He traced his hand at her hip to a cheek of her arse and squeezed encouragingly.

Silence obliged.

“I love you, Mars,” she said.

“And I you, my beautiful Silence.”

She clamped her hand on his neck and moved faster.

“We will prevail,” she gasped, beginning to move wildly atop him, his queen, always running so hot.

“We will prevail,” he growled, assisting her by bucking up inside her.

“The formidables,” she breathed.

“Yes,” he grunted.

And then he felt her sex tighten around his cock, drawing his climax along with hers.

But right before they both gave over, Mars clutched his queen tight in both hands.

For he saw the silver in her eyes disappear completely when they blazed twin flames of fire.

King Aramus

Guest Bedchamber, Sky Citadel, Sky Bay

AIREN

“They have had experience of this. For fuck’s sake, Elena is a bloody warrior,” Aramus groused, pacing the floor before their bed in their bedchamber. “You have not.”

“It was not unknown to us that we would reach this point, my husband,” Ha-Lah pointed out, sitting atop their bed, her legs crossed under her, wearing a brief, surf-blue nightgown that he knew from seeing it right then, but also having seen it before that he liked on her.

Though he liked more taking it off.

She also had a webby, teal shawl wrapped around her arms to keep out the chill.

“It is not. It is also not unknown that I would not like it when we did.”

She sunk her white teeth in her full lower lip.

This was always something he enjoyed watching her do, thinking of those lips under his, around his cock, or just watching them move with her words.

He did not like it in the now.

“Do you not think it’s best you understand the powers you have when you must use them in times like these before you take on more?” he demanded.

“Yes,” she said calmingly, “but I don’t have that choice.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “And that’s the part I do not bloody like.”

His queen threw off her shawl, pushed up to her knees and then fell to her hands, whereupon she crawled to the edge of the bed, calling, “Aramus.”

Due to their current circumstances—his queen travelling distances magically to meet with the Great Coven, learning she must draw in power that might be a burden, and most importantly, the bloody, sirens-damned Beast possibly having risen—the biting of her lip might not have had its regular effect on him.

But watching her crawl to him did.

He moved directly to the bed and stood before her as she again sat back to her arse and reached out to him with both hands, wrapping her fingers at the skin of his waist.

“You do know, this is why I was brought to you,” she said softly.

He shook his head and said, not softly, “I know no such thing.”

Her lips parted.