9. Marked #3
Canyon came inside him. The sensation was extraordinary, hot, voluminous, the pulses of cum flooding his interior with a warmth that spread outward from the point of contact like a detonation, each jet accompanied by a thrust that buried Canyon's cock impossibly deeper, sealing the release inside him like a brand, like a signature written on his body's most intimate surface.
Canyon's roar was feral and vast, resonating in the stones of the lodge, and his teeth, extended, sharp, visible in the firelight, grazed the back of Jace's neck without breaking skin, the restraint absolute even in the extremity of release.
They stayed locked together for a long time, Canyon's cock still buried, still pulsing with aftershocks, the combined mess of their release warm between them and dripping from Jace's body in slow, viscous threads.
Canyon's forehead rested between Jace's shoulder blades, and his breathing was ragged, the first time Jace had ever heard him breathe hard, the first evidence that even a vampire's composure had limits, and that Jace Warren was those limits.
"He'll smell this," Canyon murmured against Jace's skin. "On every cell. In every breath. He'll know."
***
They cleaned up in Canyon's quarters, the silence between them heavy with satiation and the intimacy of shared vulnerability.
Jace's body ached in new ways, the stretch still present, a deep, warm pulse that he knew he'd feel tomorrow, a physical memory of Canyon inside him that nothing could erase.
After, Canyon cleaned him with a warm cloth that he'd heated by the fire, the gesture so tender it made Jace's chest ache with a sweetness that bordered on pain.
The vampire's hands, which could crush stone and had destroyed revenants and held the line against forces that would have broken anything less, were impossibly gentle as they wiped away the evidence of what they'd done.
He pressed kisses to each bruise, each mark, each place where his hunger had left its signature on Jace's skin, the dark circles on his neck, the fingerprints on his hips, the reddened skin where stubble had scraped.
"You're beautiful," Canyon murmured against the bruise at his throat, his lips impossibly soft over the tender skin. "Every mark. Every sound you made. You're so beautiful, and you're mine, and I will spend every night of whatever forever we have showing you what that means."
The deep, satisfied ache in his body, the evidence of being thoroughly, completely had, was a feeling Jace suspected he could learn to love.
The physical proof of their connection written on his body's most intimate geography, legible only to the two of them, a private language of pressure and warmth and the tender soreness that said: I was here.
I chose this. I am claimed and I am claiming and the distinction doesn't matter because the result is the same: belonging.
Canyon dressed him. Not because Jace couldn't dress himself, but because the act of pulling a shirt over Jace's head, of buckling his belt, of pressing a kiss to his forehead before stepping back, these were rituals, small ceremonies of possession and protection that spoke in the language vampires understood: claimed, cared for, defended.
They returned to the great hall. Reed was standing at the window, a shuttered panel cracked open to a two-inch gap, and his expression, when he turned to face them, carried the gravity of bad news delivered by a man who does not waste words on trivia.
"There's someone in the clearing," Reed said.
Canyon was at the window in a blink, one arm pushing Jace behind him in a gesture so instinctive it preceded conscious thought.
Through the gap in the shutters, the clearing was visible in moonlight, silver and black, the trees casting long shadows across the trampled earth, the fire pit cold and dark.
Tall. Lean. Dressed in dark clothing that moved with the wind like a second skin.
Hair the color of old gold, swept back from a face that was beautiful in the way a blade is beautiful, precise, lethal, every line serving a purpose.
And even from fifty feet away, through a two-inch gap in a shuttered window, Jace could see the smile.
It was exactly as Canyon had described. Warm. Charming. Designed to make you feel seen.
It was the smile of something that had already decided what it wanted and was simply enjoying the anticipation.
Canyon's body had gone rigid beside him. His hand found Jace's in the dark, and the grip was not gentle, it was desperate, the grip of a man holding onto the edge of a cliff.
"Lucien," Canyon breathed. And the name fell into the silence like a match into gasoline.
The figure in the clearing raised one hand in a slow, elegant wave.
The smile widened. And even from this distance, even through the gap in the shutters, Jace felt the force of that smile land on him like a spotlight, warm, focused, intimate, as if Lucien knew exactly where he was standing, exactly who he was standing beside, and found the entire arrangement delightful.
Canyon's grip tightened on Jace's hand until the bones creaked.
The rival had arrived.
And he was smiling at Jace.