Page 105 of Fallen Court

Despite our long lives, we were flesh and bone, too.

“Even immortals bleed,” she whispered, a lingering note of pain in her voice.

The music changed, building in intensity as lovers untangled, shouting and crying out before flying from one another into the arms of someone new, partners changing and shifting over and over, claiming and reclaiming each other in a dizzying variety of positions.

Cate squirmed, her breathing growing shallow as their movements became more intimate and primal.

“This is the dance of life and death.” I dragged my teeth along the shell of her ear, one hand roaming upward to her breasts. “Blood and sex. Desire and lack. Control, temptation, and sin—all mixed together in one fucked-up symphony.”

I snaked a hand beneath the gown’s bodice to her corset strings.

She inhaled sharply, trying to cover the slip with a snorted “Good luck.”

“I’ve had centuries of practice, princess.” I loosened them deftly, staring down at her. Cate continued to watch the show, her chest rising in punctuated heaves as my fingers dipped to her freed breasts.

Her back bowed as I circled the pad of my thumb over a nipple.

“Tease,” she muttered. “You’ll never get through all these layers.”

Challenge delivered.

She whimpered as I abandoned her breasts, but I only grinned down at her.

“Oh, the trick isn’t getting through the layers,” I purred, hiking up her skirt and petticoats. My hand slipped between her thighs, finding the thin fabric covering her already soaked. “It’s knowing what you’re doing.” A moan escaped her lips as I slid a finger past her panties. “My, my,” I taunted. “Is watching them fuck exciting you?”

“Don’t be dense,” Cate snapped, her voice breathy.

I pulled my hand away from her slick heat and traced her thigh. “If it isn’t, my apologies…”

But she grabbed my wrist, her nails digging into my skin. “Don’t you dare stop,” she hissed.

Laughing, I nipped her ear, sliding two fingers inside her. Her body clamped around them. “Keep watching.”

I matched the pace of the scene, plunging into her with each thrust of a witch’s hips, each bite from a vampire, with every moment of witnessed pleasure. Cate rolled her hips, urging me deeper as the scene onstage reached its crescendo, until she erupted.

She sagged against me as the theater went dark, her body trembling, but I couldn’t wait any longer. The need to possess her—to claim her—consumed me like wildfire. We stumbled together behind the backdrop, deeper into the shadows. I spun her around, bracing her against a truss in the stage rigging, and crushed my mouth to hers.

Her fingers tangled in my hair as my tongue swept over hers, giving in to our own dance of life and death.

“Lach,” Cate gasped between kisses. “I need you.”

“Gods, I know,” I growled, pushing her skirt up higher. With a swift motion, I tore off her panties. Her arms hooked over my shoulders as I cupped her ass and lifted her from her feet.

Cate wrapped her legs around my waist as the sounds of a new scene began behind us.

“Hurry. We don’t know when it will be over,” Cate whispered, her eyes locked on mine.

The cruel irony of her words struck me. I’d walked our worlds for centuries before I met her, and now we had so little time left.

“We don’t,” I admitted in a hollow whisper.

Her eyes widened. “I didn’t mean—”

But I kissed her, sinking inside her in one smooth motion. “All that matters is this.”

We moved together in a frantic rhythm, our bodies speaking a language older than time. My memento mori stung with each thrust of my hips, pain edging my pleasure. How much longer could I escape my fate?

Cate reached up, her fingers brushing the mark before she clasped the back of my neck. Her eyes searched mine.