Chapter 224

I woke before the sun, and Aureon was already hard against my back.

His arm was slung heavy over my waist, his body curled tight around mine, his chest pressed to my spine. His breath came slow and warm against the back of my neck, stirring the small hairs there, and the heat of him, the insistent press of him against the curve of my backside, told me everything I needed to know.

He wanted me. Again.

I smiled in the dark, and shifted, and felt him twitch.

We slipped out of the house while the rest of the family slept, padding barefoot through the cold grass, down the slope, toward the stream. The air was sharp and clean, the sky still grey, the stars fading one by one overhead. Winter was coming, the nights growing long and cold, and the grass was wet with dew, cold against my feet.

We reached the stream, and the willow tree that hung low over the water, its branches trailing like a curtain. And beneath it, in the pale pre-dawn light, the ground was silver, glittering, soaked.

Aureon did not wait for me to undress. He pressed me back against the willow trunk, rough and hungry, and kissed me like he was starving for it.

There was no reverence in him this time. No careful worship. Only heat, and want, and the desperate need to have me. He yanked my tunic up over my hips, shoved his hand between my thighs, and groaned into my mouth when he found me already slick and ready. Then he lifted me, my legs wrapping around his waist, and pushed inside me in one long, perfect, brutal thrust.

I gasped against his lips, my nails biting into his shoulders, my head falling back against the bark.

"Gods," he rasped, his voice ragged. "Krys. You feel..."

"Move," I demanded.

He moved.

He fucked me against the tree, hard and deep and relentless. The bark scraped rough against my back with every thrust, the leaves above us shivering and trembling with each slap of his hips. His hands gripped my thighs, spreading me wide, his mouth dragging down my throat, and he grunted with every drive, low and animal and wild. The cold morning air bit at my bare skin, my nipples pebbled hard, and the contrast of the chill and the scorching heat of him made me dizzy, made my head spin, made me cling to him like he was the only solid thing in the world.

I came like that, pinned to the tree, shaking and crying out into his shoulder.

But he was not finished.

He lowered me to the ground, laid me down on the wet grass, on the cold silver dew, and he took me there too. My back arched off the earth, my fingers fisting in the frozen grass, and he drove into me again and again, watching my face, watching me come undone beneath him. The dew soaked through my hair, the sky began to pale pink and gold, and Aureon fucked me like he had all the time in the world, like the sun could wait, like the world could wait.

And then he flipped me over.

He bent me over the flat rock at the stream’s edge, my hands braced on the cold stone, my cheek pressed to the wet surface, and he entered me from behind. And this time, he gave me everything. His hips slapped against mine, his hands gripping my waist hard enough to bruise, and he fucked me so hard, so deep, so thoroughly, that I forgot the cold, forgot everything but the feel of him inside me.

I was moaning, panting, meeting him thrust for thrust, and I felt my stamina draining away, felt my body surrendering, felt him winning. My legs were shaking. My arms were trembling. And still he drove on, relentless, unstoppable.

Aureon. My gentle tiger, my young prince, my playful tiger. I had forgotten. I had forgotten how much of a beast he really was between the sheets.

He came with a roar that echoed across the water, spilling deep inside me, his hips jerking, his body shuddering. And I followed, shattered and trembling, sagging against the rock, my legs finally giving out.

He caught me. Of course he caught me. He always did. He gathered me into his arms and held me against his chest while we both gasped for breath, and he pressed kisses to my hair, my temple, my shoulder, whispering my name like a prayer.

"Thank you," he murmured. "Thank you, thank you."

"You are a menace," I breathed.

He laughed, low and satisfied, and held me tighter.

We stumbled home in the cold, laughing, my legs still weak, my body still humming. The house was just waking when we slipped back inside, the children stirring, the fires being lit, the day beginning. And I decided to make breakfast.

I made them chicken porridge. A recipe from my old world, a comfort food my mom always made for me on a day like this. The kind of thing that soothed and warmed and filled. I simmered the rice until it broke down into something soft and creamy, shredded the crowhen fine, added ginger and salt and a swirl of rich fat. The whole house filled with the smell of it, warm and comforting and good, and the children came wandering in, drawn by their stomachs, their faces bright.

They devoured it. Every bowl. Every drop. They ate and chattered and laughed and started their day, and the cold of the morning was forgotten.

And then Raon came for the boys.

He took Ravin and Leon, and my four oldest cubs, out to hunt. They were nearing adulthood now, and hunting with their grandfather was an honor, a rite, a passage into manhood. And my sons were no slouches.

Atlas was quick witted, clever, reading the terrain and the wind like a born leader. Ryder was agile and fast, darting through the brush like a ghost. Chase was nimble, silent, deadly with a spear. And Jasper, my strong one, hit like a thunderclap, bringing down prey with the raw force of his body alone.

They came home muddy and bloodied and glowing with triumph. And they told me everything. Every detail. Every moment. How they had tracked the beast, how they had surrounded it, how they had brought it down together as a family.

"Mama, you should have seen it," Atlas said, practically vibrating. "I read the wind. The wind. I knew exactly where it would go."

"You fell in a ditch," Jasper said.

"I read the wind and then I fell in a ditch."

"It was a big ditch," Ryder offered.

"It was a puddle," Chase corrected.

"It was a strategic retreat," Atlas insisted.

I bit my lip to keep from laughing. "Of course it was."

"And then," Ryder said, shoving Atlas aside, "I chased it. Through the brush. I was like a ghost. Like a shadow. It never even saw me."

"You screamed when it turned around," Chase said.

"I screamed strategically."

"To warn us?"

"To distract it."

Jasper snorted. "It was not distracted. It ran faster."

"Only because Chase threw his spear and missed."

"I did not miss," Chase said. "I grazed it."

"You grazed a tree."

"The tree was in the way."

"The tree was ten feet to the left."

"The tree was in the way."

I laughed, unable to help myself. My sons, my wonderful, ridiculous sons, standing in my kitchen dripping mud and blood and arguing about trees.

"And then what?" I asked.

"And then Jasper punched it," Ryder said.

Jasper straightened, puffing out his chest. "I punched it."

"With his whole body," Atlas added. "Just ran at it and hit it like a rock."

"Like a thunderclap," Jasper said, savoring the word.

"Like a very large, very clumsy thunderclap," Chase said. "He tripped on a root first."

"I did not trip."

"You tripped."

"I stumbled. There is a difference."

"Is there?"

Jasper threw a rag at him. Chase caught it. And they all dissolved into laughter, shoving each other, reenacting the whole hunt with exaggerated gestures and increasingly wild claims. Atlas’s ditch became a canyon. Ryder’s chase became an epic. Chase’s spear graze became a perfect shot. And Jasper’s stumble became a heroic charge.

I listened to all of it, my heart so full it nearly burst, and fed them bowl after bowl of porridge until they were too full to argue.

"Where is grandfather?" Atlas finally asked, looking around.

"Cleaning the kill," Ravin said, walking in with Leon. "You boys left him to do all the work."

"We came to tell Mama," Jasper said, as though this explained everything.

"Of course you did."

Leon ruffled his hair. "Next time, tell her after you help skin it."

"Yes, Father," they chorused, and then immediately went back to arguing about who had been the bravest.

My boys. My sons. Growing into warriors before my eyes.

It was a good day.