Chapter 25 Nico
NICO
Nico’s chest heaved. Onyx’s full-winged weight had every one of his muscles straining, but he never wanted to move. He held his demon tight, fingers digging into his hips, palm resting against Onyx’s bobbing Adam’s apple.
They caught their breath. With a tickle of magic, Onyx retracted his wings, the soft, warm feathers against Nico’s chest disappearing. Nico wrapped him in a tight embrace around the middle, clasping Onyx’s sticky cuffed hands.
“Whose are you?” Nico whispered in Onyx’s ear.
“Yours.”
Nico hummed. “Good boy.”
They stayed like that until Nico began to slip out of Onyx. He kissed Onyx’s neck, then gently dropped him forward.
Nico leaned down and massaged Onyx’s tattooed back, finding him loose and relaxed. “I’m going to uncuff you now.”
“Okay.” Onyx sounded floaty, if a little disappointed.
“I’m releasing you so I can hold you better. Not to let you go. That’s what I said I’d do. Remember?”
Onyx made a soft sound of assent.
Nico quickly undid the ankle restraints and pushed the chains out of the way before massaging each of Onyx’s ankles, giving him the attention he deserved regardless of his demon endurance or healing.
Onyx’s tail remained flushed a deep lavender. Nico spread his ass cheeks to inspect his messy hole. Fuck, the tight skin of his pucker was lavender too.
If Nico was hard, he’d slip right back inside. He pressed two fingers in, and Onyx moaned, his tail arching out of the way in invitation.
“You’ll never be satisfied, will you?”
Onyx tilted his hips up. “Do I need to be?”
“No.” Nico withdrew his fingers, an idea hitting him. “Don’t move.”
He climbed off the bed and pulled a plug from the trunk. Back behind Onyx, he aligned it with Onyx’s pretty purple hole and slid it inside, the pink jewel at the plug’s base perfectly complementing Onyx’s complexion.
Onyx squirmed and made a throaty sound, like a purr. Nico’s heart fluttered. He flipped Onyx onto his back and uncuffed his hands, then arranged them on a clean section of the bed so he could massage each of Onyx’s wrists.
Onyx curled against him, nestling into the crook of Nico’s neck. Nico held him firmly, their legs tangled, and that deep throaty sound started up again.
Nico was right, Onyx was purring like a cat. He hadn’t been aware demons did that.
What a sound.
Moisture tickled the corners of Nico’s eyes. His mate was safe and happy and purring. The connection growing between them was as alive as ever, sated rather than raging, but not dormant. Nico had never belonged to someone like this, or been so in sync with anyone.
It was like coming home.
Nico drifted, basking in Onyx’s purring contentment, as soothed as his mate. Relaxed down to his bones.
“Thank you,” Onyx murmured after a while.
Nico squeezed him. “My pleasure.”
Onyx snorted. “It damn well better be.”
“How are you feeling?”
Onyx wiggled around to look at Nico. “Calm. Safe. Really fucking good.”
Nico’s face split into a grin.
“Smug bastard.” Onyx shoved Nico’s shoulder. “Don’t get cocky. I’ll probably turn around and freak out about the next thing in record time.”
“Bring it on. You don’t have to be perfect. In fact, you better not be, or I’ll feel like the weak link in the bond.”
Onyx narrowed his eyes. “Neither of us is weak.”
“No. We’re not.” Nico’s stomach flipped. “So…what happens now?” He understood what Harper meant when he’d said he couldn’t imagine waiting to mate. Nico was ready.
Onyx hesitated. “Do you mean now that we’ve admitted we’re mates?”
Nico nodded, holding his breath.
“Mates…” Onyx bit his lip. “My anger over what the quest for mates did to my relationship with Luc and the others was the reason I never wanted one. But all that feels irrelevant. Finding you is about us, nothing else. That baggage can’t touch our bond. I want you more than anything.”
The hairs on the back of Nico’s neck stood, tingles racing down his spine. “I want you too.”
Onyx’s brow furrowed. “Are you sure? You said you didn’t want immortality.”
“I didn’t.” Nico didn’t see this as choosing immortality.
He tried to explain. “Like you said, it’s about us.
I’m choosing you. I want you however I can have you.
For as long as I can have you. I never wanted to be a vampire, living forever bound to a sire, and eternal life itself had no appeal, but that’s not what this is. ”
“You’re right, it’s not. You’ll be bound to me far more tightly than you would have been to any vampire.”
“That’s not a drawback. I want to see you Onyx. I know what I’m getting into. The bond’s already there. I can feel it. Can’t you?”
Onyx’s eyes sparked, and he gave a tiny nod.
Nico’s heart stuttered. “I want more, not less. No less than all of you.”
It finally seemed to sink in. Onyx’s eyes turned shiny, his lips parting. “Me too. You’ve been calling to me since we met, I just couldn’t see it for what it was.”
Nico pulled Onyx tight against him. “Same, and I don’t want to hold back. You don’t have to be ready, but I’m all in. Whenever you want to mate, tell me, and we’ll do it.”
Emotions twisted Onyx’s face. “I want to mate you now. I never imagined going from indifferent to craving the bond so fast, but I guess that’s the nature of the beast. I need to claim you, Nico. To mark my territory. Make sure you can’t get away. And keep you safe.”
Nico’s stomach dropped. He’d come too close to death, and he hated that he still had to deal with the fallout. “I want you to keep me safe, too. I was terrified, and fucking heartbroken when it seemed like I wasn’t your mate after all.”
Onyx cupped Nico’s cheek. “I can’t have you heartbroken. Let me put your mind at ease, hmm?”
The sinking feeling fled. Nico’s chest was full and warm, as if Onyx’s demon fire had found its way into his heart. “Yes, mate me, Onyx. I’m yours.”
Onyx pulled him into a kiss, licking into Nico’s mouth. Nico opened, savoring the sweet taste of Onyx’s tongue and the lingering hint of sex. He ran a hand through Onyx’s hair, and Onyx’s fingers flexed against his jaw.
Their kisses were languid and sloppy, neither of them in a hurry. Yes. This was what Nico needed. Warm panting breaths, orchids and sweet wine, his mate’s warm skin rubbing him everywhere.
Onyx tipped his head back, and his fangs lengthened. He purred and scraped them along Nico’s jaw. Nico’s pulse pounded in his ears, begging for Onyx’s bite.
He didn’t know the process for mating, but had a hunch.
“Bite me, little butterfly.”
Onyx rumbled, purring until it turned into a growl. He pushed Nico flat on his back, tilted Nico’s head to the side, and kissed his exposed neck. “I’m going to keep you forever.”
“Yes.” Nico arched beneath him, and Onyx bit down.
Pleasure bloomed in Nico’s blood. He gasped and hugged Onyx close. Their hips rocked together, bodies connecting in a sweet rhythm, dancing in time with Nico’s pounding pulse.
Onyx drank, purring deeper than ever, his hands tight in Nico’s thick hair.
Nico was breathless. Onyx called to him, pulling him closer, their magic twisting together.
Onyx withdrew his fangs on a moan, his head tilting back as he licked the last of Nico’s blood from his lips.
Nico rolled them, positioning himself on top. Onyx’s eyes burned, and his face bloomed in a beautiful patchwork of color. He tilted his head to the side and ran a sharp nail along his skin, drawing blood. Nico leaned in and licked, then sucked.
It was more intimate than tonguing Onyx’s ass. More intimate than drinking his blood in The Herb Emporium. Their souls connected, and Nico felt Onyx’s delicate joy echo his own.
Onyx began to chant, the language as melodic as a song. Nico’s whole body came alive. How had he ever doubted belonging to Onyx? As their connection solidified, it became hard to remember his doubt.
Nothing in Nico’s life had given the impression it was meant to be, yet this moment rang with the magic of something that had been coming for a long, long time.
He pulled back as Onyx finished the incantation, and their lips were drawn back together. Nico tasted citrus on Onyx’s tongue, and fizzles of joy coursed through his blood—through Onyx’s blood—against their skin, and deep within them.
They were bound together.
Onyx’s tender kernel of happiness tickled Nico along the bond. Onyx’s lingering fear and worry prickled, and all the trepidation he had about letting Nico in swelled between them.
Nico loved every single feeling with all his heart.
“I feel you,” Onyx gasped between kisses.
“Then you know that I love you, little butterfly.”
A swell of deep affection—Onyx’s emotions—drowned out all other sensations and enveloped them like a tidal wave.
“I love you too, Nico.”