Chapter Seven #3
I pulled at his tunic, reveled in the strength of his arms, the width of his shoulders as my mouth seemed starved for the taste of him.
I fumbled with the laces of my dress, snarling.
He ripped it apart in one snap, taking the thin shift beneath with it, and helped me out of it.
He stopped, his eyes fixed on my naked body. And all broke loose.
He lapped at my breasts while I tangled my legs around him, trying to get closer and closer. He kissed; I bit. He grabbed; I demanded more. “Dierk,” I growled, begged.
His hand traced down between my thighs, found the core of me, wet and ready for him.
His fingers slipped inside, curled to find the spot that whitened my brain.
I arched under him, then pushed against him to get more, always more of him.
But he didn’t stay there long. He took away his touch.
Raised his fingers coated in me to his mouth.
Sucked them. His eyes flashed golden, his nostrils flared.
And his hunger enveloped me, made me reach down.
I growled when I found him still covered in leather.
I helped him out of it with impatient, jerky movements, but I needed to feel him.
And he was there, his heavy length fell into my palm. Thick, ready. His scent... it intoxicated me. It stripped away everything I was and filled it with need. He pushed into my hand once, twice, sweat covering his forehead, and I pulled him down on me.
To fill me. To take me. To give me what I’ve never known I wanted until I met him.
He hovered over me for an instant, as if there was still a chance for us to be free of this. I kissed him in answer.
Then he was in me. Moving in me.
Magic surged up along with pleasure, as if it had been waiting for this moment.
I was left gasping as the world shifted, widened.
My fire, usually steady under my skin, rose like another heartbeat.
It stretched toward him, brushed his, and it burned with a pleasure so absolute it took away everything else.
It took away who I was. My body was not the only thing open anymore—my mind was, my magic was, my heart was.
And he was in all. I felt him in everything, in the echo of my own name.
I couldn’t tell whose heartbeat drummed in my ears.
Whose magic surged in waves. Whose pleasure tore through us, feeding back on itself, and it was impossible to know who gave and who took. There was no separation anymore.
There was us, and that shimmer at the edge of thought, the extra pulse of life beyond his and my own.
Recklessness, hunger, desperation, the new, fierce need to protect.
Him. It was him. His emotions were flooding my blood,and I knew that, in return, my steadiness, control, and focus were wrapping around him like armor.
The bond roared to life.
And as if we needed more proof of what we had become, as our rhythm turned frantic, nearly violent, I felt him swell.
Pleasure flared as his cock swelled to lock us together, as my heartbeat stuttered, my senses fractured and doubled. Our emotions were layered so tightly that I could no longer tell which one was mine.
My magic bowed, and I understood what it meant to belong to someone, not by body, vow, or word, but by the pulse of life itself.
We shattered together.
His teeth lengthened as mine did, and as the surge took us, we bit into each other hard, right above the collarbone. Our wolves clawed the surface, and male, female, beasts, powers, became one single, burning thing.
Another wave of pleasure hit me when the taste of his blood coated my tongue, spreading through me until I was nothing but pleasure.
We came down slowly. My skin, my bones, my soul became mine again, and I sighed—part relief, part mourning for the loss of having him so deeply etched inside me.
The knot made it impossible to separate at once, but he made sure he wasn’t crushing me. He braced on his arms, brushed the strands of hair from my face with his nose, much like the wolf would. I tucked his hair behind his ear and let the red-tipped ends slide through my fingers.
He kissed me, soft as a breath, and then just looked, really looked, as if he were seeing me for the first time. In a way, he was. The bond meant we could feel each other now, deeply, and that extra layer of instinct was strange. Not bad, only different.
His soul brushed against mine, and the strength of it thrummed through the link.
His wildness prodded at my control, teasing, testing.
Beneath it all lay anger, and a hollow where hope should have been.
The future still looked too dark for promises, so I only pulled him closer and kept tracing the long lines of muscle down his back until he sighed into the touch.
He brushed his nose along my cheek, down the side of my neck, breathing me in. “It’s changed,” he murmured, voice rough enough to make me shiver. “Your scent is different.”
“So is yours.”
“Ours.”
“Yes. It’s our scent now.”
“Never thought I’d see the day,” he rumbled, almost to himself.
“Neither did I.”
I felt the surprise in my own words and sighed, running my palm over his shoulder, along his neck. It didn’t matter that we were still joined; I couldn’t stop touching him, tasting him. My touch lingered on the angry lines of my bite, the mark that made him mine and that would never fade.
“Why didn’t your father marry you off?” he asked. “I’m not complaining, but as the first daughter of a tyrant, I’d have thought he’d have done it the moment you came of age.”
“You saw my wolf. And you see me. He thinks me useless even for a marriage. He gave away my sister to the commander of the Northern Hold not three years back.” I fought the pang of pain that thinking of Adelheid always gave me.
I was doing this for her too. If my father fell, her husband would too, and she would be free from a bondless, loveless marriage to a cruel male.
“But me... he didn’t see any value in me. ”
“It will be so sweet when I kill him.” He looked at me, tilted his head. “What is it?”
“This.... complicates things.”
He frowned, trying to read me. “Do you regret it?”
“Never. I could never regret this. But you’re not staying.
A year and a day, and you’re a free wolf.
” It was so hard even to say those words.
I had no idea how I could face it when it actually happened.
But he’d never lied about what he would or wouldn’t do, and it wasn’t fair to ask him to change now.
He was able to slide out of me and rolled to rest on his back, one hand behind his head. I started to move away, but he tugged my hand and tucked me beside him with a low growl. “I don’t want the crown.”
“I know.”
He hated the system he was risking his life to overthrow, and he was only doing it to take revenge on a life that had given him nothing but pain.
I felt it all in him—the hate, the rage, the resolve, and it was nothing new.
But the bond made me catch something else underneath it: fear.
Shame. I had no idea why he felt those things, but they were real.
He cut off my thoughts with, “But I want you.”
And I wanted, needed, him. But I didn’t have the strength to map out his escape or how far he needed to go to feel satisfied. So, for the second time with him, I did something I rarely did: I refused to look too far forward. “Then we’ll figure it out after the challenge,” I said.
He turned onto his side, facing me, and stroked the angry curve of his bite, his mark, with gentle fingers. “Will this change anything tomorrow? In him?”
“Maybe. He might think I make you weaker–either because I and my wolf are weak and now you’re bonded to us, or because he can use me against you.”
“You’ll be a target. Even more than me.”
I took his palm and pressed a kiss to it, smiling when the warmth of it reached him. “My wolf is weak, but he’s always underestimated my fire.”
“I want you close. Always. Even if Matthis or Gerhard is with you, I want you close.”
“That’s where I want to be, regardless of the threat. I fought it, the pull to you, for so long. I made myself blind and deaf to what my wolf and instinct were telling me. It worked for a while.”
“You have exceptional self-control. Not sure I like it.” He sounded amused.
I chuckled and tucked myself more fully against him, wrapping a leg over his hips. “But I was ready to climb you against that tree that night.”
“I know.” He trailed kisses along my arm. “I was ready to kill that villager for stopping you.”
“I know.”
I leaned in to kiss him, and at the contact of his lips, of the taste of him, wet heat started filling me again. “I want you again,” I said.
He rolled on top of me with a growl. “And you have me. All of me.”