Page 108 of Fallen Stars

“The only person in the world who can get me on them,” she breathed in between pumps. Enzo groaned, his other hand clinging to the side of the bed’s headboard. Her confirmation was enough to make him come. That this powerful queen before him had given every part of herself to him, had worshipped him as he worshipped her.

He could feel his magick alchemising in his veins, his fire and light sparkling and thrumming into pleasure. Then wisps of it seemed to drive off him, and he could feel them rising from his heart and swirling, as though wrapping around some invisible tie between them. Panic began to set in his bones at seeing his power dispersed like that, all too familiar with the wisps of gold driving off him and what it meant. He clenched his jaw, willing himself to calm and focus on Elara.

Elara kept working him with her mouth, and he sighed, relaxing into the pleasure again. It became so acute, it was almost painful, and he could only breathe through it, breathe through his magick running through him into her.

“Where do you want to finish?” she breathed, moving her hand in tandem with her mouth.

Where d—? Enzo’s brain short-circuited as his desire heightened. He was on the brink now, that magick a frenzy as he throbbed and throbbed. He was aware of a feeling trying to clamour to the surface, but he shook his head against it, pushing it down.

“Here,” he managed to growl out roughly, brushing a thumb over her collarbones and the crescent scar now resting there.

Elara smiled wickedly, giving one last suck, the pull of it deep and intoxicating as her lips closed around him tightly and then released him.

Enzo came, spilling onto the pale, smooth skin of her throat, beading around her decolletage, her breasts heaving underneath.

She looked so fucking beautiful, her lips red and swollen, eyes quicksilver and alive with triumph, and that throat… He knew the image would be ingrained in his memory for the rest of his days.

Elara delicately dabbed at a rolling bead falling between her breasts and lapped it up, turning to the mirror propped against the western wall.

“Hm,” she said, admiring herself. “My very own pearl necklace.” She laughed at her own joke, turning to Enzo.

But Enzo was merely staring at her, an ashen look on his face.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, instantly coming towards him. He pointed to the part of the bedframe he’d been holding onto, and the smallwoodenoctopus that was now slithering animatedly down the bed towards Enzo.

Elara’s eyes widened in shock before she looked at his hands, which were still glowing gold.

“Well,” she said. “That’s new.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Adrian scowled as he stormedinto the warm night, pushing his tricorn hat onto his head against the rain beginning to drizzle. For some reason, hearingEnzoand Elara make love next door wasn’t his ideal way to spend an evening.

He’d almost been asleep when he’d heard Enzo’s groans and decided tonight really wasn’t his night.

He took a deep breath of briny air, allowing his mood to evaporate. “Think of the money,” he muttered to himself, pacing to the eastern side of the deck. There, was one of his favourite places on the ship.

A large net was splayed out, one that hung out past the deck into the air.

The few times that the crew needed to catch fish or crabs, they’d lower and gather the netting, but that was a rare occurrence.

The rest of the time, the net was pulled taut, strong enough to hold at least four grown men. And on nights when his cabin felt too small, and he needed the ocean below him and the air on his face, he’d sleep out on it, watching the stars.

He sighed, shimmying onto the net with a pillow in hand and settled himself down.

He gazed up to the stars and the moon they surrounded. An uneasy feeling washed over him, the same one that always did when he looked at the constellations above. Adrian was not a religious man. Scorpius had put a stop to any of that, and he saw, just like many, the hypocrisy and evil of the Stars’ rule over Celestia.

Adrian shut his eyes, trying to block out the memory of Scorpius’s pet, how it had chased him through his beloved underwater kingdom and wrangled him back to the poisonous god. How Scorpius had smiled as he had branded him with a few tentacles in honour of said beastie. All because he possessed—

No, he wouldn’t ruin his night by thinking about it and forced the powers that had panickily risen within him down.

Now the moon… There was an interesting entity. If the stars were mirrored on Celestia, he wondered idly if perhaps there was a corporeal form of that moon somewhere.

“Too much fucking rum,” he chided himself.

He allowed the swaying net to lull such unpleasant thoughts from his head, the rum and waves below helping. He missed the ocean, wished he was allowed beneath once more. The waves seemed to call him, beckoning with their hushed pleas.

They became frantic, almost sounding like sobs, and he frowned.