Chapter 13 Keandra #2
I begin to realize it is because Kaiven has decided they won’t.
That should feel controlling. Instead, tonight, after so many eyes and too many new things, it feels like one narrow line of steadiness.
When I finish eating, Oshara steps near again. Her gaze moves from my flushed face to Kaiven and back. She says something to him in Tigris, quieter than before. I catch nothing this time. Kaiven answers without looking away from me.
Oshara’s expression changes by almost nothing. Then she nods once and turns away.
I do not know what was said. But I know enough now to understand this is part of the ceremony too. Not the public part. The private one everyone knows comes after.
Heat crawls over my neck and chest.
Kaiven takes the plate from my hands and gives it to one of the women passing by. Then he looks at me fully.
“Come.”
Again that word. Again, I go.
This time, the walk back to the tent feels different. Not because the path has changed. Because I have. The horde has seen me. The fires have marked something. The law already named me wife. Now the camp has looked at me and answered. My legs feel strangely light and heavy at once.
Inside the tent, the quiet lands hard. After the drums and voices and fire, the close warm stillness feels almost shocking.
The brazier burns low. The furs have been turned down.
Fresh water waits in a basin. Someone has set another lamp near the bed.
Everything is ready in a way that makes my pulse race harder.
Kaiven closes the entrance flap.
I stand a few steps inside the tent and do not know what to do with my hands. The heat in my face has not gone down. Neither has the strange trembling under my skin. I am not a fool. I knew this was coming. The marriage, the feast, the fire, all of it leads here. Knowing it does not make me ready.
Kaiven turns toward me slowly, as if quick movement would only tighten the air more than it already is. In firelight and lamplight, he looks even more dangerous than he did outside. Larger in the enclosed space. More male. More entirely himself.
I should say something. Nothing comes.
He steps closer. One step. Then another. Not crowding me all at once. Giving me time to react. Time to flinch if I am going to. Time to show fear openly if that is what this moment pulls from me.
I stay where I am. Not because I am calm. Because I cannot seem to do anything else.
When he is close enough, he reaches up and touches the edge of the outer wrap at my shoulder. His fingers pause there briefly, giving me space to understand the gesture. Then he eases the wrap from my body and sets it aside.
His hand returns to my shoulder after. Just rests there. Warm. Heavy. Controlled.
The size of him hits me again all at once. The width of his chest. The strength in his arm. The fact that one hand of his can span almost the whole of my shoulder without effort.
“Keandra.”
My name in his voice does something strange to me. Grounds me and unsettles me at the same time.
I make myself meet his eyes. Amber. Bright. Fixed fully on me.
He says something in Tigris first. Low. Rough. Then, in English, “Look at me.”
I already am, but the words tighten my attention further. I cannot seem to look anywhere else now.
“You are afraid,” he says.
There is no mockery in it. No impatience. Only truth.
“Yes.”
His thumb shifts once against my shoulder. “I know.”
Three simple words. They almost undo me more than the fear itself.
He moves with painful slowness after that, as if every part of him knows too much force now will harden this moment the wrong way.
One hand on my shoulder. One at my waist. Nothing rushed.
Nothing careless. I feel every inch of contact because there is so little of it and because his body is so much larger, warmer, harder than mine.
When he kisses me, it is not soft in the way I once imagined first kisses might be.
It is careful, but it is not uncertain. His mouth is warm and firm, and the contact is enough to send a hard shiver through me.
Whatever I was on Mars, whatever I was even at the start of the feast, I am no longer only that now. There is no pretending otherwise.
The firelight catches the hard planes of his face as he straightens, and I can see the hunger in his expression.
Raw. Unshielded. The kind of hunger that is not about food but about claiming, about possession.
He looks at me like I am the only thing that matters in the universe, and the sheer intensity of it makes my breath catch in my throat.
“You feel it too, don’t you, Anari?” His voice is a low rumble, the words barely more than a vibration against my skin. “This pull. This need.”
I can only nod, my throat too tight for words.
********************
His hands tighten on my waist, the pressure just shy of pain, and I can feel the hard ridge of his erection against my belly. He is huge. Bigger than I ever imagined, and a thrill of fear mixed with anticipation shoots through me.
“You’re mine, Keandra,” he growls, and the words are both a statement of fact and a vow. “Mine to claim. Mine to breed. Mine to keep.”
He lifts me as if I weigh nothing, carrying me to the bed of furs by the fire.
The softness of the pelts contrasts with the hardness of his body as he settles over me, his bulk surrounding me, enveloping me.
He presses me down into the furs and roughly grips the front of my dress, pulling it down.
I can feel my breasts bounce free. He groans at the sight of them.
“Perfect,” he breathes, his gaze hot. “You are perfect for me.”
His hands are everywhere, learning my shape, marking me with his touch. I am completely exposed to him, vulnerable in a way that should terrify me, but instead, it ignites a deep, primal need within me. I want this. I want him.
He shifts, and the hard length of him presses against my core.
“Easy, Narai,” he murmurs, though there’s nothing easy about the look in his eyes. “I will have all of you.”
He pushes up my dress and rips my panties off, exposing my wet pussy to him.
His mouth is on my breast, his fang scraping gently across my nipple as his fingers brush my clit and begin to rub it.
He retracts his claws and pushes his large finger inside of me.
“Wait, just a moment.” I gasp out and attempt to wiggle back away from him.
He growls and presses me down into the furs more tightly and forces his finger inside of me, hitting my hymen.
“Kaiven, please.” I moan. He leans back to look at my face.
“Shhh. I know, Veli. The blood must be spilled.” His thumb finds my clit, and he begins to circle it slowly as he begins to break my hymen with one slow, deliberate push. “There,” he rumbles, the sound vibrating through my entire body. “You are mine now, Keandra. In every way.”
The sting is sharp, unexpected, but it’s quickly replaced by a wave of pleasure so intense it makes my head spin. He moves his finger within me, stretching me, filling me, and I feel myself opening to him, surrendering to the invasion.
“So tight,” he groans, his eyes closing for a moment as if he’s savoring the feeling. “So perfect for me.”
He adds a second finger, and the stretch is exquisite, a delicious ache that has me arching against him. His movements are deliberate, controlled, each stroke designed to bring me closer to the edge.
“You’re so wet for me, Narai,” he praises, his voice thick with satisfaction. “Your body knows its master.”
I can’t argue with that. My body is responding to him in ways I never imagined, every nerve ending alive and humming with need. I feel wild, uninhibited, like a vessel of pure sensation.
He withdraws his fingers, and the loss of contact makes me whimper. But then he’s settling between my thighs, the broad head of his cock pressing against my entrance. He’s huge, impossibly so, and for a moment, panic flares in my chest.
“Shhh,” he soothes, though his eyes are wild with an almost frightening hunger. “Trust me, Anari. I will make it good for you.”
He begins to push in, the stretch intense, almost too much. I cry out, my hands flying to his shoulders, my nails digging into his skin.
“Vah,” he commands, his voice rough with need. “Stay with me, Veli.”
He pushes deeper, and the pain is sharp, breathtaking. But beneath it, there’s a pleasure so profound it’s almost painful. He’s filling me, stretching me, claiming me in the most primal way possible.
“So tight,” he groans again, his forehead resting against mine. “You’re killing me, woman.”
He starts to move then, a slow, deep rhythm that has me gasping with each thrust. The pain is fading now, replaced by a pleasure that’s building, coiling in my belly, threatening to explode.
“You feel that, Narai?” he rasps, his thrusts becoming harder, faster. “That’s me inside you. That’s me claiming you. Making you mine.”
His words are like gasoline on a fire, and the pleasure spikes, intense, overwhelming. I’m close, so close, my body tensing, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
“Look at me,” he demands, his hands cupping my face, forcing me to meet his gaze. “I want to see you when you come for me.”
My pussy is clasping him tightly, and he groans and hisses out, suddenly losing control as he bites my shoulder, his fangs driving deep. His hips set a brutal pounding rhythm.
The bite is a shock, a flash of pain that somehow melts into the most intense pleasure I have ever felt. My orgasm crashes over me, a tidal wave of sensation that leaves me breathless and trembling. I can feel him spilling inside me, hot, possessive, a final, irrevocable claim.
He licks at the wound, his tongue raspy against my skin, and I shudder, aftershocks of pleasure rippling through me. He’s still inside me, still hard, a heavy, satisfying weight that anchors me to the earth.
“Velkhar,” he whispers against my skin, the word a vow, a promise, a brand. “You are mine now, Keandra. Forever.”