Memnon groans against my skin. “Missed the feel of you coming around me.” He hisses in a breath. “Squeezing my cock too good,” he says as he continues to mercilessly drive into me.

Memnon has barely uttered the words when I feel him thicken. I cry out again as the extra pressure extends my climax.

“Gods, Selene.” He pistons hard into me, abandoning my breast in favor of my lips.

And then he’s coming.

He kisses me through wave after wave of his own orgasm. I can feel an echo of it across our bond, amplifying the receding edge of my own. He’s in my mouth, in my pussy, and wrapped around me, pressed against me as closely as he can get. I sense if he could, he would simply melt into me.

I like the thought. Right now, with the brew still burning like fire in my veins, I wouldn’t mind Memnon sinking into me and never leaving.

Eventually, his thrusts gentle, and he gives my mouth one last kiss as he pulls out of me. He clutches my body to his as he lowers me to the ground.

“Can you stand?” he asks as he sets me on my feet.

My unsteady legs immediately fold.

He catches me. “All right, that’s a no,” he says, lifting me back into his arms.

“I’m fine,” I insist, but Memnon is already wrapping my legs around his waist and holding me so that we’re chest to chest.

The two of us gaze at each other. I lock my ankles together and twine my arms around his neck.

“This is nice too,” I admit.

Memnon’s eyes twinkle. “Good, est amage, because I have no intention of putting you back down.”

I hear the rustle of his jeans and the sound of his zipper being done up as his magic redresses him. And then he begins to walk.

“Where are you taking me?” I ask.

“Back to your room. Unless you’d rather stay out here?”

I can’t tell if he’s teasing me or if it’s a legitimate question, but I shake my head. “My place is good.”

His gaze drops to my lips, and he nods. “Good.”

Memnon hasn’t taken twenty steps when he makes a tortured noise and glances down between us.

Heat rises to my cheeks when I realize what he’s noticing. Memnon’s come is leaking out of me and getting all over his shirt.

“I’m going to make a mess of your clothes,” I say softly.

“If you think I’m anything but pleased,” he says, “you’re mistaken.”

My cheeks burn hotter, even as I tighten my grip. Given this position, the two of us are painfully close. As close as we used to be when we’d ride together—closer, technically, since then I always faced away from him.

On a whim, I press my face into his neck and breathe in. The action causes his hold on me to tighten.

“You don’t smell like grass or horse anymore,” I say, surprised and maybe a little dismayed. He doesn’t even smell like sweat. He used to. I close my eyes, and I can remember with striking clarity that other version of him. His low-slung pants and kurta, which he’d peel off the moment his torso got too sweaty from training. The bow and gorytos he wore in addition to his blades. The warm, sunbaked feel of his skin after a long day out on the steppe.

“That must be a welcome relief.” Memnon’s voice has that husky, intimate quality to it.

I shake my head against him, playing with a few locks of his hair at the nape of his neck. “No, it’s not.” I frown to myself, then breathe him in again.

Memnon does still smell like himself in the most innate way. And it’s that smell that makes me lean my head against him.

My old friend. My fiercest enemy. My newest lover.

After a moment, he says, “I’m unused to hearing you speak of our past as…ours.” He pulls me away from his neck to gaze at me. “It fills me with no small amount of joy.”

I stare back at him uncertainly, my emotions tangled up, when that goddess-damned witch’s brew stirs in my veins, and my core begins to ache all over again.

No, no, no. Please, not again.

I press my lips together to stifle a moan, but I don’t manage to stop my hips from grinding against him.

“Again?” Memnon says, surprised.

I duck my head, a little embarrassed. Instead of responding, I lean in and press a kiss to his neck, then another and another. Memnon draws in a sharp breath, his hands gripping me tighter.

Despite my own misgivings about my soul mate, I’m absurdly relieved that it’s him who’s with me tonight. The sorcerer is as natural and familiar to me as my own skin. Perhaps it is like this with all soul mates, but I suspect so much of it has to do with the life we lived together long ago. That one was built first out of friendship.

He makes a sound deep in his chest. “What did you take?”

“What do you mean?” I ask him, even as I continue to trail kisses along his skin.

“You have a healthy appetite for sex, little witch, but this is something else,” he says as I continue to rub myself against him. “I can feel your need clawing at me through our bond.”

“Witch’s brew,” I say. There was no such equivalent in the ancient world. “It draws out our magic, but it has some side effects.” Though those side effects are not usually this potent.

Once we break through the tree line, the moaning noises grow more numerous.

“This sounds like our camp after a celebration,” he says, harkening back to his people.

The noise intensifies the closer we get to my residence hall. By the time we step up to the door of my house, it sounds like there’s an orgy happening on the other side of it.

Once we enter, it’s clear that there is an orgy happening in the library—RIP to any nearby books. Several other couples are scattered in the house’s den, and I can hear more in the spell kitchen and the dining room.

Somehow, even with my panty-less attire and my pussy juices all over Memnon, we’re still looking like the most modest couple here.

The sounds follow us up the stairs and down the hall.

It’s only once we enter my room and Memnon kicks the door shut that the sounds grow muffled. Sort of. I can still hear rhythmic thumping from a nearby room.

Memnon’s magic pours out of him and covers the walls, muffling the sound until it’s just us. Well, us and Nero.

The big cat is curled up in his bed, looking miserable at all the commotion. He gives me a betrayed look as Memnon finally sets me down.

“I’m sorry,” I say defensively. “I didn’t know it was going to be like this.”

His tail twitches with annoyance.

Apology apparently not accepted.

“The woods are full of more of the same stuff. You can go out there, but you’re still going to be annoyed.”

That’s all the permission he needs. My familiar gets up from his bed and lithely leaps onto the windowsill.

“Just be careful. There are ghosts and werewolves and at least one douchey fairy out there. If anyone tries to get close, protect yourself.”

Nero glances back at me and blinks his amber-green eyes. It’s the only indication that he heard my words at all. Then, with a final flick of his tail, he leaps onto the oak tree outside, and then he’s gone.

I turn my attention back to Memnon, who’s already gazing at me with naked longing in his eyes. My skin is becoming uncomfortably hot again. I don’t know when the brew will eventually let up, and now trapped in this room with Memnon, our past is reaching for me from the grave.

“Stay with me tonight,” I repeat. “That…is an order.”

The command feels wrong, yet Memnon looks at me like a man who’s been given a second chance at life.

“Don’t read into this too deeply,” I caution. “Tonight—this is all just empty sex,” I insist, driving home my earlier point.

Memnon gives me a husky laugh as he closes the space between us. I tilt my head back to look at him, reminded all over again just how huge he is.

He leans in and presses a kiss to the point where my jaw meets my ear. “A lie you’d like to be true,” he breathes against my skin. His magic tugs at our clothes, pulling my dress up and over my head. He moves away from me while it comes off, his indigo magic removing his own attire.