9. The Claim #2
Sigurd draws back and thrusts into me again. The tentacle keeps a slower rhythm inside my ass, working against the harder drive of his cock. The dual pressure sends pleasure racing through me and makes my nails bite into his skin.
The table shudders beneath us. Somewhere nearby, another piece of silver crashes to the floor. The sound barely reaches me as I lock my calves around Sigurd’s waist and pull him deeper.
His hand comes up beneath my jaw and turns my face toward him. “Look at me, Valerie. Keep your eyes on me.”
I meet the bright blue glow above me. His hair has fallen loose around his face, and his chest is bare. The controlled businessman who sat beside me minutes ago has disappeared beneath something much more primitive.
“I’m looking.” My nails drag down his back as another thrust drives through me. “Don’t stop. Please, Sigurd.”
A rough sound catches in his throat, and his grip tightens at my hip. “Not when you’re taking me like this.”
He drives into me harder. The tentacle shifts inside me at the same time, changing the pressure enough to send a violent rush through my entire body.
Pleasure builds low and fast until I can’t hold it back. My legs tighten around him as the climax breaks through me, and I cling to him through every shudder.
Valerie is still trembling beneath me when it happens. Maren’s song burns through my blood, feeding an instinct I have kept buried for centuries.
Around us, the feast has dissolved into an orgy of tangled bodies and abandoned restraint. I barely register any of it. The need to bind Valerie to me becomes impossible to ignore.
My teeth sharpen into the serrated points meant for claiming. Venom gathers beneath my tongue. I want her life tied to mine, beyond contracts and threats, with no human lifespan waiting to take her away from me.
I lower myself over her without putting my full weight on her chest. My mouth settles against the place where her neck meets her shoulder.
“Mine,” I rumble against her skin. “You’re permanently mine, Valerie.”
Her fingers tighten in my hair. “Sigurd… yes. Oh my God, yes.”
I close my mouth over her shoulder and sink my fangs into her skin. Her blood floods hot across my tongue, and claiming venom follows into the wound.
Valerie gasps and arches beneath me, her body clenching around my cock again. The sensation tears through the last of my control and sends me over the edge.
I come hard inside her and hold her through the final pulses of pleasure. The venom spreads beneath her skin, and for one intoxicated moment I’m certain the bond has taken.
Valerie’s body suddenly goes rigid.
The first spasm is close enough to the aftershocks of climax that I almost mistake it for one. The second jerks her sharply against the table, every muscle seizing as a broken, choking sound catches in her throat.
I pull away from her neck, sliding out of her. “Valerie, what’s wrong?”
Another convulsion tears through her before she can answer. Her eyes roll upward, and both hands fly to her throat as she claws at the fresh bite.
I catch her wrists before she can hurt herself. Her body twists against the stone. My hands shake as I struggle to keep her from rolling off the edge.
“Valerie, look at me. Breathe for me.” I keep hold of her wrists and lean close enough for her to hear me. “Come on. Breathe.”
Her chest barely rises. One thin breath gets through before she chokes on the next. The color is draining rapidly from her face.
“Can’t—” she rasps.
The sharp crack of my mother’s obsidian cane cuts through the noise. Solveig reaches the ruined table and takes in Valerie’s convulsing body, the blood at her neck, and my extended fangs.
“You fool! You claimed a human on Mt. Qaf.” She strikes the cane down again as Valerie chokes for another breath. “Her body cannot stabilize the bond here. Get her to deep water.”
That is when I finally remember. My mother is right. The claiming ritual requires the crushing pressure of deep water to stabilize the venom. The transformation has started inside her body with nothing here to complete it. The haze of my desire consumed me so much I forgot my most basic lessons.
I slide one arm beneath Valerie’s shoulders and the other beneath her knees. My hands are still shaking as I lift her away.
“Move, Sigurd,” my mother says, turning toward the exit. “Every second you waste makes this worse.”
Camille is already clearing the way through the hall. She shouts for the stunned guests to move aside. I follow with Valerie pressed against my bare chest. Her head falls against my collarbone, and every weak attempt at breath makes my grip tighten around her.
The remnants of Maren’s song fade behind us as we push through the doors and onto the mountain path. The wind tears across my exposed skin, but Valerie’s face is the only thing I register. The blue around her lips is deepening.
Solveig keeps pace behind me. “Support her neck and keep her head elevated. Talk to her. Don’t let her drift.”
I adjust Valerie higher against my chest and cradle the back of her head. The convulsions are weakening, but the stillness replacing them frightens me more.
“Valerie, stay with me.” I tilt her face toward mine without slowing. “Keep listening to my voice. I’m getting you to the water.”
Her eyelids flutter without opening. A thin breath catches in her throat, and her fingers twitch once against my ribs before going slack.
“I’ve got you,” I tell her, though my voice breaks on the words. “Just stay with me.”
Camille races ahead toward the waiting jet as I carry Valerie across the floating stone. Her breathing has become so faint that I can barely hear it.
“Don’t you dare leave me, Valerie. Stay with me.”
Her fingers remain limp against my chest. I carry her toward the jet as fast as my legs will take us, with the same thought following every step.
I may have destroyed the woman I love.