Chapter 12 - Hannah
The valley finally feels like it’s breathing steadily again, but I remain pacing the floor in Conan’s living room. Waiting. Anxious. Unsettled.
The distant sounds of terror have stopped for a long while.
Two—maybe three—hours have passed since the last screech rippled across the planes of the valley and disappeared over the mountains.
But even now, I can’t seem to find calm.
Not even with knowing that Clarissa is safe, tucked in bed, and sound asleep.
There is another storm brewing, and I feel it tickle my awareness, the hairs on my forearms prickling to alert me of its looming presence. I hold my breath as I hear footsteps approaching, thudding against the porch before they stop.
There’s a part of me that wants to run away and hide from Conan, disappear before he comes in, and pretend I’m asleep in bed. But there’s another that keeps me around, hanging on to the anger in his eyes from earlier, and not wanting to run away from it.
How can I run away now, when he knows the truth?
No matter where I turn, I’ll always see Conan. The mate bond between us demands it. Now that it has been completed in a ritual, there is no escaping what fate has dictated.
Better now than later.
So I take a deep breath when the knob turns, and hold it, shoulders squared and back rigid as the door is pushed in. Conan steps inside, his boots heavy on the floorboard, head hanging, dark hair covering his eyes.
What’s most shocking is seeing his exposed chest covered in bandages, soaked in dark spots of crimson.
I gasp, and that’s when he looks up.
“What happened?” I blurt instantly, another instinct awakening when my heart lurches and I see him wince when he uses his hand to close the door behind him.
Deeply contoured muscles and olive skin are tainted with blood, the bandages covering the damage as if they’re holding his chest together.
“Nothing happened,” Conan grumbles, his jaw twitching as if he’s struggling to be angry.
“Clearly something happened out there!” I raise my voice in concern, inching forward. “Have you been to Dorothy?”
“I have,” he replies flatly.
“Why are you still bleeding?”
Conan scoffs. “Well, I guess I wasn’t lying when I said the demons had drained our powers.”
“I didn’t say you were lying,” I frown as I look up. “I’m just trying to understand what’s going on.”
“Why?” he sneers, narrowing his eyes at me. “Why would you care, anyway?”
“Because I am your mate, and I can help you,” I blurt out before I can think the sentiment through.
Heat rises to my cheeks, and I gasp. But those words couldn’t be truer, even when I was trying my best to deny what he is to me.
It doesn’t matter right now. Not when he’s in pain, badly injured in a fight. My fingers tingle with the sudden, desperate urge to reach for him, but I hold myself back when he stares at me with so much contempt, so much scorn, that it makes my insides churn.
“I don’t need your help, Hannah. In fact, I don’t want anything from you. I don’t need anything from you.”
My heart lurches. “You don’t mean that….”
Conan stops midway through turning. “Oh, I mean it,” he chuckles sadistically, eyes dark and unhumorous. “You made sure of it when you lied to me.”
“So why did you mate me, Conan?!” I ask, a sudden bout of anger making me throw my arms up. “You needed me to help you regain your powers. If anyone should be angry, it’s me!”
“You’re angry?” he scoffs as he turns to face me fully, towering over me. “You don’t have any right to be angry, Hannah. You’re the one who lied to me about Clarissa. Kept her a secret from me when you had the perfect opportunity to tell me about her.”
“I didn’t tell you because you don’t deserve to be her father!” I snap, and again, I’m not thinking.
But it’s too late. The words have already left my lips, and there’s no going back. Conan glares at me with anger and sadness mingled into one, his eyes dark and full of rage.
“Who the fuck do you think you are to decide that?” he spits venomously, and I shiver.
“I am her mother, and I know what’s best for her.”
“Like keeping her father away from her for almost eight years?” he sneers vindictively, lips peeling back to reveal a pearl-white glow of disgust. “A wonderful mother you are, Hannah Young. It’s only a matter of time before she recognizes me as her father, just like I recognized her tonight.
Do you really think I’ll glorify what you did? I’d have you banished—”
Conan’s voice cuts off abruptly, and I stare at him wide-eyed, shocked.
“You wouldn’t…” I murmur, a tear slipping from my eye.
Conan stares at me for a long moment, his eyes suddenly softening with something like defeat and regret. My chest heaves with uncontrollable breaths as I stare back, unable to fathom the thought of being banished.
Again.
A second time.
And this time, to punish me for not telling him about Clarissa. This time, without her, while he keeps her in the pack to punish me.
My heart lurches, and I gulp hard, ears drumming with incessant ringing as my fingers tingle with magic. The mate bond, coming alive to remind me that no matter how much time has passed, no matter what has happened between us, some things never change.
Even the coppery smell of drying blood doesn’t deter the potency of Conan’s scent, headily masculine as it fills my airways and makes everything else feel so pointless. My fears, my dreads, my hatred for him.
It all fades into oblivion, into a thin line that was only ever crossed once in the past.
Conan gulps, then, eyes softening as a glint of sadness flashes through them.
“You’re right…” he whispers, voice strained.
I’m not sure if he’s in pain from his wounds or in pain because of something else.
“…I wouldn’t do that to you.”
I blink to stop myself from shedding the tears that have gathered in the corners of my eyes. And when Conan takes a step forward, engulfing my personal space with his immaculate size and tainting the air with fiery desire that only awakens in his presence, I melt.
My knees shake, weakening just from the look he’s giving me. Then, he does the unthinkable when he steps even closer, closing the little distance between us, and I notice how his chest heaves with equally uncontrolled breaths as he reaches a hand to my cheek.
“The only thing I want to do,” he purrs, voice silky smooth now as he stares into my eyes, “is rip your clothes off and make you mine. Really make you mine.”
My lips part on a gasp, my heart hammering in my chest, every nerve ending tingling with sensation, every inch of me heated simply because of the way he whispered those words to me, and the way he stroked my cheek with the coarse, warm pad of his thumb.
His very existence is my undoing, and while I hate how much power he has over me, I can’t help but fall victim to his clutches, my body naturally responding to him. I press my thighs together tightly, gulping hard and swallowing my saliva.
“Do it…” I whisper, not sure what has come over me except primal desire, primal need to mate with the alpha.
“Don’t tease me, Hannah.”
“I’m not.”
Conan growls under his breath and abruptly pulls back, clutching a fist beside his face, his gaze slanted and almost intoxicated, brows furrowed with pained restraint. He opens his eyes just a peep, orbs heavy and dark.
“Eight years…” he drawls. “Eight long years, and it’s still only you who does this to me,” he groans as he returns his hand to my face, this time to grip my chin as he fiercely glares into my eyes. “You are supposed to be my strength, but you are my weakness.”
I shake my head slowly, unable to form a single, coherent thought as his hot breath fans my face, the minty notes of his unmistakable scent wafting through my parted lips and turning me feral.
“Then let me be your strength,” I whisper. “It’s why you made me your luna.”
Conan shakes his head. “I made you my luna because of this…”
He kisses me then, his tongue driving between my lips with a relentless, passionate force that has me moaning and melting into him.
One hand is at the small of my back, pulling me close to his firm frame, the other at the back of my head, drawing me into the greedy kiss as he devours my lips and explores the cavity of my mouth.
I’m already drenched just from feeling the bulge of his erection pressed against my hip, one leg curling around his thigh as my body, my core, begs to feel him.
He breaks the kiss, and I mewl in protest at the loss of his lips as he stares at me with heated desire flashing in his eyes.
“I’m going to fuck you so hard, Hannah…” he growls against my lips right before he spins me over and pulls me against his chest, one hand sailing down my satin blouse, the other sliding up to my neck.
His breathing is heavy against my ear as he reaches the waistband of my shorts.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“Yes…” I whisper, my breath hitching when his fingers slip through the waistband. I close my eyes and let my head fall back onto his shoulder as he keeps me restrained with one hand on my neck, the other cupping my clothed core possessively.
“Fuck…you’re soaking, Hannah…” he breathes against the shell of my ear before latching his teeth on my lobe. He bites down firmly while he moves the crotch of my panties to the side, and when his finger merely brushes past my folds, I shudder.
The sensation is intense enough to elicit another wave of wanton need, my body quaking as I let out a moan. Conan tugs on my earlobe just as he slips a finger through my aching walls.
“Conan…” I murmur his name as I close my eyes and let the sensations wash over every inch of my being. As he pushes his finger deeper and my soaking walls clench around the digit, I realize just how much I’d missed this. Missed him.
Eight years of pent-up desire come crashing into me as he thrusts a finger inside me, and all I can imagine is what it’d feel like to have his hard, thick cock between my thighs. My mouth waters at the mere thought, and I reach back to put my hand on his crotch.
He grabs my wrist to stop me, twisting my arm and pushing me down against the island table, the coldness of the marble soaking through my blouse and pressing against my heated flesh.
I gasp when he grinds his hips between my thighs, his solid erection nudging at my clothed folds.
“Be a good girl, and don’t make a sound. We don’t want to wake Clarissa, do we?”
I purse my lips and nod my head as he pulls my shorts and panties down my thighs, and I hear his knees hit the floorboards. Behind me, he’s kneading my flesh between his large hands, peppering open-mouthed kisses on my skin.
“Beautiful…” he praises as he sucks in a breath, and before I can inhale again, his hand crashes flat on one mound.
My body jolts as electric awareness rushes through my veins, my arousal skyrocketing to dangerous heights. By the time he touches my folds again, I’m on the brink of orgasm, body spasming with pleasure, moans falling from my lips of their own accord.
“Shh,” he husks as he grabs my neck when he’s back on his feet, drawing me flush against him. His bottoms are gone, his cock digging between my ass cheeks. “I told you, Hannah, don’t make a sound, okay?”
I nod feverishly, biting my bottom lip as he grinds against me, his length stroking my folds, teasing me. Clenching around nothing, I whimper against my lip, fighting not to make a sound when he makes it nearly impossible to stay focused.
I can feel…everything. Every inch of him sliding across my folds, the velvety shaft being coated in my slick, the veins throbbing against my bundle of nerves.
“I’m close, Conan,” I whisper, and he chuckles quietly in my ear.
“So quick, Hannah? I’ve barely even started.”
“P-please, Conan,” I plead, my voice cracking. “Please!”
“You’re a greedy little kitten tonight, aren’t you?” he drawls, wrapping one hand around my neck, the other around his cock. “You’re gonna come on my cock for me, okay?”
Nodding fervently, I hold my breath as he pushes the tip between my folds. I’m so greedy, my walls clench, drawing all of him in until he’s balls deep inside me.
I’m about to cry out his name, but he cups my mouth, so I let the sound out into his palm while he presses kisses to my neck, nibbling and licking as he thrusts into me. He rolls his hips with the kind of finesse that has me exploding in no time.
He stops thrusting as I come on his cock, nestled deep inside me, as he feels every wave of pleasure that washes over me in waves. When my knees threaten to buckle under my weight, which suddenly feels as heavy as lead, he spins me over and lifts me up onto the table.
“Do you think I was done?” he chuckles lightly as he licks a fat stripe across my lips. “Wrap your legs around me, kitten. We’re taking this to the bedroom.”