45. Garrick #2
Her breath hitches as my index finger parts her folds and slides over her clit. But before she can answer, or I can investigate further, the elevator comes to an abrupt stop, the doors opening to reveal her apartment.
“Too slow, Officer.” She ducks out of my hold and skips out across the threshold.
I follow her with a growl, lifting my finger to my lips to taste her.
The bitter sweetness hits my tongue, but there is a lingering note of another.
It’s not a jealousy that surges through me, I really have come to terms with sharing her, but the need to claim overrides any other thoughts lingering in my brain.
I’ve been separated from her, hunted her down, tracked her blood. Now I need to claim my prize.
Following her out of the elevator on silent footsteps, I rid myself of my boots and rip my shirt off as I stalk her down an entryway.
I catch up with her as we pass through an archway into the main living space.
I barely take in the details except for the surfaces I could put her on.
The plush grey couch hidden in throws and cushions is a good option, but she swings right.
“Are you thirsty? Hungry?” she asks, looking back over her shoulder. I can tell her questions are nothing but a distraction, the flush of her cheeks and down her neck tell me she knows exactly what’s about to happen.
Pouncing, I grab her waist once more and hoist her onto the marble island in the middle of the kitchen area. My teeth come to her neck, nipping the skin before I introduce my tongue, licking up the side and tasting her as I push the fabric from her shoulders and remove it from her body entirely.
She gasps as I snap her thighs wide, her legs dangling off the worktop. Dropping to my knees, I pull her so her ass is on the edge and her cunt is displayed, already glistening, and sending my panther into a frenzy with the release of the scent of her arousal hitting my nostrils.
Leaning forward, I plunge my tongue straight into her as deep as I can go.
Tacita screams out in pleasure above me as she grips onto my hair.
The taste of her, direct from the source, has my cock hard and aching in an instant.
The need to claim her pulsing through me in waves as I fuck her with my tongue in quick thrusts and lick her entire cunt in slow upward movements.
Unzipping my trousers and shoving them down my thighs. Along with my boxers, I take my dick in hand. Pumping it in a tight fist and spreading the precum already beading on the flared head.
Getting her near the edge of orgasm in record time, but I hold off on letting her get all the way there. I pull back as her inner walls tighten around my tongue. Rising to my feet, I push into her in one hard, but slow, thrust.
My head drops to her shoulder as an emotion washes away everything but me and her in this moment.
It takes me a second to recognise what it is.
Holding still, my dick buried to the hilt inside her and her hands clinging to my sides, her head curled into my chest as well, I analyse the feeling I’m overcome with.
It’s home.
It’s the sweet relief of being back where I belong.
It’s solid ground beneath my feet and my centre of gravity making all the shit I’ve had to deal with disappear into unimportance.
This, right here, is my whole world.
I’m in love with this female.
In fact, love feels weak compared to what I feel for her. This is beyond that, this is forever. This is the rest of my eternity.
Pulling back slowly until only the head of my cock is still inside her, I push back in just as agonisingly slowly until my pelvis is pushing against her clit. I keep the same rhythm as I hold onto my female, the feral heat of how this started transforming into something different, something new.
Despite the lack of pace, her breathing increases. “Oh, fuck,” she cries out. “Fuck, Garrick. What are you doing to me? I can’t…”
“You can take it.” I cup her face after brushing her hair back and bring her lips up to mine, tasting her at an equally languid pace.
I swallow her cries of pleasure with each push of my cock into her body, until she loses concentration too much to return my kisses.
Her head tilts, bringing our foreheads together instead.
I cling to her as she breaks apart, holding her as her orgasm crests, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.
Swiping one away with my thumb, I continue thrusting into her and give in to the pressure that’s been building along my spine. Closing my eyes to heighten my other senses, I breathe her in. She moves against me, not to get away, but to create even more delicious friction between our bodies.
Under my hand, her head moves once more, her cheek rubbing against my beard and her lips whispering against my ear. “Claim me, Garrick.”
Three words and I come undone. Pushing deeper into her, if that were even possible, I come inside her. It’s not explosive but it’s world shattering. Altering. Mind numbing and completely clarifying at the same time.
It’s only as I return to my body that I feel the tail wrapped around my leg, and I look up to see her wings curled around us, not touching but creating a cocoon for us to hide in, away from the world.
Stroking her cheek with my thumb as we stay nestled into one another for several minutes, I cherish her skin against mine, her breaths hitting my chest. I always thought I’d end up with someone eventually, settle down, find a partner. I had no idea it could feel like this.
“I love you,” I tell her, whispering it in the quiet. “And I’m never letting you go, just so you know.”
She giggles and pulls away a fraction, just so she can look into my eyes. “I don’t want you to, Garrick. I love you too.” Our lips meet in a soft kiss, one which seals our forever.
A rustling from elsewhere in the house pulls my attention away from the female in my arms.
“Where are the other two?” I ask.
“In my bedroom, it’s downstairs. They were asleep–we all were–when the phone rudely woke me up.” She moves her hand to poke me between my pecs with her index finger.
“Sorry to ruin your beauty sleep, Goddess.” I grip that finger and lift it to my lips to kiss.
“If you’re going to wake me up like this every morning, I won’t be complaining.” She smiles up at me. “Shall we go see if they’re awake? And I could use another shower.”
I pull out of her, my dick having softened some time ago, and step back to allow her to jump down from the counter. She vanishes her wings as she lands on her feet.
“We really should try out a bed sometime,” she ponders, waiting for me to zip up my trousers after tucking myself away.
Releasing a laugh, I link my fingers with her offered hand and she leads me back out of the kitchen, towards some stairs in the main hallway I’d missed on our way in. “I plan on utilising every surface in this apartment.”
The staircase opens into a vast bedroom.
The sun is shining through the floor to ceiling windows, although it isn't glaring with the dark mode activated on them. I look around, taking in every detail, from the antique set of drawers against the stair wall, the hanging plant from the ceiling and the mixture of rich and soft colours. It’s telling me so much about the female I’ve claimed, little things that we’ve not shared yet with being at the compound.
“You found us!” Wyatt sits up in the bed, detangling himself from even more blankets and pillows. He does it gently, and I spot Milo curled around him, sleeping soundly. “I’m glad, I was about to come up there and check our girl wasn’t getting railed by some other random dude.”
“Hey.” Tacita put a hand to her hip, popping it and flicking her tail.
“I’m just saying.” Wyatt lifts both hands, palms up, and shrugs.
“I can barely keep up with you three. Trust me, there’s no one else.” Her eyes dart to me after glaring at Wyatt.
Pulling her still naked body into my side, I kiss her temple tenderly. “I know. Go shower, and then I should probably fully debrief you.”
Tacita disappears into the ensuite, through an open door across the room. She doesn’t bother shutting herself in, but the shower isn’t in view of the door frame, even as I stride to the bed and sit on the corner, on the opposite side to where Milo and Wyatt are laying.
“How bad was it?” Wyatt asks.
“It was fine. The Angels retreated as I thought they would.”
Wyatt lets out a long exhale, and his arm tightening around Milo’s bare shoulders. The look on his face is how I imagine I was looking at Tacita upstairs. Wyatt can’t hide the love he has for the guy sleeping next to him. “And is Hades coming after us?”
“He’ll need to investigate Milo’s connection to the Angels.” I won’t sugarcoat it. “But I think we will be able to work it out. Tacita is as much of a friend as she is his assassin.”
Wyatt contemplates that for a while, I have no doubts that he will attempt to rip the realm to pieces should Hades decide to incarcerate Milo. I also think the demoness in the shower might be right beside him. And I have no idea where that would leave me as Milo would be sentenced to my prison.
“What about the interviews?” Wyatt asks, switching to a topic I do have the answers for.
“I’ve already got Hades to agree that the third round is being called off. You all ended up fighting against the Angels. Those that survived deserve to be here. So, I guess, welcome to Hell. Officially.”
“Ha! Thanks,” Wyatt scoffs.
Milo’s eyes open as he’s jostled with his boyfriend’s laughter. He stretches, smiling up at the other guy. That smile drops when he turns to sit up and spots me sitting on the end of the bed. Wyatt’s arm comes round his waist to hold onto him.
“Don’t worry, I’m not here for any other reason than I needed to find Tacita, to check that she’s okay,” I reassure him. He seems to relax, leaning back into Wyatt more but his eyes are still wary. A second later, his panic is back.
“I can’t feel my panther,” he signs first to me and then to Wyatt when he realises he can’t see his hands.
Wyatt’s free hand comes to his own chest too, as if he’s feeling for the dragon living within him.
“The potions will be wearing off,” I tell them. “Remember, you’re supposed to take them every day.” We’d been giving them out at breakfast and it’s after midday now.
“Can we get more?” Wyatt asks.
“I’ll see if any of the stock survived at the compound. With the main building a wreckage, I’m not sure there are any. And I don’t know if Khaos will be able to send more.”
“How do we make it permanent? If you say we’re staying, surely we won’t have to drink that stuff forever?”
“No, you won’t.”
“You have to cross the Styx to make it permanent.” Tacita emerges from the bathroom, a fluffy purple towel wrapped around her body.
Both humans wear looks of shock.
“But the Styx is where souls go to die, or reincarnate,” Milo signs.
“Yes…” I say, pausing to figure out how to phrase this without alarming them more. “You will need to die to become a permanent resident of Elysium, to get full access to your shifter selves.”
“Garrick!” Tacita flies forward, slapping me on the arm.
“What?”
“Telling them that they need to die isn’t helpful.” Looking back to Milo and Wyatt, I see that indeed I failed to explain it without making them panic more. She turns to them to explain it in more detail.
“I don’t fully understand the magic, but Charon is able to direct you over the river so that you become a demon, rather than your soul being transported to the next life or whatever. It’s something to do with you still being alive when you enter.
“I go to the ceremony every decade after the games, because the party afterwards is always a lot of fun, but I’ve never really paid attention to the details of the transformations.”
Tacita’s description of the ceremony seems to calm them much better. The three of them keep talking but I get distracted by the buzz of my phone in my pocket. I’d grabbed it as I’d left the compound in case anyone needed to get in touch, having kept it in my room during the games.
Indeed, Tarron is checking when I’ll be back. There’s still a lot of clean-up to do and the successful recruits are getting an even bigger crash course in the details of how Elysium actually works now they’ve survived the interview process.
“Do you have to leave already?” the female at my side asks.
“Soon. I can spare a couple more hours to get you caught up, but I do need to get back.”
“Okay.” She gives me a sad smile. “Let me just get dressed and then we can go upstairs and talk properly.”