Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
“I want to nuzzle my face into your neck,” he told his mate, “just breathe you in. Stroke my hand down the lean lines of your body while I feed you tidbits that delight you. Kiss you in the softest, most secret places of your body. Hold you. Play with you.”
…but don’t mourn me, Adam. I’m free now. Your wild bird in flight, my mind whole and my spirit no longer locked in a cage of reconditioning.
At last, I’m Eleri again.
His chest compressed, his tears caught deep within. He’d lost so many people, had so many markers of grief on his heart. “I don’t want you to go. I want to hold you so tight that no one can part us…but I’ll never clip your wings. So if you want to fly, Eleri, fly.”
The tears broke free, streamed down his face as he pressed his lips gently to hers, for even a wing leader’s huge heart could break. “I’ll watch for you in the skies, mate of mine.”
• • •
Eleri felt her lungs expand, felt air inflate then deflate them as she exhaled. She sensed her own breath against her skin, and she sensed the brush of cloth against her limbs. It felt soft, much softer than the usual fabric of her suits and shirts.
Warmth, heat, roughness.
Salt on her lips.
A jolt of sensation through her nerve endings.
A harder heat pressing into her knuckles…and then came the avalanche of noise. Voices and voices and voices! Screams and shouts and quiet dream murmurs, all tangled together in a chaotic overload that was a crushing blow.
She didn’t know if she made a sound, but her back bowed off the bed.
“Eleri!” Hands cupping her face, eyes ringed by falcon yellow looking into hers. “Hold on, hold on, baby. I’ve got you.”
Wings wrapping around her, shoving the voices away with sheer brute strength. Feathers so soft against her skin, a barrier so fine and so strong. And already bending. She opened her eyes and was astonished she was herself.
Battered and damaged, with gaps in her memory…but the gaps were where she’d stored the memories of monsters. Her brain had known to discard those before it came for her own. “Adam.”
Her throat ached but she spoke all the same, even as she lifted her fingers to brush his jaw. “What are you doing?”
“Giving you us,” he said, his voice rough. “I shoved clan energy down the blood bond toward you when I heard you wake.” He turned to kiss her fingertips. “It’s working, Eleri.”
The hope in his voice broke her in ways she didn’t know she could be broken; she’d thought she’d already lost herself long ago. “It can’t last,” she whispered, astonished at how delightfully prickly his shadowed jaw felt against her fingertips, how the heat and strength of him beat like a pulse against her.
Sensation, bright as a scalpel, dazzling and multihued.
“Your wings are already under enormous strain.”
He stroked back her hair, his big body blotting out the ceiling and becoming her world. She wanted no other.
“I can feel you, Adam,” she whispered even as anger and despair darkened those beautiful eyes. “With all of me. No wall of numbness, nothing muted.”
A hunger dark and rich tore through her. “Kiss me.” In this stolen time between life and death, this unexpected and beautiful intermezzo, she wanted to experience all the lush layers of sensation of being with her mate.
“Eleri.” A rebuke, but he lowered his head, his lips just brushing hers.
She shuddered, her breasts aching and her nipples going tight and hard in a way that made her want to press up against his chest. She knew it felt good, the slide of his skin on her taut flesh, had experienced it…but now, oh now, how much better would it feel?
Eleri didn’t know if she’d be able to bear it, but she wanted to try.
Her feet curled inward, her thighs clenching as Adam closed one hand gently about her throat, his other in her hair, and kissed her with an open mouth. The wetness, the heat, the way his body felt leaning over hers. His hair was so soft in her fist, his bristled jaw abrading parts of her face until she wanted him to rub his roughness across her…kiss her between her legs as he’d done in the cave.
Her entire body quivered as the erotic memory melded with the sensations of today to give her a glimpse of ecstasy. It was too much and it wasn’t enough and it was all she’d been craving. She licked him back, one of her legs bending at the knee as she fought to get closer to him.
!!#*!
One shielding wing collapsed, even the power of an entire clan not enough to create a shield out of nothing and air. Eleri had two choices—fight a losing battle and cause more damage to herself, or put herself back under using a technique all Psy were taught as part of their studies.