When his mouth left mine, he whispered, “You can open your eyes whenever you’re ready.”
He stepped back, and that wild flutter in my chest moved to my stomach. The urge to cover myself was there, but I resisted. With there being a quality of unknown to how the Joining worked, some magic that wasn’t about blood or words, I didn’t want to do anything that might risk it not working.
I felt their stares almost as if they were a physical caress, soft and warm and…worshipping.
In those moments, I heard nothing but the bubbling of the nearby river and then the nightbirds calling to one another from the trees above in a chorus that felt ancient—primal—a little magical and wholly tempestuous.
My eyes opened.
I saw Casteel first bathed in the silvery moonlight. He truly looked as I had always believed a god to appear. A raging storm of flesh and bone, all exquisite angles and lines. His eyes were pools of honeyed gold as they locked onto mine, and I felt it slip past my shields. A sweet taste gathered in my throat, reminding me of chocolate-covered berries with a hint of cinnamon. His love and his pride filled me, and a wealth of emotions swelled once more.
Then I saw Kieran standing beside Casteel, shoulder to shoulder. Like they had been before I entered their lives. Like they always would be. I took in the proud, untamed planes of his face and the strong curve of his broad jaw. His skin was a mesmerizing silvery brown in the moonlight, and he reminded me of some otherworldly being I’d conjured from my imagination. Captivating and impressive in both forms, his eyes were the blue of winter, and the glow of eather behind his pupils was vibrant. My shields slipped again, and what I felt from him was the same as I’d felt before—sweet and soft. Not as intense as what came from Casteel, but no less meaningful. Nothing about Kieran was less.
Both had discarded their clothing in those silent moments while my eyes had been closed. Their bodies showed years of training and fighting in the lines of muscle and the marks upon their skin. Casteel carried more reminders in the countless scars that always tugged at my heart upon seeing them, but Kieran bore his fair share. I hadn’t noticed them before, the faded claw marks across his chest, the long-ago healed punctures near his waist. Kieran was leaner, the cut of his body more formed even with Casteel only beginning to put his weight back on. I wondered if it had to do with all the running he did in his wolven form. I almost asked but stopped myself before I opened my mouth.
Kieran would probably appreciate my self-restraint.
Then I looked lower. In the back of my mind, I knew that it probably wasn’t a wise choice. Not because they wouldn’t want me to, and obviously not because I didn’t want to, but because I was looking. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen either of them naked, but I tried to be appropriate about it when it came to Kieran.
I was currently being highly inappropriate as my gaze drifted down their hips, to where both were…well, no less scandalous than I.
I knew that Casteel was pleased with every inch of my body—the hips that some might find too full, the thighs that might be too thick, the belly too soft, and the scars that marked me. But it was clear that neither found what they saw displeasing. Or maybe it had nothing to do with what they saw or how I looked. Perhaps it only had to do with what they felt. What we shared. Either way, they were…
Good gods.
“Always so curious,” Casteel murmured.
My gaze flew up, my face heating.
One side of Casteel’s lips curled upward, and I saw the hint of a dimple appearing in his right cheek.
“Shut up,” I rasped.
He chuckled, but when his eyes touched mine again, they asked an unspoken question.
I swallowed, hoping it would calm my heart as a breeze rippled through the glen. It didn’t, but my voice was there. “I’m ready.”
Both seemed to draw in the same breath and then, together, they came to me.
Chapter 44
My legs felt a little loose as a cyclone of sensations whipped through me, so fast and so ever-changing I could only make sense of a few of them. Nervousness crashed into curiosity and gave way to uncertainty, which a sharp wave of anticipation that had nothing and everything to do with what might or might not happen then swept aside. It was the entire ritual. The whole act of joining our essences together. Would we feel different afterwards? Would things change, no matter if we ended at blood being exchanged or went beyond that?
With blade in hand, Casteel stopped a hairsbreadth in front of me as Kieran came to stand behind me. Neither of them touched me, but their proximity already warmed my night-kissed skin.