He lowered me to the rug, helping me arrange my graceless body upon it, moving my hair out from under me as he knew I didn’t like lying on it. Kneeling beside me, he traced the round of my belly with reverence and desire. “You are as beautiful as mother as you were as maiden, my Andromeda,” he said in a quiet voice. His eyes rose to meet mine, showing me the honest emotion.
“Let’s hope you can say the same when I’m a crone.”
“I look forward to seeing you as matriarch,” he replied with a mischievous smile, “though shapeshifters and wizards are long-lived and tend to be well-preserved.”
“A happy thought that—” I broke off on a gasp as his fingers slid into the folds of my sex, preternaturally sensitive, throbbing with such need that I arched, nearly climaxing right then. He backed off the intensity just enough to keep me from going over, but gently insistent, making me writhe with pleasure, unable to quite catch my breath. He knew me so well, understood exactly how to torment and delight.
“You should see yourself,” he said, a soft growl under his words. “With your dark hair spread over the white fur, the firelight gilding you. Andromeda, you are bloodred rubies and midnight fire. My sorceress, my queen, my wife.” He brushed his lips over mine, his hair falling silky over my face, the firelight and sunlight dancing through the blue-black strands.
I wound my fingers in his hair, tugging him down and drinking him in. “I need you inside me.”
He slid a finger into me, watching my face. “Is there room? You’re so tight.”
I laughed a little, then moaned at the shivers his clever fingers sent through me. “A fine question. Let’s find out.”
“I’ve always loved your curiosity,” he murmured with another kiss. “Turn on your side.”
He helped me roll over so I faced our fire. And it was like that night, in that snowstorm in the mountains above Windroven. Just the pair of us, two strangers from different worlds, forging something new and beautiful between us. A vision flashed into my mind of another snowy night, another fire—though this one in a shadowed cave. A much younger Salena and Uorsin sealed a bargain between them. And my mother’s voice echoed over time.
You made sacred Annfwn safe again, and you gave the Tala what I could not: a future. One of infinite possibilities.
I closed my eyes against the welling tears.
“Andromeda?” Rayfe brushed a kiss on my shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” I took his hand and pressed a kiss to his palm. “Everything is so good, I almost can’t bear it.”
“You’d best learn to, because this is how our lives will be.”
He coaxed my upper leg to bend, creasing at the knee and opening me from behind. Then he entered me gently, excruciatingly slow, his breathing ragged.
A moan tore out of me at the keenness of the sensation, and he stilled. “Too much?”
“Not enough,” I panted. “Keep going. Oh, please.”
“Thank Moranu.” Bracing himself, he pushed into me to the hilt, and our groans of knife-edged pleasure twined together, dark and light, shadow and flame. “This might be over fast.”
“Good,” I said, “because I need to pee.”
“Again?” He laughed.
“You have no idea.”
“I want to know. I want to know everything.” He licked my ear and bit it lightly, rocking inside me so I went boneless.
Sliding one arm beneath my head to make a pillow, he reached over me to caress my breasts. I caught his hand, interlaced his fingers with mine and held our clasped hands against my heart. He began moving, rocking his hips, so the need built soft as snowfall. His breath hot on my neck, he kissed me there, in those intimate spots that melted me and made my heart race.
It was fast. And it was glorious. A meteor of blazing delight that burned hot and consumed us both. Our skin slicked together, our bodies joined, our thoughts wound together, we found ourselves in each other again. The most profound coming home possible.
Afterward, I did have to pee—and it gave me an opportunity to get what I needed from my bag—and when I came back, he lay there waiting for me. A bounty of masculine beauty, a feral, leanly muscled man reclining on the white fur, blue eyes blazing like the wolf in the dark. I slid into his arms, where I belonged, and he smoothed the hair back from my forehead, kissing my closed eyelids.
“I suppose we’ve sanctified the fourth way now,” he said, the words whispering over my lips as I lifted them for a kiss.
“The fourth way?” I asked, perplexed. Then I remembered. “Oh, as on our wedding night.”
“Yes. The first way for the human, and the second way for the animal, for we are both.”
“Thank Moranu of the many faces,” I replied quietly.
“Though I seem to recall that you consecrated a third way,” he continued, a smile in his voice. “I don’t think you named it, however.”
I flushed with heat at the memory of how I’d pushed him to his back and straddled him, the wolf tamed to my hand. “The queen’s way,” I informed him loftily.
He chuckled. “And so it is.”
“What shall we call this fourth way?” I asked after a contented pause.
“The marriage of hearts, minds, and bodies,” he replied.
“A mouthful,” I said dubiously, but I pressed my lips to the hollow of his throat, tasting the salt of his skin, drinking in the scent of him, and reveling in his embrace. “But, speaking of which, I have something for you.” I leaned up on one elbow, unfolded my fingers, and showed him the ring resting on my palm.
He frowned at it in puzzlement, then realization dawned. “For me?”
“You once told me you’d be delighted to accept a token like this from me.”
Taking it from my palm, he held it to the light, then dropped his gaze to mine. I’d touched him, more than I’d imagined. Bringing the bloodred ruby to his lips, he kissed it, eyes still on mine. “‘Delight’ is a weak word for how I feel now,” he whispered. “One of Salena’s rubies?”
“Yes.” I took the ring from him and slid it onto his finger. “And the silver from the dagger I once stabbed you with. I thought that might be fitting.”
He admired the ring briefly, then wound our fingers together, pulling me down again. “Most fitting. Thank you.” He ran his hand down my hair. “Does this mean we’re really married now?”
I laughed. “Many times over, in more ways than we’ll ever be able to name.”
“Let’s just call it love.”
And call it love, we will.
Titles by Jeffe Kennedy
FANTASY ROMANCES
A COVENANT OF THORNS
Rogue’s Pawn
Rogue’s Possession
Rogue’s Paradise
THE TWELVE KINGDOMS
Negotiation
The Mark of the Tala
The Tears of the Rose
The Talon of the Hawk
Heart’s Blood
The Crown of the Queen
THE UNCHARTED REALMS
The Pages of the Mind
The Edge of the Blade
The Snows of Windroven
The Shift of the Tide
The Arrows of the Heart
The Dragons of Summer
The Fate of the Tala
THE CHRONICLES OF DASNARIA
Prisoner of the Crown
Exile of the Seas
Warrior of the World
SORCEROUS MOONS
Lonen’s War
Oria’s Gambit
The Tides of Bára
The Forests of Dru
Oria’s Enchantment
Lonen’s Reign
THE FORGOTTEN EMPIRES
The Orchid Throne
The Fiery Crown
The Promised Queen
CONTEMPORARY ROMANCES
Shooting Star
MISSED CONNECTIONS
Last Dance
With a Prince
Since Last Christmas
CONTEMPORARY ER
OTIC ROMANCES
Exact Warm Unholy
The Devil’s Doorbell
FACETS OF PASSION
Sapphire
Platinum
Ruby
Five Golden Rings
FALLING UNDER
Going Under
Under His Touch
Under Contract
EROTIC PARANORMAL
MASTER OF THE OPERA E-SERIAL
Master of the Opera, Act 1: Passionate Overture
Master of the Opera, Act 2: Ghost Aria
Master of the Opera, Act 3: Phantom Serenade
Master of the Opera, Act 4: Dark Interlude
Master of the Opera, Act 5: A Haunting Duet
Master of the Opera, Act 6: Crescendo
Master of the Opera
BLOOD CURRENCY
Blood Currency
BDSM FAIRYTALE ROMANCE
Petals and Thorns
OTHER WORKS
Birdwoman
Hopeful Monsters
Teeth, Long and Sharp
Thank you for reading!
About Jeffe Kennedy
Jeffe Kennedy is an award-winning author whose works include novels, non-fiction, poetry, and short fiction. She has won the prestigious RITA® Award from Romance Writers of America (RWA), has been a finalist twice, been a Ucross Foundation Fellow, received the Wyoming Arts Council Fellowship for Poetry, and was awarded a Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Award. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) as a Director at Large.
Her award-winning fantasy romance trilogy The Twelve Kingdoms hit the shelves starting in May 2014. Book 1, The Mark of the Tala, received a starred Library Journal review and was nominated for the RT Book of the Year while the sequel, The Tears of the Rose received a Top Pick Gold and was nominated for the RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2014. The third book, The Talon of the Hawk, won the RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2015. Two more books followed in this world, beginning the spin-off series The Uncharted Realms. Book one in that series, The Pages of the Mind, was nominated for the RT Reviewer’s Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2016 and won RWA’s 2017 RITA Award. The second book, The Edge of the Blade, released December 27, 2016, and was a PRISM finalist, along with The Pages of the Mind. The next in the series, The Shift of the Tide and The Arrows of the Heart came out in August, 2017, and October, 2018. A high fantasy trilogy, The Chronicles of Dasnaria, taking place in The Twelve Kingdoms world began releasing from Rebel Base books in 2018. The novella, The Dragons of Summer, first appearing in the Seasons of Sorcery anthology, finaled for the 2019 RITA Award.
She also introduced a new fantasy romance series, Sorcerous Moons, which includes Lonen’s War, Oria’s Gambit, The Tides of Bàra, The Forests of Dru, Oria’s Enchantment, and Lonen’s Reign. She’s begun releasing a new contemporary erotic romance series, Missed Connections, which started with Last Dance and continues in With a Prince and Since Last Christmas.
In September 2019, St. Martins Press released The Orchid Throne, the first book in a new romantic fantasy series, The Forgotten Empires. The sequel, The Fiery Crown, will follow in May 2021.
Her other works include a number of fiction series: the fantasy romance novels of A Covenant of Thorns; the contemporary BDSM novellas of the Facets of Passion; an erotic contemporary serial novel, Master of the Opera; and the erotic romance trilogy, Falling Under, which includes Going Under, Under His Touch and Under Contract.
She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with two Maine coon cats, plentiful free-range lizards and a very handsome Doctor of Oriental Medicine.
Jeffe can be found online at her website: JeffeKennedy.com, every Sunday at the popular SFF Seven blog, on Facebook, on Goodreads and pretty much constantly on Twitter @jeffekennedy. She is represented by Sarah Younger of Nancy Yost Literary Agency.
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