Page 193 of May: Bloom & Bane

I pull free of her in one slow drag, wrenching a desperate cry from her throat. Cold air hits the slick between her thighs, and a wave of pure panic shoots down the bond.

“No, Ashán, don’t,” she gasps breathlessly, her fingers clawing at the smooth bone of my shoulders. Her hips roll, chasing my vék. “Don’t leave. Please, don’t do this again.”

“Shh, ash’kaela. I’m right here,” I soothe. Darkness pours over her, lifting her clean off my arm and turning her effortlessly until she’s suspended face-down in a cradle of my shadow. Her copper hair spills toward the frost-bitten clover below us.

She gasps, finding no purchase—nothing to brace against as the void holds her aloft at the perfect height.

I’m not going anywhere.” I line myself up against her drenched entrance. “ I’m just changing the view.”

I fill her in one long stroke. She screams my name, the new angle burying me deeper inside her lavína.

“There’s no ground. No sky. Nothing to hold onto but me—” I groan against her spine, “And I never let you fall.”

I set a punishing pace, and there’s nothing she can do but take it. Every thrust pushes her forward, and the void hauls her right back onto me, forcing her on the full length of my cock over and over again.

“You’re too deep,” she moans.

“I’m exactly where I belong,” I rasp against the back of her neck, my breath coating her skin in a thin layer of frost. Her screams echo across the meadow, and ice climbs higher along the trees.

“Listen to you.” My skelva bite into the soft flesh above her hips. “I want to remember exactly what you sound like, so the next time the dark tries to take me, I’ll have this to crawl back toward.”

“Y-you’re not going anywhere,” she pants, her words stammering on every thrust. “Don’t say that again, or I’ll climb off these shadows and leave you like this.”

A laugh slips out of me, delightedly caught off guard. My sweet mate, suspended powerlessly in my void, stuffed full of my cock, threatening me.

“Is that so?” I hum, slowing to a devilish grind. “And how exactly do you plan to manage that, ash’kaela?”

I drag a single claw down the arch of her spine, relishing the way it makes her shiver.

“There’s nothing beneath those pretty feet. No leverage for those trembling little hands. Nowhere to go at all.” My fangs graze the shell of her ear. “You couldn’t climb off me if your life depended on it.” I thrust. “You are exactly where I want you, taking exactly what I give you—and you fucking love it.”

She lets out a frustrated sound, squirming pathetically in my shadow.

“I’ll find a way out,” she rasps. “And I’ll walk back to the house alone.”

“Walk away?” I growl, shadows snapping taut and yanking her hips back against mine with a force that silences her threat. “I would tear this meadow apart before I let you take a single step. I would wrap every shadow in this realm around your ankles and drag you right back here.”

I resume the pace, but the playfulness is gone.

“You aren’t leaving, Eden. Not tonight. Not in ten lifetimes.” I bury my face in her neck, inhaling the scent of níva swirling with my venya. “You’re going to stay right here, floating in my darkness, until you forget there’s even a world outside of my arms.”

I reach around her hips, pinching her clit between the flat bones of my skelva. “And when I finally let you down, the only place you’ll want to walk is closer.”

My hips pump relentlessly, the savage slap of skin and the moans she’s trying to bite back fill the clearing.

“Ashán—” she gasps. “It’s too much, I can’t⁠—”

I don’t slow.

“Ash, please, I⁠—”

I don’t listen.

My skelva circle her swollen flesh so fast her skin begins to heat under my bone. The shadows tighten and pulse around her, every nerve in her body screaming until I can’t tell her pleasure from my own.

“Do you still want to get down, ash’kaela?”

“No,” she whines, “don’t—don’t put me down, don’t stop, please⁠—”