Chapter 9 #2
He secured my left wrist first, the living ice flowing around it like water before solidifying into a perfect fit.
The sensation was exactly as he'd promised—cool silk that somehow managed to be both gentle and absolutely unyielding.
The cuff attached itself to the bedpost with no visible connection, held by the same will that kept the aurora canopy in place.
My right wrist followed, and then I was spread before him, arms pulled wide enough to display me completely but not enough to strain.
The vulnerability of it hit me all at once.
I was naked, restrained, completely at his mercy while he remained clothed and in absolute control.
The frost patterns on my skin flared brighter in response to my emotional state, creating their own light show that competed with the aurora above.
Through our bond, I felt his satisfaction at the sight—his mate, his bonded, trusting him enough to be this exposed.
"Beautiful," he murmured, but his attention had already shifted upward.
He rose to his feet with that liquid grace, reaching toward the canopy with deliberate purpose.
His fingers passed through the aurora curtains like they were water, and when he pulled his hand back, he held something that shouldn't have been possible to grasp.
The feather was condensed light and color.
It shifted through spectrums as I watched—now green-gold, now purple-silver, now colors that made my eyes water trying to process them.
It looked like it weighed nothing, moving with his breath, but I could feel its presence like static electricity, making every hair on my body stand at attention.
"This," Sereis said, twirling it between his fingers so it threw prismatic shadows, "is going to teach you about patience. About anticipation. About how pleasure can be found in the spaces between touches as much as in contact itself."
He started at my throat, where the frost patterns formed their natural collar.
The first touch of the feather made me gasp—not from cold or heat but from pure sensation.
It was like being touched by light itself, weightless but absolutely present, triggering nerve endings I didn't know existed.
He traced the edge of my collar mark with devastating slowness, following each curve and spiral while I tried not to writhe against the restraints.
Down from my throat to my collarbones, the feather painted sensation across my skin with the precision of a master artist. He traced the hollow between them, then out to each shoulder, following the lines of my transformation but never quite touching the patterns themselves.
The denial of that direct contact somehow made it worse, made my skin ache for the feather to follow the raised ridges of frost.
When he reached my breasts, I held my breath.
But he traced around them, never touching the peaks that ached for contact, painting circles that spiraled inward but never reached center.
The light touch on my hypersensitive skin was maddening—too much and not enough simultaneously.
My nipples hardened to the point of pain, begging for attention he refused to give.
"Please," I whispered, but he only smiled and continued his torture.
The feather traced down my sternum with excruciating slowness.
I could feel each individual barb of light as it passed over my skin, leaving trails of sensation that lingered like phantom touches.
He drew patterns on my ribs, counted each one with delicate strokes that made me arch and twist. When he reached my stomach, he spent an eternity tracing the frost patterns there, following their spirals but never quite making direct contact with the raised designs.
My hips lifted off the bed, seeking more substantial contact, but he simply pressed his free hand to my hip, holding me still with gentle but implacable pressure.
The feather continued its journey, tracing the crease where hip met thigh, dancing along the sensitive skin there while deliberately avoiding where I needed touch most.
"You're dripping," he observed clinically, and the crude truth of it made me flush darker. "Your body begs so prettily, even when your mouth tries to stay silent."
Down my thighs the feather traveled, finding every sensitive spot I didn't know existed.
The inside of my knees apparently had nerve endings connected directly to my core, because when he circled them with the aurora feather, I nearly came from that alone.
He noticed—of course he noticed—and spent extra time there, watching my face as I fought against the sensation.
My calves received the same methodical attention, the feather tracing patterns that made my toes curl. When he reached my feet, I thought I might escape the torture—feet weren't erogenous zones, weren't connected to the ache between my thighs.
I was wrong.
He traced the arch of each foot with that impossible feather, and the sensation shot straight to my center like lightning finding ground.
My body bowed completely off the bed, only the restraints keeping me in place as pleasure and frustration warred in every nerve.
The aurora canopy above us had become a storm of color, reflecting my internal chaos in its wild dance.
"Perfect response," Sereis murmured, trailing the feather back up my other leg with the same deliberate pace. "Your transformed body is even more sensitive than I'd hoped. Every inch of you responsive, reactive, mine to play with as I choose."
By the time he'd completed his circuit, I was sobbing with need.
My skin felt like one giant exposed nerve, hypersensitive to even the air currents in the room.
The space between my thighs ached with emptiness, clenching around nothing while wetness covered my inner thighs.
The restraints had become my only anchor, something solid to pull against while sensation threatened to dissolve me entirely.
"Look at you," Sereis said softly, setting the feather aside with careful precision. "Desperate and dripping and so perfectly mine."
The feather disappeared into whatever realm of possibility it had emerged from, dissolving between one breath and the next as Sereis turned his full attention to the aching need between my thighs.
He moved with deliberate intent, shifting from beside the bed to between my spread legs, his hands settling on my inner thighs with possessive certainty.
"Now," he said, and that single word carried the weight of permission, promise, and threat all at once. "Now you get what you've been begging for so prettily."
His hands pressed my thighs wider, exposing me completely to his gaze.
The vulnerability of it should have made me want to hide, but the look in his eyes—hungry, possessive, reverent—made me open further instead.
Through our bond, I felt his arousal spike at the sight, his satisfaction at how thoroughly he'd worked me into this state.
"So wet," he murmured, his breath ghosting over my sensitive flesh and making me shiver. "So fucking wet."
The first touch of his tongue made me scream—not from pain but from pleasure so intense it obliterated thought.
After all the teasing, all the light touches and denial, the firm pressure of his tongue against my clit was like lightning striking directly into my nervous system.
My hips bucked hard enough that he had to pin them down, his forearm across my lower belly holding me in place while his mouth worked its devastation.
But then came the temperature play we'd discussed, and nothing could have prepared me for the reality of it.
His tongue, impossibly cool against my overheated flesh, traced patterns that made my vision fracture.
The contrast was maddening—my body burning with need while his mouth brought winter to my most sensitive places.
When he pulled back slightly to blow warm breath over where his cool tongue had just been, the sensation reversal made me sob.
"That's it," he murmured against me, the vibration of his words adding another layer of sensation. "Feel everything. Every contrast, every shift, every way I choose to play your body like an instrument only I know how to tune."
His tongue circled my clit with devastating precision, cool and firm and exactly what I needed, before switching to broad, warm strokes that made my thighs shake uncontrollably.
The living ice restraints held firm as I pulled against them, my body trying to arch, to escape, to get closer, all at once.
"Such a good girl," he said between strokes, his praise washing over me like physical touch. "Taking everything I give you so beautifully. You were made for this, weren't you? Made to come apart under my mouth, made to submit to my control."
His fingers joined his mouth, sliding inside me with no resistance, my body so ready it practically pulled him in.
The dual sensation—his cool tongue on my clit, his fingers working inside me—created a feedback loop through our bond.
I could feel his satisfaction at my responses, his pleasure in my pleasure, the deep possessive need to make me come completely undone.
"Mine," he said against me, the word muffled but clear. "Every sound you make, every shudder, every drop of wetness—all mine. You'll never respond to another the way you respond to me. This body knows its master."
The praise and claiming words hit almost as hard as the physical sensation.
My mind had gone hazy, floating in that space where thought became impossible and only feeling remained.
The frost patterns on my skin blazed so bright they cast shadows on the walls, pulsing in rhythm with my climbing arousal.