Chapter 11
Soul
I was probably overreacting. In fact, I was certain I was.
It didn’t matter, though—Caiden let me drag him away from where the filthy little emotion eater had been, and he didn’t try to stop me, he didn’t even question me.
He said nothing as I pulled us down another alley to what looked to me like an abandoned building.
Abandoned enough—if there was someone inside, there was every chance I’d end up showing Caiden exactly how much of a monster I could be.
I didn’t need to be in my hound form to tear someone apart, and I was pretty sure if another being so much as looked at him at this point, I’d figure out exactly how capable my claws were.
He stayed silent as I slammed the shattered door behind us and half carried, half dragged him through an empty lobby into what appeared to be an abandoned kitchen.
The sign on the door said this used to be a restaurant, though I had a feeling no one had been here in a while.
Caiden only spoke once I’d finally stopped moving, though it felt like I couldn’t catch my breath, like my lungs were trying to crawl from my chest. I couldn’t think around the possibility of what might have happened because I’d been foolish enough to leave him on his own for a few fucking seconds.
“It’s okay, Soul. He didn’t hurt me.”
Hurt him? If he’d hurt him, I would have taken my chances fighting the bastard even in my human form.
If he’d hurt him, I would have dragged him in pieces straight to Death’s feet—he was always looking for ways to get the missing pieces the emotion eaters were made from back into the Lake.
Maybe it would have been enough for him to forgive me for abandoning my mission.
But no… that hadn’t happened. It was just…
“He touched you,” I snarled, aware of how ridiculous I sounded. “You aren’t his to touch.”
“I’m not…” Caiden’s eyes widened as he took a few steps back from me.
The room we were in was small—there were void spaces where I was fairly certain ovens had once been, and a large table in the center of the room that was fixed to the floor.
Caiden moved until his back was pressed to the wood.
His wide eyes were an endless ocean of blue in the darkness of the room, lit by the faint light slanting through the windows high on the wall behind us. “Then what am I, Soul?”
Why was he asking? Didn’t he know? Maybe we’d only known each other for a couple of days, but it didn’t matter. I’d known from the second I saw him, from the moment I’d offered to be his tether. I’d known, and apparently it took a damn shapeshifter touching him to make me finally admit it aloud.
“You’re mine.”
His eyes widened, his pulse jumping in his throat. Caiden’s lip caught between his teeth like he was considering his next move… and then held his hand out to me.
“Prove it.”
Something inside me ignited at that challenge, at the dare in his voice.
At the way Caiden seemed to be saying it because he needed that proof burned across his soul just as much as I wanted to leave my brand there.
I stalked around the room, a low rumble spilling from my chest that drew an answering whimper from him in turn.
When I darted toward him, instinct more than anything made him try to flit away, but it was useless.
Caiden was sweet, small. I towered over him, and the broad muscles of my arms instantly caught him up and flung him onto the table. Had humans used this once to prepare their meals?
I was ready to use it for the same.
I stripped him while he lay against the wood, then quickly tore my clothes from my body while keeping my eyes locked on what seemed like miles and miles of perfect, tan skin.
I knew in comparison to him I was pale, enormous—all muscles and markings where he was smooth, sweet perfection with a dusting of golden hair trailing down the middle of his chest to nestle in his pelvis.
Gorgeous.
Every inch of him…
“Look at you,” I groaned in reverence, stepping between his legs to trail my hands up along his thighs, to ghost them over his chest until his nipples were hard. I couldn’t resist leaning down, couldn’t resist fastening my mouth to his throat and biting that perfect, pure skin.
Just once.
Hard enough that he cried out—hard enough to leave a mark. A perfect impression of my teeth that stood out on his skin as I pulled back.
“Mine…” I growled, running my tongue along the wound I’d just left behind. Even the little droplets of his blood tasted sweet, like flowers on my tongue.
I wanted so much more than I even understood—I wanted everything from Caiden. If I could, I would have devoured him like I was always meant to do just to keep him pressed against my ribs, his soul fusing to everything that I was. But that wasn’t what this was about.
Instead, I trailed my mouth down the length of his torso while he squirmed on the table. His hands shot out, fingers tangling greedily in my hair to try to pull me closer.
“Soul.” His voice came out in a little needy whimper.
“Please… please.” Caiden’s fingers tugged at my hair, dragging my mouth down to his cock.
He was so hard I could see the tip of him glistening.
I was powerless to do anything but let my tongue loll out, wrapping the length of it around him so he was encased in the warmth of it.
As it slid up and his back arched, I snaked one of the forked tips into his slit, lapping up the little beads of pleasure dripping there.
He tasted so sweet, like this too was just something his soul was willing into existence—his pleasure… not because he wanted it, but because he wanted me to have it.
This time, I didn’t hesitate. I wrapped my tongue around the base of his shaft and took him completely into my mouth, swallowing him down like a creature possessed.
His back arched, his body nearly coming off the table while my fingers pinned his thighs in place so I could take him to the back of my throat again and again.
My tongue was greedy, my entire body ablaze.
The only thing that could quench the flames were his little cries of pleasure.
Soft.
Sweet.
“More, Soul. Please… fuck, more.” And then. “Faster.” And finally. “Fuck, just like that.”
I swallowed around him as his cock started to swell, as his body started to shiver.
I took him to the back of my throat and lifted my hand, palming his balls gently and tapping the pad of one finger against his hole.
It made him cry out—made him come on a shuddery moan, like the sudden burst of pleasure surprised him.
Caiden flooded my mouth with a salty sweetness that was so perfect, so heady, I was pretty sure it could get me drunk if I let it.
I wanted to drink him down. I wanted it all… but I had another purpose when I pulled off his dick with a loud pop that echoed in the emptiness of the room.
My tongue was slick with his cum and my saliva as I lifted my hand up to my mouth and let some of it dribble onto my fingers as I forced my claws away. I’d been unwilling to shift any further human than I already had, but for this…
Well, for this, it was more than worth it. My tongue wrapped around his cock again while I dropped my slicked digits between his legs.
Caiden’s entire body spasmed when I circled his entrance, and I finally pulled off his cock to give him a moment of reprieve.
“Open up for me,” I murmured, my voice a low growl. “I want to feel you from the inside, Caiden. I want to mark every inch of you until no one can mistake exactly who you belong to.” My tongue dropped down to join my fingers—licking, pleading, begging entrance to that hidden heat.
He squirmed again, and I lifted my clean hand, pressing it against his torso and holding him steady.
With my fingers splayed, it spanned nearly the entire length of his waist—it was more than enough to hold him still as my tongue flicked forward with my fingers, sliding past the tight heat of him so I could delve inside.
“Oh, fuck… yes.” He sounded like he was dying, drowning in desire. “Please, Soul. I need to feel you—I’ve never… I’ve never felt… I’ve never had…”
He didn’t have to finish the sentence—it was almost like I could taste the truth of it against my tongue, that Caiden had been made just for me.
That everything he was… it was just for me.
“Let me give you everything, little flower. Let me be your tether.” My fingers thrust into him in tandem with my tongue, the digits rocking and working him open while I greedily lapped at his hole, letting my mouth pool with drool, thick and slick enough that by the time I finished fucking him open, my hand, his thighs, the table was drenched with it.
The sight of his skin, shiny as I pulled back, his hole slick and wet and slightly open, was almost too much. I groaned, dipping down to lick at him again.
“Look at you… you’re so ready for me. Fucked open and wet…” My fingers dragged through the saliva, pushing inside him again so I could watch in fascination as he greedily swallowed them to the knuckle. “You were made for me.”
“Show me, then,” he groaned out, his hips writhing as he tried to take me in deeper. “Show me I was made for all of you.”
All of me.
I took a moment to slide my hand through the mixture of saliva and cum one more time, pooling some into my palm before taking hold of my cock.
I stroked myself once, twice, three times before I realized I couldn’t do that while looking at him lying on the table with his legs spread open and his ass soaked in my saliva.
I’d come before I was even inside him, and it would have been the most sinful thing I’d ever done.
Caiden came willingly when I pulled him to the edge of the table, and he spread his legs wider for me when my fingers skated along his thighs. I couldn’t tear my gaze away—I watched in fascination as I lined up my cock with his ass and slowly started to push inside.
“Gods,” I groaned. “Gods, look at you. You’re swallowing me whole, Caiden.
” My words were worship, a prayer. Fate, Death, gods, devils…
none of that mattered anymore. My entire world and the only thing I believed in was the way our bodies fit together like I was coming home for the first time in my life.
I slid inside him until my hips hit against his ass. When I lifted my eyes to look at him, I could see it—the soft sheen of tears… the fact that he was feeling the exact same thing I was.
Belonging.
Home.
Between us, the violet line sparked with little bursts of crimson as I started to move.
I was slow to drag myself out, enraptured by every twitch of his muscles, with every spot that seemed to light him up from the inside out.
“Tell me how it feels.” It came out as a soft demand when I thrust back inside him.
“Like I’m whole.” His answer was immediate, pure.
Fuck, he was so pure.
“Like coming home.” I’d meant to tell him he was mine—that no one else could ever touch him, that no one else could even look at him—but somehow those words came out instead. “You’re like coming home. I’ve never felt it before this. Before you.”
“Soul… mmmfuck. Please. Take us there. Together.”
Together.
It was the only word I needed to hear. I started to fuck him in earnest, my body already sparking to life with the squeeze of his ass around my cock.
He felt too fucking good, too perfect. As much as I wanted to drag this moment out for eternity, it was going to be over before I was ready.
That was all right, because I could tell by the rapidfire beat of Caiden’s heart that it was the same for him.
Home.
Together.
All I wanted was to fall into the eternity of his blue eyes and find that place with him.
My hips rocked, driving into him while my still-clawed hand dug rivulets across the wood beneath us—angry, deep scratches that looked like scars against the table, proof of the fact that we’d been here, that we’d fucked here…
that in this room, a soul had been completely tied to a monster.
Because that’s what this was… possession.
Belonging.
Marking. Mating. Whatever humans might have called it, Caiden was mine, and as my hips rocked into his again and I felt his body clench a second before he cried out, I realized that I would do everything—I would give everything—to make sure that those words were true for the rest of eternity.
I fucked him harder as he started to come, his cock jerking between us, spilling little ropes of cum against his stomach. The sight of it, the narrowed slits of his blue eyes as he fought to keep them open so he could watch me… it was too much.
And when he reached out and tangled his fingers in my hair, dragging my mouth against his so he could pant against my lips, “Come with me…”
I couldn’t deny him. My entire body tensed, lost to the flood of pleasure that seemed to start in the center of my hips and spill outward. I came hard, thrusting as deep as I could in the hopes that I’d somehow be able to mark Caiden from the inside out forever as mine.
His head dropped to the table at the first tremble of my body, but his fingers stayed tangled in my hair, and he drank down the sounds of my rumbling moans with a kiss that seared through me the way I wanted to burn through him.
It just made me fuck him harder through my orgasm, until he was writhing beneath me.
“Soul… fuck… fuck.” He was half begging, and I couldn’t help myself. I licked along the side of his cheek, lapping at the wet tears of overstimulated pleasure that gathered in his lashes, chasing the edges of my release.
Before the last soft cry escaped his throat, I crawled onto the table, pulling Caiden atop me. My fingers replaced my cock, and I coaxed him through the last bursts of his pleasure with gentle strokes that left him shivering.
When I was done, I left them there, content with the heat of him, the warmth grasping around my digits… and he fell forward. His lips found the pulse at my throat, his voice was so fucked out it was barely more than a moan.
“Same as mine.” It was hard to understand, and when I brought my free hand up to drag my fingers through his hair, he lolled his head to the side.
“What do you mean?”
“Your pulse… your heart… it’s beating the same as mine.”
I wanted us to be the same forever—I wanted to walk the world with our heartbeats in tune. I wanted… no, I needed to make sure that Caiden stayed by my side.