Tamlyn didn’t remember falling asleep, only that Ruellan had curled his massive frame around her, shielding her from the cold stone with warmth and breath and the deep, unearthly thrum of his chest. His scent lingered on her skin dark pine, iron, sweat, and sex. She could still feel him between her thighs, the soreness blooming like some dark flower. She ached, and yet...
She wanted more.
She stirred beneath the furs in the cavern chamber, naked still. Light poured through cracks in the high ceiling, filtered through a veil of green leaves and mist. The forest breathed with them, and Tamlyn felt something humming in her bones, a bond that hadn’t been there before. A pull.
Ruellan was not beside her.
Instead, he stood a few paces away, bare from the waist up, speaking low in a strange language to the runes carved into the cave wall. His horns caught the light like obsidian, and his back rippled with muscle and scars, some deep and ancient, others fresher, clawed like he'd fought monste
