste of the fear she’d felt that long-ago night. Remembered the instant of shame, of regret that had pressed down on her. She remembered what Torin had said about atonement and how long they had all waited for this time to come. And she remembered, at last, that this man, this Eternal, was her only shot at long-sought redemption.
She took a breath and looked into his eyes. There was so much there, she thought. So much more than she’d seen in the first terrifying moments when he’d appeared out of nowhere to whisk her away from a dangerous mob. His hand on hers tightened, pressing their palms flat together.
“For a true mating to begin,” he said, “you must accept both me and your destiny. In the past, you held yourself apart from me. Though we shared sex, you refused the mating.”
“Why?”
He shrugged, though she suspected his feelings went deeper than he allowed himself to show. “At first, you wouldn’t risk sharing power. You and your sister witches clung to each other and shut out those who would have been the other halves of your souls. Then, later, it wasn’t time. The Awakening had to arrive before the mating was possible again.”
“And now?”
“It’s time. At last. Do you accept me?” he asked quietly, every word a benediction, a hope.
It cost this strong, brave man to ask her to accept him and she knew it. Sensed it. But she also knew that this was the tradition he’d waited lifetimes for. Was she ready? Did she have a choice?
If she refused him now, she risked returning to the dark place that still lived inside her. The vision she’d had earlier was still vivid in her mind. With danger. Fear. And terror. She couldn’t face this alone-and her Eternal was waiting for her. As he had been for so long.
“Yes,” she whispered, her tone as reverent as his. “I accept you.”
“And our past?”
“Yes.”
“And our future?”
“Yes,” she said and his fingers locked more desperately with hers.
“Do you take me as your mate? To stand beside you? To fight with you and to make right what once went so wrong?”
She swallowed hard and felt the hugeness of the moment crashing down on her. Each of her answers to his questions had spurred heat to quicken inside her. Now those flames flashed and burned so brightly it was a wonder she wasn’t glowing. This last question, she knew, was the key to it all. To taking him as her mate. To vowing to stand and fight beside him. To trust him.
And even as she opened her mouth to give him her answer, a part of her held back from that blind trust she knew would be so necessary. How could she completely trust him when she didn’t entirely trust herself?
“Shea.” His voice was a demand. An insistence that they had come this far and she couldn’t back away now.
She lifted her chin, looked him in the eye and whispered, “Yes, Torin. I accept you. I accept the responsibility. I accept the danger.”
Flames erupted over their joined hands.
Bright orange and yellow light danced and jumped across their skin, searing the two of them together. There was no heat. No burning, no charring of flesh. But the flames churned and flashed brighter, hotter, until at last they winked out just as Shea felt a jolt of that heat shoot through her palm. It snaked along her arm and settled in her chest in a tight knot of heat that flared with every beat of her heart.
She sucked in a gulp of air and looked at him, startled. “What?”
“We begin,” he said and dipped his head to claim her mouth with his.
Hands still joined, their bodies came together and Shea arched into him. In the hearth, flames snapped and hissed as they consumed the wood stacked there. The only other sound was the wind, rattling the glass panes as if it were an entity demanding entrance.
But for her, there was only her Eternal.
Torin tipped her back onto the bed and she sprawled beneath him, hungry now, ravenous to have him in her, on her, under her. She wanted to feel every inch of his hard body. She scraped her hands up and down his back, along his butt, dragging her short nails across his skin. He buried his face in the curve of her neck, nibbling, kissing, tasting.
She arched again, parting her thighs, demanding that he take notice, that he give her what she craved.
He did. He shifted one hand to her center and thumbed her core until she was writhing and twisting beneath him. Tension radiated from her into him. She felt his sex pressing against her hip and she wanted it inside her. Wanted him locked deeply within her.
When he raised his head, she looked into his eyes and in those pale gray depths, she read more hunger than she’d ever seen before. She thought she might burn up from the heat of his gaze and knew she wouldn’t care. As long as she could feel him sliding deep within her, she wouldn’t care about anything else.
It was a fever now, a soul-deep ache that demanded to be fed.
“Now, Torin,” she ordered, turning into him, trying to straddle him so that she could feel his hard thickness inside. “Take me now, damn it.”
“Now,” he agreed and shifted, rolling her onto her back again, moving to kneel between her parted thighs. Then he paused and looked his fill of her. His hands touched her, parted her tender flesh and stroked her until she grabbed fistsful of the quilt beneath her and hung on for dear life.
“Is torture a part of mating, you bastard?” she demanded, lifting her hips into his touch, nearly whimpering for what he was denying her.
“It’s the hunger,” he told her in a voice choked out of his throat. “The craving claws at you. At me. Once begun, the mating will only become more powerful. More all-consuming. We will need. Always.”
“Then take me,” she told him, rearing up off the mattress to link her arms around his neck and pull his mouth to hers for a brief, hard kiss. “Take me now and then again. But be inside me, Torin.”
“Always,” he promised and keeping his gaze locked with hers, entered her body in one long, swift stroke.
She screamed his name as his body claimed hers. She clung to his shoulders, his back, as he pulled her up to sit on his lap. She twisted, grinding her hips against him, taking him deeper, higher. She rubbed her breasts against his chest and felt flames quicken there as well.
That knot of heat inside her chest flared brightly for an instant and burned behind her left breast as she rode him. She didn’t care about the brief jolt of pain. It was gone in an instant and all there was, was him.
Their gazes locked, Shea moved on him. His hands at her waist set the rhythm for her to follow. It was fast, it was hard and it was everything.
The first stirrings of her climax tingled into life and were enveloped in a firestorm of sensation. She let her head fall back on her neck as she held on to him and continued to move, rocking, writhing, twisting, taking him as high and as deep as possible. His thickness filled her, and still it wasn’t enough. She would never have enough of him. Heart. Soul. Mind. She felt the connection between them flash into life and she knew that nothing she ever did would be as important as this moment.
“Shatter for me,” he commanded.
She did, instantly. Her body rocked and she called his name as wave after wave carried her over and above anything she had ever known before.
And almost before the last ripple sighed through her system, Torin moved her, shifting her in his arms, setting her on the bed. Facedown, she braced her hands on the mattress, and knowing what he wanted, went up on
