Chapter 13 #3
“These marks.” I lower my mouth to the bruise at her hip, pressing my lips against the evidence of my possession, and she shivers beneath me. “Every Draveki will scent me on your skin and understand what you are to me.”
“Good.” She threads her fingers through my hair, gripping hard enough to sting. “Let them see. Let them all see.”
The permission destroys whatever restraint I had left.
I settle between her thighs, the hard length of my cock pressing against her entrance, and she's already slick with wanting.
Her arousal drenches the air between us, sweet and thick, and my fangs ache with the need to sink into her throat and drink her pleasure straight from the source.
“After tonight, there is no going back.” I hold myself at her entrance, every muscle trembling with the effort of not driving forward.
“You will carry my scent in your blood. My claiming in your cells. Every male who touches you will know you’re mine.
That you belong to someone who will kill to keep you. ”
She wraps her legs around my hips and pulls me inside her.
I sink into her body in one long stroke, and the sound she makes empties my mind of everything except her.
Tight heat grips my cock, slick and welcoming, and the remnants of my earlier release ease my passage until I bottom out with my hips flush against hers.
The ridges along my shaft drag against her inner walls, and she bows off the mattress, carving lines down my back that send sensation ricocheting through me.
“More.” She gasps the word against my throat. “Please. I need more.”
I give her more.
This joining holds none of the desperate frenzy that drove us before.
I watch her face as I move inside her, memorizing the way her brow furrows when I hit the spot that makes her gasp, the way she parts her lips around my name when I grind deep and hold, the way her eyes lose focus when pleasure crests and retreats and crests again.
She is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. And she is mine.
“Look at me.” The command rumbles from my chest, and her gaze locks with mine, dark eyes I want to lose myself in. “I want to watch you when you come apart. Want to see my name in your eyes when you fall.”
Her inner walls flutter, the first tremors of her orgasm building where we're joined. I shift my angle, pressing harder against the bundle of nerves that makes her keen, and the sound she releases is half sob, half prayer, my name fractured into syllables that belong only to this moment.
“That's it.” I increase my pace, driving into her in a rhythm that builds us both toward an edge I refuse to reach without her. “Give me everything. Let me have what I do to you.”
Her body clamps around me in waves that drag a roar from my chest, her release flooding over my cock in a rush of heat that destroys the last of my control.
My knot swells, pressing against her entrance, demanding entry, and I drive forward one final time as it locks us together in a tie that will not release until my body decides we are finished.
The first pulse of my seed floods her, and she whimpers against my throat, her inner walls milking me through an orgasm that rolls on and on without end. I gather her against my chest and roll onto my back, settling her weight over me, keeping her impaled on my cock where she belongs.
Sleep claims us both, her body still joined to mine, her breath warm against my throat.
The summons arrives before dawn. A formal notification on my personal comm, my father's seal marking it as a command rather than a request. I read it in the grey light while Maeve still sleeps, her face soft against my pillow, her dark hair spreading across linens that carry both our signatures.
I dress without waking her and leave her in my bed.
In my space. My father's office occupies the highest level, a position that commands a view of the canyon's depths and the holdings House Draven has ruled for generations.
I enter without announcement, as is my right as heir, and find Lord Vorath Draven standing at the window with his back to the door.
He does not turn when I enter, does not acknowledge my presence beyond a slight stiffening of his shoulders.
“You claimed the female despite my warning.”
Not a question. Not an accusation. A statement of fact.
I do the same. “Yes.”
He turns then, and the weight of his gaze settles over me with a pressure that has not diminished since my childhood. Black eyes in a face carved from the same stone as the canyon, holding no warmth, no softness, nothing but calculating intelligence.
“Your mother was brilliant.” The words fall into the silence. “She made me believe I could have both power and love. She used that belief to betray everything I built.”
“Maeve is not my mother.”
“No. She is a human with a brother in your holding cells and a debt she cannot repay without your indulgence.” He moves toward his desk, each step controlled, unhurried.
“She has lived in your territory for eight days. In that time, you have given her access to restricted areas, brought her into an investigation that should have remained within the house, and now marked her in a manner that every Draveki in the territory can identify.”
“She has skills we need. The investigation requires...”
“The investigation requires nothing but your attention and the resources of House Draven.” My father's words cut through my words.
“You have convinced yourself that her presence is practical, but we both know the truth.” He sits behind his desk, steepling his fingers in a gesture I remember from a hundred childhood lectures.
“You would not be carrying her signature upon you if she were merely an asset, and you know exactly what that means.
“If I were your enemy, she would already be in my hands.
The Syndicate Council would pay generously for leverage over House Draven's heir. House Korvan would find her useful in their ongoing efforts to expand into our territory. House Sethrak would enjoy the irony of using sentiment to destroy a family that prides itself on ruthlessness.”
“I understand the risks.”
“Do you?” He leans forward, and the intensity in his gaze sharpens to a point. “Then you understand that the appropriate response is to eliminate those risks. Clear her brother's debt. Put her on a transport off-world. Do it before sentiment costs you everything this family has built.”
The predator in me snarls against the cage of my control.
Send her away. Remove her from my territory, from my bed, from my life.
The rational part of my mind recognizes the logic in his words.
The claiming instinct recognizes only threat, only the suggestion that I should surrender what I have marked.
“No.”
My father's expression does not change. He expected this answer, perhaps hoped for it, wanted confirmation that his heir has compromised himself beyond recovery.
“Then you force me to act in your stead.” The words carry no anger, no disappointment, only the practical calculation. “I will not allow your sentiment to endanger House Draven. The human will be removed, one way or another. The only question is whether you will make it easy or difficult.”
“Touch her, and you lose your heir.”
The air between us thickens with the particular tension that precedes violence. My father studies me for a long moment, his black eyes giving nothing away. Then he nods once, a small motion that carries more weight than any words.
“So it has already gone that far.” He rises from his desk, moving toward the window, presenting his back to me in a gesture that might be dismissal or might be trust. “I warned you, Drazex.
When you were twelve years old, with your mother's blood still wet on the platform, I told you what love does to males like us. You chose not to listen.”
“I chose to be more than what you made me.”
“You chose weakness.” He does not turn around. “And weakness, in this family, has consequences.”
The threat lands flat. No anger beneath it. No tension in his shoulders. My father delivered his ultimatum with the calm of a male who has already acted and is waiting for the world to catch up.
He's too calm.
“What have you done?”
“I have protected this house. Protected you.
In ways you've never had to see.” Now he turns.
The satisfaction in his black eyes answers before his mouth does.
“I gave you the opportunity to handle this yourself. To send her away and let her believe it was your choice. You could have preserved whatever sentiment exists between you while still protecting this house.”
I am already moving toward the door.
“She's gone, Drazex.”
I spin to face him, fangs extending, claws sliding free before I can stop them.
“Where?”
“Secure location. She won't be harmed.” He tilts his head, studying me the way a scientist studies a specimen. “Unless you force me to harm her. Her continued wellbeing depends on your cooperation.”
“You're using her as leverage. Against your own son.”
“I'm protecting my house from a threat you're too compromised to see.” No remorse. No hesitation. “When the madness passes, when you remember what you are and what this family requires, she'll be released. Until then, she remains my insurance that you won't do anything foolish.”
The roar that builds in my chest has no words. Only fury. Only the territorial rage of a male whose Chosen someone tore from his bed while he stood here defending his right to keep her.
“If you touch her.”
“Kill me? Start a war within the house while we're bleeding enforcers to incidents no one can explain?
Hand our enemies the chaos they need to destroy everything we've built?” His mouth curves, but the expression holds no warmth.
“You won't. Because despite your sentiment, you are still my son. And my son understands some battles cannot be won through bloodshed.”
I cannot breathe. Cannot think past the rage narrowing my vision to the male standing before me.
“Return to your duties. Prove to me you can still function as heir to this house.” He turns back to the window, dismissing me. “When I'm satisfied that your judgment has returned, we'll discuss the human's future.”
I don't remember leaving his office. Don't remember the corridors I tear through, the guards who flatten themselves against walls as I pass, the checkpoints that blur into obstacles between me and the quarters where I left her sleeping.
The door stands open.
I stop at the threshold, and the silence guts me.
The sheets lie tangled. A chair rests overturned near the doorway. Her fear lingers in the air, layered beneath the musk of males who had no right to breathe the same air she breathes.
They took her while I was defending my right to keep her. Took her from my bed, from my territory, from the one place in this compound I swore would remain untouched.
My knees hit the floor. I press my palm against the mattress where her warmth still lingers, fading with each passing second, and the sound that rips from my chest belongs to no language.
She's gone. And I don't trust my father's word she'll have a future to bargain with.