Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 136009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
The loch gradually settled her nerves as she inhaled the white smoke.
“Sing for us,” Darby pleaded somewhere between being awake and asleep.
Clover sighed. She didn’t sing much anymore. That had been stolen with her parents’ deaths as well. But for her loves…
She took another long pull on her cigarette before stubbing it out against their tiny balcony that they’d been afforded because of her smoking habit. She ran her finger over her father’s amulet as she began the lullaby that her mother had always used to sing her to sleep.
Sleep, my little darling.
May dreams soothe and obey.
Turn the charm one, two, three times.
Don’t leave. I want you to stay.
Clover followed the words of the song, turning the amulet when the song said.
Sleep, my little angel.
Open the heart, and I’ll appear.
Speak my name one, two, three times.
No fear. I’ll always be near.
She tilted her head. Speak the name three times.
“Clover. Clover. Clover,” she whispered into the stillness.
Her amulet lit up in her hands. Her eyes widened in shock as the thing split in half, a little heart opening at the middle.
“Oh my gods,” she gasped.
Hadrian and Darby sat up in bed. They exclaimed at the amulet, which had sat dormant for weeks, despite trying everything, but her parents had left her the clues for it all along.
“How?” Hadrian asked as he scrambled to her side.
“Clover, you did it,” Darby said.
The amulet was hers now, but what could it do?
She thought about how Kerrigan always said magic felt like a well within her and she needed to draw it out and shape it. Well, the magic wasn’t in Clover. It was in the ancient Fae tendrille amulet that had been crafted for her. She reached and for the first time felt the threads of magic at her fingertips.
Fire appeared in her hand.
She looked up at her two loves and smiled a very dangerous smile.
“Dragons up, baby.”
Chapter Eight
The Flying
Kerrigan woke in a cloud of furs with strong arms wrapped around her waist, holding her against a bare chest. She’d fallen asleep against Fordham, and waking up to his gentle breaths between her shoulder blades almost made her forget the rest of the world. Almost.
She shifted in his grip to get a look at his midnight hair sliding over his forehead and against his eyelids. His aristocratic nose sloped strong and proud. The hard cheekbones that sliced across his face and the razor’s-edge jaw that had a hint of stubble across it. He was all hard planes and deadly features, and yet here in her arms, he looked content, happy, peaceful—as if war wasn’t waiting on the other side of his dreams. She could see the sad, broody boy who wrote poetry with charcoals and not the deadly killer they’d honed him into.
“I’m going flying,” she whispered as she brushed her lips against his.
He groaned softly, tugging her closer. His fingers tightened in her shirt and his lips slanted open, his tongue sweeping into her mouth. “Don’t go.”
“Need to burn off some energy.”
“I have an idea about that.” His lower half pressed firmly and intently against her. She shivered at the connection.
“You have kingly duties.”
“Yes, I have to do my queen.”
He was already kissing his way down her center, rolling his tongue around the rim of her belly button, and sliding her legs wide to accommodate him. She gasped at the first sweep of his tongue against her core. Her back arched off the bed, and she clamped her knees around his head. He pushed them farther apart, bracing them open with a strong hand. Then he began swirling his tongue dangerously around her until she thought she was going to break the bed with her quivering.
“Ford,” she gasped.
He glanced up at her with a smirk before slipping two fingers deep inside her. Her head slammed back again, and her eyes snapped closed as a moan escaped her lips.
“Oh gods.”
“Just me,” he teased. “You’re the only goddess in the room.”
He moved his finger in a come-hither motion, and she saw stars. For a second, she might have been back in that other realm, where she plucked her magic from a goddess of starlight. But it was just Fordham taking her to new heights.
“Release,” he purred against her body.
And she could do nothing but what he asked. Her body broke into a million little pieces as her climax hit her like a crash of waves against the rocks.
Fordham slid up her body, positioning himself between her legs. She opened her eyes as she came back down to earth and found him studying her.
“What?” she whispered breathlessly.
“I want to memorize every inch of you just like this.”
“As you unravel me?”
“I want you every way I can get you.”
“Then take me,” she pleaded.
His response was to thrust into her waiting body. She tightened around him. A satisfied grunt left his lips, and she shuddered at the pressure as he filled her. She was fully prepared for him, wet and needy, and he still stretched her with his girth.