"It has been a thousand years since last I knew a woman's body," he murmured. "I pray I do not disappoint.”

Though he said it with a small smile, she heard a greater sincerity than he would have wanted to reveal. He feared the truth of this joining wouldn't be as stirring to her as the illusions he'd woven with such mastery.

"The only possible way you could disappoint me, Rain, would be to leave me now.” She arched against him and slid a leg over his. Her foot traveled up the rock-hard muscles of his calves to tease the backs of his thighs. His sex gave a hungry, surging pulse as her gesture opened the nest of curls between her legs.

"You do play with fire.”

She laughed, a throaty purr that rolled over his skin and made every cell leap in reaction. "It must be the tairen in me.”

His own tairen flexed its claws and gave an answering growl of approval. "Then take my flame, shei’tani, and burn for me.”

He bent his head and devoted himself to setting her afire, body and soul. Flows of magic swirled around her like a thousand stroking hands. His mouth claimed first one breast and then the other, teasing the soft ni**les into tight, aching peaks. Alternating breezes of tingling cold warred with sultry heat, the combination an intoxicating, erotic play that roused every inch of her skin to aching sensitivity.

Her hands dove into the silky thickness of his hair, clutching tight. Her hips bucked against him in restless invitation, but he only laughed against her skin and left his weaves to tease and provoke her while he pressed a burning trail of kisses down the smooth, sweet softness of her belly, tasting each tender fingerspan of skin, drinking in her scent, rubbing it on his face and lips, breathing it in until her essence filled him so completely he could not take a breath that did not taste of her. Lower still his lips traveled. Hands found the soft swell of her rounded bu**ocks and gently lifted her hips.

Ellysetta gave a thin, breathless cry as he bent his head to feast on her. She tried to close her legs against him in a last, instinctive rush of Celierian modesty, but he would not allow it. As you reminded me, our vows have been spoken, shei’tani. By your customs as well as mine, there can be no shame between us. All that you are is mine to discover and adore.”

She felt the slow, lingering lap of a tongue and nearly leapt off the bed.

« You taste of honeyed cream, shei’tani.» He took another leisurely taste of her, followed by an insistent, probing dart that was wholly wicked. All the while, his weaves cupped and teased her br**sts until she thought she would fly apart. «Open for me.»

Gods save her. Inner muscles clenched tight in rippling spasms. She squirmed against the hands that held her fast and groaned as he laughed softly against her most intimate skin. Helplessly her legs fell open, and her eyes closed on wave after wave of indescribable sensation as teasing tastes became long, savoring strokes that turned her veins to rivers of smoldering fire. Pressure built up inside her as her hips assumed an instinctive rhythm, rising and falling to meet each sinful stroke of his tongue.

At this moment, all he wanted in life was the taste of Ellysetta on his tongue, the scent of her filling his nostrils, the feel of her soft skin filling his hands. Through touch, skin to skin, he shared every fevered emotion speeding across her shattering senses. The sound of her sobbing pleas and the restless leap of her hips drove him wild. Within his soul, the tairen roared.

Ellysetta closed her eyes as a torment of sensation rolled over her. The roar of the tairen resonated along the thread of their bond like a bolt of lightning, setting every fiber of her being blazing to sudden, incandescent, throbbing life. Her back arched. She flung her head back.

"Rain!" Oh, dear gods. “Rain!" The climax burst over her in a thousand shuddering explosions, each stealing her breath and shaking her to the core.

He rose up above her, eyes blazing, his mouth parted in a triumphant, near-savage smile. The hard, thick length of his sex entered her body on a single breathtaking thrust. If there was pain, he stole it from her, leaving only the feel of his body inside hers, stretching her, filling an emptiness she'd never known existed.

His hips drew back, and she almost wept in protest, clutching at his hips with an instinctive plea. He surged forward again, and she cried out in wild pleasure.

Within her mind she saw the tairen, roaring in triumph as it leapt to claim and dominate. For the first time, her own wildness rose up in savage answer. Within her soul, she felt the sweep of wings and claws, the thunder of tairen bodies meeting in an ancient, untamed mating, while together, on their silken bed, Rain and Ellysetta's Fey bodies surged in an equally fierce union. Her hand curled, and she raked her nails down his back, matching his unrestrained passion with her own.

Rain threw back his head and roared. He rose up on his knees and drew her hips up with him as his body pounded in a relentless beat. As she sprawled on the silken sheets of their bed, Ellysetta's hair spilled across the pillow in coils of flame. Her br**sts bobbed with each powerful thrust of his hips, and as he watched, the Fey glow of her eyes grew brighter and brighter until they were whirling opalescent pools, blazing with an inner fire. Tairen eyes.

Again and again he drove her to the edge and pushed her beyond it, loving the sound of her cries ringing in his ears, loving the shocked, dazed look on her face as pleasure shook and shattered her. Her inner muscles convulsed around him, silken, tight, rippling in a series of fierce spasms that stole the breath from his lungs. Every muscle in his body clenched tight in response, straining as her climax detonated his own.