From In the Shadow of a Vow Novella
When Tomas returned from the barn that afternoon, the sound of his boots on the floor captured her attention as she stood at the kitchen counter he’d made for her. His form in the doorway—wide and encompassing—was at first a buoying relief then a crushing disappointment. 

She’d failed him. 

He stalled, assessing, his eyes dragging along the countertop where she stood amidst a haphazard wreck of herbs—her supplies for making tinctures and medicines she took on calls and sold at the market. 

“Did you mean to leave all your tools in the garden?” he asked. There wasn’t any accusation in his tone, only curiosity. “And the laundry undone in the wash basin?” 

When she didn’t answer—because she couldn’t seem to align the words with meaning—he asked, “What’s going on here?” 

Scarlett looked down at the mess she’d made, opened her mouth to tell him what she was doing, but her mind went blank. She couldn’t remember what she’d been doing. She didn’t know what she was doing anymore. The longer she looked at the greens, the pestle and mortar, the boiling pot, the less sense any of the disarray made. 

“It’s chaos, Scar,” he said quietly next to her. “Unlike you.”

She looked up from the mess to his face, to his kind eyes shaped with concern.

Scar. She’d always loved the way he shortened her name, the only one who ever did. 

Then without warning, she burst into tears, pressing the towel in her hands against her face as her grief, pain, worry, regret, disappointment wrenched out of her with horrific gasp. She’d ruined everything.

Tomas gathered her into his arms with soothing sounds. “Hush,” he whispered, his wide, heavy hand on the back of her head.

“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed, grasping hold of his shirt, her face pressed into the strength of his chest.

He held her.

“They’re gone,” she sobbed. “I failed.”

His arms squeezed her a touch tighter, and when his face pressed into the place between her neck and shoulder, Scarlett wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing up onto her toes, needing to be closer to his comfort.

“I failed too,” he whispered, his lips against her skin. “We both have.”

She shook her head. “Not you, Tomas.” She drew back to look at him.

Raising his head, his eyes connected with hers, the sadness a deep, evergreen forest swirling inside them where he was lost. And it was her fault. She knew this. Had pushed him to go against his nature by keeping her secrets, securing the spells. 

Unsure about anything but the tumult of emotions she couldn’t seem to harness, Scarlett reached for comfort she knew he provided, a comfort she could reciprocate.

She kissed him, her hands framing his face, his beard soft against her palms.

He froze, tension tightening his shoulders.

And she thought he might pull away, but suddenly he was kissing her back, capitulating, needing, seeking. His tongue sought entrance, and she granted it. It was hungry, two souls on the periphery of starvation, finding one another in the darkness. 

From In the Shadow of a Kiss Novella
Had Brinna imagined that one day she would be standing in a floating estate in the sky kissing the god of day and light after he’d said he loved her, she’d have laughed. Her imagination had always tended to run away with her, but this was beyond her wildest imaginings. Except Lucian’s extraordinary kiss slipped between her doubt and reinforced the tether that existed between them. They were god-yoked! She hadn’t known she was godblood—confirmed by her mother—but now it all made sense.

“Get out of your head, Brinna,” Lucian ordered, then pulled her bottom lip gently with his teeth. “Be here,” he said, letting her go and speaking against her mouth, his supple lips reminding her of what was real and right in front of her. “With me.”

Though she’d started this kiss, Lucian took control of it, his mouth, his tongue, his teeth reinforcing who she belonged to. Her dreams of him, of this, had been marvelous, but this—the reality of kissing him—was infinite like the cosmos, something bigger than she could even understand. 

His mouth was somehow both dominant and submissive. When his tongue demanded entrance, she acquiesced, happily, adding to the sensations curling through her, which filled her with heat, bright and addicting. Unable to contain the spreading forest fire inside her, she moaned, then whimpered, grasping onto Lucian’s tattered shirt to keep herself standing. 

He growled and maneuvered her until her back was pressed against the door behind her, his hips pinning hers as his mouth strayed to her neck and his hands roamed, discovering her peaks and valleys. 

“Lucian,” she moaned, tilting her head to give him more access. “I love you, too,” she said. “So much.”

Lucian dragged his mouth from her skin and pressed his forehead to hers. “Say it again.”

From In the Shadow of a Memory Novella
With her back pressed against the closed door, Auri swiped at her eyes, wishing she didn’t feel the need to cry. But everything had fallen apart, and she couldn’t seem to find her compass. With Jessamine missing, her parents—her mother, specifically—liars, and Nix unable to remember her, Auri closed her eyes and slid down the door until she was sitting on the floor, wrapping her arms around her knees, as she let the tears take control.

“Aurielle?”

Her eyes flew open as her head snapped up to find Nix crouched in front of her.

“What are you doing?” She scrambled to her feet.

“You shut the door on me.”

His words from so long ago drifted through her mind: Don’t shut me out. I don’t like it. Oh! What she wouldn’t give to have him back. Her Nix. To feel his arms around her and know that in the storm of what was happening she, at least, had him. While this man was her Nix, he was a shadow of the man she’d come to know and love. 

“Get out.”

But he didn’t budge. Instead, he stood there frowning at her. 

“You don’t want to remember,” she snapped. “Why should I waste my time sharing a story that means something to me?”

She tried to step around him, but he grabbed hold of her arm, stopping her. “I don’t want to be stuck here.”

“We’re all stuck!” she yelled. 

He leaned forward until her back pressed against the door once more. Only now, Nix was taking up her space, so close she could feel his heat, his hands pressed on either side of her head. 

“You said you would,” he insisted.