Chapter 7 #3
He rolled into her in slow, deep strokes that drew a long, broken sound out of her every single time, and he never looked away from her face.
One of his hands stayed planted on the furs above her shoulder, grounding him.
The other slid down between them, fingers splaying low over the soft warmth of her stomach in a quiet, possessive cradle that he didn't let himself examine too closely.
He just kept it there. He had earned it. He had earned her. He had earned this.
“You feel that?” he murmured.
She nodded against the furs, her hands clutching at his back.
“That’s me, baby. That’s us. That’s what we are.”
“Yes.”
He bent his head to her throat and dragged his mouth along the line of her shoulder, slow and deliberate, until he found the soft curve where her neck met it.
The place his mark had lived since he’d claimed her.
The place that had faded a little with time, the way old marks did, even mate marks, even his.
His wolf rose hard and fast inside him. He pulled back enough to see her face. “Baby.”
Her eyes opened, hazy and dark.
“I need to put my mark on you again.”
She didn’t even hesitate. Her hand came up and slid to the back of his head, drawing him back down to her shoulder, exposing her throat for him in the simplest, most devastating offering she could have given him.
“Then mark me,” she whispered.
His chest cracked open. He kept moving inside her, slower now, deeper, his mouth dragging along that soft place between her shoulder and neck.
He felt her pulse beat there against his lips.
He felt the warmth of her. He felt every promise they had ever made to each other gathered into the inch of skin under his mouth.
“Mine,” he murmured against her.
“Yours.”
“Always mine.”
“Always.”
He bit down. His teeth sank into the soft muscle between her neck and her shoulder in a clean, deep claim, and the second the taste of her hit his tongue, the bond between them flared white-hot inside, a brilliant, ringing thing that filled every dark corner he’d been carrying since the moment he’d watched her stumble in that cavern.
She cried out beneath him, her body arching up hard, her hands pressing into his back to hold him there, and the sound she made was want and surrender and coming home all at once.
A heartbeat later, he felt her shatter under him, her body clenching around his, and he followed her over the edge with a low, ragged sound torn out of his chest, his teeth still locked carefully in her shoulder, his hand still cradled low over their child.
He held her through every shudder. He held her through his own.
When he finally eased his teeth free, he laved his tongue over the mark in slow, careful strokes, sealing it the way his wolf demanded, and the warmth of his magic sank into the wound and settled there, a steady, glowing pulse of his under her skin.
His mark bloomed dark and clear against her shoulder.
He stared at it for a long moment, his breath uneven, his hand stroking up and down her side.
Mine.
His wolf finally, finally settled in his chest, the way it hadn’t settled since the cavern below.
Kara’s hand drifted up, her fingers stroking slow patterns at the back of his head. She’d told him once how she loved the texture of his shorn hair, and she rubbed it often. He tried not to purr, which would be completely undignifying since he was a canine.
“There you are,” she whispered, echoing him.
He huffed a breath that was almost a laugh and pressed his forehead to hers.
He stayed there, inside her, on top of her, around her, breathing her in for a long moment before he eased carefully to the side, gathering her with him so that she was tucked against his chest and his hand could settle back in its rightful place low on her stomach.
She curled into him.
His mouth found her temple. He pressed a kiss there. Then another. Then one to the fresh mark on her shoulder, gentle this time, an apology and a promise woven into the same touch.
“I love you,” he said quietly into her hair.
“I love you, too.” Her hand slid up and rested over his heart, the way it always did. “Nick.”
“Yeah, sweetheart?”
“Thank you.”
His throat closed.
He didn’t trust his voice for a moment, so he tightened his arm around her and pressed his cheek to the top of her head. When he could speak again, he found her hand on his chest and laced their fingers together over his heartbeat.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered. “You and our baby. Always.”
Her breath evened out against him. For the first time since they’d entered this mountain, his wolf curled up inside him, content. The world was still ending somewhere out there. Raja was still loose. Something dark was still rising under the roots of this realm. But not in this room. Not tonight.
In this room, his mate slept in his arms with his mark fresh on her shoulder, his child warm under his hand, and the bond between them sang the way it had been built to sing.
For now, that was everything. For now, that was enough.