Chapter 58 Meera
Meera
Only an hour left until the portal opened.
Her breath misted the cool air, her heart beating so hard she could feel it in her fingertips.
Lowell had no reason to think she’d come at all. Would he show anyway?
Mist ringed the base of the Mount like a pale moat, the ground silvered by moonlight. Will he show? The Skein seemed to hush with her anticipation, night creatures quieting as if to listen…
Footfalls sounded behind her.
She whirled around. Tears rushed hot to her eyes when she saw Lowell racing through the mist, joy carved across his beloved face.
“Ach, love, no tears.” He lifted her off her feet and spun her around until laughter shook both of them. “When I heard naught from you, I dinna dare hope.”
“Here I am. This step is huge for me, so see that I don’t regret it.” Emotions threatened to overwhelm her. Had he ever looked at her so consumingly? Had his eyes ever burned so green? She would make a thousand pacts with Hecate for even this one embrace.
Forehead against hers, he rasped, “I’m proud of you. So bloody proud, my ireful witch.” He set her down, hands framing her face. “We’re early, so I’ll bide my time by kissing you.” He pressed adoring kisses along her jawline, her cheeks, across the bridge of her nose.
Doubts dissolved as magic sizzled under her skin like a live wire. Then his mouth claimed hers, and heat roared between them. A struck match tipped to oil.
The kiss bruised and deepened. A maelstrom of desire and connectedness seemed to hit them both. They assailed each other. The moon heightened every gasp, every groan. Clothes fell away until they were naked under its light.
“I want you!” she cried against his mouth. “More than I’ve ever wanted anything. Can think of nothing but you.”
“I feel the same.” His voice was rough. “You’re a fever in my blood. I turned my back on everything tonight.” His people. His religion of matehood. “But I will no’ live without you.” Against her damp neck, he growled, “Say you’re mine. Say it!”
“I’m yours,” she whispered. “I devastated my life for you.”
A savage sound escaped him—pleasure, relief, possession. He kissed her like a male who’d found his forever.
When they broke for a breath, she said, “Take me, Lowell. Take what’s already yours.” She felt the way she did before casting a new spell: nervous but eager to enjoy the outcome. “It’s time.”
He swallowed thickly, nodding once. “I’ll claim your body under this moon.”
Their own form of claiming.
He cupped a breast, weighing it as his thumb circled her nipple.
His other hand descended past her belly and slid between her thighs to find her slick and open.
“Gods,” he groaned. “So wet for me.” He delved a big, hot finger inside her—slow, deep—readying her.
With practiced precision, he worshipped her.
She wantonly rocked to his touch, glorying in the slick sounds. “More.”
He worked in a second finger, as he’d often done before. He’d been preparing her for exactly this. He’d once told her he would be her first. He was about to fulfill that vow.
Her body would regenerate from any injury except the slight one about to happen. She was ready for this step, soaking his palm. “Now, Lowell.”
He nodded and slipped his fingers free. He gripped her backside, clutching her curves.
“This arse will be the death of me. I’ll need a thousand years just to work through my awe of it.
” He lifted her with effortless strength, and her legs wrapped around his waist. “You sure about this?” He notched the broad tip of his cock against her entrance.
She nodded. “Positive.”
His gaze locked with hers as he lowered her onto him. “You took a chance on me.” He gritted his fangs as he let her slide down, inch by inch onto his throbbing shaft. “You’ll never regret it.”
Her tightness was no match for slickness and gravity. When her virginity yielded, he shifted her slightly, then eased her down over his stiffened flesh.
Once she’d taken him as deeply as she could, pain pinched. She couldn’t hide a wince.
“I’m sorry, love.”
Love. Thrill. Would she never tire of that endearment? “I’m all right.” Her nails dug into his shoulders. “Better than. Don’t stop.”
He thrust once, slow and measured, and the moon went double. Pain vanished beneath the rising pleasure. When her head lolled, his free hand clasped her nape. “Gods almighty.” His voice held raw reverence.
Her swollen clitoris ground against the juncture of his cock and groin. Shocks of pleasure and pain, and she couldn’t get enough. “More!” She moved on him, desperate to take him deeper. “Don’t hold back.”
He thrust, hitting her needy clit again. And again. Pressure coiled, rapture nearing. His claws dug into her hips as he wrenched her up and down, thrusting his lean hips at the same time.
Words demanded to be free: “I love you!” she cried.
The idea must’ve excited him; his thick cock pulsed inside her. “You belong to me now. Forever!”
She clung to his sweat-dampened shoulders, scoring his skin.
“I do,” she moaned, words dripping with submission.
“I belong to you now.” The rightness of this pushed her over the precipice just as he gave her a teeth-clattering thrust and a hard bounce along his rigid length.
She rode him tip to base, and the tension broke halfway down.
“Ah, Hecate, yes!” Her orgasm consumed her, her core squeezing his shaft as it plunged inside her relentlessly.
She threw back her head and screamed in total surrender to this male. I’m his.
Eternally…
A truth she felt in her bones.
Gulping air, she cried, “Follow me.”
He tensed, and she craved the searing bath of semen that was sure to follow. A marking in itself.
Yet then…his eyes flared Lykae blue, sheening in the moonlight. His fangs sharpened. For the first time, she saw hints of his beast rising—to answer a call far older and truer than lust.
Ah, great goddess. “I am yours!” Of course. Nothing could be this powerful if it hadn’t been fated. Meera cupped his precious face, nails digging in possessively. “Claim me. Bite me. Mark me.”
***
Lowell
—YOURS YOURS YOURS!—
His long-quiet Instinct rang like a gong in his skull. He staggered under the force of it. “I canna…canna breathe.” Lowell tore back from the rake of Meera’s nails.
She nodded with understanding, still rolling her hips atop him. “This is why we’ve been so drawn to each other. It’s all right, love. It’s a big change and one we’ll work through.”
“Canna breathe.” The awakening inside him was too bright. Too absolute.
Not panic. Transcendence.
The promise of an interlocking soul curled on the wind; a ribbon of scent—pure and radiant and impossible—came from the direction of Bloodreach. His mind expanded. His heart and body. His beast awakened, swelling within him like a tidal wave.
Yet Lowell was inside Meera. And she thought she had elicited this response. Ah, gods, it’s no’ her.
Her.
His mate.
She was in the Skein. Closing in. Their souls already turning toward each other, moving to interlock into one beneath a full moon.
“Lowell, love.” Meera’s voice took on an ecstatic note that made his chest hurt. “Your fangs have sharpened for a reason.” She drew her hair from her neck, baring it with hope. “Mark me as yours. I’m ready.”
He recoiled, tearing free of her body and setting her away. Shame clawed up his throat, shame for the betrayal he’d committed against his pack, his king, his family, the sacred mate he hadn’t believed in.
His shaft, glistening and pulsing, drew the witch’s gaze. But he was now hard for another female.
“You didn’t come?” She glanced up in bewilderment, her body clearly craving more of his. “Do you want to savor this moment before the bite?” She arched closer, and revulsion tore through him; his stomach heaved.
“I scented another.”
She stilled. “Another? I don’t understand.”
“My mate.”
Two words. Iron clarity.
“Lowell, no.” Her tears gathered, breaths shallowing. “This can’t be happening.”
“I am sorry,” he choked out.
“You look as if you’re dying inside,” she whispered, eyes stark. “But excited too.”
“I dinna know. I dinna expect this for myself.”
“Have you forgotten that you promised me everything? You told me I’d never regret coming here. This is a done thing. We have sealed our pact. I have sealed my pact, making my own promises.” She peered up at the moon as if reading portents.
Straightening, she returned her gaze to him. “We’re just steps from the threshold. You will leave with me. You told me you would fight fate, and we can still escape it. Turn your back on the other female, and depart this world.”
“I canna ever leave her.” His voice broke. “I’ve been waiting for this all my life. Her soul calls to my own, and it’s like a godsdamned roar from the universe right at my ear.”
Meera held out a hand and raggedly said, “Distance will dull it.”
“No.” He shook his head. He didn’t want to hurt her more than he had to, but he needed to make her understand. “It’s like I’ve never lived before now.”
She gasped as though he’d stabbed her. “You said you loved me.”
“I thought I did.” He gripped his head, gazing off in the night, then back at Meera. “I think. Now I doona know anymore.”
“So everything between us…”
“Feels wrong. Feels twisted. I’m sorry.”
She wiped her tears, face hardening like stone.
“Then felicitations.” Her voice went soft and lethal.
“Go to your mate, scored from my nails and reeking of another woman’s pleasure.
I’ll be sure to get your letter into her paws in the future.
All the best with her.” Meera’s fury crackled in the air.
He flinched from its sting—feeling how easily she’d ensnared him with her magic and loneliness and longing. Clarity struck him. She had spellbound him. She’d taken over his thoughts, defeated his loyalty, and made him a craven slave for her.
His claws extended, his beast demanding vengeance. Yet nothing could compete with his mate’s pull. He charged off toward that undeniable scent without a backward glance.
Lowell realized it was a familiar scent, one he’d dreamed of but had never been able to find. Tonight more than one mystery would be solved.
He freed his beast fully, and the heat of that force cleaved through every leash the witch had wrapped around him.
Almost every one.
Almost.