Page 252 of The Reckoning of Starlight

“You both planned this,” Serenna chided. Fenn’s fangs flashed and she narrowed her eyes. “And you left Sharyne with Koln.”

“He likes having someone who thinks his bad ideas are excellent ones.” Fenn shrugged. “And he still owes me for helping convince Kaedryn that teaching half the orphanage to pick locks counted as practical education.”

A laugh escaped Serenna. “That was him?”

“Who else?”

Cheers carried across the open air from the trials, muffled by distance and wind.

Serenna turned toward the strip of open sky beyond the stone. One spread of her wings would launch her back to the course.

She stayed where she was.

“You abducted me before I even made it to my post this time.”

Vesryn leaned against the cavern wall. “Technically, you chased me halfway here.”

Serenna shook her head.

Three years, and this was what their lives had become. Fenn plotting to hide them away on a floating island for an afternoon. Vesryn assisting while claiming the scheme belonged entirely to Fenn. Food waiting. Blankets spread beside a mineral pool. An ambush built from every comfort they knew she wouldn’t ask for.

“Both of you are impossible.”

Fenn’s hands slid from her waist to the base of her neck. “And you’re tense.”

“I am not.”

His thumbs pressed into the first knotted muscle, pulling a hiss through her teeth.

Fenn hummed and worked deeper, following the ache Skyshatter had wrenched through her neck and shoulders. Serenna held against the pressure until the effort became ridiculous, then let her head bow beneath his hands.

A groan slipped from her.

Vesryn closed the space between them, his fingers brushing the torn leather at her shoulder before tracing its ragged edge to the first buckle. His thumb lingered there without opening it.

Serenna met his eyes. “Take it off.”

Twin flames of desire surged through the bonds.

Fenn reached past her and shoved Vesryn’s shoulder impatiently.

Vesryn snatched his wrist.

Fenn smirked. Instead of pulling free, he let Vesryn hold him there, crimson eyes flaring as they dropped to the fingers around his arm before rising slowly to Vesryn’s face.

Vesryn’s grip tightened.

Serenna knew that look. Sometimes it ended in an argument. And sometimes it ended with one of them against a wall with considerably less space than the quarrel required.

She laughed. “If this little ambush involved getting me out of my armor, you’re both wasting an alarming amount of time.”

Vesryn released Fenn and reached for her buckles.

His fingers moved quickly now, stripping away leather and the clothing underneath while Fenn’s palms kneaded a slow path over her shoulders. When the last layer fell, the cavern’s warmth settled over Serenna’s bare skin.

She rolled her neck as Fenn’s mouth brushed the place where shoulder met throat.

After hours silenced by gold, every touch seemed to land twice, pleasure returning through the bonds until familiar hands felt almost unbearably vivid against her skin.