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I feel it—feel —the pulse that rips through him, the soil beneath us, a shockwave of warmth that blooms outward in a circle I can see in the dark, the corn stalks bowing away from us like something sacred just happened in the dirt, like the field itself just came with us.
He collapses onto me, trembling, his face buried in my neck, and for a long moment neither of us moves. The Earth cradles us both, warm, sated and satisfied.
I run my fingers through his hair, feeling dirt, sweat and him, the taste of soil still on my tongue. “That was—“ I start.
“Don’t.” His voice is muffled against my skin. “Don’t make it small with words.”
I laugh, breathless, and the Earth laughs with me, a faint vibration beneath my spine that feels almost like purring. “You made a joke again.”
“I didn’t.”
“You absolutely fucking did.”
He lifts his head, and in the moonlight his eyes are ancient and young and terrified. I realize—this is the part that scares him.
Not the Earth. Not the ritual. This. The aftermath. The having. The knowledge that now that he’s had me, the Earth will want it again. He will want it again. And again. And again.
I pull him down and kiss him slow, tasting dirt and salt and something that might be forever. “Two hundred years,” I whisper against his mouth.
“You were worth the wait.”
The Earth pulses once, soft and steady, and somewhere in the corn, a single red ribbon sinks deeper into the soil, gone… then silence.
Not normal silence.
No insects. No wind. No distant music.
Nothing.
My breathing slows then something brushes my ankle and I freeze. “Kai.”
He lifts his head. “What?”
“Something touched me.”
He goes still.
There, again. It’s not aggressive but soft.
A root. It curls around my ankle and I sit up.
Malakai reaches for it.
“Wait. The root isn’t hurting me.” I say as it slides across my skin and up my calf.
My pulse accelerates.
“Kai.”
His expression has changed.
“What?” He looks toward the ground. “The rite.”
My stomach drops.
“What about it?”
The root releases me then burrows into the dirt beside my hip.
