Patience evaporated.
He covered her body with his once more. He’d fondle and bite and suck on her pretty breasts later. Right now he wanted to rub up against her, inside her, wanted to drench her in his scent until no one else would ever dare make a claim on her.
Andi was his.
Her hands stroked up his ribs and over to his back, her body beginning to move in time with his lazy thrusts. “This is . . .” Another moan as he ground himself against her.
Sliding his hand under her, he clenched his fingers on her ass, tilting her up for even deeper penetration.
“Naasir . . .” Her nails dug into his shoulders, her wings restless on the picnic blanket.
Unable to resist, he bent his head to her neck and bit again.
She came hard and out of control around him. Growling because he was pleased his mate found him so irresistible, he tightened the hand he had on her ass and drew on her blood as he continued to rock in and out of her. The taste of her on his tongue was drugging, her nails on his skin dark pleasure, the aroused, sated scent of her the final straw.
His spine locked as he thrust so hard into her that his balls slapped against her body.
He heard her cry out, but it wasn’t in pain, and so that was all right.
48
Lying lazily naked on his back afterward, having taken off his jeans so Andromeda could wear them with her tunic, Naasir watched his mate watch him. He didn’t know why, but she was shy about being naked under the sky. He didn’t mind her wearing clothes if that made her happy, since she let him strip her whenever he wanted.
But she seemed to like him naked.
Her eyes kept going to him, and she’d sigh and lean over and kiss him. Or she’d pet his chest. Or his thigh. It was having a predictable effect, but he could contain himself now that he’d satisfied the first bite of need. Eating the square of meat she’d fed him—that she’d made for him, he watched her pick up the Grimoire.
“It’s so beautiful,” she said, stroking the cover before opening the book to look at the pages again.
Moving until she was sitting with her back half-propped up against his side, one arm on his chest and her hair electric and wild from his loving, she read to him from the book, translating the words unknown to him as she went. “And it was said that the griffin was the mightiest of creatures, but that it had a madness inside it nothing could cure. It could not be tamed. Blood drenched the ground where it walked and though it was a peerless fighter, it could not be controlled and was a wild creature that did not know the hand of man.”
She turned the page. “Those who saw a griffin were forever marked by its regal appearance, for its violent and maddened heart was not visible on the surface. Its golden fur glinted in the sunlight and its wings took it aloft as high as angelkind. Even in its danger, it was too magnificent to kill.”
Turning, she showed him an illustration of a griffin flying in the sky beside an angel. “Can you imagine?”
The anger of memory stirred in him. “Legends like this drove Osiris. He wanted to make them true.” His claws sliced out. “Alexander’s brother was a melder and he decided to meld living beings.”
Putting down the Grimoire, Andromeda turned to fully face him. “I’m sorry,” she said, voice trembling. “I’m so sorry. All this time, I talked about the Grimoire and I never considered how it might hurt you.”
Naasir hadn’t meant for his words to wound her. “Your thoughts and wonder about mysterious creatures don’t hurt me,” he said, tugging her down into his arms and tucking her head against his neck. “It’s fun with you.” A game.
“Really?”
“Yes.” Andromeda’s heart wasn’t twisted, and she had no desire to cage or own any of these creatures. “I like hearing the things you have to say.”
Then, because it was time, he told her of the evil that had taken place on the ice. “I didn’t know about the Cascade before, but now that I do, I think Osiris must’ve gained his abilities in the last one. He was an Ancient like his brother, would’ve been alive then.”
Andromeda’s head moved against his chest as she nodded. “According to Jessamy’s research, while the Cascade most significantly affects archangels, it can also have an impact on a small percentage of other angels.” She stroked his chest, running her nails over his skin and the fine fur that striped it.
The petting made it bearable to go into the death and the dark. “Osiris had the ability to put two things together and make them one.” An ability no one had paid much heed to, for it seemed so frivolous. “At first, he melded inanimate objects for his and others’ amusement—a chair to a broom, or a sword to a stone. Then he decided to see if he could meld two living things together.” It had all been in the diaries Raphael had saved for Naasir.
“He started with plants and it worked. He is responsible for many of the most extraordinary flowers in the world—flowers that aren’t one color but many, or that are so unusual a hybrid, no one can work out how they ever cross-pollinated.”
Andromeda’s breath brushed his neck, her nuzzled kiss making his eyes close. “After Raphael first found me and took me to the Refuge, I used to rip the heads off all the flowers Osiris had created in front of me, but then after a while, I decided that they had beaten him and should be allowed to exist. Like me, the flowers lived where he didn’t.”
“At some point,” Andromeda said, her hand fisting on his chest as her voice vibrated with rage, “he decided to move from plants to people, to children. How can anyone justify such evil?”