“Exactly, my pet.” He tapped her nose, but there was a dark, excited light growing in the back of his gaze, and she felt her own body respond in kind. “Tell Cook to make it grand. We will invite all of Kingdom, to include the Caron clan. Tomorrow.” He never took his eyes off Shayera.
Dalia frowned. “But, sir, she’s here now. And—”
“And tonight she’s all mine.” With a snap of his fingers, Dalia disappeared and a thick smoke screen shielded them. “Right now, I wish to be alone with my mate. I’ve waited long enough.”
She swallowed and nodded. “Me too.”
“My love, do not scream.”
“Scream?” How hideous was he?
He stepped out of her arms and took a deep breath, and she prepared herself for any and all possibilities. A black slug with tentacles for arms and razor-sharp teeth? A man made of stone? Made of wood, like Pinocchio? Anything… everything, knowing no matter what it was, she’d take him any way he came.
“Remember I love you.” His words faded out and then he was a tower of smoke, a pillar that shifted and moved like a churning funnel, bringing with it the scent of whiskey and smoked cherry.
When the smoke cleared she blinked.
His skin was darkest onyx but gleamed as though it’d just come out of a fire. His eyes were the brilliant red of his servants’, and his hair just as black. But he was different too. Upon his head were two small, curved horns. Below his navel he was a little furrier than the average man and he had a tail.
She looked back at his face and there was where she saw Rumpel. His beautiful face hadn’t altered in the slightest; if anything, he appealed far more. A siren had a weakness for men, but there was no man more potent than her dark prince.
“You’re a satyr.” She beamed and her heart became so large, so warm, and each beat was an echo of his name, each thump a cry of love. She moved into him.
“You are not disgusted?” His voice was dark and deep and made her insides quiver.
When she neared him, he wrapped his arms around her waist and she sighed, breathing in his scent. “I’m so grateful you’ve shown yourself to me. That you trusted me. We make a fine pair, you and I. The nymph and the satyr. Don’t they tell stories of us?” She wiggled her hips when his hard thickness brushed against her center.
He hissed. “I could entrance you; it is what my ilk does. But I want you to choose me, Shayera. So I forgo my use of magic—I will not charm you to love me.”
Framing his face, she tamped down her own magic, buried it deep, deep inside, because she wanted that same declaration from him. “I choose you with all that is inside me. With all that I am. I am yours. And, satyr, you are mine. All mine. Forever. Say it.”
His brow twitched, but his grin was pure sex. “I am yours. Dark heart, body, and soul. And you, my lovely siren, you are all mine.”
Then he was pushing her down and the clouds surrounded them and rose up to meet them, creating a bed.
She gasped as her clothes vanished and then laughed when he fell on top of her, pressing his weight down on her. Spreading her legs wide, she opened for him, wrapping them around his waist and shifting her hips up just enough so that her center brushed his own.
They hissed in unison.
“I will not last long,” he chuckled.
“Nor I. But if we have an eternity, then who cares, right?”
“Shayera.” He pushed himself off her just enough so that they could look at each other without going cross-eyed, and his muscles trembled. “This is your first time and I wish to be gentle.”
“I do not want gentle. I’m a nymph, I was born to do this.”
“Only with me,” he growled and the ruby of his eyes glowed a bloody crimson.
“Yes.” And with that word she forced him inside her.
Rumpel thrusted deep, penetrating her to her very core, and she wept because the immense strength and power that poured from him was glorious and dangerous and almost frightening.
“Give me everything, Shayera.” His hot words were whispered in her ear. “All of you. All your charms, all your passions. This is magic, love, this is magic. What you and I have, this is real. Now. Give it to me.”
And she did. She released it all. Everything she always held inside. The power that roiled like thunder beneath the surface of her flesh, she blasted it out and it poured from her like a blinding, glittering wave of golden light that crashed against his own dark splendor.
The force of it slammed into them, taking them beyond the heavens, beyond the stars. There was sex, and then there was this.
And it was so much more.
Tears burned from her eyes and he was there kissing her, kissing them away, thrusting deep and making her body flare to life like a supernova ready to implode.
“Trust me, my love. Trust me and let go. Whenever you’re ready, let go. I will catch you. I will always catch you.”
Biting her lower lip, she approached the yawning, dark chasm, the pinnacle of that rising orgasm that threatened to obliterate her. Then he was kissing her, shoving his tongue into her mouth and she accepted it with a delirious moan of desire. He tasted of cherry, of cinnamon. Of heat and fire.