Trapped(16)

Euphoria followed, a sweep of sensation that brought him down onto her chest, her full breasts the sweetest pleasure against his pecs. She surrounded his neck with both arms and held him tight.
“I love you so much, Alesia.”
***
Alesia held heaven in her arms. She drifted her fingers through his coarse, wonderful hair, and savored the oak scent of him. She’d never known such happiness, such peace.
The blood rose bond felt like a bridge between them, something that would never go away, even though each of their mating vibrations had settled down.
The moment of ecstasy would live in her mind for a long time, perhaps forever, and would no doubt define the rest of her life with him.
“I love you, Zeph, with all my heart.”
He shifted inside her, still firm. She arched against him. “Would it be asking too much if we did that again?”
He drew back and pushed her hair away from her face. “Nothing would make me happier.”
He made love to her for a long time that night and her heart kept making all the blood he needed.
She slept deeply in his arms, maybe the first good night’s sleep she’d had since her father had died and her mother had been abducted.
When she woke up with his arms holding her tight, and his muscular warrior body spooning her from behind, she reveled in the knowledge that her life had changed forever, had become something new, something different, something extraordinary.
She’d come to understand Zephyr’s warrior nature better, just as he’d finally stepped out of his battling self long enough to see what each wraith-bonded realm-person had lost through being abducted.
She looked forward to becoming part of the solution and joining with Zephyr to rescue wraith-pairs. She’d been inside the rehab prison centers enough times to know that her mother’s recovery would be a long, slow process that would take years. But she meant to be part of that process as well and she would wait, however long it took, for her mother to recover.
As for Zephyr, she never thought in a thousand years that she’d get to be with him in a permanent way so that what had felt like a disaster when she’d learned she was a blood rose, had become the greatest miracle of her life. Not only could she ease his suffering, but she’d get to share his bed and perhaps one day in the future, they’d make a family together.
With these thoughts, she savored her life, her man, and the truth that sometimes the most difficult experiences brought the greatest rewards. Zephyr was proof of that. How grateful she was that she’d had the courage to accept her blood rose ability and to complete the bond with him.
She promised herself, from this time forward, that she would remember their joining and all the events leading up to it. And even if the time came when they celebrated their union     with a wedding, this was the night she would mark as their true anniversary, the moment when she became his blood rose, now and forever.
The End