Iona #3
His fingers trace my ribs. Mine move over the scars on his shoulders. We are trapped together by a choice both of us made, and neither of us wants to rush the release.
Eventually the swelling begins to ease by degrees. The flare remains thick, but the hard seat inside me loosens.
“Not yet,” he says when I test it.
“I know.”
A few breaths later, he moves back half an inch.
The ring beneath the crown drags through me. The bond carries both sensations at once.
We stop again.
“Gods,” I whisper.
“Yes.”
He waits until the swell has eased enough to withdraw without hurting me. Then he pulls free slowly, the ridges and ring making every inch of separation another shared event.
The loss of fullness goes through the bond as sharply as the penetration did.
He gathers me against his chest.
For a long time, we do nothing.
The bite throbs. My body aches. His shoulder wound has reopened beneath the strain, and I can feel that too.
Neither of us is ready for another round.
That matters.
We drink. He cleans the blood from my neck and between my thighs. I wash his shoulder and the drying release from his stomach. We lie under the furs while the bond settles into something we can carry without drowning.
A knock sounds at the outer door. Ghenn does not enter.
Torgan keeps one arm around me. “Dead and wounded counted by company. Surgeons under guard. Separate hired men from Osk’s household. No reprisals. Secure the paymaster’s wagon and every ledger inside it.”
Ghenn answers through the wood. “Already moving.”
“Send the numbers when they change.”
Only after Ghenn’s steps retreat does Torgan close his eyes.
I sleep for a little while.
When I wake, the fire has burned lower.
Torgan is watching me.
His jaw remains quiet.
His cock is hard again against my thigh, but not with the desperate strain from before. His base is relaxed. His breathing is steady.
The bond carries his question before he asks it.
I touch his face.
“Yes.”
“To what?”
“The second thing you have been trying not to ask.”
His mouth curves.
This time there is no rite to complete. No fangs waiting for permission. No lock yet.
Only curiosity.
I push him onto his back and climb over him.
He lets me.
I take him in my hand and rub the slick head through the wetness still coating me. The bond gives me his sensation beneath my palm. Heat. Pressure. The thick ring catching against my fingers.
I feel my own body answer from the inside.
The loop begins more gently this time.
I lower myself over him.
The crown enters. The ring slides in after it. The ridges drag through me. The fresh bite pulls when I lift my chin, a deep tender warning through the sealed muscle.
Torgan feels it with me. His hand comes behind my neck and holds the angle steady while I sink the rest of the way.
We both stop halfway.
“There you are,” I whisper.
“Where?”
“Everywhere.”
I sink down until he fills me.
His base begins to thicken again, but stops short of the locking swell. No bite. No venom surge.
I ride him slowly.
Each lift sends the ring through me and the sensation into him. Each descent brings his pleasure back through my chest. His hands guide my hips, claws curved safely around the marks from the hunt.
The pace builds.
I grip his horns.
His hips drive up.
The furs bunch beneath us. The bedframe strikes the wall. One iron bolt tears out of the stone with a crack. On the next drive, a second follows, and the whole frame jumps away from the wall. Dust falls across his shoulder. Neither of us stops.
I come first.
He feels it before I do. His mouth opens as the first contraction starts.
Then the climax takes him too.
This release is smaller, slower, but the bond makes it no less intense. I feel each pulse inside me and inside him. He feels my cunt tightening around the ridges and loses the last of his rhythm.
We move through it together until neither of us can keep upright.
I collapse onto his chest.
His arms close around me.
For a long time there is only breath.
Mine in my lungs.
His in my chest.
Both hearts slowing.
The bite at my throat continues to pulse, warm rather than painful.
Torgan’s palm settles over it, warm and broad.
“Does it hurt?”
“Less than the marks from the hunt.”
His satisfaction reaches me before he hides it.
I lift my head.
“You are pleased with yourself.”
“No.”
Satisfaction rolls through the bond before he can hide it.
“This bond may be badly designed,” he says.
“For kings?”
“For privacy.”
“You gave me your true name, your bite, and access to your feelings. Privacy was not your strongest negotiating position.”
He pulls me higher against him.
“My mate.”
The claim no longer catches anywhere in me.
I press my mouth to his.
“Yours because I chose.”
“Yes.”
“And you are mine.”
His claws flex over my back.
“Entirely.”
I rest my hand over his jaw.
Quiet.
For the first time since I rode beneath the horns, there is no pain there.
“Worth the wait?”
The answer reaches me through the bond before he says it.
Everything.
His mouth presses to the new bite.
“Worth every night.”
Beyond the door, runners carry his orders through the hold.
Torgan pulls the furs over us. His hand remains on the mark at my throat when I fall asleep.