Chapter 75 - Ritual Moonlight

"Do you feel it?" he groaned, his breath hot against her neck, and her head started to spin, the moonlight spinning with it, dazzling in its orbit around her eyes. She felt him brace himself against her, his touch creating bolts of electricity that ran the length of her body.

"Yes," she whispered into the sensual air that somehow felt thicker, coating her skin and her lungs. The clearing blazed with shimmering white like a portal had opened to the night sky.

Suddenly the vision of the clock in suicide forest flashed behind her eyes. This was too much like it. Too similar. The light and the energy and the voices were circling, almost suffocating now in their intensity, and she squeezed her eyes shut as small, panicked sobs began to escape.

Sensing her panic, Graeme spun his mate around and cupped her face in his hands. "August," he called, caressing her cheeks with his thumbs. "Just focus on me, love. It's okay," he grabbed her hands and kissed the back of them.

Her eyes shot open with the gentle brush of his lips across her skin, which was now fully charged with ritual moonlight.

"It's too much," she gasped, staring wildly out into the night with black eyes as her chest was heaving for regular air—the fresh air of the forest from earlier. Not this. This air was stifling, and the flood of energy and the scent of the flowers were overwhelming her senses, seemingly intoxicating every cell in her being. There was no escaping this, whatever it was.

"Close your eyes," Graeme drew her into his chest. "You're okay. Just focus on me," he said, running his hand soothingly along her back. "Focus on my voice."

She closed her eyes and nodded silently, clutching his shirt. He was okay, and she was okay. She slowly breathed in, letting her head rest against him as he continued tracing the length of her back.

"You're okay, love," he repeated, "I'm here." She concentrated on the sound of his deep, husky voice as it traveled up the length of his neck, vibrating with power and reassurance.

As she shut out the vision and focused solely on the man embracing her, Graeme's touch became electrifying, and before she knew it she was sinking safely into him—into the deep riverbed carved by his voice and the thrumming of his heart that echoed through her with its reliable rhythm, coaxing her now into a kind of hypnosis of desire.

She could breathe again, but now every breath was filled with him. The air she took in was the air sustaining them both, and in that shared air a new magic bloomed, weaving its life-giving tendrils through them—drawing the fabric of their beings closer together.

There was no bonfire, no moonlight, no forest—just the two of them together in this blooming of new life in the darkness. August tipped her head up, trailing her cheek and then her lips over her mate's neck, feeling the pulse of him under her. She whispered his name against the skin that tried to separate them—so tender and warm, this skin of his, and she suddenly felt the urge to break that barrier.

"I want to bite you," she whimpered, not understanding it.

With those words, Graeme's struggle to resist the force baring down on him shattered, and he pulled her hard up into his arms, devouring her mouth with all the intensity of the ritual surrounding and coursing through them, and she went ablaze in his mind.

"Do it," he panted, feeling her whole being curl around his soul, constricting and pulsating and flowing as one with him.

She froze at his words, her eyes snapping open again in panic. "No!" 'What if I hurt you?' The terror of it rippled through her, and he felt it, too.

"You won't hurt me," he said, finding her eyes, running a thumb along her swollen bottom lip. "I trust you," he whispered against her before claiming her mouth again with his own, teeth grazing her lips before he began kissing and nipping her neck, running a hand over the curve of her breast and down her waist, pulling her further against him, encouraging her with his hands that trailed their molten rivers along her skin.

"Please, Moon," she heard the desperation in his voice.

August whimpered as the urge to bite him once again raked her. She was resisting it. He didn't know—she might hurt him.

But he was pressing all of his intoxicating desire into her, and a flash of him in Violet's memory lit in the back of her mind. Violet still longs for this man. Waits for him. Desires him. Considers him hers first and hers alone.

'Mine,' the possessive growl tickled August's throat, and in that instant she felt something wild within her break free and reach for him. Somehow her teeth effortlessly slid into that suddenly mouth-watering part of him—where his neck curved into the muscle of his broad shoulder, and he hissed beneath her.

"Goddess yes, August," he cupped the back of her head and held her there, attached to him, as he squinted against the deepening union he felt flood through him.

How could they become more entangled than they already were? But somehow it was possible, and he groaned his approval as the fire for her rolled even brighter in his soul.

And then he was swiftly removing the cloth barriers between them, desperate now to be inside of her physically—to feel the warm shelter of her surrounding him. This time when he entered her it was as if all of creation was driving him forward, buoying her up in his arms.

August released her teeth from his shoulder and soothed it with her tongue the way he had done to her mark, and then they were moving as one with him rolling into her while her body found the elegant movements of a wave dipping to meet him, matching his rhythm and welcoming him.

It was a ritual that had to be repeated. It could never be complete—never be enough—until it fully consumed them both and they were nothing but stardust scattered across the sky.

Her mate was perfection. The tension that angled every muscled inch of him towards her, the grip of one arm securing her to him while his other hand curled around her neck and held her forehead against his, and the sexiest deep, gruff male noises she had ever heard breaking from his throat.

She bent to put her lips there on his muscular neck where she could feel his sounds vibrate against her mouth, and above her Graeme's eyes flashed golden before returning to their dark brown.

There was no stifling this energy that was thrumming and building in the woods around them, and there was no holding it back. In the periphery of her mind, August heard cries like theirs growing from similar couplings in the shadows.

She was vaguely aware that her and her mate were orbited by these other bright spots of passion—others who were brought together by something extraordinary. Something perfect and divine. And her and Graeme were in the center, climbing higher and higher with every slide and every roll that united them.

Finally the height of this surreal climb forced August's head back so that her eyes alighted on the moon above her, her body taught and back arching away from her mate who continued to cradle her in his arms, riding the final crescendo of their pleasure before their twin cries were added to the chorus arising from the shadows.

And yet there was nothing but the two of them then. All else had ceased to exist.

August was the forest and the night sky. August was the bright moon and the sparkling, golden stars. August was the whole universe that he had now entered and claimed as his own.

The universe cloaked him lovingly as he came into it, adding his seed to its celestial womb, and he found himself weeping gratefully once again as he clutched his panting human mate against him.

When August opened her eyes, her body was trembling again in the arms of her beloved—the man who had become her home. More than her home. His eyes were soft and wet, watching her in awe.

"Are you okay, love?" he whispered against her before kissing her forehead and clutching her against him.

With the last of the dense forest air expelled into the night sky, August's eyelids at once grew heavy. "I'm perfect," she smiled, vaguely registering the scent of the flowers around her neck that mingled with Graeme's scent.

It was the truth. She felt so utterly perfect, like every cell in her body was in alignment with a superior force gazing down on them lovingly.

And then the cloak of sleep that smelled like Graeme crept into her mind, and the woods and the moonlight and the fire slipped away, leaving only sleep beckoning behind her eyes.

***

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