The soft murmur of voices stilled, and the rest of the Tower went completely silent, except for the sound of the wind and the rain. While the silence seemed strange to Bel, it also felt somehow fitting, as if the Wyr’s grief were too large for words.

Constantine’s body disappeared in a great blaze of fire, and he was released forever to the open sky. A column of smoke appeared briefly overhead, signaling to the whole city that he was gone. A few minutes later, when the blaze died down, the brazier was empty. The dragon fire had blazed so hot, nothing remained.

While they held no wake, they had pared work down to a minimum, only to essential personnel. Graydon was still on medical leave, so after the short, silent ceremony, he and Bel walked back to his apartment. Once inside, he didn’t release her hand.

Instead, he led her to the shadowed bedroom, and she went willingly. There, he undressed her in silence, while she focused on removing his clothes, injecting all the love and compassion she could into each passing caress, until they stood naked, facing each other.

Graydon’s body was as powerful as ever, his massive frame covered with heavy muscles and deeply tanned skin. Vitality poured off him, while inside, she knew his shattered rib cage, breastplate and chest muscles were still strengthening after Pia had healed him.

He could do normal activities, but his surgeon had not yet cleared him for strenuous flights or battle.

A scar like a starburst covered the middle of his broad chest.

She stroked it. The intensity of his silent grief broke her composure. Her face crumpling, she leaned against him and pressed her lips to the shiny scar.

“I’m always going to be grateful to him,” she whispered. “Every single day of my life, I’m going to thank him for what he did for you.”

A shudder rocked his powerful frame. Breathing raggedly, he gathered her close and kissed her.

Everything he couldn’t say poured out of his fingers, his mouth. She felt his pain and need as keenly as if it were her own.

He kissed her so hard and deeply, he bruised her lips. She welcomed the discomfort, kissing him back, meeting his need with her own. His hands roamed her body with restless urgency, cupping her breasts, running down the curve of her spine, gripping her hips.

She pulled away, only to take him by the wrist, fall back on the bed and tug him down with her.

He came eagerly, covering her body with his. His welcome weight settled on top of her, she parted her legs and wrapped them around his hips until his large, heavy cock pressed against her pelvis.

The need drove them both. As she reached between them to grasp his hard erection he lifted up on his elbows, and she guided him to her opening. This wasn’t about sensuality, or taking their time to explore each other’s pleasure points. This was something darker and so much more necessary.

Despite the taut urgency in his body, he pushed in gently, rocking deeper with every thrust, until he had seated himself all the way inside her, filling her completely, not just physically but emotionally.

“I don’t know how I lived without you,” he whispered into her hair, as he moved inside her. “I know I did. There’s a full, complete set of memories in my head of a very long, complicated life. But it’s almost as if those memories belong to another man. A man very like me, but still someone else.”

“I know what you mean,” she murmured stroking the back of his head, his shoulders, the broad, long line of his back. “I have been needing and wanting you for so many centuries, before we even met, I just didn’t know that what I needed and wanted was you.”

He cradled her head in the palm of one large hand, leaning his weight on one elbow as his hips flexed. The hard length of his cock was so big.

He was almost too big, stretching her as far as she could go. It was a deep, good ache that obliterated the cold, empty spot that had existed in the depth of her soul for so long.

She never wanted him to stop. She wanted them to always be joined just like this, moving together, in a rhythm so ancient, so essential it consumed them. They were each among the oldest of their kind, yet this need – this drive – still ruled them.

Gradually, he picked up the pace, and she lifted her hips to meet each thrust gladly. A deep, burning pleasure tightened her body, until it became a high, piercing spike of need.

He reached between them to stroke along the soft petals of flesh at her stretched opening where he penetrated her. Whirls of sensation cascaded through her at each stroke, until he found the tiny bud of her clitoris. When he massaged that small, unbelievably sensitive spot, an explosion rocked her body.

Crying out, she clutched him, shuddering as the ripples of the climax rippled through her nerve endings. He was so beautiful to her – even in the midst of his own grief and need, he gave, he didn’t take.

Rocking his hips so that he kept fucking her gently, he didn’t stop massaging her, drawing out her pleasure until her sensitivity grew so great, she couldn’t bear it any longer.

Pulling his hand away, she pushed at his shoulder and urged him softly, “Roll over, my love. Let me come on top.”

Readily, he complied. Keeping them joined by wrapping an arm around her hips and holding her to him, he settled back against the pillows.

Straddling him, she settled into place. With him inside her, this position made him feel even bigger than before. Spreading her hands on his flat, muscular stomach, she braced herself and began to move.

The look in his eyes. His tight, raw expression.

She wanted to cry for him. But that wasn’t the kind of release he needed. He needed to break free himself. She picked up her tempo, undulating her torso as she gripped his cock as tightly as she could with her inner muscles. Massaging him, working him, silently urging him to cut loose.

Bowing her head, she held his gaze, and her dark hair fell forward covering him like a silken tent.

As she fucked him, he stroked her breasts and fingered her hair. “I love you,” she told him. “I love you.”