15. Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Fifteen
Julian
S he spoke it. She told me she claims me.
I never thought it would happen. Not in my wildest dreams. When my Mark burned into her skin and flared back onto mine, I figured it was inevitable.
But I wasn’t expecting this.
Wasn’t expecting to fall. Wasn’t expecting her to become everything.
And now I have what my parents have. What my aunt and uncle have. A connection that won’t fade.
I can’t wait for the Infernal Union. But first—we seal the Claim.
Ophelia leans in, eyes locked on mine, no flicker of hesitation. Her lips part, and when she kisses me, it’s not tender—it’s pure will. Like she’s not just choosing me. She’s igniting something neither of us can contain.
The Mark flares beneath my skin, responding to her mouth like it’s been waiting for this moment to awaken. And I know—this isn’t surrender. It’s her claiming me. Setting the bond ablaze. Stepping into the dark with her eyes wide open.
She jerks back with a sound I’ll never forget. Bone? Muscle? I don’t know. She hits the floor— hard. Not like she tripped. Like something inside her threw her down. Her back arches violently. Her hands claw at her chest, digging into the Mark, nails tearing skin as if she can rip it out.
The scream that rips through her isn’t human.
It starts as a sound and ends as a weapon—echoing off the stone, rattling dust from the ceiling. Blood pours from her nose, her mouth, the corners of her eyes. She convulses. Muscles locking, spasming. Her spine bows like it’s going to snap.
The Mark pulses. Gold spreads in sharp, jagged lines across her skin like veins—or roots. Like something inside her is trying to grow out of her body, and she’s fighting it.
But it’s winning.
I move, knowing I can’t help her, and the bond punishes me. Heat lashes across my arm—hot enough to leave smoke in the air. I stop. Fists clenched. Useless. All I can do is watch her thrash, bleed, break.
Her jaw locks. Her teeth grind. Her eyes roll back. Her entire body is trembling like she’s being electrocuted from the inside. Like the Claim is feeding on her.
I feel it all. Her fear. Her fury. Her agony. It crashes into me through the bond like a flood I can’t outrun.
And I still can’t take it from her.
The Claim was never meant to be shared. This is her crucible. I am only the shadow cast by her fire.
I’ve seen gods fall. Watched souls beg for mercy. But nothing—not war, not death—has ever hit like this. Standing here. Watching her be devoured.
And knowing she chose it.
"I'm here, baby," I say, low and raw. A vow. I drop to my knees just outside the circle of burning heat where the Mark keeps me back. I can’t touch her. I can’t stop it.
But I can stay.
And I do.
“I know it hurts,” I murmur, the words cracking in my throat. “I feel it. Every scream. Every pulse. You’re unraveling in front of me and I can’t do a fucking thing.”
She cries out again—guttural, broken—and I flinch like it hit me in the ribs.
“Come back to me,” I whisper, steadier now. “Ophelia. Look at me.”
She doesn’t. Her eyes are rolled back. Her body still locked in the storm. But I keep talking. Because if I stop—I’ll shatter.
“You’re not alone,” I say. “You never were. I love you. In ways I don’t have words for. And I know this is yours. I know you chose it. But you don’t have to carry it alone.”
I reach out. Close enough to feel the air sear my skin. It hurts. I don’t care.
The screaming pulls back like a tide. Her body goes limp. Her chest heaves. Blood streaks her skin. The Mark still glows—dim now, like embers dying in ash.
Her eyes open.
For a second—just one—I see blue.
Her blue.
She looks at me like she doesn’t know where she is. Doesn’t know who she is. And that’s when I move.
I catch her before she falls. Wrap my arms around her and pull her into me. She collapses like gravity remembered her.
I hold her. Hands in her hair, on her back, grounding her to the world she just burned through.
“You’re safe,” I whisper, over and over. “You’re here. With me. You did it.”
She’s shaking, her fingers twitching against my chest. But she’s here.
And I don’t let go. I hold her like she’s the only thing that’s ever been real—because right now, she is.
I don’t care that my arm is scorched. That I’m bleeding. That I’m burned where the bond kept me away. None of it matters.
She came back to me.
And now, I’ll be the reason she never falls again.
Her voice is barely there. “Why is everything blurry?”
I brush damp hair from her face, hand trembling. “It’s the pain,” I murmur. “Your body’s still catching up. I’m sorry, little artist. I promise it’ll pass.”
She lets out a weak, raspy chuckle. “Well… that sucked.”
I laugh—broken, grateful, ruined. Only my mate could survive hell and meet me with a smirk. Only she could bleed like this and still crack a joke.
And gods, I love her for it.
I press my forehead to hers. “You’re back. And you’re mine.”
“I feel it,” she says, “but also like… something’s missing.” Her eyes search mine. “I don’t know what I am now.”
I cup her cheek, thumb stroking gently over skin still flushed from the burn. “You lost your mortality. That’s what you’re feeling. You became something else. Something stronger.” I pause, watching her face as the truth settles. “That’s why it hurt. You were dying.”
She flinches, barely, but I see it. She hates that word.
So I drop my voice, just for her. “Sweetheart… feel it.”
“Feel what?” she whispers.
My hand glides down to her sternum, to the Mark—still glowing faintly beneath the blood and sweat. I press my palm to it.
“How alive you are now.” My voice doesn’t waver. “You didn’t just lose something tonight. You gained something too.”
She takes a shaky breath. My touch doesn’t hurt her anymore. The bond pulses steady. Inviting.
“Let me show you,” I say, voice low and rough. “Let me show you what you’ve become.”
The world blurs around us as I lift her into my arms and take us to the bedroom, the bond carrying us in a pulse of heat and shadow. Her breath hitches as I lay her down on the silk sheets, but the moment my hands leave her, she moves—graceful, fluid, sure.
She shifts on her knees, eyes locked on mine, and begins to undress me—not with impatience, but with intent. Her fingers move to my shirt first, dragging it up inch by inch, knuckles grazing my skin like she’s memorizing me all over again. When she leans in to pull it over my head, her mouth brushes the curve of my neck—deliberate. I groan, low in my throat, but she only smirks.
"You know I can just will these off, right?" I murmur, trying and failing to sound unaffected.
"Where’s the fun in that?" she quips, fingers already working on the button of my pants. "Don’t you demons believe in suffering?"
"Not like this." My voice is gravel now.
She laughs and slides the fabric down with a slow, sinful drag of her palms, like she knows she’s unmaking me with every motion.
She drags the last of my clothes down my legs, slow like it’s an indulgence, not a necessity. When I’m finally bare beneath her, she straddles me again, her fingers grazing my stomach and my chest, taking her time—like she’s toying with her favorite possession.
“Now it’s my turn to play,” she says, her voice honeyed and wicked, tinged with that gleam in her eye that means trouble. The kind that ruins a man gladly.
I start to reach for her, already half-gone, but she swats my hand away with a smirk. “Ah-ah. You had your moment. Let me have mine.”
She leans in, her lips barely brushing mine, her body hovering just enough to keep me aching.
“Lie back, demon,” she murmurs against my mouth. “And let me show you what being newly immortal feels like.”
I do as she says. No hesitation. No fight. Just the thrum of the bond pulsing under my skin as I lower myself into the sheets and let her climb over me—confident, commanding, goddamn glorious.
Her fingers trail down the line of my stomach, slow, deliberate, nails scraping just enough to make my jaw tighten. I’m already hard and aching, but she doesn’t touch me. Not yet.
Instead, she shifts lower, kissing my lower abdomen, her breath ghosting over the place I need her most. My hips jerk, helpless. She smiles against my skin like she’s in control and she knows it.
“Still pretending you’re patient?” she purrs.
I try to laugh, but it catches in my throat when she drags her tongue from the base of my cock up the shaft in one slow, wet stroke. My entire body goes tight.
“Fuck, Ophelia.”
She hums in approval and wraps her lips around the tip, sucking lightly before taking me deeper—slow and controlled. Her hand wraps around the base, stroking in time with the way her tongue flicks and swirls. I brace one hand against the headboard, the other still fisted in the sheets, knuckles white.
She’s not rushing. She’s not teasing anymore either. She’s working me. Studying every twitch, every gasp, every curse that slips past my lips as she drags her mouth up and down my cock like she was made for it.
She lets go with a wet sound that leaves me wrecked. My chest heaves. I look down at her and I know I’m gone.
She wipes the corner of her mouth with her thumb and licks it clean without breaking eye contact.
“You gonna cum already?” she teases. “Or do I get to play a little longer?”
I want to flip her beneath me. I want to wreck her. But I don't. I won't. Not yet.
“You take what you want,” I growl. “Just know when I get my turn, I’m not holding back.”
Her smile could tear kingdoms down. She straddles me again, slick and ready, but she doesn’t sink onto me just yet. She rolls her hips, guiding me through her slick folds—torturous, unhurried, like she’s savoring the anticipation. My hands hover at her hips, desperate to touch her, to guide her, but still I don’t move.
She leans down, lips brushing mine, her voice a whisper laced in heat.
“Don’t break yet, demon,” she says. “We’re just getting started.”
Her eyes stay locked on mine as she shifts her hips just enough to position me at her entrance. The heat of her folds wraps around the tip of my cock and I suck in a breath through my teeth—every muscle in my body tightening like a held breath.
And she sinks down.
Fuck.
The sound that rips out of me is raw—half groan, half growl. She takes me inch by inch, slow and steady, her eyes fluttering shut, lips parted as her breath catches. She’s tight, warm, slick—like she was made for this. For me.
She braces her hands against my chest, grounding herself as she seats me fully inside her, her thighs trembling slightly from the stretch, from the feeling of being filled. I can feel the pulse of the bond between us now—demanding, molten, alive—like the Claim itself is watching, waiting to burn through us all over again.
“Gods,” I rasp, barely holding it together. “You feel…”
“I know,” she breathes, hips rolling once, slow and deep. “I feel it too.”
Her rhythm starts slow, torturous, deliberate—rocking her hips in long, fluid movements that have me gritting my teeth and clinging to the last of my control. Her hands slide up my chest to my shoulders, her nails biting in just enough to keep me tethered, and she starts riding me with real purpose now—each thrust a little deeper, a little harder, chasing something that we both know is coming.
She falls apart above me again, body arching, voice cracked open on a gasp that sounds like my name.
And I need more.
I don’t ask. I flip her over in one smooth motion, one hand on her hip, the other braced beside her head as I press her down into the sheets. She moans when I thrust back into her from behind—deep, full, perfect—and I feel her stretch around me like she was meant to take this.
The sound she makes goes straight to my spine. I snap my hips forward again—hard, rhythmic, claiming. The bed jolts beneath us, the headboard knocking against the wall in time with every thrust. She cries out, gripping the sheets, her body trembling but pushing back into me, hungry for it.
The slap of skin, the creak of the bed, the soft, wrecked sounds she makes—it’s all for me.
“Fuck, Lia,” I growl, my hand sliding up her back to tangle in her hair. “You feel like heaven and hell and everything I was promised and never got.”
She turns her face to the side, breathless, dazed, wrecked. “Don’t stop.”
I won’t.
My pace pounds into her a deliberate, punishing rhythm. I want her to feel this in her bones, in the way her legs won’t hold her tomorrow, in the way the Mark will pulse long after the last wave fades. I want her to remember this—not just as sex, but as mine. Ours.
Her hand reaches back blindly, searching for me, and I catch it, lacing our fingers tight as I drive into her deeper, harder.
The bed bounces beneath us, the room echoing with every sound of it, and I don’t care who hears. I want Hell itself to know what’s happening here.
This is the aftershock of her transformation. This is what it means to be bound.
And when she comes again, screaming into the mattress, I lose myself right behind her—thrusting deep, spilling into her with a groan that shakes something loose inside me.
We collapse together, breathless, tangled in each other’s skin and sweat.
She’s draped over me, skin flushed, lips kiss-bitten, her hair sticking to my chest like she’s melted into me—and maybe she has. Her breath is still a little uneven, but her grin is unmistakable.
I run a hand down her back, slow and lazy, and kiss the top of her head. “So,” I murmur. “That was subtle.”
She laughs against my chest. “You say that like you didn’t beg.”
“I grunted artistically,” I say, deadpan.
She hums. “Oh, is that what that was?”
The bond hums low between us—satisfied, quiet. Finally still. But my pulse is not. And neither is hers.
She shifts slightly, brushing her thigh against me again—deliberate.
I arch a brow. “You planning something?”
She glances up at me, eyes gleaming with post-orgasm mischief. “Thinking about a second round.”
I blink at the ceiling. “Of course you are.”
“I’m newly immortal,” she says, already sliding over me again. “You can’t expect me to not test my stamina.”
I sigh, dramatic. “This is how I die. Again.”
She grins. “Don’t worry, demon. I’ll go slow. This time.”