Chapter 33 Ezra #2
A shadow wraps around her throat, a dark collar against flushed skin.
Another tightens along her ribs, staking its claim without mercy.
The boldest of them slides between us, tracing the curve of her collarbone before curling beneath her jaw, lifting her chin, offering her to me.
Aurora exhales a sharp, needy breath, and my shadows pulse in response. She commands them as easily as she commands me.
The power she has to make me submit? To bring me to my knees? To turn me into something desperate?
It’s utterly terrifying.
I kiss her with all the hunger the void left behind, the kind of dark hunger that demands bruised lips and gnashing teeth. The kind of hunger that consumes everything in its path and still isn’t satisfied.
My shadows snap around us, their rhythm faltering, their control slipping.
Even the darkness pulls closer, as if it can’t help but worship her too.
I grip her like I’ll fall apart if I let go. Then I break the kiss with a curse, dragging myself back just far enough to meet her eyes.
There’s more fire than moss now.
It’s so fucking beautiful.
She’s so fucking beautiful.
“Are you ready, Aurora? I know you said the words I needed to hear, but it’s okay if you’ve changed your mind.”
The dark, primal thing inside of me rages, urging me to take what’s mine.
That thing has had control over me for millennia.
I want to do better … be better.
Especially for her.
“Yes, Ezra. I’m ready. Please,” she breathes, her slick heat dragging along my cock with every desperate grind.
I run my knuckles down her soft cheek, then take a moment to memorize every detail of this moment. Once she claims her power, everything will change.
I plant my hands on the bed beside her head and settle between her thighs.
I drag my cock between her slick folds, teasing her clit until she bucks beneath me. I don’t want to cause her any pain, so I ease my hips forward, pushing into her, inch by inch.
Her hips lift off the bed, dragging me deeper, like her body’s known me for lifetimes. The last few inches of my cock sink into her, and something primal and broken tears out of me.
The growl escapes before I can stop it. The darkest part of me doesn’t want to stop. It wants to break her, to fuck her until she’s sobbing and begging for mercy.
Instead, I slowly pull out, savoring the way her tight walls cling to me, begging me to stay nestled in her heat. Then I ease back in, taking my time, until I’m buried deep again. Every shift of her hips sharpens my senses, coiling my restraint tighter.
“Are you well, Aurora?”
She doesn’t answer with words. Just breath and heat and the sharp rise of her chest.
“Ezra.” She breathes my name like a threat. “Shut up and fuck me.”
Her eyes snap open, and I swear the fire in them sears itself into my skin.
That look makes me ache. Not just in my cock, but somewhere deeper. Somewhere I thought was long-dead and hollow.
“As you wish, little lupine.”
I slowly pull out, then roughly thrust my hips forward, plunging deep inside of her again.
I’m buried to the hilt, my balls resting against her tight, beautiful ass, as Aurora’s back arches off the bed with a hiss.
It takes a god’s worth of restraint not to come the second I bottom out.
I run my tongue over her ear, then whisper, “You have control over everything we do tonight. You say faster, I fuck you faster. You say harder, I fuck you harder. You say stop, and I stop. No questions asked. But right now, I’m going to fuck you hard and fast. Do you understand?”
My hips twitch with need, barely restrained, waiting on her word.
When she finally nods, I fist my hand in her hair and stand up with a growl.
“That’s my girl.”
But when my gaze drops, I’m mesmerized by the way our bodies are so perfectly woven together. Flexing my hips, I softly pump into her. The sight of her tiny, soaked cunt stretching to accommodate my cock turns me savage.
A snarl rips through my chest, and without warning, I slam deep inside of her.
Aurora screams, her body arching as her nails rake down my back.
It’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard, outside of her laugh and her voice and … Shit!
These aren’t exactly the words of a fearsome, ancient being. They’re the words of something soft, something human, something not born of ice and void, but of flesh and marrow.
If Aurora asked me to go soft and slow, I would.
But hellfire and blackberry brambles twist through her soul. Soft won’t satisfy her. She needs sharp edges. She needs me.
She doesn’t want the man. She wants the monster.
Aurora moans and my mind goes blank. My soul claws at something I’ll never get back, because that sound dismantles me. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted and everything the universe never meant for me to have, soaked in sex and starlight and fucking hellfire.
“Yes! Fuck, Ezra. Please don’t stop.”
Her voice is husky, wrecked from moaning and screaming for me.
“As if I could,” I whisper against her ear. “I’m addicted to you. I will always need more, always need you.”
She arches into me, breath hitching with every thrust.
I run my hand down her chest, over the soft plane of her stomach, then find her clit with my thumb and press.
Aurora tangles her hands in her hair, fingers pulling tight, trying to ground herself against the rush of feeling.
This won’t do.
I still myself inside her and lean in, untangling her hands from her hair.
Gathering both wrists in one hand, I press her arms above her head and drag my teeth along her jaw.
“Don’t want you damaging your hair, little lupine.”
I nip at her ear, then kiss the edge of her mouth in exaltation even as I rut into her, desperate to thread myself through her, stitch by fucking stitch.
My shadows crawl up her legs, drawn to the flames already rising across her skin.
“Yeshua d’nash … look at you.” My voice breaks on the words. “Wrists in my hands. Fire on your skin. Legs spread and taking me so well. You’ve never looked more divine.”
I nuzzle her neck and breathe her in. She smells like ash and honeysuckle and something sublime I’ll never deserve.
She burns beneath me like a dying star. My queen, set ablaze. And I’ve never wanted anything more.
Terror would be the natural response.
But fuck fear.
I’d burn for her with a smile on my face.
I’ve had mouths chant my name, hands claw at my skin, and prayers whispered for just one night. But no one’s ever stayed. No one’s ever wanted me like this. And fuck, I’d kneel in blood and offer her the heart of anyone who ever hurt her, because this is the moment I belong to her completely.
I lean in, my lips brushing her collarbone.
“You set me free,” I whisper against her throat. “You let me be the monster. Let me be everything. Then beg me for more. Elska mín … mine.”
I thrust deeper, slower, savoring the way she trembles beneath me.
“I want to stay here all night,” I murmur. “Make you come until your soul forgets its shape. Until all that’s left is the echo of me inside you.”
“Yes! Ezra …”
She breathes my name, and the stars hold their breath as galaxies unfurl beneath my skin, rewriting every piece of who I used to be.
“Fuck. More … please!”
Her voice is soft, almost dreamlike, as if the need is too deep for words, but spills out anyway. When her hips lift to meet my thrusts, a vicious growl rips through me as I fight to stay in control.
“I’ll mark you from the inside out,” I whisper against her ear. “Come so deep you won’t just feel it, you’ll wear it. Everyone will know you’re mine.”
Her body tenses, slick with need and trembling under my touch, as her whimpers climb toward something blistering and bare.
“You’re doing so fucking well,” I growl. “Such a good girl. You’re right there, aren’t you? I can feel it. Your power’s tearing through you, begging to burn. Let it take you, sweet girl …”
The pressure swells in my spine, molten and merciless, threatening to break me open and pour into her until nothing else exists.
“Aurora,” I breathe. “Come for the fucked-up monster who would kneel for you with blood on his teeth and wildflowers in his hair.”
My shadows shudder violently. They’ve been waiting for this—starving for it.
When her body shatters around me, they lose control. They lash out—tightening at her wrists, crawling slow and sure down her spine. They slip between her thighs, wrapping possessively around her trembling legs. One coils against her throat, pulsing in time with her heartbeat.
They know.
They feel her fire, her power, her release. And I can tell they already crave more.
Her whole body goes rigid, her breath stolen as her orgasm crashes through her.
I stop breathing, too, but for a different reason.
I stay buried inside her, moving in slow, devoted thrusts, because I don’t know if her magic will hold without it. And fuck, I won’t risk that.
I keep moving, each slow stroke a benediction to her power, even as I force myself to hold the rhythm. I watch in awe as her body begins to blaze with something ancient, untouchable, and entirely hers.
The moment ignites, and her hellfire answers.
She burns beneath my hands, a yellow-orange light blooming over her body, making her hair dance and her skin glow.
Her flames reach for me, licking across my skin before draping me in hellfire and wrapping me in her power.
Her fire isn’t pain.
It’s … something else, a strange, spreading numbness. Every nerve holds its breath, unsure if I’m being broken open or blessed.
When she comes again, I can feel it like a crack in the universe, and before I can even breathe, I see them. Massive copper antlers rise from the top of her head, bone-wild and radiant, crowned by the horned god and anointed by the goddess of wild things.
I stay buried in her, my hips twitching with raw worship, as a delicate crown of red-thorned sweet briar winds its way between her glowing antlers.
Aurora has finally claimed her power. And she will be a force beyond reckoning. I feel it through our connection, and it eclipses anything I have ever known.