Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
EVANTHE
This time, there is no hesitation as he pads up to me. Once again, he is bloodied, but my breath catches at the gaping wound on his shoulder.
“Oh, what happened to you?” I cry.
He nudges me with his snout, pressing me back against the tree, and makes a low chuff. It is a very dismissive sound, as though him bleeding all over the place is of no consequence.
“Do not dismiss me, wolf,” I say. “Why do you not shift to heal?”
He ignores my question, drawing closer still until his snout touches my cheek.
I squeak.
His snout drifts downward to the mark at my throat. He licks. Liquid heat flows into my veins; a low moan escapes my lips.
His next chuff is deep and steeped with satisfaction before he flashes to his monstrous werebeast.
My heart skips a beat then hammers a rapid ba-dump.
He should terrify me, by rights. This form is towering and powerful, broad-chested and twice my height. Only, I think of how he protected me from that raider, and all I experience is wonder.
Reaching up, I cup his snout. He leans into my touch, making a low crooning sound before crowding over me and licking across my lips.
It should disgust me, yet he smells of pine needles and mint, and something earthy and a little carnal. Something that makes me shiver in other ways.
His tongue moves lower, lapping the hollow of my throat, finding the mark again, before his nose depresses the upper swell of my breast. He snuffles there before his broad tongue licks over the curve.
My fingers clench and tremble. I try to stay still. I am his now, bound by the old laws that guard Merrywood. He is vast and fearsome—yet his tongue slides beneath my dress and chemise, rising until it teases my nipple and I forget my own name.
I gasp, daring to move my hand to block him.
“Behave, mate,” he growls, voice so low I feel it vibrate through me.
My chest heaves, my breath is stuttering in and out.
It is my first time hearing his voice and it shocks me into docility.
His growl continues in a low rumble, promising trouble should I not comply.
One giant fist snags the front of my dress, and he tugs, jerking me from the tree.
The material gives in a sudden loud rent, and my breasts spill free.
He makes a low, rumbling sound against me, using his nose to push me back, his arms creating a cage against the tree. This time, there is nothing to stop his wicked tongue from curling around my breast and lapping at my nipple, which tightens to a hard, sensitive point.
Arousal pools low in my belly, making me hot and squirmy. I shouldn’t be enjoying this. Should not be feeling pleasure. He licks and laps, seeming intent upon stoking my shame higher and my nipple to yet greater sensitivity. My core grows hot, and slickness gathers between my thighs.
This is happening too fast.
“I don’t even know your name,” I mumble.
He doesn’t stop to gift me his name, instead, he snuffles his nose against me before his teeth nip lightly against the plump flesh.
My breath stutters again, fear colliding with the heat.
Maybe Mistress Nina got this all wrong. Maybe he is going to savage me?
But no, he is gentle about it. The nip is almost playful before he licks my nipple again. He exhales a low breath. Moving over to the other side and doing the same there. Licking and lapping, nipping here and there, until my breasts feel swollen and achy, and my nipples grow impossibly taut.
I am terrified, confused. Between my legs grows hot and wet. The forest scent of him saturates the air.
He grips the ruined collar of my dress again. Tugs me forward, displacing me from the tree and dropping me on the ground before it.
Now I am flat on my back against the rough forest floor, a litter of branches and leaves, with fern and pinecones poking into me.
He growls, his teeth against my dress beneath my breasts, before moving down.
With a glint in his eyes, he takes the hem of my dress in his beastly hand and slowly, almost daring me to complain, draws it up.
“Oh,” I say weakly.
He crowds over me, planting his nose against my core, separated from him by only a thin layer of cotton. He snuffles, makes a low rumbly sound, and licks at me through the material.
I jolt. I try to twist away. He growls against my pussy, and I freeze again.
Teeth close over the material, and he tugs.
“Goddess, please don’t,” I protest, cheeks burning with shame.
Another growl, low and rumbling, not exactly aggression, but more of a warning.
He tugs abruptly, and the material of my panties is ripped in two. Not satisfied, he tugs again, and again until my underthings lie shredded and cold air hits my overheated flesh.
Before I can gather my wits or splutter a complaint, he takes a big, long lick the length of my slit.
“Oh,” I say. My fingers make fists at my side as he takes another long lick. And then he tries to stuff his tongue right inside my pussy, and a strangled gasp leaves me.
He purrs and pokes inside me again. I try to jerk away. He growls, uses his clawed hands to pin my legs open, and goes back to licking me there.
I put shaking hands over my face and try to pretend this is not happening, that he is not licking my most intimate place, that it does not feel pleasurable, and that I am not dripping for him.
As if my mortification is not already complete, his tongue sweeps up, attacking the little nub, licking and lapping it. He makes a deep rumbly purr of delight as it swells with pleasure.
My breath begins to stutter, and yet more of my shameful arousal trickles out. Almost like he senses it, he is licking the entrance to my pussy, before pushing his tongue inside.
He alternates between teasing my clit and pushing inside me until I am near delirious with pleasure. My hips start to rock of their own volition. I feel like I’m losing my mind and decency.
Yet something is building inside me. A pressure, a tension.
Like a flower blooming a petal at a time, drawing me unerringly toward a goal.
This is too much. I should not… Surely I cannot…
And yet when the tip of his thick, sinuous tongue attacks my clit again, I tumble over into a savage climax that tears a wanton cry from my lips.
His tongue is back to thrusting inside me as deep rumbly sounds emanate from his chest. And I just lie there panting. Questioning my sanity, questioning why I did not try to stop him.
I have clearly lost my mind.
He stops abruptly, and I blink my bleary eyes open.
Is that it? Is he finally going to shift to a man?
I think about righting my skirt and tugging my bodice back into some semblance of order, but before I can, he is on me again, tumbling me onto my belly.
He takes the scruff of my collar and drags me forward.
I thrash and fight to break free. But there is no escaping him, and all too easily, he drops me face down over the trunk of a sturdy fallen tree.
Slow-witted after my climax, I don’t realize his intentions until it is already too late. My dress is thrust up, and his huge body comes down over me, pinning me to the fallen tree.
“Goddess! What are you doing?!”
His legs press between mine, spreading me wide open in the most shameful and lewd of ways.
“Taking what is mine,” he purrs just as something hot and slick slides between the folds of my pussy.
His beastly hands grip the tree trunk to either side of my shoulders.
I struggle… until his teeth close over the scruff of my neck and nip the skin.
His growl and hold are a silent warning to be good and still.
I freeze, terror sweeping down my spine even as my pussy weeps in confusion. He could snap my neck with ease. He could rip my throat out, or at the very least, wound me terribly if he chose to.
His hips slide backward, and when they push forward again, slowly, his cock snags the entrance of my pussy.
I murmur weakly.
His hips snap forward, and this time, his thick male member slides inside me.
He has penetrated me. His cock is in me, filling me.
RANULF
Gods, I am inside her, her tight sheath squeezing over me in the most arresting way.
Instincts take over. I am no longer in control of myself.
A creature of instinct and nothing more.
I am falling deep into my rut, fucking into her, pinning her small body beneath mine as I take what I need.
This is how it was meant to be, the old ways—praising the mother of all things—the Goddess Herself—for delivering this beauty to me.
She is ours from now until we go to the Goddess’s side. Ours to rut, ours to breed, ours to protect and to cherish.
The only thought in my mind is the sensation of plunging my thick cock into her needy cunt. She flutters all around me, squeezing over me with every penetration, like she is welcoming me home.
I want to fucking come, to fill her, to seed her womb. But my climax taunts me, just outside of my grasp. I have become, confusingly, too fucking hard. My knot is already swollen painfully. The urge to slam it into her and fully claim her is an imperative that cannot be denied.
Alden and Beric’s emotions pummel me through the pack bond as they watch our coupling. They will get their turn. But they will have to fucking wait.
As I glory in the sensations, my hips slamming furiously against her soft human flesh, the delicate skin at the back of her neck, underneath my teeth, I reach the pinnacle of my existence.
I fucking hated my brother for forcing the challenge upon us, for making us kill the orc party alone.
But even the small pain I suffer from wounds already healing only heightens the pleasure of claiming my mate.
I should have trusted him. And now, from the revelation of where I am, I do.
Pound, pound, pound. The wet, filthy noises as I plow her cunt make saliva pool in my mouth. Savage growls and grunts escape me with every thrust.