Chapter 10 Kovrak
TEN
KOVRAK
Kovrak’s world narrowed to the taste of her mouth, the soft press of her body, and the roaring certainty in his blood. He had braced for rejection, for distance, for the cold finality of her asking to leave before dawn. He had prepared himself for complete failure.
Instead, she had turned to him beneath the twin moons, spoken her fear, and then chosen to kiss it away.
His tiger surged forward with feral satisfaction. She chooses us. All of us.
The mate bond, a quiet hum since their first touch, now pulsed like a war drum beneath his skin.
He could taste her hesitation dissolving on his tongue, could feel the shift in her body as fear melted into a hunger that mirrored his own.
For the first time in twenty years, hope did not feel fragile. It felt alive, demanding, and hot.
Her hands fisted in his shirt, pulling him closer until he felt every soft curve aligned with the hard planes of his body. His arousal was a painful, insistent pressure against the confines of his trousers, and his tiger pushed hard against his control.
Take her. Claim her. Mark her. Before her doubt returns.
Every primal instinct screamed that the world was unstable, that enemies circled, and fate had handed him a narrow, precious window. He wanted to sink his claws into the delicate skin of her hip and bind her to him forever.
But he forced a ragged breath into his lungs.
She must choose fully. Not be claimed by force.
He broke the kiss, his forehead resting against hers. “Not here,” he managed, his voice graveled with restraint.
Her warm brown eyes searched his, glazed with desire but still sharp. “Why?”
“Because you deserve more than palace windows as witnesses.” He captured her hand, lacing his fingers with hers. “Come with me.”
He guided her deeper into the gardens, away from the manicured paths and into a grove of ancient, silver-barked trees. Moonlight filtered through the canopy, dappling the soft moss underfoot. It was a place of quiet, shielded and sacred.
When they reached a small clearing, he turned to her. The sight of her—hair silvered by moonlight, lips swollen from his kisses, chest rising and falling with unsteady breaths—nearly shattered his control.
He pulled her down with him onto the moss. It yielded beneath them, a fragrant, living cushion. He let himself fall back just enough that she straddled his hips, the heat of her through the thin fabric of her dress searing him. The position, her on top, sent a bolt of pure possession through him.
She didn’t hesitate. She kissed him again, deeper now, hungrier, and Kovrak stopped being the restrained prince. He was all male, all mate.
His hands roamed her back, finding the zipper of her black dress. He tugged it down a few inches, the sound loud in the quiet clearing.
She broke the kiss, her hands pushing against his chest. “No.”
He stilled instantly, a growl lodging in his throat. “Faith?”
“I want to see you first,” she breathed, her gaze dropping to his henley.
He was used to commanding. Used to controlling every situation and every seduction. But the awe in her expression, the reverent curiosity, disarmed him. He gave a single, tight nod.
She peeled the soft fabric up slowly, her knuckles brushing his stomach and his ribs. The night air hit his skin, and her gaze followed, wide and appreciative. She stared at the hard lines of his chest and abdomen, muscles honed by decades of discipline and combat.
No woman had ever looked at him like this. Not assessing his value as a political alliance. Not calculating the advantage he could bring. Faith was simply admiring. Appreciating. Her gaze was a physical caress, and his tiger preened under the attention.
“You’re magnificent,” she whispered, the words a soft exhale.
He had been worshipped for his power, feared for his dominance, and desired for his status. But never cherished.
She mapped him with her hands first, her palms skating over his shoulders, down the rigid cut of his pectorals.
Then she leaned down, and her mouth followed the same path, planting open-mouthed kisses along his collarbone then down his chest until she reached his abdomen.
A low rumble vibrated in his chest. For once, he wanted to feel what it was to be wanted without expectation. For just him.
When her exploration ventured even lower, her fingers tracing the line of hair that led beneath his waistband, his famed control thinned to a fraying thread.
Her fingers worked the button of his trousers, then the zipper. He lifted his hips to help her push them down, along with his boxers, until he was bare to the cool night and her heated gaze.
Her breath hitched as she took him in. He was thick and fully erect, the evidence of his desire for her undeniable. A spark of primal pride flashed through him at the awed look on her face.
Then she did something that stole the air from his lungs. She leaned down and took him into her mouth.
Heat and wetness enveloped him, and a groan was torn from his throat.
Her tongue swirled with confident, clever strokes, and the pride in her expression—even as she pleasured him—ignited something ancient and dangerous.
His tiger roared its approval. She was masterful, and the sensation of her hot mouth and clever tongue was an exquisite torture.
It took every ounce of his legendary restraint not to spill himself down her throat.
He let her explore, let her learn what made him shudder, for long, dizzying minutes. But even as pleasure coiled tight in his gut, a deeper need asserted itself. He would not take without giving. He would not let her worship him without returning it in full measure.
With a gentleness that cost him, he guided her back up. “Enough.”
Her lips were slick and swollen, her eyes questioning. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No, you are perfect,” he growled, the words raw.
“Devastatingly perfect.” He rolled them in one smooth motion, reversing their positions so she lay beneath him on the soft moss, her dress rumpled and half-unzipped.
He loomed over her, caging her with his arms. “But this isn’t a transaction.
I don’t want your surrender. I want your pleasure. ”
He lowered his head to her neck. “My turn to learn you,” he murmured against her skin, his hand sliding down her back to her zipper. “Every inch.”
Kovrak’s lips traced the delicate line of her throat, each kiss a whispered claim against the frantic pulse he found there.
His hands, capable of breaking stone, moved with deliberate slowness.
He found the zipper of her black dress, a thin metal seam against the heat of her spine, and drew it down.
The sound was a soft sigh in the moon-drenched quiet.
He did not tear or rush. He unwrapped her, layer by layer, as if revealing a treasure long hidden and meant only for him.
The dark fabric whispered over her skin and finally pooled on the silvered moss like discarded armor.
Moonlight cascaded over her naked skin, and the sight stole the air from his lungs. She was radiant and luminous. Her breasts were full and perfect, tipped with peaks already hardened to tight buds. A low, possessive groan vibrated in his chest.
Mine. All mine.
He didn’t waste time. He worshipped her with his mouth.
He traced the elegant architecture of her collarbone, then descended.
He took one pebbled peak into the heat of his mouth, circling with his tongue before sucking deeply.
Her gasp was a sharp, beautiful sound. Her hands flew to his hair, her fingers tangling in the dark blonde strands, not pushing him away but holding him to her.
“Kovrak…”
Her breathy plea was a command he would follow to the ends of the universe. He lavished the same devoted attention on her other breast until her moans were a continuous melody of pleasure, her back arching off the soft ground to press herself more fully into his care.
His journey south was a slow, deliberate pilgrimage.
He kissed the gentle swell of her stomach, the delicate dip of her navel, his tongue painting a wet path through the valley between her hips.
He settled between her thighs, the scent of her arousal—sweet, musky, utterly intoxicating—filling his senses.
He memorized the sight of her, open and glistening for him, her warm brown eyes heavy-lidded with a blend of trust and desperate hunger.
The first taste of her was a revelation.
She was honey and heat, a flavor so uniquely her it made his tiger roar in primal satisfaction.
His restraint, already frayed, began to unravel thread by thread as he explored her with his tongue.
He learned the shape of her folds, the sensitive bud of her clit, the way she trembled when he flicked it just so.
Her hands clenched in his hair, the sharp pull a counterpoint to the lush softness under his mouth.
Pain and pleasure intertwined, stoking the wild fire of the mate bond that thrummed between them like a live wire.
Her reactions were his undoing. The way her breath shattered into gasps.
The broken, pleading moans that meant more, don’t stop.
The fierce grip of her hands claiming him as surely as he was claiming her.
This was not a conquest. It was a communion.
For the first time in his life, connection was not a strategic alliance or a fleeting physical release.
It was body and soul, a giving and receiving that filled a hollow space in his chest he had refused to acknowledge.
When her climax took her, it was a glorious, violent surrender.
A cry tore from her throat, raw and musical.
Her body bowed and her thighs tensed around his head, and the rhythmic clenching of her inner muscles against his tongue was a victory more profound than any won on a battlefield.
He drank her in, savoring every tremor and every choked gasp of his name.
But he gave her no time to float back to earth. The bond demanded more. He surged up her body, his own need a throbbing, insistent pressure. He caged her beneath him, his gaze locking onto hers. His voice was strained with a control he was rapidly losing. “Are you ready for me, Faith?”
She didn’t answer with words. Her eyes held his, dark and sure, as her hand wrapped around his hard cock. Her touch was electric. She guided him to her slick entrance, a silent, undeniable confirmation.
He pressed forward, inch by devastating inch. He watched her face, every flicker of sensation—the initial stretch, the moment of overwhelming fullness. Her lips parted on a loud, sharp gasp.
“You’re… a lot,” she breathed, her nails digging into his shoulders.
“You feel perfectly made for me,” he groaned, the truth of it resonating in his very bones.
As he sheathed himself fully within her, the mate bond exploded. It was no longer a hum but a brilliant, pulsing current of energy that connected their cores. His tiger nearly burst from his skin in triumphant satisfaction.
This. This is what was missing. This is why the past twenty years were a hollow performance.
She fit him. Not just the physical join of their bodies, which was a sublime, tight heat, but energetically. The relentless drive of his nature found its counterpoint in her creative, resilient spirit.
“Move,” she commanded, her voice husky with desire.
He obeyed willingly, a future king yielding to his future queen.
Under the twin moons, in the ancient clearing that felt divinely ordained, he began to move.
His thrusts were controlled intensity—deep, powerful, but carefully measured.
He needed her to feel held by his strength, not overwhelmed by it.
Each roll of his hips was a promise, each slide a claim.
He had never felt so terrifyingly, vibrantly alive.
This was not duty. This was not a political necessity.
This was raw, mutual hunger tempered by a fledgling, profound trust. The scent of their joining, the sound of her pleasure, the sight of her hair fanned out on the moss like a dark crown—it was everything.
Her second peak built faster, crashing over her with a force that made her scream. Her internal muscles clenched around him in rhythmic pulses, a sweet, milking pressure that shattered the last of his legendary control. As her ecstasy claimed her, his own was breaking free.
A wave of pure possession tore through him.
His claws elongated from his fingertips, sharp and lethal, the instinct to mark her, to bind her to him for eternity, was a physical ache in his hands.
One deliberate scratch at the height of passion, and the mate bond would seal.
The politics would settle. His future would be secure.
His tiger roared for it.
But her eyes, though glazed with pleasure, were trusting. She had not consented to forever. She had consented to now.
With a growl that was equal parts agony and devotion, he forced the claws to recede.
The act of restraint was the hardest battle he’d ever fought.
He buried his face in the curve of her neck as his own release ripped through him.
He pulsed deep inside her, spending himself with a series of rough, helpless shudders.
He claimed her in the most fundamental way his body could, filling her with his seed, but the mate bond, though blazing brightly, remained incomplete.
He collapsed atop her, then quickly rolled, gathering her against his side. Tremors still coursed through his muscles. She was stroking his back, her touch soothing the wild beast within. He held her tightly, their hearts hammering a frantic, synchronizing rhythm against each other’s skin.
Six days.
The thought was a quiet drumbeat beneath the roar of fading ecstasy.
He had six days to prove to her that his world was not a cage, but a kingdom she could help him build.
Six days to offer a crown and win not just her body, but her fearless, beautiful heart.
The challenge ignited a fire in him that burned even hotter than desire.
He would prove himself worthy.