Saint
My knuckles sink beneath Dagon’s ribs, the blow hard enough to make him huff.
Dagon quickly dodges my second attempt, the two of us locked in a training session that’s lasted over an hour. He drew the short straw out of the group because no one wanted to volunteer to train with me with the mood I’m in.
The mood I’ve been in since we came out of stasis. It only worsened after Samuel’s betrayal—him imprisoning me and kidnapping the princess. It got even worse after we’d found Aurora, and worse still after he’d threatened Aurora again. Claiming that mark on her neck was his, not mine.
My deepest fear. My biggest regret.
She deserves so much better than me. Certainly, better than him. And that phone number he slipped in my pocket did nothing in the way to help us track his location. Ransom had tried everything, but it was untraceable.
“Try to remember I’m not your enemy, will you?” Dagon lands a hit to my gut, and I double over.
The momentary shock has my mind flashing. Visions overtake everything else—me in a Victorian suit, Aurora in a red dress with corsets and skirts I haven’t seen in ages. My fingers are steady as I untie the corset slowly, dragging out the moment—
A hard crack to my jaw has my head snapping to the right.
“Where are you at?” Dagon retreats after the hit, my focus coming back to him.
“Right here.” I advance, my bare feet barely touching the mat in the training room as I lunge for Dagon.
He escapes my attack, but just barely. Fucker used his wind abilities to push me just a hair to the left.
“Cheater,” I grumble.
He laughs. “I like my head right where it is, thank you very much. You look like you’re about to tear it clean off.” He glances behind me. “Talon, come over here and help me.”
I whirl around, noticing my shifter friend watching from the other side of the room. His eyes flash that animalistic yellow for a moment before he shakes his head. “I promised Cassandra I’d be presentable for repast tonight. She’d kill me. Or he might, from the looks of him.”
I flip Talon off, then focus on Dagon again.
“Two can play that power game,” I fire back.
“You know that right?” I reach for my ability, more than ready to fill his head with a vision that will render him useless.
I can make him live out his biggest fear—him locked in a concrete room with no access to the elements he loves so much.
But instead of connecting with that reality, my power links straight to the one from before—I’ve untied Aurora’s corset and her dress pools at her feet. She’s in dark lace stockings, flimsy garter belts attached to ruffled underwear, and a matching brassiere barely holds back her luscious breasts.
Another hit to my face has me shifting back to the present. Dagon drops his balled-up fists. “You’re not here. You’re somewhere else. Perhaps with the redhead upstairs?”
I blink a few times, unable to stop shifting from him to the period scene and back. Why am I seeing this?
“Saint,” he says, sympathy coating his tone as he steps closer to me.
“You know you’re my brother too, right? I know you.
Whether you want to admit it or not. I understand why you’ve got walls.
The secret you had to bear, the vow you made your dying mother to protect Samuel at all costs, even from himself.
I can’t imagine walking that line alone. The weight of it.”
It feels like that weight crushes my lungs.
“You have more reason than any one of us to keep everyone at a distance,” he continues.
“To fear bonding yourself wholly and completely to someone else and have it end up in betrayal again. And I’m the one who always said having a mate would be a weakness or something hunters should never have due to the severity of our jobs, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Clearly.” He visibly swallows. “You know I’ll always back you.
No matter what you decide. But, check your instincts. What are they telling you?”
The familiar battle to fight every urge I have creeps up the second I even think about allowing myself to feel anything.
More regency-era scenes play out in my mind like a movie, starring myself and Aurora. It sets my blood on fire. I focus on those visions invading my mind, realizing exactly why it’s happening.
“I…” I snap my eyes open, glancing from Dagon to Talon and back again. “I have to go.”
I race toward Aurora’s rooms, leaving a startled Dagon and Talon behind. I fly though her door, slamming it closed behind me.
“What the fuck are you reading?” The words wrench out of me, my breathing harsh and uneven, like I’ve just gotten out of a battle.
And I have. A battle with myself. A battle to keep Aurora safe from me.
But fate has other ideas, apparently.
“How did you know I was reading?” She shifts on the bed where she lounges, the book opened on her lap, her eyes round and wide as she looks up at me.
“Because…” I step closer to the bed, my body flooding with the demands of the bond I can feel growing and stretching inside me. The one I’ve kept buried for far too long. “You’re. Mine.”
I haul her off the bed, needing her in my arms. “Tell me,” I demand. “Tell me you want this.” I gently grip her chin in my fingers.
She looks up at me, and I swear I could die from that look alone. A look I don’t feel I deserve, but one I’m no longer okay ignoring. “I’ve been telling you all along,” she says, a little smile on those luscious lips. “I’m yours.”
I kiss her. Hard, and with intent, before jerking my mouth back. The mask is off. Leash too. She wants me? She’s going to get every ounce I possess. “Against the wall.”
Aurora only hesitates for a fraction of a second before she rushes to the closest wall.
“Face it,” I demand.
She spins around.
“Palms flat. Don’t drop them.”
A whimper escapes her lips as she does what she’s told.
My cock aches against my zipper, but I take my time prowling up behind her.
Fuck me, it feels like I’m on a hunt and I’ve locked onto the sweetest fucking prey.
I drag my finger down the bare skin of her arm, across her ribs, and linger on her hip, my touch explorative.
I’ve had her, tasted her, but I’ll never get enough.
Never be sated. She’s the breath I need to survive.
One quick movement, and the flimsy silk shorts and tank covering her body rip, fluttering to the floor leaving her deliciously bare to me. “Don’t move.”
The only move she makes is the rise and fall of her slight shoulders as she breathes. I slowly strip out of my clothes, taking my time to relish her in this vulnerable position. Her body is gorgeous, from her luscious strawberry hair to the curve of her hips down to her painted toes.
“Such a good little mate,” I say, stepping into her space.
She gasps as I sweep down, kissing along the column of her spine.
I palm the globes of her ass, smoothing my hand over each delicate cheek.
I lightly smack one, turning her pale skin rosy.
She whimpers with delight, arching farther into my touch.
I reward her other cheek before slipping my hand between her thighs.
My fingers hit her wet heat and I go absolutely feral for her.
“You like that, don’t you? You like this part of me? The one I’ve kept leashed?” I stroke through her heat, relishing the way she drenches my fingers. She’s aching, her muscles locked to keep her in place against the wall.
She dares a slight turn of her head to look down at me. “I love every part of you, Saint. Every version. I want all of you.”
Fuck. Me.
I kiss the raised red skin of her ass, worshiping both sides as I pump my fingers into her, alternating by teasing the apex of her thighs. I tease her swollen clit until she’s writhing on my hand.
“Come on my fingers,” I demand, nipping her cheek before upping the pace of my hand.
“Saint,” she gasps, rocking into my touch, chasing that pleasure until she falls over the edge, clenching around my fingers so tightly I almost come too.
I manage to stop myself, thanks only to my endless practice of willpower.
Slowly, I slide my hand from her thighs and stand up, laying kisses along her back as I position myself behind her.
Dragging my lips over the side of her neck, I pull her back against my chest. She wiggles that ass against what is hard and ready for her.
“I’ve loved you from the second I laid eyes on you,” I whisper into her ear. “I don’t know why fate tied you to me. But as long as you want me, I’m going to give you everything I am.”
“Saint,” she says my name again, this time a plea.
“Fate knew exactly what it was doing pairing me to you. Bonding me to you. And even if it hadn’t, I would’ve bonded to you myself, because you’re the only safe space I’ve found my entire life.
The only one who makes me feel alive. Makes life worth living. ”
I capture her mouth, kissing her over her shoulder, while gliding my thick head through her wetness. Fire lashes through me at the first tease, at the way she rocks back into it, desperate and hungry for me.
“Keep your hands there,” I demand when she reaches for me. She hurries back to position.
“Good little mate,” I growl into her ear, dropping my hands to her hips as I line up my cock with her hot, slick entrance. “Ready?”
“More than,” she breathes the words.
I plunge into her. Hard and fast and without preamble.
Her moan of pleasure is music to my ears as I pull out and do it again, gripping her tightly as I pump into her.
She smacks the wall with her palm when I keep my pace agonizingly slow, doing my best to draw out the pleasure to a sharp knifes edge.
“You feel like heaven taking me,” I say, kissing her shoulder. “Like silk and fire, Auroa.” I pump into her faster. “You’re mine. Mine to fuck. Mine to please. Mine to care for.”
“Yes,” she sighs. “God, yes. Just keep doing that.”
I grin, holding onto the fast pace, pumping into her with oblivion I rarely allow myself. The chains are off, so she’s getting every scary strong side of me. She’s taking my orders, taking my pleasure-laced pain, and giving it right back to me.
“Can I touch you?”
“What a kind question,” I growl. “Yes.”
She reaches down and grabs one of my hands from her hip. She draws it up, dragging my hand along her body, over her breasts, and up—
“Ah!” I groan as she sinks her fangs into me, the attack quick and surprising. My cock hardens another degree, and I pound into her at vampire speeds.
“Yes,” she says against my flesh before returning to drinking me down again. “Saint, I’m coming.”
She flutters around my cock, the sensation so fucking sweet it shoves me right over the edge.
Tingles erupt from the base of my spine, rocketing up and out of me as I spill inside her.
My fangs sink into the soft flesh of her shoulder, her blood flooding my mouth with her pleasure-soaked flavor.
I drink and drink, my vision blotting out for a few moments as I swallow her down.
“You’re perfect,” I say, licking her wounds closed.
“Perfect for you,” she says, spinning around after she’s closed mine too.
I look down at her, swiping my thumb over her full bottom lip, and nod. “Perfect for me.” I grin at her, then throw her over my shoulder, and whisk her to the bed.