Page 123 of Renegade Kingdom
The fifth bond was snaking into the braid. Caressing against the others as it took its place. And with Dean’s mouth on mine, I could feel the fifth, Winter, finally reaching for the others, finally letting itself be held.
Ryder started to move again. Dean didn’t stop kissing me. Damon’s shadows were everywhere at once, and somewhere in the fog of it I registered that Maddox and Tank were both watching from the side of the bed, both of them touching me in small ways, a hand on my ankle, a hand on my hair, keeping their bonds alive in the braid.
I was going to come apart. Not physically. Magically. I could feel it building, the five threads tightening, the braid reaching up my sternum and starting to glow.
Ryder came with a broken sound and collapsed above me, pressing his forehead to my collarbone. Autumn magic pulsed inside me and then settled.
Damon took his place.
He entered me with a slowness that was almost unbearable, his shadows cradling both of us, and when he started to move, the Shadow bond poured in so deep that I felt it in my bones. It was dark and silent and safe, the dark under a night sky with no moon. A darkness I could lose myself in without ever being lost.
Dean was still kissing me. And an orgasm was rising up inside me that I already knew was about to devastate me.
“Alyssa.” Damon’s voice was tight. “Something’s happening.”
I knew. I felt it.
The braid was almost complete.
“Dean.” It was Tank, from beside us. His voice was low. “She needs you.”
Dean’s mouth left mine. He looked down at me with an expression I’d never seen on him before. Not the soldier. Not the alpha. Not the controlled man who lived at the edge of his own ice. Just Dean. Just mine.
“My love.” It was barely a whisper.
“I’m here,” I breathed. “I’ve got you, Dean. I’ve always got you.”
Damon eased himself out of me. Shadows were still alive in my chest, braided with the Summer, Spring and Autumn magics. Four threads twisted tight. Waiting for the fifth to solidify its presence with them.
Dean moved over me.
He took my face in both hands and looked at me for a long moment. I felt him let go of one more thing behind his eyes. Not all of it. Not whatever he was still holding. But another piece.
Then he slowly pushed inside me, and Winter magic poured into me with such an intensity that it took my breath away. The braid was finished.
Five bonds.
One current.
The magic hit me like a tidal wave. I could feel it sinking into every cell of my body, rewriting the very essence of my being.
I didn’t come in the ordinary sense. I shattered. The five threads wound themselves into a single rope of light, and the light blazed outward from my chest. For a moment I wasn’t a woman in a bed in a Spring Court chamber with five men I loved. I was something else. Something larger. I could feel the realm breathing around me, forests and rivers and sky. I could feel my mates each distinctly and all together at once, five voices singing into one song.
Dean gave a strangled sound above me and I felt him lose himself too, his release triggering his own surrender to the bond. Winter magic flared, and the braid burned brighter.
Then it settled.
Slowly. Softly.
The single cord of light pulled back inside me and took up residence in my chest, and where there had been five separate threads, there was now a single living thing with five voices, each of them distinct, each of them mine.
I was crying. I didn’t remember starting.
Dean’s face came into focus above me. He was crying too, silently, tears running into the rough scruff on his jaw. He kissed my forehead, my cheek, the corner of my mouth.
“My love,” he whispered. “My goddess.”
He eased himself out of me and collapsed beside me on the furs, and then I was in the middle of all of them. Maddox on one side, his hand in my hair. Tank at my other, one massive palm splayed over my belly. Ryder at my feet, his head resting against my calf like a cat. Damon above my head, stroking my temples, his shadows still curling around all of us in lazy loops. And Dean, pressed full-length against my side, his face buried against my throat.
