gods.
Then he moved away, leaving her to cry out in frustration, then hiss in approval as he moved back up her body, heavy and solid, letting her feel every inch of him. He rose over her and she gloried in the heavy press of his body into hers, and the glide of his hard cock along her slick folds. Excitement built; she wanted him inside her, wanted to be pounded into, hollowed out. She wanted to sink her teeth into him and mark him as her own. Instead, she turned her face into his throat and whispered, “Now. Please, oh, please, now.”
“Hell, yeah, now,” he growled in return.
There was no fumbling with protection or questions, no need with a mage. He just poised himself and nudged within, the press of his cock head so intense she bowed against him, her eyes falling shut once more.
A moment of pressure was followed by a twinge as her body stretched to accept his girth. Then he slid deep in one sure thrust that parted her flesh, filling her, and setting off red-gold sparks wherever he touched.
Magic, she thought, and dragged her nails across his shoulders and down along his sides, fingers flexing as he withdrew and thrust again, impossibly deep. She made a low noise at the back of her throat, part purr, part growl, and he groaned in response and thrust again. Her body matched his as they found their tempo, and she was gripped by the sensations, acutely aware of the contrast between his skin and her own, the delicious friction, the heat, and the push-pull of their bodies.
Then he shifted to align their palms and twine their fingers together, and everything got sharper, deeper, more real. She bit her lip to will back the sudden swell of tenderness, and the tears that prickled behind her closed eyelids, not sure whether the move was an automatic one, impelled by the sex magic seeking more of itself, or whether he had formed the link on purpose, seeking that connection with her.
The bond was there, though, stringing her muscles tight and making her arch beneath him and suck in a hot-feeling breath that contained their mingled scents. Her body moved faster beneath his, urging him on, and he growled low in his chest and answered her, setting a tempo that made her feel like they were racing together across the desert.
“Yes. Oh, yes. Gods.” She broke the connection, letting it be about the moment and the sex as she gripped his tense forearms where he was braced above her. Her senses turned inward, concentrating on the place where they joined. Her body tightened around his driving hardness, pulsing, not under her control anymore. Pleasure shifted, coiled, and kindled a warm, tingling fire in her belly. “Please!”
He groaned and dropped down to gather her against him, wrapping his arms around her and pressing them together in an embrace that was suddenly far too intimate. He wasn’t just inside her anymore; he was holding her, surrounding her, whispering her name in a ragged gasp that brought a surge of tenderness, a sense that yes, this was it. This was what she had been waiting to find.
Panic lit up inside her. Even without the blood-link, it was too much, too huge, too—
“Gods, Cara!” He surged against her, shuddering, and the friction of his full-body press brought an ecstasy that swept away her doubts and fears and left her helpless to do anything but join him in the rise and plunge of bodies, the wild abandon of racing together toward the crest.
She tried to keep up with him, but her muscles tensed as her body locked itself in a breathless, tingling moment. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but cry out in a chain of, “Yes, yes, oh, gods, yes!”
And then he slipped a hand between them, touched her where their bodies joined, and her body ignited. Sparks flared and fireworks detonated as he hammered home a few more times. Then he seated himself to the hilt and locked his arms around her in a shuddering, bucking release that set off a series of implosions within her.
The orgasm left her gasping beneath him, her arms and legs wrapped around him, locked there tightly. And then, as it faded, she stayed right there, wanting the moment to last and last. She loved the feeling of him against her—his heavy weight, the heave of his hot breathing, the knowledge that he was just as wiped out as she was.
They had had each other thoroughly, wonderfully. And she wouldn’t change a second of it. Not here, not now.
No regrets.
“Gods. That was… Hm.” He shifted against her, stretching and easing off to one side. “Sorry. Crushing you.”
She nuzzled the side of his sweat-slicked neck. “Yeah, but in a good way.” But even as she said it, her instincts stirred. That was the kind of thing lovers said to each other, and therein lay danger. This was a onetime thing, a necessary release. Though if that was what it felt like to share sex magic as a mismatched pair, she could see why the magi were all about their destined mates. More, she could see why humans could get hooked on the fireworks and forget about the rest—at least for a while. Not her, though. She had gone into this with her eyes wide-open and full knowledge of what she was doing, and who with, and now it was time to pull back… even if part of her was humming an awestruck note.
Yes, she’d had sex with Sven, fulfilling more than a few of her pent-up, overwrought fantasies from long ago. And yes, it had been amazing, more so than even those fantasies—or anything else she’d experienced since then—had led her to hope. Fireworks, hell. That had been nuclear. But it didn’t change anything.
And if she told herself that enough times, she might even start believing it.
Easing away from him and playing it as cool as she could manage, she tipped her head toward the sealed- shut cave entrance. “Guess that wasn’t what the gods were waiting for, after all.”
A flicker of recognition said he’d made the connection too, knowing that the other sacred chamber had required not just a near-death experience but also the sexual consummation that completed the Godkeeper spell. But he shook his head. “That wasn’t what this was about, Cara. At all.”
Something shifted in her chest, but she didn’t let herself acknowledge the part of her that wanted to say, Then what was it about? She knew the answer, after all. It was just that silly, eternally seventeen-year-old part of herself that wanted it to be something more. “I know,” she said softly, “and believe me, I’m not trying to make a joke out of this. But we don’t need to dissect it either. It was… I can’t… Hell.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “Let’s just get dressed and find a way out of here.” Not meeting his eyes anymore, she reached for her shirt. “We’ve got bigger problems than—”
She froze at the sight of a stark black glyph on her inner right forearm.
And. Her. Heart. Stopped.
Oh, gods. Oh, no. Oh, gods, no. The litany beat in her blood as horror hammered through her, chased by pain. She must’ve made some noise, because Sven whipped around and got big, as if ready to defend her from a dozen hellhounds. But there was nothing to fight except the reality of a coyote’s-head glyph enclosed in a round- edged square, with the double dot representing “2” above it, to indicate that the wearer was a coyote with a familiar. Or, in this case, the servant to one.
“Fuck.” He lifted shocked eyes to hers. “I didn’t mean…” He trailed off, no doubt because there wasn’t anything to say.
“It wasn’t you. It was the nahwal.” Because although it was certainly possible that the blood-link or the sex could have reawakened the servant-master bond between them, her gut said it was the nahwal’s doing. Sven hadn’t wanted her—or anyone—as his servant. His ancestors, though, would want things lined up according to tradition. Bastards, she thought, her arm starting to ache.
“You broke it before,” he said after a moment. “Maybe you can do it again.”
“It took months, and I was sick as a dog.” Her voice threatened to crack but she wouldn’t let it. If anything, the mark was a necessary reminder that they were still the same people they’d been before. The vision hadn’t changed anything, and neither had the sex. Or, rather, something had changed, and not for the better. Aj winikin, she thought bitterly. Son of a bitch. If that was the nahwal’s gift, the creature could damn well have it back. “Screw it,” she said, forcing her chin up and her spine straight. “It’s just a mark. It can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do.” That was her story, and she was sticking to it. But where she might’ve been halfway to convincing herself that the sex hadn’t changed anything, there was no way she could say the same about this.
“Cara—”
“Don’t,” she said quickly. She didn’t want to talk about it right now. She wanted to be out and moving, wanted to fill her lungs with the fresh night air. The cave walls pressed suddenly in on her, though this time they weren’t moving; the claustrophobia came straight from her soul. “Please… can we just get out of here?”
