Chapter 1567
A flicker of something passed through her - doubt, or maybe awe - and then she stepped closer. She pressed her lips to his in a kiss that wasn’t tentative but testing, like she needed to know that he was real, that this wasn’t just another dream conjured by the island. When he kissed her back, when their mouths parted and met again with deepening hunger, she sighed and slid the sword into the earth beside them.
The silver light didn’t fade - it grew brighter, responding to every breath, every caress.
Emma pushed him down gently into the moss, and climbed over him, her body taut and gleaming in the reflected light. Her clothes had become as symbolic as breath, and she shed them like shadows, revealing skin that drank in the moonlight.
"I want to feel everything," she said.
He did too.
They came together with an edge - there was no soft build-up, no careful rhythm. She wanted him deep and immediate, and he gave her that. Their bodies met like striking flint and stone, fire bursting between them. Her breath was sharp against his neck, her nails dragging over his chest, hips grinding with a rhythm that was hers and hers alone.
He met her thrust for thrust, anchoring her with hands to her hips, to her back, then sliding into her hair as she rode him like the warrior she was always meant to be. The moss trembled beneath them. The sword pulsed like a heartbeat.
She cried out his name when she came, arching against him, her body trembling with fierce release. Jude followed her seconds later, the world blurring as everything inside him surged forward into her, carried by silver light.
When they stilled, she collapsed onto his chest, both of them breathing hard, skin flushed and damp.
"I’m not afraid anymore," she murmured.
"You never needed to be."