Chapter 27 #2
Something deeper awakens inside me, building and coiling tight as he hits that perfect spot. I feel myself climbing toward a different kind of release—one that radiates from my core outward, making my thighs tremble and my breath catch.
Fox pants in my ear, and my brain stutters when I realize he’s saying something, not just breathing heavily. “You’re mine. You’re mine.”
I swear my skin must be actually glowing.
“Yours,” I echo, before I can really think about what I’m saying.
He looks down at me and our gazes lock. His nostrils flair, eyes burning. It’s strangely intimate to watch each other like this, especially compared to how we usually come together. I love it.
Fox drops my leg and leans closer, gripping my cheeks instead. He pulls my face to his and kisses me hard, tangling with mine as his cock continues to drive in and out of me. I wrap my arms around his neck, drawing him as close as I can. My legs twine around his hips.
I don’t understand the insane thoughts racing through my mind or the strange desire to get closer, even when it’s not physically possible.
Without warning, my orgasm breaks in a sudden intense burst of pleasure. I gasp, startled, and my eyes roll up into my head. I feel my entire body spasm, and I scream as wetness soaks both of us.
Fox shakes, my release tipping him over the edge with me.
For once, he doesn’t pull out, and I feel the warmth and building pressure inside me.
Then, I feel it. The pressure doesn’t stop building, growing more intense as the base of his cock keeps swelling.
It pushes on my inner walls, drawing my orgasm out longer and longer than it feels should be possible.
My body seems to reform around him, shifting and contracting, squeezing him like a vise.
I realize that part of me had thought it would hurt, but it doesn’t, it just feels impossibly full, somehow more satisfying than I knew I could feel.
For a long time, we lie there—lungs heaving, our hearts hammering against each other, both of us struggling to return to normal. Finally, Fox shifts, gently turning us so I rest across his chest, our bodies still intimately joined by his swollen knot.
He pushes my hair back and nuzzles his face into my neck. “Are you alright?”
“Yes,” I gasp, a little dazed.
We stare at each other, the realization of…everything dawning in waves.
Fox’s eyes look less crazed now, but I can’t read his expression. His pupils are still wide, but I can see the ring of blue returning around the edges.
I open my mouth to speak, but he cuts me off by pressing his lips to mine, kissing me with a hunger that makes my heart race. I taste myself on his tongue as I kiss him back, my fingers digging into his shoulders, pulling him closer with a desperation that terrifies me.
I pull back from his lips, chest heaving, lungs burning for air. My mouth tingles, swollen and tender from the force of our kiss.
Something inside me has cracked open, raw and vulnerable, and I cling to him like he’s the only solid thing left in the world. I need him against me, inside me, part of me—not just physically but in some deeper way I’ve never felt before and don’t have words to name.
That’s a lie, I realize.
I do know the name for this feeling, but the thought terrifies me so much my throat closes around the word, trapping it inside where it pounds against my ribs like a second heartbeat.
“So, how long does this last?” I ask, breathless.
He shakes his head, looking a little dazed. “I don’t know. Half an hour?”
I nod, and yawn. “Alright.”
We look at each other again, and a strange wave of calm passes over me. It’s as if I was suddenly draped in a warm blanket, which is blocking out all my racing thoughts.
I press my face into the crook of Fox’s arm, and force down another yawn. Part of me is feeling incredibly warm and content. I suddenly feel safe, as if I could fall asleep like this. “It must be a hormonal response,” I blurt out, stifling yet another yawn.
“Mmm?” Fox replies, also sounding as if he could fall asleep.
“I think I should be more worried about this, but I’m not. We have to leave to go to the palace soon, but all I want to do is sleep. It must be a hormonal response.” I yawn. “When we get back to Vernallis, I’ll have to see if I can find any books that mention this.”
Fox doesn’t say anything, and for several minutes I think he actually did fall asleep. Then, finally, he says: “I’m sorry.”
I’m nearly asleep too, and I have to blink a few times to wake up enough to understand him. “What?”
“I’m sorry I lost control like that.”
I frown more deeply. “Did you?”
“‘Course.” His eyes fill with torment. “It was the fight I think, and all the other wolves, and…you. The wolf…I couldn’t think straight.”
My stomach hollows out, a cold void spreading through my chest as his words sink in. The warmth I’d felt just moments before shatters like glass. “So you’re saying you regret this?”
He looks like he has to think about that before answering. “No, but I feel like I should.”
A satisfied voice in the back of my head purrs at that. “Don’t. I don’t.”
His eyes flare hot, but then he blinks as if forcing himself to focus. “And if you get pregnant?”
My stomach does a strange leap at that, and I don’t know whether it’s excitement or fear. Maybe a little of both. “I’m taking a potion for that,” I say, trying to sound casual. “I made it myself so I can personally promise it’s effective.”
He looks like he doubts that any potion could be effective enough to get in the way, and as I shift, feeling him still tied tightly inside me, part of me wonders if he’s right.
“I’m sure we could figure it out,” I comment. “Clearly the wolves have children with people who aren’t their mates all the time.”
Fox’s brow pulls even lower and he looks angry, but again doesn’t say anything.
A foggy thought drifts through my mind—
Would I really be alright with that? Is it still the cocktail of hormones racing through me, making me so complacent? Or, is it something far worse that I can barely admit to myself?
It’s as if I’m starving, and I’m desperate enough to devour whatever scraps I can if it means I can keep him. If it means he’ll keep calling me “his.”
I swallow hard. Even in my foggy daze, I’m sure that’s not what I want.
I want more.
And I’m sure he wants that too.
“When we return to Vernallis... what happens to us?” I ask quietly.
Fox’s body goes rigid against mine. “What do you mean?”
“Assuming I’m not, uh…you know.” Pregnant. I gesture vaguely between our still-joined bodies. “Does it continue, or...?”
“That’s up to you.”
The words land like a stone in my stomach, and I have to bite back the hollow desire to laugh. “How is it up to me?”
Something shutters behind his eyes, turning that bright blue to slate. “You deserve everything you want, and as long as that’s me, I’ll keep waiting for you to turn up at my door. Even if you stop coming, I don’t think I’ll ever stop waiting for you.”
My chest squeezes painfully. “You could always come to my door.”
He closes his eyes, shaking his head. “I can’t.”
“Why?” I ask bluntly.
Fox freezes. His eyes shift, and I’m positive he’s wishing we weren’t tied together right now so he could walk away and not have to answer me. I adjust, rising up on my elbows. It’s awkward, but as long as we’re stuck here I’m not going to let him avoid talking about this.
“Why?” I demand again, when he refuses to say anything. “You want me. You want ‘more,’ I can tell, so what’s the problem? Is this about what Viktor said?”
“What did he say?” Fox snarls, then gives me a slightly apologetic look for jostling my body against his.
I don’t even bat an eye at his shift in tone, too focused on forcing the truth out of him to care about anything else.
“He said none of you could form mate bonds, and now that I think about it, some of the others have said similar things to me since we’ve been here.
Liv and Inga both have a pack of children, but neither one of them is mated.
Kai said we’re the first mates in decades.
I thought he was being hyperbolic, but he wasn’t, was he? What’s happening here?”
Fox looks at me again, his jaw clenching and unclenching, a muscle twitching at his temple. His tortured eyes flicker from my face to the wall and back.
Finally, he lets out a breath—a sound like something breaking inside him— and his eyes meet mine with such naked vulnerability that my heart stutters.
His face crumples for just a fraction of a second, that carefully maintained control dissolving, and I glimpse the raw, terrified need underneath before he surrenders to it completely.
“The reason we hate magic,” he begins, his voice barely above a whisper, “is because it’s magic that keeps us here.”
“What do you mean?”
“The shifters are bound to serve the queen of Thermia. We have no control over our own fate. We can’t leave the borders of the country, can’t disobey her orders, and can’t switch our loyalty to anyone but her.”
“But you crossed the border,” I point out, grasping for the simplest part of what he just revealed, as my brain quickly rearranges itself to keep up.
His gaze darkens. “True, but that’s because I was banished. I’m not actually sure what might happen if I try to go back to Vernallis.”
I hear the “if” and alarm shoots through me, but I keep my voice even as I ask: “What normally happens if you break the rules?”
“You die, or at the very least terrible things can happen.”
I look at him, horror washing through me. “You’ve seen that happen?”