Page 76 of Fangbanger

“Feel it?” I can’t keep the pride from my voice. “Look inside yourself.”

She sucks in a breath. I know what she’s seeing. A mate bond that shimmers with a thousand threads, binding us together. It’s every color of the rainbow and it has the strength of steel.

“No power imbalance between us,” I tell her huskily. “Not eighty years. We could have eighty thousand.”

She makes a happy sound before she says, “Not sure I want eighty thousand. I’ll probably get tired of you.”

I growl and surge over her. She’s laughing under me, her magic spiraling upward. It’s then that I catch sight of her wings.

“Leah.”

“What, vampire?”

She’s grinning at me, her dark eyes sparkling, her mouth curved with joy. Joy that I put there. I kiss her.

“Wings,” I rasp. “Real ones.”

“All the dying has gone to your head,” she whispers.

I chuckle but run one finger down the downy softness of one graceful feather.

She gasps, then turns her head. “I felt that. Oh my god.” Her shocked gaze meets mine. “Wings,” she whispers.

I laugh and kiss her again. Her arms twine around my neck. Her hips arch to meet mine.

We shed the remnants of our clothing in a blur. I hold Leah’s luminous gaze as I push into her. She doesn’t shut her eyes. I don’t shut mine. I watch every expression cross her face—awe, hunger, and something more.

“I love you,” I tell her.

“I love you.” She smiles before she arches under me. “I love you, Marcus, but if you don’t start moving, I swear⁠—”

I chuckle and make love to my mate on a bed made of wings.

THE END

49

EPILOGUE

LEAH

Six months later

“This seems unnecessary,” Marcus grumbles, as we duck into Good Intentions.

“It’s tradition,” I tell him. “Newly mated couples celebrate at the bar.”

My stomach still flutters as we step inside. My hand tightens on his. I never thought I’d be the one stepping over the threshold to celebrate a mating, wearing a dress with the tensile strength of tissue paper and enough lace-covered cutouts that Marcus won’t even have to take it off me later. He’ll be able to bite wherever he wishes.

The dress is made to tempt a vampire, and I’ve never seen his fangs descend so quickly.

Marcus’s eyes glint silver under the bar’s lights. His hair is pushed off his forehead. His dark suit accentuates the heavy muscle of his frame and the grace of his movements. He is unfairly handsome. My breath caught when I saw him across the clearing in the woods earlier.

He spoke the mating vows directly into my ear, claiming they weren’t for anyone else to hear. He cradled my head as he bit me, and when I bit him, he whispered in my ear how much he loves me, how precious I am to him, how he’d kill for me.

I’d kill for you, Leah. I’d die for you, too, but I’d stain my soul over and over again before I’d ever let you be hurt.

A hush falls over the crowd at the bar, then a woop comes from Dean, who strides forward and pulls me into a hug. The breath is squeezed out of me by his powerful arms.