Page 170 of Sworn to the Shadow Throne

Oh dear gods.

He didn’t wait for my answer. He leaned back down, fingers finding my folds, and started thrusting his tongue into me like it was his cock. Like the first time he’d touched me, there was no build up. I simply shattered, entire body quivering with the intensity of it. He continued to work me until I came back down from the heavens, sweat beading my brow.

He moved up onto the bed into a kneeling position, giving me my first good view of him.

“One small change to your plan,” I said, sitting up. “It’s my turn.”

“Luna…” he warned.

“Just a little.” I was already leaning over.

He didn’t protest as I licked a slow stripe from the base to the tip. His entire body shuddered at the contact.

“Oh, fuck,” he rasped, voice deeper than I’d ever heard it.

All that did was encourage me. I gripped the shaft with one hand and sucked. The salty tang of him filled my senses. I felt him throb against my lips before he pulled away abruptly. “Too good,” he practically whined.

I leaned back, relaxing onto a pillow, feeling a little smug.

“Time to make good on my promise,” he said, moving back to kneel between my legs. “Before, I was drowning in my need for you. But I’ve been by your side, breathing you in for the past day and night. This is the most stable I’ve ever felt.”

“Then show me,” I murmured, using my hands to encourage him to come closer. “I need to feel you.”

He came down to hover over me, bracing himself on his elbows. Starting at my collarbone, he drew a path with his lips, moving slowly toward my ear. He sucked the sensitive tip into his mouth before whispering, “I love you, Lunette. I always will.”

As my heart and mind turned that over, he began the unhurried, careful thrust that would bring our bodies together for the first time. Since I hadn’t been with anyone in years, the feeling left me breathless.

Did I love him? I waited for the familiar urge to talk myself out of it—to find a reason to make myself smaller, more careful, less.

But I wasn’t the woman who’d chosen safety over truth, who’d confused the meaningless comfort of being needed for something real. I knew now that what I had before was emptiness. And what I had with him now was nothing like it.

Owain loved me. Not any of the careful shapes I’d forced myself to fit into for other people. Just me.

I was done with safe.

The answer, when I let myself look at it without fear, was painfully simple. It had probably been simple for a while.

“I love you too,” I said just as he buried himself to the hilt.

The store of magic that lived around my heart burst out in one great wave. It felt like a door I’d been leaning against for months had simply opened. Like my very connection to everything around me and my position within it had been abruptly and completely rewritten.

I could feel Owain.

A vague sense of where he was and how he felt now occupied a corner of my mind. For a moment, we both held our breaths, the quiet amplifying our shared stillness.

I pulled back just far enough to look at him. Shadows now moved across his skin like restless, living tattoos. His expression confirmed it. He’d felt it too.

Except he didn’t look as surprised as I felt…

Something that wasn’t quite hurt and wasn’t quite relief flickered through me. He had known. But he’d waited until I’d come to the realization myself.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to kiss him or throw something at him. So I laughed.

He made a sound deep in his throat that might’ve been my name. Neither of us could speak.

I reached up and touched his face. He turned into my hand and kissed it as if it were the most natural thing he’d ever done. When our lips finally met, it felt like an acknowledgment of a long-standing truth, rather than the start of something new.

The wonder I’d seen written in his expression gradually gave way to something hungrier and more certain. I felt its echo travel through the new connection to him before he started moving carefully again. The barrage of new sensations—how happy and content he felt—hit me all at once, leaving me momentarily overwhelmed.