Celena buried her lips against Rafael’s throat as she forced herself not to think about what was going to happen tomorrow. She couldn’t stay with him. She knew it. He was a Dark-Hunter. But here for the moment, he was hers, and that was all that mattered.

Arching her back, she cried out with every powerful thrust of him inside her as she clutched him to her. He dipped his head down to capture her breast and tongue it in time to his strokes. She cradled his head to her as her body was overwhelmed by pleasure. With every stroke it increased until she finally couldn’t stand it anymore. Her body burst into a thousand tendrils of ecstasy.

Rafael growled as he felt Celena climaxing. Wanting to give her even more, he quickened his strokes and watched as she threw her head back and moaned.

His smile faded as he lost himself to his own orgasm. Burying himself deep inside her, he shook with the force of it. Her breathing ragged in his ear, she gently stroked his back as he slowly drifted back into himself. This was one of the most amazing moments in his life. Not because of the sex, but because he was being held by a woman who was willing to sacrifice herself for him. A woman who was willing to break the rules.…

Most of all, a woman who loved him.

He kissed her tenderly on the lips. “Don’t leave, Celena.”

“I’ll be here until morning.”

“No,” he said, his voice thick with the emotions that were churning inside him. “I mean don’t leave. Ever.”

Her mouth opened ever so slightly. “What are you saying, Rafael?”

“I love you.”

She couldn’t believe her ears. It was more than she’d ever hoped for. “You don’t have to say that.”

“It’s not that I’m saying it. It’s that I’m feeling it.”

Thrilled by his words, she squeezed him tight. “So what’s to become of us now?”

“Looks like I’ll be joining the human race again.”

“Are you sure?”

Rafael grew quiet as he considered it. If he continued being a Dark-Hunter, he’d have to let her go.

The Apollite’s words rang in Rafael’s head. He’d been alone for all these centuries. Not once in all this time had any woman ever made him feel his emotions more strongly than Celena. She made him crazy, angry, happy.…

But most of all, she made him feel like he could fly.

He didn’t want to live without this. Without her.

“Yeah, I’m sure. That is, if you’re willing to take Artemis’s test.”

“For you, my pirate, I’d walk through the fires of hell.”

Epilogue

Two months later