Page 67 of May: Bloom & Bane

His eyes go absolutely feral.

“Eden, I—” His voice trembles. “I can’t hold on much longer.”

I glance down through heavy-lidded eyes and watch as gold rolls down my inner thigh and settles in the crease of my hip. His fingertips are leaking pollen just as steadily as his cock.

I catch his wrist and pull his hand to my mouth, sliding his fingers between my lips. The most addictive taste explodes over my tongue. I moan around his fingers, sucking them deeper into my mouth.

He snarls.

“Vresh. Vresh. Vresh.”

His hips snap forward, the blooms inside my core vibrating at the sound of his voice. The petals tug mercilessly on my clit.

“Sage. I’m⁠—”

“Do it,” he commands, one of his hands sliding up to cup my breast, his thumb rubbing roughly over my nipple. “Come for me, Saevúra. Come all over my vék while you suck my fingers like you’re starving for me.”

I shatter. Euphoria consumes me so wholly that my vision whites out. The blooms pulse in sync with my clenching walls, the lím driving the lavásia deeper with one final, devastating pulse.

I scream around his fingers.

Sage roars above me, a tremor shaking his huge frame before his release paints my stomach, gold and pearl mixing on my skin.

He jerks back, pulling away so quickly I gasp at the sudden emptiness. All the blooms dissolve inside my core at once.

“Sage?” I pant, my chest heaving as I reach a trembling hand out for him.

“I can’t. Eden, we can’t.”

His hands shake as he drags them through his hair.

“I want to,” he chokes out. “Gods, Eden, I want to so badly it’s killing me. But I⁠—”

He looks at me, and the anguish in his expression makes my chest ache far worse than the emptiness between my thighs.

“Something’s wrong,” he whispers, a single tear cutting a clear path through the gold on his cheek. “I can feel it. If I seal the bond—if I finish this—something terrible is going to happen. I don’t know what it is, but I can feel it in my bones. In Ashán. They’re both screaming at me to stop.”

Another tear streaks down his face, shimmering in the firelight.

“I’m sorry.” He drops his head into his hands. “I’m so sorry. I want you more than anything I’ve ever wanted, but I can’t lose you. And if I seal this bond right now⁠—”

His voice cracks.

“I will.”

CHAPTER 22

how long have you felt like this?

—SAGE

Ican’t stop the tears from falling. I hate that I feel this way, but there is a relentless voice in my mind telling me to wait.

“Sage,” she whispers, sitting up slowly.

I flinch, expecting her to be angry. I wouldn’t blame her if she was.

“Come here,” she says softly.