He barely gave them a chance to agree.
Brynne laughed as he scooped her up into his arms. His lips brushed her ear as he lowered his voice to a whisper meant for her alone.
“I want to show you my home, love. Our home. And our bed.”
CHAPTER 37
He had never brought a woman into his private home on the island.
As he carried Brynne inside the white stucco cottage on the same high hill where Nethilos had been laid to rest, Zael had never felt a greater sense that he had—at last—arrived where he belonged.
With Brynne as his mate, he would always be home.
“It’s beautiful,” she said as he brought her into the open-air residence with its wide garden terrace that overlooked endless turquoise waters. She sighed in unabashed awe, her dark green eyes lit with wonderment. “Aren’t you going to give me the grand tour?”
“Oh, yes,” he said, his voice rough with desire. “We’ll start the tour in the bedroom.”
“That would be my first choice too.” She smiled, licking her lips in a way that made his blood run hot and arrow straight to his cock. “After the bedroom, then where will you take me?”
He smiled, thinking of all the erotic possibilities. “Everywhere and every way,” he promised with a kiss, already hard and eager to have her beneath him.
A soft evening breeze rolled off the waves below and sifted through the flowering bushes outside the bedroom’s open wall of glass. The air was filled with the fragrance of salt and citrus and sweet sea roses, although it couldn’t compare to the scent of Brynne’s arousal as he laid her on the white cotton sheets of the bed and began to undress her.
He explored her skin with his mouth and hands as he unwrapped her for his hungry eyes. He didn’t think his desire could grow any more intense, but as he watched her transform beneath his fingers and tongue, he knew he would never see anything hotter than Brynne when she was fully Breed. When she was writhing and moaning for him, her body surrendered to him completely.
Solely his.
“You’re mine now,” he told her, stripping out of his clothing and then kissing his way back up her naked body. “Forever, Brynne.”
“Yes.” Her gasp lengthened into a slow, pleasured sigh as he sank into her heat. “Oh God, Zael. I feel you in my blood. I feel your light in me…in my veins, everywhere. It’s so powerful.”
Hearing that made him smile with pure male possessiveness. Knowing that a part of him lived inside her now only made his desire for her spike and deepen, along with his devotion.
“I felt your blood and your light when I fought Elyon too.” She reached up, cupping his face in tender hands. “It centered me, Zael. It kept me sane, even at my worst. I felt your blood and your light in me, and I wasn’t afraid. Not of anything. Not even myself. You do that for me, Zael. You and your blood. And your love.”
The thought that he could bring her comfort or grounding humbled him, honored him more than his words could ever express to her. Brynne’s love was an honor to him, and he looked forward to spending his life proving to her that he could deserve her.
“So long as I draw breath,” he promised her fiercely, “you will never know fear or darkness again. Only love, Brynne. Our love.”
“Yes,” she answered, arching up to meet his deep thrust. “Zael, yes…”
They moved together in a perfect friction, skin on skin, touching, kissing, caressing. Zael couldn’t look away from the emotion he saw in her smoldering gaze. The love he saw there staggered him. It humbled him like nothing ever had before.
He wanted to feel that love inside him.
Through blood and bond.
He wanted it so fiercely, it became a drumming in his veins.
In his heart.
Slowing his tempo, he reached up to stroke her beautiful face. His thumb swept over her parted lips, his eyes rooted on the pretty white points of her fangs.