Chapter Ten #2
I release her hands and step back, giving her space. She takes off the sweater herself. Slowly. The shirt beneath is thin and black, slipping off one shoulder. Her skin is pale under the lamplight, marked with faint healing shadows and new strength. I don’t look anywhere she has not offered.
Her shoulder is bare, and my mark will go there. Not her throat. Not the places they made ugly, but a new place. A chosen place.
I step close again when she nods, and my mouth finds her shoulder first. Not teeth but lips. She exhales, long and shaking, and her hands grip my arms. I kiss the spot once, twice, letting my scent settle there, letting the beast recognize without taking.
“Say it,” I whisper.
Her fingers tighten. “I choose you.”
The bond snaps tight, and my teeth sink into her shoulder. Briana cries out, and I stop the second I hear pain, but her arms lock around me.
“No,” she gasps. “Don’t stop. I’m okay. I’m here.”
Her blood touches my tongue, and the bond explodes through me. But this is not fire, no, it’s roots taking hold. Like the floor splitting beneath us and something ancient rising to wrap around my bones. Her fear. Her want. Her fury. Her heartbeat. Everything floods me at once until I nearly fall.
Mine, the beast breathes.
Yours, the bond answers.
But beneath it all, clearer than anything, is Briana and her choice.
I lick the mark gently, sealing it with magic older than language. She shudders in my arms, not pulling away. I hold her through it, one hand at her back, one at her waist, grounding without trapping.
When I lift my head, her eyes are wide. Gold flickers once in the depths, there and gone.
“What was that?” she whispers.
“The bond accepting you.”
“I felt you.”
My chest tightens. “I felt you too.”
Her hand goes to the mark on her shoulder. I catch myself before I stop her. She touches it lightly, wincing, then smiling in a way that makes my heart forget its purpose.
“Can I?” she asks.
I don’t understand until she looks at my shoulder, and my knees almost give.
“You don’t have to mark me.”
“I want to,” she confesses.
“You are human. Your bite won’t...”
“I still want to.”
My mouth closes, and she smiles faintly. “Good monster.”
The words go straight to my cock. I close my eyes, trying to regain control. Briana laughs softly, and the sound is breathless, a little wicked, and entirely new.
She tugs at my shirt. “Off.” I obey so fast her eyebrows lift. “Interesting.”
“Don’t tease me right now.”
“Why?”
“Because I am barely hanging on here.”
Her gaze drops over my chest, the scars, the muscle, the healing wounds from fighting in the cage last night, and every fight before it. She doesn’t look afraid. She looks hungry.
I have to grip the edge of the dresser to stay still.
Briana steps close and presses her lips to my shoulder. My head tips back in pleasure. Her teeth close on my skin. It doesn’t hurt, not really. But it marks me deeper than any wound ever has.
The bond flares again. Softer this time, but no less powerful. Though this time the undercurrent of lust is stronger.
When she pulls back, there’s a red imprint on my shoulder and triumph in her eyes. “There,” she says breathlessly.
I stare at her. My mate. Mine and not mine. Chosen and choosing.
I cup her face carefully. “Briana.”
She leans into my palm. Freely and with no hesitation.
The sight nearly breaks me. Then her hands slide over my bare chest, exploring.
Curious. Shy, then bolder when I hold still.
The bond hums between us, carrying every small wave of emotion—her nerves, her desire, her sudden laugh when my stomach tightens beneath her touch.
“You’re sensitive,” she whispers.
“With you? Yes.”
Her eyes darken, and the air shifts again. Not innocent now. Her hand lowers to my belt and stops there, and my entire body turns to stone.
“Briana.”
“I want more.”
I can’t breathe. “You decide what more means.”
Her gaze lifts to mine. “I don’t know how much I can handle.”
“Then we find out slowly.” She nods, and I kiss her again.
Slower this time, deeper. I keep my hands where she places them. Waist. Back. Hips when she asks without words, arching into me with a shiver that nearly ruins all my good intentions.
“Bedroom?” I ask. She nods, and I lift her into the air, her legs locking around my waist.
I carry her to the bed and set her down like she is not fragile, but precious in a way that has nothing to do with breaking. I stay above her on my hands, giving her space beneath me, enough room to move, to breathe, to say no.
She looks up at me, hair spread across the pillows, my mark bright on her shoulder.
“I’m scared,” she says.
“I know.”
“But I still want you.”
My control fractures. Not enough to hurt her, but enough to let her see. My eyes go black. My horns press beneath the skin but don’t break through. The beast looks at her, and Briana doesn’t flinch.
She touches my face. “Hi,” she whispers to him.
The beast goes still. Completely, and then he bows. I lower my forehead to hers, shaking. “You undo me.”
“Oh. Well, that’s...” her words fade away.
I laugh, rough and ruined, and kiss her again.
What comes next is soft, slow, and impossibly gentle, something I never thought myself capable of.
Each movement is deliberate, shaped by the ache of old wounds and the promise that nothing will hurt her here.
My hands glide over her skin, worshipping every inch, fingertips tracing the delicate curve of her waist, the swell of her hips, the sensitive inside of her thigh.
I take my time, letting her feel the heat of my mouth and breath, letting each kiss linger until she shivers beneath me.
Not because I want it slow, because slow is killing me. But because Briana deserves every second, every breath, every tender touch, every whispered praise that honors her strength and her scars.
I learn where she tenses and where she melts, the bond between us singing with every shift in her breath. Her arousal and need echo through me, shared, amplified, and impossible to ignore.