Something dropped against her clavicle, and pain lanced her there as it began to burrow into her. In desperation, certain that she was going to drown in the horrible sensation, Diana tried to twist out from beneath him only to find she couldn’t move.
The tip of his tail brushed against her clit as another pulse of liquid heat rushed through her womb. Ecstasy rolled over her with such intensity that it swept away the agony, and she embraced it as darkness descended around her.
Chapter 22
Silvas lay beside his mate, his fingers trailing through her loose hair as he held her, waiting for her to recover. The bonds had snapped so tight with the final release of his mating venom that it almost rendered him unconscious. A contented purr rumbled through his chest.
He held his mate, his long-awaited uxorem. His joy was tempered with the dread of the difficulties still ahead of them and with the knowledge that, even should they escape those trials unscathed, his mate would return to the human world. It wasn’t an impossible situation—many beings lived separate from their mates—but it was one that left a bitter taste in his mouth. Silvas brushed his lips across her forehead, vowing to treasure every moment in her company.
It did not escape him that, even in the heights of the Hyperborean Mountains, he could not find a private moment with his mate. It didn’t bode well for a future where their intimate time would be stolen whenever he was able to sneak over the forest borders rather than enjoying the protective magics of his quarters.
A whisper of movement, a flutter and soft crunch of snow, came from the mouth of the cave, and he gave it an impatient look.
“You might as well come out,” he said gruffly.
Three mountain nymphs crept around the edge of the cave. Each swaying step was wide and silent, their lithe bodies bent in a partial crouch as they moved like shadows. Their dark gray skin blended in against the stone except where the strongest firelight illuminated their features. All three had tangled braids of dark hair that swung with every move. Three sets of golden eyes ranging from dark amber to pale citrine watched him, and blood red lips parted as they sniffed the air and drew close to the fire.
One of the oreads crept forward, parting from the others. With a long finger, she spun a small bead on the string of her bow as she considered the human in his arms. Silvas tightened his grip possessively, his eyes narrowing on the nymph. She inhaled deeply, a smile curling her crimson lips as her large amber eyes glowed with undisguised pleasure.
His lips thinned. “What do you want?” he snapped.
The nearest oread smiled, undeterred by his hostility.
“It has been ages since a god has taken a bride,” she observed. “When we scented your joining, we had to come and witness for none other was nearby to do the honor.”
“I required no witness,” he said.
Her brows lifted in surprise. “A god should be so honored.”
“I am a silvanus.”
The nymph’s grin widened. “Is that what you tell your bride—that you are just another silvanus of the woods? You who were the first, the divine son of Turan.” At his answering silence, she laughed. “Then she doesn’t know that the first line of silvani sprung from you when, in your youth, you had lain with mortal women within your holy wood.”
Silvas bristled. “I haven’t been that male in over six millennia. It is so far in the mists of the past that I barely remember more than brief glimpses of that age. I have no need for those memories. It is not who I am.”
He didn’t even remember the women who had mothered the first silvani, nor was he certain which few of the silvani had sprung from his loins. He left the propagation of the species to his sons. There had been only one other opportunity in recent centuries, and that was when he took Alseida as his consort. That the dryad hadn’t born a new spirit of the wood, the forests in the mortal world already declining as they were, he considered a blessing.
“You cannot escape who you are.”
“I am exactly who I am, and nothing more.”
The oread snorted a derisive laugh. “You are only as much as you care to be. You were born to be so much more. Do you think that the rest of the immortals do not notice how the Eternal Forest