“Now what kind of lover would I be if I only focused on the right, the left, and the in-between?” he asked gruffly, teasing her with Brendan’s blithe references from his class. When her eyes went wide in surprise, he chuckled.

“How long were you standing there anyway?” she asked him breathily.

“I saw that part from the rotunda ceiling.” He lifted away from her and his gaze glided hungrily over her damp, glowing skin. Passion became her, he thought heatedly. He’d never seen a woman so stunning in all of his long years. “This view is much more appealing,” he added. He drew his fingers from her slick folds, watching as he rubbed the liquid mark of her onto his thumb and taking a moment to remember the too-brief taste he’d had of her. Looking up into brightly fevered amber, he brought his thumb to his mouth and licked her essence from himself.

“M’jan. J’esa vela duwea,” she begged him restlessly.

“Oh, but teasing you is the best part,” he countered with an arrogant smile.

“I know the feeling,” she retorted, reminding him quite soundly that she was way ahead of the game when it came to teasing him beyond his tolerances.

“Little minx,” he hissed softly, his eyes flashing a promise of sweet vengeance just before he bent to trail his mouth over her skin again.

Magnus was overwhelmed with the erotic taste of her on his tongue. What he wanted was to bury himself tongue first “in-between” for a good long time, but she had challenged him and he couldn’t let it pass. He did return his fingers, although now he avoided her cl*t and used a ghostly, fluttering touch that taunted but refused to satisfy. Meanwhile, he covered her body as far as he could reach with kisses, licks, and those little nips she liked so much, all the while keeping her pinned down by her wrists and the wrap of his legs around hers. He wasn’t satisfied until she was alternately cursing him and moaning softly, her skin wet with his saliva and her perspiration. Then he swiftly rolled her over, trapped her again, and began once more. This time he walked his touch down the line of her spine, following it all the way to the tip of her tailbone and on to her perineum before finding her vaginal rim and teasing her mercilessly with light flickering touches and pressing just the pad of a thickly callused fingertip into her.

“Bituth amec!” she gasped raggedly as his teeth nibbled along the line of her shoulder. “Magnus!”

“What is it, jei—?” He caught himself at the last minute, cursing silently against her skin. The last thing he wanted was to say or do anything that would anger her. The anger she was expressing at the moment was passionate frustration. It was all that was allowed. He didn’t know who had made the terminology of affection such a negative thing for her, but he would cut their tongues in half for the offense if he ever got hold of them.

“I can’t bear this,” she sobbed.

“Yes, you can,” he countered, glad she was too distraught with her need to have noticed his faux pas. “Pretty Daenaira. You’re made of much tougher stuff than this. Tell me, K’yindara, what you would have me do? I’m curious. When I finally thrust inside you, Dae, what position is it you’ve dreamed of? Where have your fantasies taken you? And I know you’ve had them. I’ve kept my promise never to touch you, but I watched you during the daylight hours while you slept so restlessly in your bed.”

She gasped at that, trying to wrench around to see him.

“I sleep unclothed!”

“I know.” He chuckled. “Intriguing habit you picked up about four days ago. I’m interested as to why.”

“Maybe it’s because I knew you were there and I hope I tortured your perverted ass to death!” She was so furious he could see her skin flushing down her back. He smiled as he felt the heat radiating against his face.

“Oh, is that why you called my name then? Torturing me from Dreamscape?”

“Yes, you arrogant bastard!”

“You sound mad, honey. Perhaps we should stop and talk about this.”

Magnus withdrew his touch, then his kiss, and began to lift his body from hers.

“No! Wait, I—”

Magnus waited. She growled in frustration into the bedding.

“If you tell me the truth,” he coaxed in a whisper, “I will turn you over, spread these fine thighs, and show you what a man’s tongue against your cl*t can feel like.”

Dae whimpered softly at the sexually charged promise. She didn’t even understand why she found the idea so thrilling, other than realizing that everything he had done to her so far had felt a thousand times better than anything she’d ever known in her lifetime. Better than she had even dreamed those nights she had called for him unwittingly in her sleep. In her waking hours she had been righteously infuriated with him, but in her sleep her body had remembered and craved him. Her waking sexuality had not borne the distance from him well at all. She’d been flooded with visions of them together that she could hardly comprehend the vividness of. How had she dreamed so clearly of things she’d never known?

“I dreamed of you,” she confessed weakly, her body running hot as she anticipated the reward he’d promised with every word she spoke. “I dreamed of you coming inside me as hard as when I saw you in the bath. I…” She swallowed. “I could feel you, like Killian and Diana, entering me from behind while I reached to have you slide through my fingers every time you withdrew.”

“Gods!” Magnus choked out suddenly, his powerful hands flipping her so fast her hair tangled over her face, forcing her to shove it out of her way. Only then did she realize her hands were free, but it didn’t matter the next instant as her thighs were drawn open in his strong hands and she felt his breath cascading over her hot core.

The most Diana had done to Killian was fondle his balls on his in stroke, Magnus recalled all too clearly. The dream she described, the vision she described, had been one of his making. Or so he had thought. If he’d had any doubts about whether he should be indulging in this craving he had for her, they would have been instantly eradicated. Drenna had destined her for him. She had done all in Her power to bring them to this point, even in spite of how close he had come to destroying Her careful plans.

However, he had left those doubts at the door long, long ago. In his soul he had already known this was where he was meant to be. Everything, even Karri’s betrayal, had been designed to bring him to this woman’s embrace.

“How did I ever think I could turn you away, K’yindara?” he murmured softly as his lips ghosted a kiss against her. “What did I do to earn you or your forgiveness?”

Daenaira figured it was a rhetorical question because the swipe of his tongue against her was designed to rob her of speech. She reached for him, her fingers clutching into his hair, the feel of warm golden rings clacking against her nails. Tears leapt into her eyes as one flick turned into a longer stroke and then a longer, slower stroke after that. He groaned against her, the vibration of sound shimmering up through the center of her body until she shivered with sensation. His fingers slid along her labia, parting her lips wide until she felt exposed and vulnerable, the perfect victim for his next sensual attack. When his lips drew against her cl*t she almost leapt out of her own skin.

Then he was suddenly wrapping both arms around her thighs, hauling her bottom off the bed as he threw her legs over his shoulders and buried his face against her. The next few minutes were a blur of unadulterated bliss for Daenaira, her sight hazing into blackness as her entire world became focused inward and the sensations of his mouth and tongue dancing against her. The only time he left her cl*t was for forays to the rim of her vagina. Then he thrust his tongue deep into her sheath and her entire universe exploded into color and the screams of a woman in ultimate pleasure. Her body bucked and writhed, her throat locked in the cries she realized were originating from her own vocal cords.

This was the release she had been looking for before. For days. For years. This time there were no agonizing drawbacks, no painful wrenches of remaining need. She flew while the rest of the world crawled, and it was beautiful.

When Magnus surged up her body to kiss her, she was crying, tears dripping into her hair as her sounds of joy turned into sobs bordering on panic.

“Shh,” he soothed her, kissing her mouth softly as he brushed at her tears. “It’s okay, honey. Just breathe, baby.”

She tried her best, but it was hard to do when she could smell and taste herself on him with every kiss and it began a whole new ache inside of her. She was hollow and needing, and she knew he had what it would take to fill her and satisfy her. The fear, however, was that it went deeper than just the physical demands of her awakening body. But Dae forced herself to push that and the rest of her racing thoughts far away. She focused on the powerful male she held clutched between her legs, and with an aggressive thrust of her tongue she took over the kiss of sentimentality and shoved it back into the realm of desire and raw sexuality.

As successful as she was, though, it took only the first sensation of hard, heavy male arousal along the valley of her sex to bring one very singular thought of terror racing to the front of her mind. Her hands had fallen to his shoulders and, unwittingly, the burrowing of her nails in his flesh gave her away.

“K’yindara,” he called softly to her, making her realize she had screwed her eyes shut tight and that she was still weeping in spite of herself. “Talk, sweetheart. Tell me.”

She shook her head, licking her lips nervously and refusing to open her eyes. He went carefully still, and she exhaled, breathing, she noticed, for the first time in ages.

“Daenaira, talk to me.”

Her wet lashes parted, casting his handsome features into a crystalline kaleidoscope of color. She shook her head again, unable to stop the denial even as she said, “I don’t want to know. I’m not ready to know. I don’t…I can’t…”

Magnus should have been completely mystified; after all, she wasn’t really making sense. However, all it took was one look into her swimming amber eyes and he knew.

He just knew.

She didn’t want to know, beyond all doubt, whether she had been taken against her will during her captivity.

“Listen to me, Dae,” he said, making sure she looked deeply into his eyes as he spoke, “it never happened. Look at me,” he said sharply when she closed her eyes. She obeyed him, surprise widening her pupils. “Do you know what my third power is?” She shook her head. “I can compel the truth. Whether you realize it or not, you know the truth of what did or did not happen to you. Now I can compel you to witness this as the truth, or you can trust me and believe me when I say it never happened.”

“How can you say that? How can you talk about something you and I both know you don’t know for sure?”

The truth was, he did know. He had already compelled the truth from someone else. He had wanted to tell her, but there had been no way to broach such a sensitive topic when she was so angry with him. Magnus knew that, as she studied him, it was only a matter of time before she understood for herself, so he had to figure out the best way to handle this. He was convinced, however, that bringing up the names of the Sinners who had done her such awful injustice was not the way. They did not belong in this moment between them, and so he would find another way.

“Stay with me,” he encouraged her softly, making her focus on his eyes as he slid himself into place at the entrance to her body. “Shh, just trust me,” he soothed her when she tensed. “Believe me, K’yindara. Just believe. This is the moment of permission. Nothing before this ever took place because you were strong enough to decide your own fate. No beatings, no extreme devices were ever stronger than you were.” He bent to kiss her gently, unintentionally starting her tears again with his tenderness. “Tell me I can touch you, Daenaira. Give me permission to touch you. Let me be the very first. Trust me to be the very first.”

Dae swallowed, wanting to shake her head again—and yet wanting to believe him with all of her heart.

“Say it, jei li,” he whispered, the endearment the only thing he could use at that instant. “Give me permission to touch you.”

Tears falling so quickly they tore his heart in two, she nodded.

“Touch me, Magnus,” she rasped on a broken sob. “Please, touch me.”

“Okay,” he breathed against her lips as he kissed her slowly. “Okay, jei li. This might hurt a little, you know that, right? Just the first time.”

She shook her head, but he wasn’t sure if it was because she didn’t know or because she really didn’t believe him after all. She was so courageous in that moment, though, it hurt his soul to look at her.

Magnus shifted forward, the shallow push merely an introduction to his girth which, he knew, was substantial for an untried girl. In his favor was the unbelievable slickness of her prepared body. He should have introduced his fingers into her first, but instinct told him she wouldn’t be able to bear waiting without panicking now that she was focused on placing her faith with nothing but his word to reassure her.

“It is believed that when a handmaiden comes to her priest a virgin, it increases the chance of a Bonding. You know what this is?”

“When a priest and maiden c-can develop a telepathic Bond,” she supplied, her unsteady voice squeezing his heart.

“Relax, honey, just a little. You’re really tight,” he said, trying not to close his eyes from the overwhelming sensation so he could keep her anchored. “You’re right. K’yan Hera taught you that?”

Magnus eased forward and the tight ring of her entrance popped over the head of his cock, fitting hot and so damn snug it took his breath away.