Chapter Twenty-Nine
Drazien
Having her soft, curvy body beneath me was something I’d thought about innumerable times since I first saw her at the gala, wearing my color. To hear her tell me to claim her… it was a struggle not to slam into her and do exactly that.
“I don’t want to escape. I want you.”
Something in my chest clenched at her response. I wanted to bury myself in her until my knot kept us joined, and then I wanted to sink my teeth into the soft skin of her neck, binding us for eternity if the legends were right.
Instead I shifted my hips, dragging my shaft along the cleft between her thighs as I leaned down to press my lips to hers.
Kissing was a novelty, something the Morrak hadn’t done prior to the Torvakai claiming a Human, but I’d heard the whispers about my people trying it.
Seen the occasional couple attempting it.
They were changing us.
Kissing might seem minor, but I could understand the fear that Humans might change more fundamental parts of Morrakan. When Rhydek first assigned me to search out the whispers and hints of who was behind the attacks on the omegas, I had almost sympathized with them.
But when I pulled back to look down into Elaina’s glazed eyes, her round pupils no longer strange to me, I didn’t feel that way anymore. I could no longer excuse lashing out from fear. No longer keep myself emotionless when it was my mate who was in danger.
“Drazien, please.”
Her whisper had my shaft growing impossibly harder, and I couldn’t wait.
I shifted my hips until my tip caught in her entrance, then pressed forward.
I tried to force myself to go slow, the way she had in the River Caverns, but the feel of her hot wetness spreading around me had a snarl building in my chest, and I turned my head to bite into a pillow beside us as my claws ripped holes in the blankets.
Small hands grasped the sides of my face, tugging me until I released the pillow to look down at her.
“Stop wasting time.”
My hips jerked forward without permission. Elaina stiffened and gasped, making me freeze until she melted beneath me, slick gushing from her tight hole.
Her fingers scrabbled at my shoulders, pulling at me as her heels dug into the back of my thighs.
“More.”
Her demand was just as insistent as my instincts, urging me to hurry. To fill her, and knot her, and make her mine, but I didn’t want to go too fast and hurt her.
“I will give you everything you need, rethari. Patience.”
The sound she made was half groan, half gasp as I pushed deeper into her. Her channel fluttered around me, as if trying to pull me in more or push me out, but unable to decide which it wanted to do.
“This moment has to be perfect.”
Eyes that had fluttered shut opened again, pinning me as her lips pulled back with a growl.
“This moment has to happen. You’re going too slow. I won’t break.”
There were only so many challenges an alpha could ignore.
Covering her lips with mine, I thrust my tongue between her teeth and snapped my hips forward, swallowing her gasp. Without letting her up for air, I gripped her sides and altered our angle so I could press deeper into her while dragging along her front wall the way I’d discovered she liked.
Sliding one hand down to hitch her knee higher, I moved the other up to collar her throat as I ended our kiss.
“You want more, rethari? I’ll give you as much as you can handle.”
Her lips were parted, eyes wide as she panted. Her hands had moved to the sheets, curling into them as if they would give her purchase.
I withdrew before slamming forward again, her stretched opening kissing the edges of my knot. It had already started to swell, the sides bulging wider than the rest of my shaft. I needed to get it inside her before it grew too much more.
“You’re going to take all of me this time. Vorran and zulkar. We will be locked together until I’ve filled you with every drop of my seed.”
Her eyelids fluttered and started to close but I let out a snarl, forcing her to focus on me once more. Little whimpers spilled from her throat each time I forced myself deeper, but the fluttering of her channel and the slick spilling around my shaft told me it was pleasure, not pain.
She writhed against me, her body moving to the rhythm I set. Her hands left the bedding to grip my wrist, nails biting into my flesh, but the tiny pricks of pain only made me grin.
“Squeeze harder, rethari. You want more? Show me how much you want it.”
Her eyes were black under the dark red light spilling down from above, her pupils so large the brown and green was lost. When her lips peeled back the tinted light made it look like her teeth were coated in blood, and a shiver went down my spine that had my tail wriggling loose from the coil around her leg to join my shaft at her center.
The tip of it swiped up and down her folds as I plunged in and out of her, moving like my tongue did when I licked her. It circled her little nub, making her back arch and her eyelids flutter again, but a warning growl kept her eyes locked on mine.
“Show. Me.”
I punctuated the demand with hard thrusts, rocking her entire body. Cushions were falling off the edges of the nest, but I couldn’t worry about destroying it when I was focused on destroying her.
Her hands clenched, nails biting through the thin flesh on my inner wrist. I knew if I got anything near her bared teeth she would bite, and I was tempted to lean down and let her.
The thought of her mouth on me, biting, drawing blood, sent another shudder down my spine that made my knot swell more. If I didn’t get it into her before it grew much thicker, I wouldn’t be able to without causing damage.
I could never hurt her, so that meant I had to hurry.
I moved the knee I held higher, giving me more space to lean forward and slam into her.
Her other was clenched around me, pulling me into her each time I thrust. Wet sounds filled the space around us, and the scent of her slick and my leaking need combined into an intoxicating aroma that had me ready to spill before I completed my task.
“Almost there. Do you still want more?”
The edges of her eyes were starting to tighten. Her jaw was clenched, and my blood welled around her fingernails, but her pleasure was edging into something more uncomfortable.
A whine was all she could give me.
Sliding my index finger up along her neck until I could press it against her jaw, I forced her head to turn so I could lean over her and place a kiss just below her ear without the risk of her snapping at me.
“I want to give it to you. I will give it all to you. Just relax and let me in.”
Her throat moved under my palm as she swallowed. I licked out, tracing the edge of her ear with my tongue, and felt her shiver, a grin stretching my lips wide.
My hips never stopped moving, stopped pressing. The top portion of my knot could slip in and out of her, but she still had to take the widest portion.
Moving my tail away from her pleasure button, I pressed it against her other opening as I let my tongue trail down the side of her neck until it caught in the vee between my fingers. Lapping at her flesh, her moan vibrated into my hand before it reached my ears, only serving to make me harder.
“Let. Me. In.”
I growled the words into her ear, punctuating each with a thrust as my tail pushed harder. When it breached her tight ring I let my teeth drag against her skin as I pressed my knot into her.
Her moan slipped into a whine that grew higher in pitch the harder I pushed, but I didn’t let up. I was throbbing, ready to release the moment my knot ballooned, I just needed her to go with me.
My tail moved within her back passage, and I let her knee fall to the side so I could press my thumb to her bud. Her neck was slick with saliva from where I held my teeth against her, waiting for the instant I could claim her.
She was mine, and every planet in this galaxy and the next needed to see my mark on her and know she was claimed.
“Drazien…”
My name on her lips, uttered so close to my ear, had my hips snapping forward on instinct. My knot finally popped through her opening, lodging behind her pelvic bone and inflating so fast my head spun, but I was still aware enough to clench my jaw just that fraction more to pierce her skin.
Her blood flooded my mouth as the first spurt of my seed left me. Elaina jerked in my hold, screaming as her release rushed through her, but my grip on her jaw held her in place as I claimed her.
She was mine.
Mine.
And I was hers.
But even in the high of the moment, as euphoria flooded through me and a new warmth bloomed in my chest, there was a niggling reminder in the back of my mind that she still wasn’t safe.
The rebels were still out there, still a threat, and she was still planning to place herself in danger to help me catch them.
My eyes slid closed as I pulled my teeth from her neck and licked over the place I’d bitten. Begging Shaevrin to be kind, I slid my arms around my mate and rolled us over, because the plan that had seemed so logical before suddenly went against every instinct I had.
I had thought I could control the danger.
I had agreed to treat her as a partner.
But now I wanted to hide her away in the deepest tunnels I could to make sure no one ever found her and threatened her safety.