Chapter 19
Nineteen
Zax cleaned the oil from his body before they began.
Fawn told him not to bother. But she could not smell it as he did—thick and bitter, distracting him every time he attempted to lose himself in Fawn’s sweet scent. He wiped the oil off with a rag, then stowed it deep in her pack.
“There,” Fawn said breathlessly. “Are you happy now? Could we return to the task at hand?”
She reclined against the blanket he had laid out for her in the cave, bare and beautiful.
There was a circle of herbs drawn over her heart, as there was one over Zax’s.
His brother’s instructions for the lifebond were simple.
And luckily, they did not smell as distracting as the foul oil he had smeared on Zax for the size ritual.
“Anything for you,” Zax said. With that, he reached across Fawn’s naked body and picked up the jar of oil his brother had given them. There was one last thing they needed to do, then the lifebond could proceed.
Zax poured a careful circle around the blanket he had laid out for her. Then, after making sure the two ends of the circle were connected, he climbed into the circle and knelt above her.
Fawn bit her lip. She was smiling, the scent of her arousal heavier than any herb they had mixed or poured for this spell. She toyed absentmindedly with her nipples, and Zax’s tail lashed against the sides of the cave as they went flushed and puffy with the attention.
“Are you just going to sit there?” Fawn asked. “Or shall we get this lifebond sealed already?”
Zax was overcome with a love so hot and huge he could hardly stand it. He kissed her deeply, then pressed kisses to her neck, feeling her pulse flutter excitedly underneath it.
He pulled her legs open. He was naked and hard, his cocks already dripping as he arranged himself between them.
“Zax,” Fawn said suddenly.
“Yes?”
Fawn paused. “This would probably be easier on my hands and knees. Right? And I know you said we don’t need slick, for my… um, my other hole. But do you think we should use spit?”
She was nervous. He could smell it on her, a bitter whiff lurking below her arousal.
“There will be no pain,” he assured her.
“I know, but the… sensation.” Fawn’s nose wrinkled. She was still uncomfortable talking about sex. She never had to with Renly, who took what he wanted and did not care about her pleasure or discomfort.
Zax considered. He, too, enjoyed the wetness of the slide. He stroked her inner thigh, watching her skin break out in gooseflesh.
“On your hands and knees,” he said.
Fawn’s smile flickered back into place. She climbed onto her hands and knees, presenting herself shyly to him.
She looked back at him, and Zax had a moment to mourn that he could not watch her face so easily.
But she was so appealing like this, bent over for him.
And, he considered as he lined himself up to her holes again, this position probably did have a certain advantage over their usual position.
He gripped both his cocks, rubbing his pointed cockheads against her entrances. He spread his precum against her lower hole, getting it damp. Then he bent over her and let his tongue loll out, dripping spit onto not just her holes, but his cocks.
Fawn groaned.
Zax leaned back, rubbing the notches of her spine. “Do you think that will be wet enough?”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Fawn said. She laughed, giddy and anxious. “Put them in.”
Zax rubbed himself over her holes some more, smearing the wetness. Then he pressed in—slowly, just to test the give.
Usually, there was resistance. But this time there was none. Only the tight, hot heat of her holes, both of them opening eagerly around him.
Fawn gasped. Zax heard himself make a low, trilling growl that he had never heard before, his hips jerking forward without his permission.
And still he slid deeper. He meant to pull out, to work himself inside using slow, shallow thrusts as he always did. But he was mesmerized by the sight of his cocks disappearing inside her.
Deeper and deeper and deeper. There was only an inch of cock outside her holes now, which was usually where he met her end and was forced to stop. But there was no end anymore. He just kept sliding inside until his hips met her skin, his cocks fully seated inside both her holes.
Fawn was panting. Her arms trembled as they held her up against the blanket.
“My love,” Zax managed, strained. He rubbed his hand down her sides, feeling the sweat gathering there. “Are you alright? How does it feel?”
“Good,” Fawn slurred. “It’s— I’m good. Oh, gods. You feel impossible.”
She rocked experimentally against him, grinding against his lap.
Zax grabbed her hips, stilling her. “You will make me come,” he warned.
“Isn’t that the—ohhh.” Fawn trailed off into a moan as he thrust back and forth, unable to take his eyes away from how her holes stretched around him.
Zax realized with no small shock that he could feel his cocks rub against each other through her holes. He could even feel himself pulse, his shafts throbbing in time as he thrusted. Small thrusts. He could not will himself to pull out very far before pushing back in, more rutting than thrusting.
The circle of oil around them lit up. At first, Zax pulled Fawn closer, thinking it was fire.
But no heat emanated from the circle, only bright white light.
Zax watched it reflect against Fawn’s flushed brown skin and thought, not for the first time, that Fawn was gods-sent.
He did not truly believe that Titans had given her to him.
But he could not believe that Fawn was a random accident.
She was too important to be anything but destined for him.
He could take it no longer. He snapped his hips, drawing a moan from both of them as he began thrusting in earnest.
“You are the best thing I have ever felt,” Zax said raggedly. “Tight and wet and perfect. I could do this forever.”
Fawn groaned in reply. She was shaking, still arching against him as his thrusts quickened. The drag was different in her lower hole, and Zax was glad for the slick. But he did not slow down to spit on his cock again, too lost in the impossible pleasure of both his cocks inside her.
Fawn reached back blindly, covering his hand on her hip and squeezing.
Zax reacted mindlessly. He hauled her up against him, plastering her back to his chest as he mated her. One hand gripped her breast, the other held her tight against him by her belly. If he pressed hard enough, he could feel the outline of his upper cock in her stomach.
“C-careful,” Fawn gasped. “Don’t smudge it!”
It took Zax an addled moment to realize what she meant. Then he hooked his head over her own and saw it: the circle he’d drawn over her heart was glowing with the same pale light as the circle of oil around them. His own chest was glowing, too. It was muffled between them, but glowing strongly.
They were not just mating, Zax reminded himself. They were forming a lifebond.
It filled Zax with overwhelming fervor. He clasped Fawn tighter, nuzzling her beloved short curls.
The spell was spreading through him now, tingling much like the size spell, except without the horrible weakness that came with it.
This tingling was hotter, more alive, spreading through him like a sunrise.
“I can feel the spell in my core,” he told her. “Tingling and fizzing. Tying us together. Can you feel it?”
“Ye-e-s,” Fawn said, her voice choppy from his thrusts. She reached up this time, gripping his broken horn with desperate, damp fingers.
Zax groaned louder as sensation ran down his horn and joined the others. His pleasure was building, but it was imperceptible from the magic coiling through him. Through them.
“You will be mine, always,” Zax said into her hair. “Mine to care for. Mine to fuck. Mine to worship.”
“And y-you will be mine,” Fawn moaned.
The tingling sensation sank deeper, echoing into his bones. He could somehow feel it sink into Fawn’s fragile mortal bones along with his own, the light swelling around them as the spell took hold.
Nearly, Zax thought, unable to form words now. He was too close. Too close to orgasm, too close to the spell’s zenith—they were so similar he could not tell the difference.
Fawn cried out and came, tightening around him. Zax crushed her close with a roar, a vicious noise that turned into a desperate whine as the magic pulsed and glowed and bound them together.
It went on and on. Zax grew less aware of his own body and more aware of Fawn’s: her softness and smallness and deep, sharp anger; her squashed desires finally coming to a head the longer she knew him.
It was astounding. Zax was in awe. If he was not already on his knees, he would have dropped to them in worship of his wonderful, rageful wife.
Zax blacked out. When he came to, the spell-light was gone, and he was no longer inside his wife. The oil around them was simply oil. Fawn was curled against his side, panting softly. Come dripped down her thighs and into the twisted blanket, and Zax’s spent cocks twitched with want.
He took Fawn’s face in his hands, stroking her freckled cheeks until her eyes opened.
“It is done,” he murmured. “We are bound. You will not wither until I do.”
Fawn smiled shakily. She reached up and caressed his skull mask.
“My love,” she said. “My Zax.”
Zax kissed her. He tasted salt and pulled back to see tears on her cheeks.
He licked them off, certain that he had not hurt her.
There was no pain in the air, only oil and sweat and come.
Zax kissed a path down her body next, losing himself in the curve of her neck and, later, the soft skin under her small breasts.
Then her belly, and the near-invisible coat of down on her skin that got thicker and muskier once he reached her thighs.
Then he settled there, licking away her release before pressing his tongue inside her holes.
First her upper hole, as his brother had mentioned—if he was to lick both, he had to lick the upper one first. Then, when she was writhing and whimpering but clean, he moved down to clean her lower hole, relishing how she squeezed around him.
Even with the spell, she was so tight the clench felt impossible.
He stayed there a while longer, kissing her legs. He ran his tongue down the underside of her knee and pressed his lips to her healing ankle.
“I will do this so often you will lose count,” Zax murmured into her skin. “Soon we will know each other with our eyes closed. I will be able to trace you from memory.”
Fawn let out another soft whimper. This one broke at the edges.
Zax looked up, alarmed. Fawn was crying again. Not the shocked ecstasy from the ritual, but hitching, shaking tears that she tried to smother by covering her mouth with her hands.
“My love?” Zax leaned over her, nuzzling her cheek. “What is wrong?”
Fawn shook her head. When she was able to speak, she said, “I never knew being a wife could feel like this.”
“Like what?”
“Being…” Fawn laughed wetly. “I don’t know. Cherished.”
Zax relaxed, wrapping her in his arms and holding her close. “Mortals are strange. What else would a wife be?”
Fawn laughed again. It was full of relief and, if he was not mistaken, grief. She twisted in his grip, hugging him back fiercely.
“I wish you had eaten him sooner,” she mumbled. “You should have carried me off and kissed me right there in the forest, covered in his blood.”
“You would have tried to stab me again.”
“I would have.” Fawn grinned, and not for the first time, Zax imagined her with fangs.
He kissed her again. Then a faint noise made itself known, and he froze.
Fawn pulled back. “What?”
Zax shushed her and pulled her deeper into the cave. He took the blanket too, and the pack, and soon they were wedged up against the end of the cave with not even a shaft of light touching them from the mountain path.
At first, it was only wheezing and tired footsteps. Then there was a voice, and Fawn stiffened against him. Staring at the mouth of the cave, hoping that it was small and hidden enough that they would not be noticed.
“I did hear something,” snapped Errol, so breathless the words were almost inaudible. “A… a roar! A Skullstalker roar! You really didn’t hear anything?”
More panting. One of the hunters managed, “Dragged us all up here for nothing.”
“Dragged us in circles,” the other hunter added. “Those footsteps follow each other around, they do! I bet the Skullstalker’s in some void right now, slipped through a part of the veil right here on this mountain. You know the veil’s thin here, eh? We could all stumble through it any second!”
“We won’t accidentally step into a void,” Errol insisted. “Come now. You cannot give up the hunt just because of a few bad days! We will find the bastard. We will get my fiancé back. And we will show her the errors of her sinful ways, and she will see the light—”
“Yes, yes, enough,” the first hunter said, cutting him off.
“Light, and so forth,” the second hunter muttered over him.
There was another shout from the distance. It sounded like Chastity, panting and annoyed from further down the path.
“Don’t be bothersome, Mother,” Errol yelled back. “We are coming. Stay there.”
With that, the mortals left. Still grumbling, still panting, so sweaty that Zax could smell them from the depths of the cave.
A long minute passed before Fawn relaxed in his arms, her breath leaving her in a long gust.
“We could escape,” Zax whispered. “We have the spells we came here for. My brother will not help us fight. We could flee.”
Fawn pulled her dress over her sweaty body and stared at the mouth of the cave. “Do you want to flee?”
Zax paused. “I want you to be safe.”
“But you also want to rip them apart.”
Zax looked at her curiously.
“I do,” he said slowly. “We could go beyond the mountain. My other brother, Wick—”
“We don’t need Wick,” Fawn said.
Zax watched her, a strange anticipation curling in his gut. He felt like he was witnessing something beautiful and bloody being born.
“Your brother,” she began. “He knows a lot of magic, yes? More than what he gave us.”
“He does.”
Fawn grunted. An animal grunt, a predator grunt, a noise that set his blood alight with excitement.
“Fawn?” he asked, tail swishing. “What are you planning?”
Fawn did not answer for a moment. Then she looked back at him, and her bright eyes reminded him of his own just before he gave in to the chase.