ARWEN
THE PORTAL VALERY AND THE Antler coven had opened for us deposited Kane and me into the middle of the Shadow Woods. The gnarled roots
that sprawled like dark veins across the forest floor had always been bathed in mild tufts of moss and tall rustling grass. Now they were dusted in a fine layer of snow.
I’d never seen snow.
It was one of the many things I’d been sure I never would.
And yet, here it was, like spilled sugar all around us. Where dewy patches of foxglove and daffodils had once sprung forth in the summer now grew only red-beaded holly and rose hips. The forest was even darker than usual, the softly falling snow a thin film between us and the daylight.
I must’ve shivered. Or maybe it was my lips turning violet and my nose rosy, but while I took in the dried branches poking through gentle clumps of white powder at my feet, a thick cloak, still warm from Kane’s body, draped around my shoulders.
My weary eyes found Kane’s, and he reached for my hand. I didn’t hesitate because of him.
When my gaze dropped to those long, outstretched fingers, all I wanted was to grasp them and pull myself into his arms. It was all I’d wanted to do for months.
But I could think only of the spires and turrets of Shadowhold, visible now through the snow and trees. That domed, decorated one, Kane’s cozy study. The stained-glass tower—devoid of its usual vibrant colors due to the hour and the snow—Mari’s precious library. That highest point there, with the wind vane, Shadowhold’s temple, which I’d never stepped foot inside before.
Memories, people, warmth—all of it as it once was.
And yet I’d been through so much. I wasn’t sure all my new edges and angles would fit through the doors the same way.
“Arwen?” Kane’s voice was a bit raw.
We had been through more in the last day than I wanted to remember.
He was worried about me, and that concern made me shiver again.
Kane’s brows pulled together as he said, lower this time, “Let’s get you warm, yeah?”
“Mhm.” But still, I didn’t move.
A dry wind rustled the few crackling leaves unwilling to fall from the trees above and swept snowflakes against my hair and the shell of my ear. The hind legs of a deer were visible, only briefly, moving through the dark green brush.
“Bird?”
“I’m not sure I can”—I swallowed—“can go back just yet.”
If my words worried him further, he didn’t let on. Kane simply stepped closer to me, his boots crunching against the snow, which blanketed twigs and dirt on the forest floor, and brought his hand up to my face before saying, “May I?”
My nod felt like an understatement, but it was all I could manage.
Kane’s eyes flickered with something like relief as he brought that hand to his mouth and breathed warm air onto it. Steam filtered into the space between us, the scent of mint and cedar from his breath thickening the air. All the while his steadfast, quicksilver eyes never left mine. Kane exhaled into his palm once more before bringing his now warmed hand across my cheek.
So gentle I shivered again, though this time not from the cold.
Kane’s eyes grew warm.
He brought that hand down to the bare skin of my neck, still exposed where his cloak was too big for my frame. Then across my shoulder, until he slipped underneath the garment as well as my blouse. When his rough fingers circled gently around to the back of my neck, I stumbled into him.
Warmth, and his heady male scent and broad, muscled body made my senses fuzzy and languid. One of Kane’s hands fisted into my hair, the other dragged me closer, snaking around my back, my waist—
My lips found his chest through the thick fabric of his shirt, and my hands roamed over his ribs and the curve of his strong abdomen and subtle dip of his collarbone. When I reached up on my toes—
He was groaning my name. Again, and again. Breathing it. Repeating it like a prayer.
“Arwen. My Arwen.” And “My bird, my love—”
And then his lips were brushing—just barely brushing—against my own. His nose sliding gently along mine. His hands on my face near- shaking with restraint. Those thumbs, caressing my jaw, waiting for a sign from me. Some indication of what it was I wanted.
I pulled him down into me, closing every gap between us save for our mouths.
He was thick and hard against my stomach, and though it had been the last thing on my mind when we’d stepped from that dizzying portal into these woods, suddenly a pulse of need spread through my body, blaring as loudly as a bell tower.
That need pooled between my legs and low in my stomach, beneath where my stitches had healed. My eyes fluttered open to find Kane’s simmering gaze on my lips.
His eyes were wholly black. Pure, pupil-black. Not a sliver of slate gray to be seen.
And his breaths—
Ratcheting out of him at a feverish pace. As if he’d been battling a great beast.
Maybe he had been. The raw, near-pleading look in Kane’s eyes told me there was quite the beast currently roaring inside him, the one urging him to plunge his tongue into my mouth. To rip the clothes from my body and make love to me in the middle of these snowy woods, our bodies still slick with dirt and the blood of our enemies like frantic, war-torn barbarians.
Somewhere between one of my own shaky, choked inhales and a shallow grunt of his the beasts inside both of us emerged victorious.
Kane’s mouth on mine tasted like pure desire.
The kisses we’d shared—in that Solaris garden, in Hart’s infirmary— they’d been mere vessels in which to store months and months of misery and yearning. And relief at seeing each other again, when I was sure neither of us thought we’d ever be given the chance.
But those kisses had not been about wanting or lust. Or vicious, near- painful need.
They’d not made my bloodstream rush with liquid fire nor sent my heart racing so fast I could have latched on to it and been hauled away.
But this kiss did.
When Kane dragged his tongue across my own, licking at my mouth and sucking shamelessly on my lower lip, the whimper I released sent scandalized creatures skittering into the bushes.
Kane barely noticed. His warm breath swept over my neck and ear and jaw as he trailed rushed kisses all across me. Then back up to my mouth, and then down the sensitive skin of my throat once more—
Heat blared through me. He was going too slow.
More, more, more—
I whined at his indolent leisure and brought my hand down to grasp haphazardly at his pants. When I brushed his twitching, stiff length, we both groaned.
“Easy,” he said, voice husky and low, though I could feel his lips grinning against mine. “Let me take my time with you.”
With gentle care, and without removing his mouth from my lips, he lifted me into his arms and walked us back until we met the thick heft of a tree trunk. I sighed with the contact, luxuriating in the pleasant feeling of
being pinned by him. Compressed wonderfully underneath his body with nowhere else to go.
I held him so tightly around the middle with my legs—my back balanced against the sturdy oak—that Kane released both hands and palmed my breasts roughly over my faded beige dress.
We hummed in perfect harmony.
Undoing each button with care, Kane slipped one hand under the fabric and pulled down my bodice just enough to brush a calloused thumb over my bare breast. I wasn’t cold—we were still wearing all our clothes and his body heat was radiating off him and onto me in waves—but my nipples were pointed to near agony. That thumb, sliding across me in slow, languid circles sent a need that teetered on life-threatening straight between my legs.
I mewled, aching, and swore Kane chuckled through our kiss. “You really do love that.”
My head was too dizzy to form an intelligible response.
Without halting his light caress across my nipple, Kane brought his lips down to my neck and sucked languorously, the soft scrape of his teeth sending stars into my vision alongside the falling snow. He held me to the tree with his fingers stretching across my side, thumb still petting over and over that pointed tip until I cried out, and even then he didn’t relent.
The way he touched me…I thought I might come from just that thumb and the agonizing, pleasurable pinches he doled out whenever he saw fit.
Kane’s other hand fished through the layers of my borrowed dress until his knuckles stroked the inside of my thigh.
Oh, Stones…“Kane—”
“Yes, bird?” he breathed against my neck.
But then his fingers were brushing against the thin cotton that separated him from the almost mortifying wetness that had collected between my legs, and once again I couldn’t form an answer. Not while I could feel his fingers swiping across the fabric, soaked so thoroughly that he could barely create the friction I so craved.
His shoulders tensed under my hands as he touched me. I was so swollen for him, so plump and slick and ready, and knowing the effect that had—how ragged and wild it made him—only produced another senseless whimper from the back of my throat.
Those hands— Those fingers—
Kane shoved the sodden fabric to the side and pushed his thumb rigidly against the spot I’d been shamelessly grinding along any part of him I could reach. I bucked from sheer pleasure.
“There you go,” he murmured.
I nodded, panting, nearly contracting, moaning— “Shh,” he soothed. “Relax.”
Deep breaths—I sucked in deep, bracing breaths.
Kane brought his hot tongue to my aching nipple—the one he’d been toying with—and dipped his mouth to suck on the tender bud.
The pleasure…It was mind-bending.
He snarled softly around my breast in deep satisfaction.
At the same time, he dragged a single finger through me to bring the slickness there back to the little bundle of nerves at the apex of my thighs. While my head emptied out completely, Kane rolled his fingers across the spot, pinching and soothing until I was pleading for more.
Disregarding his earlier instruction to go easy, I pressed down the front of his pants again, palming him, rubbing him, brushing my thumb over the head of his—
“Fuck,” Kane ground out against my collarbone, and my skin might have gleamed with how wanton that noise made me feel.
“Please, please…” I mumbled. “Please—” “Yeah,” he breathed. “Yeah, all right.”
Kane removed his hand from between my legs and I could have sobbed from the loss. But he unlaced his pants deftly and I whimpered when his cock sprang free, bulging with a desire that looked almost painful and leaking from the tip.
I ran my thumb across the moisture there, a little mesmerized, and Kane’s whole body shook as he allowed me, patiently, to stroke him.
His grunts were raw and guttural, and sparks shot through me at the sounds, collecting in my chest and between my legs. I reached for his lips with mine, feeling only warmth and breath when our mouths brushed clumsily. Too distracted to kiss with any real skill, but licking and skating across each other nonetheless.
Closer—
I wanted to be closer. I wanted to be joined. And never parted. Not ever again.
When his eyes drifted, dazed, to mine, they turned just as impatient. Kane angled my body up slightly, lifting my skirts until we were aligned. His eyes found mine once more, those unwavering slate eyes brimming with love and just a sliver of worry. I nodded to reassure him—
Yes, yes—
Kane parted me with his length and nudged inside.
I was wetter than I think either of us had anticipated, and Kane groaned as he slid in to the hilt, stumbling into me a little, stretching me so fully that I clawed at the bark of the tree as I cried out.
“Did I hurt you?” I shook my head.
But I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak around the obscene, magnificent fullness. Our bodies—it was like we’d been made for each other. Kane slowed his first thrust, allowing me to adjust to his size. When I opened my eyes, I found him staring down at me, that silver gaze shining.
I’d missed Kane beyond what I believed were the boundaries of human heartache. I’d seen his face in every tall, dark-haired male far away enough for me to squint at. Heard his voice in my head before my own. Smelled cedar and leather every morning as I awoke, remnants from my dreams bleeding into day. And each night, I’d fallen asleep to memories—the look of awe on Kane’s face, lit by guttering candlelight as he’d touched me for the first time in Siren’s Bay. His sensuous smirk when I slapped him in his
own throne room. The way he’d held me in that rain-drenched clearing after Halden held me captive.
All of that misery.
All the agony of missing him more than I knew someone could miss
anything—
And for him, it had been worse. He’d thought I was dead.
That was all I could think of as Kane brushed stray hairs from my face, his breathing uneven, releasing the rare male whimper or sigh. All I could think of as he gripped my hips to angle me around him, grasping my breast through my shirt, burying his face in my neck and inhaling me.
I fisted my hands in his dark hair, damp and dotted with snow, and brought my lips lightly to his temple, pressing myself into him even farther, canting my hips around him, closing my eyes—
My Kane. Who had suffered so much. Had endured such torment to find me—
Kane reared his head back and wiped a hand down his cheek before yanking it in front of him to examine the moisture there.
His cheeks were still flushed with exertion, lips full and parted and wet, but when his eyes found mine they were gutted. “Are you…crying?”
My cheeks heated. “Please, Kane, please don’t stop.”
That would have been more painful than anything. To be parted from him in this moment.
Kane’s eyes welled with empathy and he slowed his hips but didn’t withdraw. Instead, he brought his forehead to mine and closed his eyes, sucking in a jagged inhale.
“I’m here. You’re here, and we’re together,” he mumbled, rocking his hips a little as if he weren’t fully in control. “Arwen, I love you. I’m here.”
“I love you, too,” I said, beginning to ache around him, craving the rhythmic pounding once more.
I raked my fingers through his hair again and again, and arched into him a bit.
Kane needed no further urging. He resumed his thrusts, slower this time and more deliberate. He angled himself again until I was grinding against his body with each plunge, over and over and over—
My voice was rough as I said, “Harder.” He groaned. I whimpered with the sound.
Kane braced one hand on the gnarled trunk behind me and the wood splintered under his grasp. He pushed into me with unspeakable roughness. So hard, so brutal, it was just shy of painful.
“More,” I breathed. “Harder.” “No,” he grunted.
The place where our bodies were joined had drenched my thighs, my skirts, and I mumbled something incoherent around the wet, slapping noises that I was sure all of Shadowhold could hear. I shook and bucked, trying to wring myself out atop him, chasing that pleasure, that building—
“Please—”
“Just breathe,” he soothed.
I tried to listen to him, tried to slow myself down, but the pressure was too great. I was racked with a need that was stuck at the top of a towering cliff, begging to plunge off the other side. My nipples were too tight, my core clenching and shuddering, the pleasure almost mindless, merciless, and still I couldn’t, I wasn’t—
“You’re almost there, bird,” Kane coaxed. “Don’t force it.” He thrust into me with a ruthless rhythm and brought a hand down to massage that spot where I craved him.
“Oh, Stones,” I groaned, slamming my head back into the tree.
“Yeah?” His voice was so strained I wondered if he was fighting to stave off his own climax, waiting for me.
“Yeah,” I whined in answer.
He slowed his hand and I nearly screeched.
I’d do anything to come. Deplorable things. I’d crawl through the snow below us, beg on my hands and knees like an animal. I’d—
“Just a little more,” he breathed, taking my earlobe in between his teeth and biting just this side of roughly. Then he thrust into me once more and I
exploded.
My climax seized me like a ferocious undertow as I tensed and spasmed, nearly ripping Kane’s shirt from his body in my white-knuckled grasp. Shattering, sobbing, splitting in half—
Kane’s fierce grunts as he finished inside me only pushed me further over the edge as we came apart together, sighing and groaning into each other until we were both heaving heaps. Thoroughly spent.
Even after our panting had subsided and he grew soft inside of me, we stayed like that. After we detangled just long enough for him to withdraw and tuck himself back into his pants. After I was empty and sore and could feel his release leaking down my thighs. Even then, he held me tight to his chest, leaning us against the sturdiness of the tree.
I scraped my nails softly down his back until he shivered. Kissed his damp brow and his ice-cold hands and his even more frozen silver rings. Felt more warm, salty tears drip down my cheeks and onto the thick wool of his shirt, though they were less insistent this time.
He brushed the hair from my face and pulled the cloak more snugly around my shoulders when the wind chill picked up. Murmuring into my neck how much he loved me. How much our separation had nearly killed him. Laughing that it did, in fact, kill him.
Until finally, he exhaled a mighty sigh and lowered me gracefully to the ground alongside the evening light as it faded around us. Wind howled gently through the gnarled trees, drowning out the rhythmic chirps of crickets. The moon’s illumination cast the snowdrifts beneath us in veils of rich silver.
Kane appraised me once, his eyes the color of the winter that surrounded us. He brushed a thumb across my cheek and I nuzzled into the touch. “Well, bird,” he breathed. “Shall we?”
