54. Zendaya

Chapter 54

Zendaya

T he explosion that happens when our lips connect silences my worries. I suddenly don't care whether our bodies knot , because the connection we share is tremendous already. Not only did it survive my transformation, but its intensity has managed to augment in spite of the mind links I forged with others.

He breaks away. "Wait." He suddenly stalks toward the door, but twists back, "Don't move."

All right…

He yanks open the door and calls out Asha's name. Though she slides into my line of sight and I see their mouths move, I cannot grasp their exchange for my pulse thunders in my ears. I fathom it has to do with Cruaih since the little feline ends up nestled against Asha's chest.

Cathal stands there a moment, as though to make sure Asha will treat his companion well. When my guard begins to coo at the tiny thing, which earns her chin a swipe of Cruaih's tongue, the line of Cathal's shoulders slackens and he pivots back toward me, eyes dark with lust. Right before he kicks the door shut, I catch Asha waggling her brows at me. Of course she knows why she was given custody of the Crow's pride and joy.

Cathal stalks back my way, his fingers moving over the straps that keep his breastplate in place. He plucks it off his head, then tosses it aside, and it clatters against the stone. And then he's working off the vambraces. A smile touches my mouth when he struggles with the left one.

"Something funny?"

"Your haste." I step toward him and replace his juddering hands with my steady ones. "I'm not going anywhere. And I'm not going to change my mind," I add, as I slip the leather off his arm.

My promise doesn't turn his movements any less erratic. If anything, it seems to deepen his fervor. He all but rips his shirt and boots off. "You're a queen now, Daya. Even though I asked Asha to keep everyone out, I cannot keep you locked away from the world forever."

My smile topples at the reminder of the responsibility I accepted, and so does my gaze. I stare at the crown glimmering on the velvet, almost wishing?—

Cathal brackets my cheeks with his palms, wrenching my gaze off the diamond-tusked serpents. "Don't. Don't wish it away."

"How did you know that's what I was doing?"

"I've seen Lore glare at his crown once or twice over the centuries." He threads his fingers into my hair. "You might not be as free as you'd like, but you can have it all."

"Even another child of yours?" I ask, stroking up the hard ridges of his clenching abdomen.

"Yes," he says, his heart clocking the pads of my fingers as they venture higher.

Though his chest isn't smooth, the hair's scarcer than on his jaw. "You're no longer worried about it being born a monster?"

"No child of yours could ever be a monster."

When my palms scrape over his dark nipples and they contract into tiny buds, he shudders. "I hope you'll still think this way when we give birth to a winged Serpent or a scaled Crow."

Laughter suddenly spills from his mouth. It's such a sultry, foreign sound that it momentarily distracts me from my exploration. When he grows serious, I instantly miss his carefree joy.

"I love you, Zendaya of Shabbe, no matter what happens next. No matter if our bodies knot, or if my seed takes."

"Why wouldn't it take? We're not that different biologically, are we?"

"No." He shrugs one of the huge, rounded shoulders my nails are now cresting. "But I've seen my fair share of couples struggle with having children over the years."

"We've already done it once."

He rolls his lips, probably to stop himself from reminding me that I was a different person then. Before he can say this out loud, before old-Daya can encroach on this moment, I slant my mouth over his.

She's no longer here; I am. My kiss softens his body. Well, his face. The rest of him has grown as hard as stone. His beard chafes my chin and cheeks as he deepens the kiss, reaching his tongue into every dark corner of my mouth. He's wild and unbridled, a surging current muscling everything out of its path to reach my heart and my soul.

I don't even realize that I've started rattling until I feel his lips quirk into a pleased grin. He pulls away. I start to protest, but my objection morphs into quivering breaths, because he's kissing his way down my neck, his fingers working the braided straps of my gown off my shoulders which he peppers with kisses next.

I don't think I can rattle any harder, but manifestly, I'm wrong, for when he leans over to tongue my bared nipples, my body all but blurs from how hard I shake. I suddenly worry it will put him off and hunt what I can see of his face. His eyes lock with mine as he continues to lavish my hardened peaks, his big hands gripping my waist to keep me flush with his mouth.

He doesn't look disgusted. Keeping one palm on his bare shoulder for balance, I thread my fingers through his black locks and tug gently. He moans and the tremor that passes between his teeth increases the headiness of his ministration.

His hands wander toward the bow that holds my wrap dress closed. One tug and the silver silk splits open. He leans back, drawing the shimmering folds wider and wider, until they drape from my elbows and expose my front. As he contemplates my nakedness, he inhales deeply, then exhales even deeper.

His fingers, that are as callused as mine will surely become from bloodcasting, skip over my pebbling flesh, sketching my paler scars and my heaving breasts, before capering along the runnel of my ribs toward the silken triangle that is as soft as it is sheer. Instead of rolling it off me, he crouches lower and knuckles it, his breathing growing so abundant that his exhalations feel like caresses.

I keep stroking his hair. Watching him watch me stirs my blood, making it swirl more briskly through my veins.

"Just as fucking perfect as I remember," he rasps, his knuckle curving lower and lower, filling me with foreign sensations that are wreaking havoc on my pulse. "Has anyone explored this body?"

I moan when he hits a particularly sensitive and wonderful spot. "No."

My body, which had gone still, suddenly begins to rattle against his crooked finger, and holy Mahananda… I grip his hair as fire streaks through my veins and ignites me.

I gasp out his name, then pant, "What was that ?"

"Haven't you explored your body?"

"No," I croak, as moisture and heat pool low, bleeding into the silk between my thighs.

"Why the Cauldron not?"

"Lack of time." I nip my lip, then release it. "Lack of guidance."

For some reason, my answer makes him rise, his palms shaping the outside of my body before returning to my waist and perching there.

"Had I known there was such a pleasurable spot, I would've taken the time to ask for guidance." I smile.

He doesn't. "Then I'm glad you didn't know."

I roll my eyes. "I would've asked Asha or Taytah, not Enzo or Abrax."

His lips still don't bend.

I push on tiptoe and steal a kiss. As I settle back on my heels, I ask, "Oh, jealous one, will you please see to my sexual education?"

That chips at the unyielding line of his mouth. "It'd be my pleasure to bring you pleasure, Sumaca."

He scoops me into his arms, coaxing an amused startle from my mouth, and carries me to the velvet seating. As he lays me out, my dress, which is still hooked to my elbows, settles beneath me like starlit foam.

He drops his knees on either side of my thighs. "It'd be my honor to map out this exquisite body and teach you where the treasure lies."

I observe the muscled quilt of his chest, the dark trail of hair that leads to the bulge straining his leather trousers, the only item of clothing he hasn't parted with. "I want to learn about yours, too." When I reach for him, he snares my wrist.

"Yours first."

I pout. "Can you at least remove them while you instruct me?"

"It's best I don't."

"Why?"

"Because if I free myself, I will end up inside of you."

"Isn't that the destination?"

"Yes. But there are many stops I want to make along the way, and I fear I'll skip over them all if I unleash myself." He plucks my underwear's waistband and rolls it down my thighs. "Legs up."

I oblige, maneuvering my feet between his legs before stretching them up.

Instead of tossing my underwear aside, he balls it in his fist and carries it to his nose. His eyes close on a long, slow inhale.

"What are you doing?" I ask, genuinely intrigued.

"Memorizing your scent."

"Is that a lover thing or a bird-of-prey thing?"

Lids still clasped shut, he smiles. "I wouldn't know. The topic doesn't come up with my friends." He tucks the scrap of silk into the waistband of his pants, then opens his eyes wide and sets them on my center, which he unveils to himself fully by parting my knees as wide as they'll go.

Considering I'm flexible, that is extremely wide.

He swallows, licks his lips, then without looking away from my mound, he commands, "Give me your hand."

I do.

"Point your index finger."

I do.

He carries it to my seam. "Touch."

I am slick and warm and soft like our mollusk-silk garments.

"Trace yourself. All the way to your ass."

My flesh is so pliant and damp that my finger just skids, bumping over one depression and then another. My breath catches but not as hard as when I track my finger back up and bump into a tiny little bead that feels a lot like the retracted tusk on my forehead.

"What's that?" I ask, circling the bead gently.

"That is called a clitoris."

"Hmm," I whisper as I keep circling it. "And everyone has one?"

"Only females."

"You're missing out."

He smiles. When my body begins to rattle, he tucks his fingers around mine and moves them aside.

"Why did you do that?"

"Because my tongue was jealous of your fingers." He carries said-fingers to his mouth and sucks on them.

When his pupils flood his irises, I ask, "Do I taste like the others?"

"What others?"

"I imagine you've had many others."

"Not in the past five centuries. I don't recall their taste, nor do I want to." His timbre is gruff, as though the subject irritates him.

"Do I taste like past-me?"

"You taste like my mate."

I believe he's saying that to settle my qualms that my Serpent scent might not be as appealing.

He plants his palms on either side of my head and bends over my body, taking my mouth in a kiss that tastes like, I suppose, me. His tongue sweeps, his beard chafes. Although that spot between my legs was enthralling, so are his kisses. I scrape my nails over his shoulders, causing his skin to break out in goosebumps. Because he likes it? I pull away to ask.

"I fucking love it," he growls, half in Crow, half in Shabbin.

I smile and scrape more of his back, any place I can reach, which soon becomes only his corded nape as he travels down my body, suckling on my nipples before attending to the puckered areola surrounding them.

"These are called nipples."

My cheeks lift with another smile, another blissful breath. "You taught me that already."

"That's right." He glides lower, stopping only once his head's leveled with my center.

Bracing himself on his forearms, he thumbs apart the plump flaps concealing my shiny trench. "These are called the labia or lips or nethermouth." When he runs his thumbs down their underside, my body jerks. "Or you can simply refer to them as mine from now on." He smiles.

This time, I'm the one incapable of bending my lips.

I gasp when his thumb circles the first puckered hole. "This is your vaginal opening, the place in which I will be sheathing my cock for as long as I have cock to sheath."

"Why wouldn't you have cock to sheath?" I croak, my voice coming out in bursts, because he's dipped his finger inside and is gyrating it as though to widen the hollow. "Are you afraid someone may slice it off?"

"No. That isn't one of my fears." He glides his wet finger to the next hole. "I might penetrate this one eventually as well."

I hope he means with his pinkie because there's no way the cock I spied when I healed him will ever fit inside.

"Some females are quite partial to rectal penetration."

I'm tempted to ask if I was once partial to it but decide I don't want to know what old-Daya was like. I don't want him to start comparing me to her and find me lacking.

He rests his cheek on the inside of my thigh as he guides his finger back out and up. When he hits that tiny hooded bead, I flop back and gaze at the stars beyond the glass ceiling. "Great Mórrígan, how I've missed you, moannan ."

The Crow word for mate makes my heart ache because what if I'm not? He says he'll still want me, but what if he doesn't? What if it's the resemblance to the Shabbin Princess he loved and the possibility that we might be mates that powers his hunger?

"Look at me."

I stare at his ghostly reflection that's blurring from my sudden surge of panic.

"Not at my likeness in your skylight, Daya. At me ."

With a swallow and a quick bat of my lashes, I stare down the length of my abdomen. Of course he spots the unnatural luster of my eyes. Of course he doesn't mistake it for anything other than what it is. He reaches for my hand and twines our fingers.

"You and I, we start here. We start now."