Chapter 4 Aurora #2
“So wet.” He tugged at my suit to trail fervent kisses toward where neck met collarbone. His teeth scraped my skin, marking me. “I want to bury myself inside you, Aurora.”
I gasped at the shock of pleasure as his finger found my wetness. Ecstasy speared my center and boiled in my core. “You’re such a romantic.”
His other hand kneaded my breast. “Would you prefer poetry and courtship, Your Royal Highness?”
I laughed and pressed against his hand, inhaling the electrifying scent of him.
The thought of this dangerous, powerful man composing sonnets was absurd.
But his use of the formal title, even teasingly, made me realize something.
He wasn’t the captain anymore—Harbinger with his cold distance and barbed comebacks.
This was Radu, the man who touched me like I mattered.
“No, honesty suits you better.” Especially when that honesty came wrapped in raw need focused entirely on me.
“Good—because I intend to fuck you, princess, and I will fuck you hard.” He thrust two fingers deep inside me just as his fangs pierced my skin again.
Oh. My. God.
A helpless whimper escaped me as I bared my throat to him, yielding completely. The sensations coursing through my body set me ablaze. I was standing at the edge of an awakening volcano. Responding to Radu’s command, I was merely the vessel for his hunger.
“Let go,” he commanded, brushing his lips to the sensitive cord of my neck. “Give me all of you.”
Sharp, consuming pleasure made the decision for me. Radu claimed my mouth in a fierce kiss, our tongues hunting for sensation even as his fingers moved in quick, merciless thrusts.
I shattered around him, my inner muscles clenching so violently it bordered on pain.
As the waves subsided, I felt him tugging my suit down over my hips. The fabric bunched around my boots. Cold droplets peppered my bare back, but my skin burned so fiercely they might as well have landed on scorching coals.
The sound of his pants opening sent my pulse galloping. Then Radu repositioned my hands against the rough bark, spread my legs as far as the constraining fabric would allow, and aligned himself with my entrance.
“Final warning, Aurora. Tell me to stop.”
A snort tickled the back of my throat at his belated attempt at restraint. Instead of answering, I pushed back against him, and took him in.
The stretch was divine, but his deep groan rumbling against my back was what sent shivers down my spine.
Something fragile blossomed between us, a link that felt like finding something I hadn’t known was missing.
Whatever this had started as—punishment, release, desperation—we were equals now, locked in this moment together.
As his warm fingers traced along my ribs, tremors followed. Then he settled his hands on my hips and thrust into me, sheathing himself to the hilt.
I gasped his name.
Radu withdrew only to drive forward again and again. Fierce. Tireless. Possessive. He claimed me with every powerful slide, sending shockwaves of pleasure down to my curling toes.
His scent surrounded me in silky veils, tempting me with the velvety petals of a dark rose infused in sweet coffee. A desperate thirst rose within me. The need to taste him was absolute.
“Don’t stop,” I gasped, climbing toward magnificent heights.
A grunt vibrated in his chest as I tightened around him. The way our bodies molded together, as if Dark Father himself had designed us to fit this way, enforced this feeling of righteousness between us.
“Fuck, you’ll be the death of me,” he rasped as his fingers curled around my throat, pulling me flush with his body, while his other arm wound around my waist, anchoring me to him.
He spread my legs wider, wider… until my suit protested and split the seams. But still, I couldn’t find it in me to care. I was his and he was mine.
Then his mouth found my neck again, his fangs breaking skin once more, and the world beyond us ceased to exist. I shifted beneath him, lost in the dual sensations as he pounded and fed, overwhelming every thought except one: here, with him, I was exactly where I belonged.
Flashes of his thoughts—extreme pleasure, frustration, fear—rolled inside my head too quickly to make sense of them. He had been blocking me from entering his mind, but his pleasure weakened his grip on his defenses.
“Fuck, she feels like heaven… can’t get enough… shouldn’t want this… shouldn’t need her…”
His powerful body covered mine, and I sensed every sinew and muscle tensing with each controlled thrust. His varcolac heat radiated through me, turning my thoughts to smoke in the wake of impending release.
I drowned in the sensation, unable to surface, unwilling to try.
“Mine,” his thoughts whispered inside my head.
I arched beneath him as ecstasy ruined me, my body contracting around him, desperate to draw him deeper and never let go. The rhythmic pulses of my climax wrung a guttural sound from his throat that reverberated through his chest and into mine. Our frequencies aligned.
But as his control slipped in the wake of my release, his mental barriers wavered. The world around us blurred and shifted, replaced by images flickering through our Blood Pact connection. Not my memories, but his.
I saw through Radu’s eyes. I—he—was crouched behind a column in a grand hall.
The architecture appeared familiar: the distinctive stone walls, the Republic banners, the ornate marble pillars that depicted the faces of our Creators.
The colossal chamber of the Tribunal looked different somehow, less worn by decades of use.
A muscled arm stretched out protectively. Radu crouched behind one marble column, his hand clasped over his younger brother’s mouth. Conin, who was a couple of years younger than the last time I saw him.
The memory shifted focus to the center of the hall, where a man who looked exactly like Radu faced three imposing figures in Council robes.
Same angular features, same platinum hair, same powerful build.
Their father. Beside him stood a woman of breathtaking elegance, with raven-black hair cascading over her shoulders, the classic features of an original pureblood.
Radu had inherited his father’s face, but his unique eyes were a gift from both parents—citron rimmed with his mother’s red bleeding inward in tiny flecks.
“—promised safe passage for all mixed-breeds,” their father was saying in the same commanding tone I knew so well. “The detention camps were supposed to be temporary.”
“It’s been three years, councilors,” his mother added, maintaining the perfect poise I’d been taught at court. “Our people are dying behind those fences”—she pointed viciously with her manicured hand—”while you debate politics. Children, elders—dying of disease, starvation, despair.”
Elder Armand stepped forward, his silver-and-onyx hair shorter but his angular face unmistakable. “The situation is complex, Lord and Lady Lowe. These relocations take time to implement properly, it would be premature to rush the process before all facets are aligned appropriately.”
“Relocations?” she asked, and I felt young Conin’s terror spike through the memory as her voice rose. “You mean extermination. We know what’s really happening. The mass killings, the unmarked graves—”
“You’re mistaken,” Elder Viktor interrupted. “Perhaps you should reconsider such inflammatory accusations. We wouldn’t want matters to escalate unnecessarily.”
Behind the pillar, Radu tightened his arms around his brother as the three councilors moved away from his parents. Their voices dropped to urgent whispers, but both brothers could hear every damning word.
“She knows too much,” wiry Elder Nicolae hissed. “If word spreads about the real purpose of the camps, we’ll have riots on our hands.”
“The cleansing initiative cannot be exposed,” Armand agreed quietly. “Not when we’ve come so far.”
“Handle it,” Viktor said with flat indifference. “All of them. Tonight.”
Cold dread pooled in my stomach as the terrible truth sank in.
Radu had told me the Republic executed his parents, but I’d assumed there had been a trial, charges, some semblance of justice.
All executions were public affairs, the condemned’s crimes read aloud to gathered crowds, their sins catalogued for history.
But this… this was assassination. Murder in the shadows to silence inconvenient truths.
The horrific memory warped and fractured.
Radu’s physical pleasure had overwhelmed his mental defenses, but I felt his consciousness fighting to suppress the vision even as his body surrendered to climax.
His ecstasy and the echo of ancient terror crashed through our connection in devastating waves.
Then the vision shattered completely as Radu’s release finally claimed him, his mental walls slamming back into place.
I gasped, dropping back into my own body.
The forest, the rain, his weight against me—everything rushed back, and I resurfaced.
His movements stuttered, then stopped. I felt his jaw clench, teeth still embedded in my flesh, and realized he had no idea what I’d witnessed. The secret he’d guarded so carefully had spilled through the Blood Pact without his knowledge or permission.
My limbs felt heavy, my muscles liquefied. I collapsed against him, shaking and boneless, surrendering completely as the final pulses subsided.
Sweet. Dark. Father. Almighty.
But even as pleasure ebbed, that horrible memory burned in my mind. High-ranking councilors—men who still held power in my Republic—had ordered his family’s assassination for threatening to expose the truth.
The knowledge sat like acid in my stomach; it warred with the lingering euphoria of our connection. Part of me wanted to pull away, to process this earth-shattering revelation, but another part craved the escape only he could provide.