13. The Devourer
THE DEVOURER
Shock. Rage. Lust. I’m not sure which of them is controlling me right now as midnight-colored fur sprouts up my arms and my nose lengthens into a snout. My fangs descend, and I give a beastly howl.
My mate is trying to leave me.
She’s trying to leave .
My clothing shreds as my monster form grows larger than I’ve ever been before—so large that the top of my skull knocks against the twelve-foot-high doorframe. My chest thumps erratically as if there’s a giant fist instead of a heart inside and it’s beating me to death.
I stare down at my little mate. At her wayward tangle of black and white hair, the furious set of her plush lips, and the narrow heat of her gaze as she brandishes a weapon at me.
What the fuck is happening?
I have the urge to scoop her up and paddle her ass with my palm and then slam her up against the wall and fuck her until she’s screaming for more instead of for escape.
God, that would feel good—her ass bouncing underneath my palm—punishing her for the way I felt after I left her last night with blue balls and a pitch-black mood.
She deserves to yelp and cry underneath me.
A beast-like part of me growls and insists that’s what we need to do. Discipline her. Claim her and reset the part of her mind that’s somehow resisting the mate bond instead of embracing it.
One of my feet slides forward instinctively, but I force myself to stop. It takes every iota of self-control I possess.
Because my mate isn’t joking. The set of her shoulders and her jaw are both deadly serious. Her skintight clothes don’t just show me every luscious curve—I can see her body is riddled with tension. This tiny human wants to escape.
From me.
Her mate.
Doesn’t she feel it? This insatiable draw to one another? This insane, mind-blowing, impossible need?
I’ve barely been able to think of anything besides the sight of her pussy as she stood on that stage. The pink lips of her labia pouting down…
Fuck.
It took everything I had not to storm back to her room last night and become the very thing she accused me of being. A rapist.
I tore apart my room and then my studio. I ended up breaking a thousand-pound marble sculpture—pummeling it until it cracked and crumbled—a sculpture I’ve been working on for nearly a decade.
Because I don’t want her to look at me the way she is now, with revulsion and disgust.
Can mate bonds be one-sided?
Fuck that.
Fuck.
Goddammit fuck—what if they can?
I start to shake from containing the wild side of myself, and it becomes impossible to restrain my inner beast completely.
I lash out, grabbing the nearest painting from the wall and hurl it like a frisbee—not at her, just away.
Because I need to break something. Many things. I need to kill and stomp and destroy.
What if she never wants me the way I’m dying to have her? What if she never feels the same connection currently coursing through my veins, pounding against my skull, lighting up my skin in an explosion of fireworks?
Aliana rushes at me, a fierce warrior’s cry erupting from her beautiful throat.
The moment slows, and a million things flash through my mind at once. I love the bounce of her breasts. She needs to brush her teeth—she has morning breath. She really does hate me.
Her rusted green sword arcs through the air, and I raise my left arm to block her blow. Then I scoop her up with my right hand. I’m so huge right now that my hand nearly closes around her waist like she’s a little doll.
She shrieks in outraged surprise and tries to batter me with that sword, but rust has dulled the edge, so her whacks simply dent my skin, bruising instead of cutting through.
I pluck the weapon away from her after she hits my funny bone, sending a swirl of pain up my arm. With a roar into her face, I throw the sword so hard that it shatters against the far wall.
The sound shuts her up.
I want to use my cock to shut her up. To stuff it down her pretty throat and hold on to her hair as I fuck her face.
It starts to rise at the fact that she’s near and my clothes are shed.
To hide my instinctive reaction to her proximity, I toss her over my shoulder like she’s a sack of potatoes.
A super sexy sack of potatoes, but a sack of potatoes all the same.
I know exactly how she’ll react if she discovers I’ve grown hard, and I don’t want vitriol and disgust to spew from her mouth again.
If it does, I won’t just destroy my own art.
I’ll barrel right through the center of the earth and tear a hole through the fucking world.
She beats against my back. “Let me go, you fucking brute!” She tries to kick my chest, so I close my left hand around both her ankles.
Doesn’t she know that monsters like me revel in violence and threats?
That her words simply travel straight to my already erect dick as if she’s been stroking it?
That’s what it feels like—as if her words are soft hands closing around my shaft, squeezing, caressing, stroking.
Every acidic barb that leaves her luscious pink lips only serves to make me more desperate for her. I’m positively ravenous.
I ignore her screams as I march down the hall, ducking my head whenever the hanging light fixtures might brain me, debating just what I’m going to do with her.
Spank her? Nah, she’ll hate me even more. Probably try to stab me again—though I couldn’t say I would overly mind.
Shove my cock into her pouty lips? Maybe… It’s definitely the most tempting option.
I find myself going into the open courtyard in the middle of the Cloisters, to a fountain I make my servants keep running because I like the peaceful sound of the water.
Sometimes I paint out here—there are flowering trees that bloom, and I like the challenge of capturing the way the light makes them change.
Right now, those trees are shedding petals that have piled up like pink snow in different corners of the courtyard.
I stare at one such pile as I stop near the fountain and bellow for a servant. “Filia!”
I hear a snicker from my little mate that makes me want to paddle her ass. I narrow my eyes in suspicion when my most loyal monster doesn’t show right away.
“Zeelof!” I call my second-best servant.
A short, bumble-bee striped monster bustles out into the courtyard from the kitchen. He’s got black mutton chops that move any time he speaks, and he typically carries a ladle with whatever he’s cooking dripping from it.
Right now, I can scent honey ham and bean soup from his ladle. A bit of gloop stains the grass as he huffs and puffs his out-of-shape ass over to stand in front of me. “Yes, sir?”
“I need toiletries for Aliana. A dress. Clothes for me. And we’ll eat out here.”
“I’m not eating with—”
A smack to her ass silences my mate.
She’s damn lucky I resist the urge to palm that cheek after.
I don’t even break my gaze with Zeelof as I continue punishing her. “We also need to find Filia. I’m afraid my sweet girl here might have done something naughty.”
Zeelof squeaks. He’s only a Three, so the idea that Filia could be in trouble naturally alarms him, and his gaze dips over to Aliana uneasily.
His expression is decidedly cautious and fearful, almost wary, but I don’t like that he’s staring at her.
Not at all. A small, twisted part of me wants to snap his neck so his gaze will be facing the opposite direction.
It won’t kill him—probably. At the very least, his type is hard to kill—but it will get his eyes off of what doesn’t belong to him.
“Don’t worry. It won’t happen again,” I reassure him. Again, I’m only fifty percent sure that’s true. My little mate definitely has a monstrous mentality.
He nods. Then, realizing he’s dismissed, he clicks his heels together and shuffles off to carry out my commands.
Meanwhile, I dump my little mate onto the grass. Immediately, she scrambles to her feet and tries to dart across the lawn, a frown pinching the corners of her eyes. With one hand, I reach out and block her. She runs into my palm.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the impact of her chest against me. But I don’t dwell on it. I simply use my hand to drag her back to her original position like she’s a chess piece I’m sliding backward.
She tries again, and I catch her.
Again.
After the fourth time, she sighs and crosses her arms.
Deciding she’s going to give up, I state, “Undress and wash in the fountain.”
Her pretty blue eyes snap up to mine, and I realize how lovely her eyelashes are.
Last night, I don’t think I noticed how thick and full they are.
I was too busy noticing how thick and full other parts of her are.
But her gaze… It would take me hours to paint those eyes, where the blue ripples and dilates, like waves cresting against the rocky shoreline, the tips decorated with white froth.
Fuck!
She uses my distraction to try to run again, and this time, I have to chase her to catch her. My gaze automatically drops to her tight ass and the way it bounces as she runs. Fuck, I could definitely get used to this view. If she wants to run… She’s damn lucky I love the thrill of the chase.
Three long sprints and I’m there, scooping her into my arms—a squirming, kicking, squalling mess.
I toss her into the fountain fully clothed. “You either undress and wash yourself, or I’ll do it,” I threaten, knowing how scared she is of my touch.
Yup.
That does it.
My heart squeezes like a vise when I watch her freeze, her breath halting completely. Then she sags, deflated and defeated, and slowly starts to strip her wet clothes from her body.
A ribbon of pity ties me up, but I cut it sharply.
This is my mate.
I’m not certain what’s wrong with our bond, why she’s resisting, but I damn well am not going to let her wander around this place like a feral fucking cat—unwashed and ready to scratch at everyone in her path.
I won’t break her. But I will tame her.