CHAPTER 8 #2
My hand wraps around her throat. Not squeezing. Not yet. Just holding. Feeling her pulse flutter against my palm.
I feel her walls shake and contract violently and know she came.
"Such a dirty little whore. Coming on a dragon's cock." My voice comes out ragged. "Fuck!" I follow her over the edge. But I'm instantly hard again.
"Maybe I shouldn't wake you," I say, my thrusts starting up again, slowly at first. "Maybe I should just keep you like this. Safe. Perfect. Mine." But even as I say it, I know it's impossible. The spell is failing. We're both dying. If I don't complete it soon, we'll both be dead within the year.
"No," I growl. "No, I have to wake you. Have to see your eyes. Have to hear your voice.” My hand tightens around her throat, cutting off her air supply even though she doesn't need to breathe under the spell. It's instinct. Possession. The need to control every aspect of her.
"You're mine," I snarl. "Mine, Adelaide.
My mate. My perfect little princess. Fate decided it for us.
" I release her throat and flip her over roughly, pulling her hips up.
My hand comes down hard on her ass, the crack echoing through the room.
"And tomorrow you're going to wake up and see exactly what kind of monster has been fucking this tight little cunt for a hundred years. "
I spank her again, harder, watching her skin turn pink under my palm.
"You're going to see these claws that have touched every inch of you.
This tail that's wrapped around you while you slept.
These wings that have sheltered you from the world.
" Another spank. "And you're going to be disgusted. Horrified. Terrified."
My cock drives into her relentlessly, chasing a release that will never satisfy the bond. Not until she's awake. Not until she chooses me.
"Fuck... look how wet you are. Can you feel it? A century asleep and still your cunt drips for me like a needy little whore." I draw gentle circles around her clit with my claw. I know she likes the danger that comes with it by the way her pussy shakes and clenches me.
"But you know what, baby?" I lean over her, my chest pressed to her back, my mouth at her ear. "I don't fucking care. You can hate me all you want. You can scream and cry and try to run. But you're mine. The bond says so. Fate says so. And I say so."
I'm spiraling. I can feel it. The careful control I've maintained for a century is crumbling, and I'm drowning in obsession and need and fear so profound it's choking me.
"I'm going to wake you tomorrow," I repeat, the words a mantra now. My thrusts are brutal now, animalistic.
I'm losing my mind. I've lost it. Maybe I lost it the moment I saw her a hundred years ago and decided she was mine.
"Fuck, you feel so good," I groan, my rhythm becoming erratic.
"So tight. So perfect. Such a good little slut for me, aren't you?
Taking my cock so well. You've taken it for a hundred years, and tomorrow you're going to take it while you're awake.
While you're screaming. While you're begging me to stop or begging me for more, I don't even fucking care which. "
That's a lie, too. I care. I care so much it's destroying me.
My hand wraps around her throat again from behind, pulling her up so her back is arched, her body pressed against mine.
"Mine," I growl into her ear as I fuck into her.
"Say it. Fucking say it. Say you're mine.
" But she can't. She's asleep. I'm talking to her like she can hear me, like she can respond, like she's anything more than a beautiful doll I've been fucking for a century.
"Tomorrow," I whisper, my voice breaking.
"Tomorrow you'll be able to say it. Or you'll be able to tell me you hate me.
Either way, I'll finally know. Finally hear your voice.
" Tears are streaming down my face now, hot and shameful.
"God, Adelaide, I'm so scared. So fucking scared of what you'll say.
What you'll do. What you'll think of me. "
I release her throat and push her face down into the pillows, my hand pressing between her shoulder blades as I fuck her with abandon. "But I'm more scared of losing you. Of the spell failing and you dying in your sleep. Of never hearing your voice. Never knowing if you could have loved me back."
My other hand comes down on her ass again, harder than before. The bond is screaming now, demanding completion, demanding her awareness. It's tearing me apart from the inside, and I can feel my magic flickering, failing.
My thrusts become desperate, chasing an orgasm that won't satisfy anything.
"And maybe you'll understand. Maybe you'll feel the bond too.
Maybe you'll realize that we're mates, that we're meant to be together, that everything I've done was because I love you so fucking much I can't breathe without you. "
I'm babbling now, words pouring out in a stream of consciousness that reveals just how far gone I am. I feel tears running down my cheeks again. I blink them away.
My hand slides around to her front, finding her clit again and I flick over it gently with my claw. Her body responds even in sleep, clenching around me, and I groan.
"But you're going to come for me one more time before I wake you.
Because your pussy is so needy for attention.
It's practically begging me to fuck it. To make it come again.
And tomorrow, I'm going to make you come while you're awake.
Make you bounce on my cock while you moan.
While you're looking at me. While you're screaming my name.
Once you wake up, I'll tell you my name. I promise."
If she doesn't kill me first.
"Fuck, I'm close," I growl. "Going to fill this tight little cunt.
Going to pump you full of my cum one more time before everything changes.
" My claw works her clit frantically, and I feel her body starting to tighten, that telltale flutter that means she's close too.
"Come for me, Adelaide. Come all over my cock like the dirty slut you are.
Show me that my dragon cock is all you'll ever want. "
"Tomorrow," I pant, my rhythm becoming erratic as my orgasm builds. "Tomorrow, I'll call you my love, my treasure, my princess. But tonight... tonight you're my slut. My whore. My perfect little fucktoy that I've been using for a hundred years."
I feel her body start to convulse, that phantom orgasm that her sleeping body still experiences, and it pushes me over the edge.
"Fuck, Adelaide, fuck!" I roar, slamming into her one final time as I come, filling her with my release.
"Good girl. Good girl. Good girl." I chant the words in tune with my final thrusts.
I collapse over her, my chest heaving, my cock still buried inside her. Tears are streaming down my face now, and I'm shaking with the force of my emotions.
"I love you," I whisper brokenly. "I love you so much it's killing me. I'm ready to wake you. I'm finally ready."
I pull out slowly, watching my cum leak out of her, marking her as mine one last time. I clean her gently, reverently, my touch tender now that the madness has passed.
"Tomorrow," I murmur.
I lie down beside her, pulling her into my arms. My tail wraps around her leg possessively. My wing drapes over her like a blanket.
"I don't want to do this," I admit to the darkness.
I press a kiss to her forehead, gentle and reverent.
I close my eyes, holding her close, memorizing the feel of her in my arms. Because tomorrow, she might never let me hold her again.
"I love you," I whisper one more time like it's a prayer. And maybe it is. "And I'm so sorry. For everything. But I'm not sorry enough to let you go."
I drift off, exhausted. Memorizing the rise and fall of her chest as she sleeps. The slope of her nose. The flutter of her lashes against her cheeks as she settled into sleep herself.
The knife is small.
Ceremonial. Older than I am. Its edge gleams in the candlelight, and for a moment, I think of all the things I have cut away for her. Kings, princes, futures that dared to imagine her elsewhere.
There’s no hesitation.
I slice my finger open where the magic will listen best. Blood rises immediately, dark and heavy, thick with everything I am. My hand shakes. Not from pain, but from the knowledge that once this is done, she will no longer belong to silence alone.
She will belong to choice.
I turn to her.
She lies exactly as I left her, as I have kept her, as I have guarded her. Lashes resting against perfectly tan skin, lush lips parted just enough to remind me that she is not dead—only waiting. For me. Always for me.
For a century I have held the world back with my body and my claws.
My wings shift behind me, vast and restless, the membranes trembling as if they already know what I am about to lose. Or what I am about to claim forever. I force them still. I will not retreat from this. I have never retreated from anything that tried to take her from me. Not even my own father.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur, though the words ring hollow even as I give them voice. Sorry is a thing spoken to equals. Sorry is too small for what I’ve done.
The spell book lies open behind me, its pages whispering like traitors. I do not look back. I no longer need its permission. I know the truth now and I understand fully what this reversal will cost me.
I press my bleeding finger to her lips. The magic recoils violently, as if struck. Green and blue smoke spirals slowly from her lips and glitters in the weak sunlight.
The wards carved into the stone shudder. Candle flames bow, then snap upright in defiance. The air thickens, charged with something ancient and furious. Something that has waited far too long to be acknowledged.
My wings begin to shake in earnest now, powerful muscles locking and unlocking as magic surges through me. Instinct screams to spread them wide, to shield her, to cage her from whatever comes next. I resist the urge with a snarl caught in my throat.
I begin the words. They are not prayers.
They are commands meant for endings. Each syllable rips something loose inside me. Control, certainty, the careful illusion that I was the master of this fate instead of its instrument.
Her lips warm beneath my finger. That has never happened before.
My breath fractures.
“I love you,” I say, and the words scrape out of me like a wound. This is a confession made at the edge of annihilation. “I love you, and I don’t care if you forgive me. I don’t care if you hate me. I don’t care if you raise a blade against my throat.”
The magic smoke tightens around us, coiling, demanding completion.
My wings shudder violently now, spreading despite my effort, their strength trembling under the force of fate correcting itself. Stone groans beneath my clawed feet as I lean over her, refusing to give the magic distance.
“I couldn’t make the world safe fast enough,” I continue hoarsely. “I killed everything that tried to reach you. I burned every future that didn’t have me in it. And still it wasn’t enough.”
My blood smears across her mouth as I push my bloody finger onto her tongue, then I lean down and place a kiss on her soft lips. Gently. Lovingly.
The final seal breaks. The curse screams.
The sound is not heard so much as felt through bone, through wing, through the ancient bond that has been tightening around my heart for a hundred years. The castle convulses. Time itself seems to recoil, furious at being denied any longer.
Something deep and irrevocable snaps.
My tail snaps at the ground. My wings flare wide, shaking violently as the magic collapses inward, tearing itself apart in a last, desperate correction. I brace myself over her, claws digging into stone, refusing to be driven back.
I do not pull away. I stay. I watch. Because whatever wakes will be hers. Whatever she does next will decide whether I am monster, mate, or corpse.
And I will accept any of those outcomes, so long as she is awake to choose them.
The truth settles into me as the last of the spell dies screaming:
No spell meant to preserve may outlast fate.
Awakening is not mercy.
It is reckoning.