Page 14 of Ashborne Forged

And the sound of her voice, ragged and harsh, called me closer.

There was no resistance. My defenses had been stripped. My chest cracked wide, and my quivering heart revealed. She had peeled back the layers of me, leaving me bare.

But instead of cold, dark malice, instead of cunning triumph, her warmth and light glowed in my deepest reaches.

Grace clasped hands at the back of my neck, and beamed.

I basked in that smile, in the light that emanated from her.

Joy. She was pure joy. Sunlight that would warm cold bones, and maybe bring them back to life.

The sheer wave of emotion nearly had me weeping. But I only had to look at her—cheeks flushed, hair messy, back arched and eyes closed tightly as her pretty mouth went slack, open on my name, and her body writhed to meet me—to know I would never let her go again.

I was sucked deeper.

It was too late.

She was mine.

We clung to each other until it was impossible to know where I ended and she began.

Desperate not to end this, but equally as desperate to carry her to the summit, I slid a hand under her head and kissed her desperately. My breath tore in and out as I took her again and again, faster and faster, and she curled tighter into me, clenching around me, whimpering.

Then her eyes flew wide and her hand clapped to the back of my neck. With one, high cry, she yanked me over the edge of control.

Overcome, I bucked and twitched, calling to her, clinging, shattering… then falling with her into the kaleidoscope of sensation and desire that tumbled me like a child in a storm wave.

I was thrown, gasping, airless, into an ocean of ecstasy. The bond exploded with light.

We hung in that moment together, and I would swear her soul embraced mine, that everything that made us both human spiraled out and tangled together, igniting each other like fuses—the small flame that existed between us, flaring, growing, fueled to burn through our veins.

But instead of leaving destruction in its wake, as the wave drew out and sanity returned, as I gasped and sweated, and begged her to tell me I hadn’t hurt her, I found myself full.

It was her.

It had always been her.

As the last of my defenses fell, something deep in my chest screamed a warning. A single lightning bolt of fear crackled through me. But it was gone in the same flash it arrived.

I fell over Grace, holding her, panting, kissing the side of her neck, whispering, smiling when she gasped my name and held me too tightly.

We were one. We were meant to be.

I would face fear. I’d face death for her.

That chilling voice reminded me that she didn’t yet know. That she’d given herself without full understanding, but I pushed it away.

I knew I should prop up on my elbows to take my weight from her, but when I shifted to do so, she shook her head and pulled me down.

So, I held her as tightly as she held me. Both of us tangled, and sweaty, and full of joy. Sated.

And I lay there, stroking her hair, quietly awed by the golden cord that now glowed between us.

It had lassoed my heart, and tied me to her. It pulsed and shone, slowing in its frantic burn, but not disappearing. It did not die—thank God. There was a fog over it, a few clouds that the sun of it would need to burn away. But it was beautiful. And I wouldn’t go back.

Grace sighed, and deep in my chest, in that space that had yawned empty until today, I sensed her…

First, ecstasy. Sheer bliss.