Lucero #2
For the first time, I felt breathless in his presence. For the first time I noticed the shadows of his pectorals and how they made a smooth transition down his abdomen. I counted his scars–there were far too many–and inhaled deep enough that something foreign stirred inside me…
Qanek stood over me, glaring down. I tried not to flinch when he moved, but jerked anyway. But he didn’t reach out and touch me. He reached behind me, bending to press the lid of the chest closed.
The action made our noses touch. It made me breathe him in. And for a second, we both paused as our eyes met. Something charged in the air between us, something that made every hair on my arms stand on end…
Then he was standing, looming before me in his full height and staring down at me.
“You are far too curious, feral creature,” he rumbled.
I swallowed the sudden thickness in my throat.
“D-did I do something wrong?”
“Many things,” he answered. “I held hope we could avoid this outcome, but now there is no choice. For either of us. And this is something we must learn to accept.”
My brows pulled together in confusion. “What are you talking about, Qanek?”
He let out a breath and I felt his touch before I saw him move. He gripped my chin, so careful with his claws, and held my gaze firm against his.
The intensity I found there was jarring. I didn’t know what to do. How to react in the face of this newness.
I was used to him screaming. Storming around.
Not… whatever this was.
It made a low ache build in my belly, where butterflies erupted to the point of nausea.
I tried to breathe, but couldn’t find the air when it was saturated with his scent instead.
“You are my wife now, Lucero.” His claw traced the seam of my lips before it found the curve of my cheek. “There is no turning back.”
The words registered, taking me completely by surprise. I jerked away, out of his hold, though I missed his warmth as soon as it was gone.
“W-what are you talking about? Wife? I… No. Carlota is your wife.”
The stone ridges of his brow cut a striking figure. “How I wish that were true,” he stated simply. “And yet it was you who completed every step in the mating ritual. Almost every step.”
It seemed to happen in slow motion. His hands reached to the sides of his hips, where the strings that held his loincloth together were tied.
“One more bond must be formed.” He pulled at a string. “One more, and you will be my true wife.” Another and the cloth dropped…
I screamed, slapping my hands against my eyes but somehow, I could still see from between the spaces of my fingers.
“Oh my God, put that away! What the fuck, Qanek?!”
I would admit, my mouth went dry at the sight of him in all his muscular glory.
But this was a strange experience indeed. How the sight of his cock, erect and shaped differently from any I’d ever seen before, made something inside me stir to life.
There were bumps and ridges beneath it, and the veins that crawled all over it pulsed and glowed.
“Why do you scream?” His brows cut to confusion.
“I don’t want to see all that, Qanek!” I waved a hand in the direction of his crotch, my heart beating wildly in my chest. “Put it away!”
His mouth dropped open and for once, I thought I’d made him speechless. “You insult your husband by turning my cock away from your sight?” He almost sounded… offended.
“You aren’t my husband!”
“I am.”
“You aren’t!”
“Yes, I am.”
“No!”
“Yes.”
“No!”
“Yes, feral creature. Do not deny us. Not when I can smell your weeping cunt from here.”
It was my turn to stammer, speechless at the bold declaration. I gasped, pressing my thighs together, like that could stave off the embarrassing pulse of liquid that rushed from my body. And he could smell it?
I was mortified.
“Qanek, no. I didn’t marry you. Why do you think we’re married?”
“Because you completed the mating ritual with me.”
I shook my head, trying to clear the grog from my mind. “What mating ritual?”
“It is customary to steal a bride. That is the first step in becoming husband and wife,” he explained, his voice impatient. “I stole you.”
“That was an accident!”
“I thought if I gave you back that all would be well. That as long as we did not complete more steps in the ritual, we would be safe from an unwanted bond.”
“Okay…”
“But then you slept in my nest,” he rumbled.
My face flamed.
“And then I hunted for you. I fed you, quenched your thirst.”
I swallowed the sudden dryness in my throat.
“Now, you wear the garments that I provide. The ritual is all but complete. The final step…” He gripped the underside of his cock, giving it a vicious squeeze that made me rub my thighs together once again.
“Come, feral creature,” he growled. “Let me spear you and bring you pleasure until you weep. The final ritual must be sated.”
He stepped close, still gripping his cock.
“Noooo!!!” I stumbled backwards, putting distance between us.
Qanek stopped and stared. “Why do you flee from me?”
“Because I don’t want to have sex with you!”
He flinched as if I’d slapped him. Then straightened, ever the proud creature. “What objections could you possibly have against me?” he demanded.
“Well, that tone, for one.”
“I do not understand.”
I threw my hands up in the air. “Dude, you just admitted that we’re unfortunately married now. You make me feel like I’m in the middle of that Pride and Prejudice scene where Darcy tells Elizabeth that he likes her against his better judgment.”
Qanek regarded me coolly. “If Elizabeth is as feral as you, I understand Darcy’s sentiments far too well.”
“Shut up! Just shut up! I’m not sleeping with you, and I’m not your wife!” I crossed my arms against my chest, using them like a lame barrier. As if that could protect me against this monster if he decided he wanted what I refused to give.
“You are. You will be.”
“Qanek.”
“Lucero.”
I paused. He said my name with an infinite amount of impatience but something else underlacing his tone.
“Qanek,” I started, trying to get him to see reason. “You have to know that this doesn’t make us married. We haven’t done anything. It doesn’t even count.”
“It does. In the tradition of my brothers and I, it is valid. Our marriage is binding.”
“Not if we don’t sleep together.”
“We will not sleep, feral creature. We will fuck.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Do not utter another man’s name in my presence.
” He stepped closer, the menace in his every move obvious enough that I stepped away.
“We may not want one another for now, but do not doubt that I will kill any man, demon, or beast that lays eyes upon you. You are mine. My wife. And no other male’s name will ever cross your lips again.
” He stopped close enough that I could breathe him in again.
His eyes were locked on my lips, and his claw teased the bottom one.
“For you will be far too busy crying out mine instead.”
“You don’t want me, Qanek. You said so yourself.” I hated how my voice trembled. How weak I felt. How it took just a few words for me to be completely hypnotized and pulled into his thrall.
But…
I couldn’t.
He had made his stance clear from the beginning.
It wasn’t me he wanted, but Carlota. And I knew if I allowed myself to fall for a few pretty words, if I allowed myself to be sucked in, it would create nothing but heartbreak when he inevitably left me for her.
They always did.
I hardened my resolve and glared at him, shoving his arm away with the back of my hand.
“Stop. Don’t touch me and put your loincloth back on. I don’t care what you say, we aren’t married. I have enough self-respect to not marry somebody who is so desperate for somebody else.”
Qanek jerked backwards, his gaze narrowing. “You speak of self-respect, but you have none.”
“Oh, I’m so flattered.” I touched my chest, feigning excitement. “Not!”
“You denied me my true wife, stole the mating ritual from her, and now you reject me.” His chest lit with flames. “If you did not want me, you should never have interfered.”
“I didn’t know!”
“You are my wife,” he repeated.
“I’d rather die than be your wife.” The words slipped out of my lips before I could stop them. I couldn’t help the lucid anger pulling me apart from the inside. It was a force and it drove my actions, my words, before I could really measure them.
I noted the way they hit him like a weapon. Hurting him, as much as I was hurting on the inside.
“You would choose death over me?” He growled, his own anger rising. “I never wanted you as a wife, and yet we are both trapped! Deny me all you like, feral creature, but it does not change the fact that we are intrinsically bound now. There is no escaping. For either of us.”
He whirled, stomping away from me. He yanked his loincloth from the ground as he went, securing it back in place. He roared and the ceiling of his cave shook, before he threw himself onto the ground in front of the fire and stared into the flames, lost in his own thoughts.
After a moment, his shoulders slumped and a forlorn look came across him.
I didn’t want to feel the surge of empathy, but it gripped me regardless.
Fuck.
I rubbed my fingers against my temples, feeling stress pound a lovely beat there.
I’d really fucked everything up, but how was I supposed to know that all those things I’d done were mating rituals? It wasn’t like he had explained things to me, so it wasn’t my fault he thought we were stuck together.
Maybe it was easier if I left, as if none of this had happened, but what then? Did that mean we would be married in the rules of his people and he could never find someone else? Did his people believe in divorce?
Could we divorce?
Fuck, this was all so confusing.
I ran my hands through my hair, wincing when they became trapped within the tangle of curls. I hadn’t brushed this mess in forever and I was starting to feel itchy.
I needed to think. I needed…
Ugh.
I lifted my camera and snapped pictures, one after the other in rapid succession, zooming in on Qanek, the wide set of his shoulders, the sad way he positioned himself. The sad expression…