ELENA
His lips brushed mine.
And then
The kiss wasn’t soft. It wasn’t hesitant. It was heat and hunger and six years of ache collapsing into one breathless, impossible moment. He kissed me like he needed it to live. Like if he let go, the world would vanish around us.
And I kissed him back.
The moment our mouths met, the world blurred at the edge. The trees, the moonlight, the fireflies all of it became a haze.
There were alarm bells in my head, faint and flickering. But they were overpowered by the way Derek’s hands gripped my waist, pulling me flush against him.
The way his mouth moved with mine, familiar and new all at once. The way the air itself felt charged–like the Moon Goddess was breathing over our shoulders, whispering yes, this.
I felt it everywhere.
In the earth under my feet. In the thrum of the waterfall. In the pull of the bond that hadn’t fully broken, even after I’d rejected him and severed it
We were no longer running from it.
We were running into it.
I didn’t know who moved first, but suddenly my back was pressing against the cool stone wall near the water’s edge, and Derek’s body was against mine–bare, strong, burning, I moaned into his mouth as his hands explored my sides, my hips, cupping the backs of my thighs.
My pulse droned in my ears. His mouth was everywhere–my neck, my shoulder, and when he crimped his teeth down on the lobe of my ear, I groaned.
I wrapped my legs around him, anchoring us together.
“Tell me you want this,” he whispered, voice ragged and breathy, rasped into the cup of my ear.
“I do,” I gasped, gripping his shoulders. “I do.”
His mouth found the hollow of my throat, and I shuddered
We sank to the soft moss–covered floor of the grotto, kissed tangled into breathlessness, hands memorizing skin like it might be taken away again.
Against my back–cool and damp but everywhere his body was pressed along my chest, my waist, my legs–all fire.
He worshipped me.
His mouth traveled down my body–he knew every inch already–but he explored it again like he was determined to rediscover it, reverently, hungrily.
Chapter 71
+25 BONUS
His cheeks were rough against the soft planes of my skin; my breasts, the flat drum of my stomach. I felt him nibbling the tender skin that covered the muscles of my Inner leg which was clenched and taut with anticipation.
He kissed the scar near my hipbone and then looked up at me like I was sacred as the Moon Goddess herself.
And then he dipped his head low.
I may have memory issues, but this–this I remembered. His mouth moved over me, firm over the petal–folds of skin, and when his tongue darted inside me, I practically levitated off of the soft forest floor.
Soon, his fingers joined his tongue, moving with confidence, drawing pleasure from me with ease, until I was gasping and rolling my hips, my back arching up beneath hin.
With a grown of complaint from both of us, he raised his head up, mouth glistening, and dragged his body up my own until our mouths were aligned and he was staring deeply into my eyes.
I had a momentary flash of clarity, of oh Goddess, what am doing, but the excitement, the heady, thick pull of anticipation was too seductive. I leaned up to kiss him, tasting myself on his lips.
When he finally pushed into me, I cried out–not in pain, but in relief. A sweet and dangerous surrender.
Like I’d been waiting for this moment since before I even met him.
Like my body had known him always, like we were one soul cleaved in two and sent to live on the earth as two halves of a single whole.
I hissed. He groaned. We were whole again.
He moved slowly at first, letting us both feel it. Letting me adjust. Letting me hold onto the way his body trembled against mine like this meant just as much to him as it did to me.
Goddess, it had been so long, I almost felt like a virgin again.
But our rhythm built quickly. Urgently.
I wrapped my arms around his back, digging my nails into his shoulder blades, our bodies slick with sweat and moonlight and want. I tilted up on one hip, ankle wrapping around his thigh and he slid in even deeper.
Every time I opened my eyes, I found his
Dark. Devoted. Ferocious.
He kissed me as he moved, whispered my name like it was vow. His hands tangled in my hair. My breath hitched against his mouth.
We came together like it was inevitable. Like it had been written into the stars.
And when I came, it was with a cry so full of heat and memory and release that I thought I might break open completely.
Derek followed a heartbeat later, collapsing against me, groaning into my skin like he’d just survived a war and found heaven on the other side.
We stayed like that for a while–splayed against the moss and stone, tangled up in each other, skin against skin, hearts still racing
+25 BONUS
The waterfall rushed nearby, and the wind whispered through the trees. Eventually, Derek propped himself on one elbow and looke down at me.
He was quiet for a long time.
Then he said it..
“Marry me.”
I blinked up at him.
“What?”
His eyes didn’t waver. “Marry me.”
My breath caught. And in that instant–something opened Inside me.
A melhory:
Sharp. Full color. Bright as moonlight.
We were in the old conservatory. Back before the wedding. When we’d first started talking about it.
Derek had sat across from me, fingers laced on the table like he was bracing himself.
“We’re fated mates,” he’d said. “The Moon Goddess wants it. We should get married.”
I remembered the strange mix that bloomed in my chest–joy, yes, but something else too. Something heavier.
A quiet, creeping disappointment that eventually swallowed the joy whole.
I’d tilted my head. “Is that a proposal?”
He’d shrugged. “I guess so.”
I’d nodded. “All right.”
And that was it.
No kiss. No joy. No ring.
Just duty. A resigned agreement signed in silence.
But that wasn’t the worst of it.
The worst memory came next.
Our wedding day.
I remembered standing at the altar, hands trembling, wrapped in white lace and nerves.
I remembered the string quartet playing something soft and romantic. The rows of guests buzzing with anticipation.
I remembered looking down the aisle, searching for him.
And then I remembered the shift.
Not the magical kind.
+25 BONUS
The literal one.
his arms right before the ceremony began.
venue–carrying Derek had walked out of the venne carrying Cassandra in his arms
No glance back to look at me, his bride.
Just gone.
My throat closed.
“Hey,” Derek said softly. “What is it?”
I couldn’t breathe.
1 could barely move.
Tears blurred my vision as I slipped out from under his arm and sat up.
“This was a mistake,” I whispered.
“What?” His voice cracked.
1 stood. “I can’t-”
The shift took me in a breathless rush–bones stretching, skin tearing, fur bursting free in a wave of instinct and agony and freedom.
And then I was gone.
Nox tore into the night, wild and feral, the wind howling in my ears as the trees opened before me like a path back to who I used to be–or maybe to someone entirely new.
Chapter 172
