I've learned to live with these fatal gifts
and still you're mine
It’s strange, the places life brings you. The things you end up with are so rarely the things you had imagined yourself having. For Ether, the rather bleak existence he had always imagined is so far removed from everything he now calls his. So pale and hopeless in the light of the incredible brilliance that is Briseis and their children. He shivers at the thought of ever returning to that. When he hadn’t known what awaited him, it had been so easy to live on in an almost monotonous stupor. Now he does not know how he had ever prevailed.
But as he places a tender row of kisses along her jaw, relishing the warmth of her pressed against his chest, beneath his neck, he wishes to do anything but dwell on his miserable, lonely past. He would never return to it. Could never return to it.
She presses so warmly against him, delighting him all over again with the incredibly feminine weight of her, so real against the cool shadow of his skin. For a man who had long ago been resigned to the weightless drift of chilly shadow, she is so much the opposite. A beacon, despite the dark sheen of her coat.
His ear twitches as she presses her lips into the sensitive hollow beneath his cheek, whispering against his skin. He warms beneath her touch, heat tingling along his muscles, radiating from her sweet touch. She might have no thought of seduction, but his body did not seem to know the difference. He could have her any time though. Knew she would give herself to him as easily as breathing, so willing to become lost in the cascades of pleasure that never seemed to dull.
Later, he thinks. Later.
“I never would have dared to dream,” he replies wryly, his lips curving into a small smile, yellow eyes bright as he shifts to peer down at her. He drops his lips, pressing a tender, possessive kiss into the hollow beneath the delicate bridge of her nose. “I never imagined someone so incredible could want someone like me.”
He laughs softly when she admits she known from the first day she was never letting him go. If only she knew how truly wild she had made him even then. If only she had known how sorely tempted he had been to never let her leave the safety of his shadows. After a moment, he murmurs, “I knew I should never have let you leave after you agreed to follow me.”