Chapter 13 The Final Claim
The Final Claim
Callista
Ihad never been to the Weavers’ Hall, the grand building the Asphodelian Moirae used as their throne room. Theron had told me this was where they made all their judgments, where the duel for my hand had been decided on.
To this day, I didn’t know how I felt about that, but I did know this. I wasn’t scared.
The hall stretched before us like something from a dream.
The Loom of Fate rose twenty feet toward the ceiling, its frame carved from bone and petrified wood.
Threads of light wove between its supports, moving without any visible hands to guide them.
And next to it, three familiar figures were waiting.
Clotho welcomed us with a smile that lit up her eternally youthful face. “Approach, children.”
We walked the length of the hall hand in hand, our footsteps echoing off stone walls. With each step, the Loom’s humming grew louder, resonating in my chest like a second heartbeat. “Thank you for welcoming us today, Revered Moirae,” Theron rumbled with a low bow.
Lachesis shook her head. “You don’t need to thank us. If you are here, you only need to be grateful to each other.”
Atropos emerged from the Loom’s shadow. “It’s never easy, to step from one world to another. Callista of Agrion, you stood at a crossroads. We saw it. But you’ve made your choice, and so has Theron. Now, here you stand, together, and your path forward is clear.”
The brand on my hand pulsed, and I saw Theron’s chest glow with answering light. Our connection knew that today, we’d finally make things right.
“Complete your bond with our witness and protection.” Atropos gestured toward the space before the Loom. “Claim each other fully, as is your right.”
The blessing settled over us like a protective cloak.
Simple words, but they carried the power to shield our union from any future challenge.
No one in Asphodelia would dare contest what the Moirae themselves had sanctioned.
Not that there was any risk of that happening now, after what Theron had done.
Theron turned to face me, his amber eyes blazing with hunger and reverence. “Are you certain?”
My breath caught, but I met his gaze without flinching. “I’ve never been more certain of anything.”
I meant every word. No matter what had happened, no matter what anyone had said or done, I’d always trusted Theron. He was mine, as I was his. I had to make him see.
Unlike the first time we’d been together, I didn’t wait for him to tell me to disrobe. I didn’t even care that the Moirae were still somewhere in the room, watching. I took his clawed hands and placed them on my shoulders.
Theron was pliant and quiet, almost as if he couldn’t believe what I was doing. When I used his claws to sever the bindings of my dress, his nostrils flared. “Callista…”
I knelt before him, my breath uneven, my heart pounding. His frame filled my vision, his shoulders rippling with muscle under his thick fur. I wanted him undone. I wanted to taste the proof of what he was and make it mine.
“Let me,” I whispered, and slid my hands down the powerful lines of his thighs. His cock throbbed hot against my palm, impossibly thick, crowned with ridges that made me shiver just from touching.
I leaned forward, kissed the heated length of him, the sharp, musky taste of his arousal blooming over my tongue. His whole body jolted, and I’d never felt more powerful in my life.
I took more of him, inch by inch, my lips stretching around the thick width. As I pushed myself deeper, my eyes watered and my jaw ached. But gods, the sound he made. It was a strangled, broken snarl that vibrated straight through my chest, and made me desperate for more.
I hollowed my cheeks, worked him with my tongue, and let him feel my devotion in every slow, hungry stroke. Blue-white sparks filled the air, dancing harmlessly across my skin as his restraint began to crack.
“You’re going to drive me insane,” he rasped, voice breaking with need.
I couldn’t reply, not through words, so I settled on bobbing my head up and down his shaft.
He snarled so loud it shook the Loom’s threads, but he was still holding back.
He trembled with the need to claim, to mark, to sink into me until nothing separated us.
I desperately needed him to follow that urge.
I released him with a gasp, saliva shining on my lips, and met his wild, desperate gaze. “I want everything you are. Your heat. Your claws. Your bite. I want it all, Theron.”
He went still, like the pause before an inferno consumes everything. Then he moved, seizing me with terrifying strength and terrifying gentleness all at once, flipping me onto all fours.
The stone under my palms was cool, the air molten. His massive body loomed behind me, the heat of his arousal pressed against my slick entrance. My heart hammered. Not from fear, but anticipation so sharp it made my skin prickle.
When he pushed inside, I cried out, clutching the floor.
He stretched me wide, filling me until it felt like he split me apart, claimed me from the inside out.
Fire licked at my thighs, curling around my waist, without burning me.
Hotter than it had been before his transformation, yes, but still his, and still mine.
He thrust deep, relentless, each snap of his hips driving me forward. My breasts dragged against the stone, my body arching, my soul strung taut between pleasure and worship.
Every part of him overwhelmed me. His weight pushing me down, the scrape of his claws braced near my shoulders, the heat rolling off his fur. He was destruction incarnate, fire and fangs and hunger. And still he moved with control, each brutal thrust somehow reverent.
The incomplete bond between us flared to life, and suddenly I was experiencing more than just physical sensation.
Memories flooded my consciousness, but not my own.
I felt Theron’s shock when he’d first found me dying in that blood-soaked clearing, the instant recognition that crashed through him like lightning.
His certainty that I was the missing piece of his soul, the answer to years of searching.
In return, my own memories flowed to him.
My shame over being barren, the crushing weight of believing myself fundamentally broken.
The moment in Agrion when I’d accepted death, convinced I was too flawed to deserve life.
My amazement when I’d awakened in a world that valued what my village had seen as a curse.
“Yes,” I gasped, voice breaking. “Don’t hold back. I want all of you.”
He snarled my name, his hot breath panting against the nape of my neck. His fangs grazed my skin, and I arched into it, offering him everything I was.
The Loom’s threads screamed around us, lightning crackling through the chamber.
His thrusts grew ragged, and more memories cascaded between us.
The transformation into his three-headed form, embracing his true nature to protect what mattered most. My relief when his touch had restored my stolen memories, the overwhelming rightness of choosing him even when I couldn’t remember why.
Guilt, terror, devotion, and finally, pure and simple acceptance.
“Mine,” he growled.
“Yours,” I cried out. “Always and forever yours.”
As he sank his fangs into my throat, pleasure exploded through me, violent and devastating. The brand blazed to life on my hand, no longer faint, but searing bright. Climax tore through me, and our souls fused completely in that moment of perfect union.
He roared into my flesh as he came. As his seed flooded me, the Loom’s threads knotted around us so tightly I knew nothing could sever them.
When it finally ebbed, we collapsed together, with Theron curling protectively around me. He licked the wound at my neck, his growl softer now, tender, almost a purr.
The brand on my hand glowed warm, steady, like a second heartbeat. Permanent. Irrevocable. No law could undo this mark, no politics could challenge it. Not even the lake, or Thanatos’s power. I belonged to him as completely as he belonged to me.
When he raised his head, his eyes blazed with possession and devotion. “My mate. My soul. My everything.”
The claiming bite pulsed with warmth, a constant reminder of our binding. Our souls were finally and forever complete. The three Moirae watched us with expressions of satisfaction, their work finished.
“It is done.” Clotho clasped her hands together before the now-peaceful Loom. “The claiming is sealed by fate itself. Let none challenge what the Loom has bound.”
The chamber quieted. My pulse slowed, still tethered to his. And for the first time, I felt whole. Not because he completed me, but because in his worship, his claiming, his fire, he saw me whole already.