Page 93 of May: Bloom & Bane

He brings the berry to his mouth.

Mesmerized, I track the delicate violet skin against the tip of one newly sprouted fang. A tiny pop echoes over the water, puncturing the flesh just enough to let a single shimmering bead of something gold seep into the heart of the fruit.

“What is that?”

“He says it’s a trace of his essence,” Sage rumbles as he lowers the berry to my lips. “To make sure the sweetness stays in your blood long after the fruit is gone.”

He nudges my mouth with the berry, his finger resting heavily against the center of my chin. “Open for me, ash’kaela.” (Death’s Princess)

I part my lips, and he places it on my tongue. My teeth sink into the fruit, crushing it at once. The glazeberry bursts, and this time, the sweet violet nectar is spiked with liquid heat.

“I don’t feel anything—” Suddenly the world softly catches fire around me. That’s the only way to explain it. Warmth blooms from my chest in a slow, rolling wave. Down my arms, my spine, pooling low and heavy in my hips. Everywhere it touches, my skin wakes up. The water against my body is suddenly a thousand individual points of contact. The steam on my shoulders. The porcelain at my back. His fingertip, still resting against my lip, becomes the center of my universe.

“Please,” I breathe.

Every ache in my body dissolves, replaced by a humming, liquid awareness that has me gripping the tub’s rim with both hands. My head tips backward, and my eyes fall shut.

“Eden? What do you feel?”

The fingertip against my lip drags down the column of my throat, tracing the rapid flutter of my pulse before lingering over my collarbone.

“Everything.” I gasp as another wave of heat ripples under my skin. “It feels like… like my skin remembers everywhere you’ve ever touched me, all at once.”

“It amplifies the bond,” he rasps, his fingers brushing over my breast. “It’s stripping every barrier between us.”

He reaches over the rim for an opalescent bloom floating near the edge. He gathers the velvety petals into his palms and submerges them beneath the surface. With a firm squeeze, the flower softens, and the water around his hands turns into a thick, pink-colored lather.

“That smells soo good,” I murmur. “What is that?”

“A lather-lily.” His soapy hands close over my shoulders, and I can’t stop the small moan that escapes me. “Does that feel good, mí’aevúna?”

Every slide of his palms feels like a stroke of electricity. The silky foam slides over the swell of my breasts.

“Sage…” My hands blindly grasp at the edge of the tub as his thumbs circle my aching nipples through the slick soap.

“I want to seal the bond with you,” he rasps, his fingers tugging on my flesh just hard enough to keep me paying attention. “But the feeling in my gut is not gone, Eden.”

I force my eyes open and look up at his face.

“The one that stopped me on the canvas,” he continues, his hands sliding deeper beneath the surface. “I have waited for it to leave. I have thought about it every moment since that night, waiting for it to get quieter.” His fingers wrap around my hips and pull me forward. “I don’t think it ever will. And if I wait for it to, I will wait your whole life away. I refuse to do that.”

“Sage—”

“And yesterday—” His hands reach my wrist, his thumb rubbing over the two small marks. “Yesterday I watched a Horseman put his fangs in you to move me. They told us plainly. They will not stop. Every day this bond stays open is a door they can reach you through.” He lifts my wrist from the water and presses his mouth over the marks. “I cannot stand guard at an open door for the rest of your life, Eden. But I can close it.”

“So close it,” I whisper.

His breath shudders against my skin. Both eyes lift to mine—void black and soft lavender side-by-side—and the question arrives in one throat with two voices underneath it.

“Will you let us seal you to us?”

Us. The word settles into my chest like it was always meant to live there.

“Yes.” My hand rises to his jaw, my thumb skimming the corner of his mouth where his new fang curves. “To both of you. It has only ever been yes.”

The gold in the water flares bright, illuminating the suds. The vines around the tub tighten their grip on the porcelain.

His warm, soapy palm slides up my knee, parting my thighs.