Chapter 8 #2
"His family will have him out by morning," Sarah says quietly beside me.
"Probably." I watch the deputies shove him into the back of the cruiser. "But now there's a record. Paper trail his daddy's lawyers can't make disappear. And he knows what happens if he comes back."
The cruiser pulls away. Peter's face presses against the back window, pale and tear-streaked, until the car disappears around the bend.
"It's over, little human." I pull her against my chest, tucking her head under my chin and breathing her in.
My quarters feel smaller with all this violence still running through my veins.
Sarah locks the door behind us. The click echoes in the silence. I stand in the middle of the room with my hands shaking, the adrenaline finally crashing through me now that the threat is gone and my mate—that's what she is to me—stands safe behind a locked door.
I almost killed him.
I would have killed him, gladly, without hesitation. Torn him apart and fed what remained to the forest. The realization doesn't horrify me the way it should. The feral beast coils in my chest, satisfied but still hungry, and I press my palms against my thighs to stop them from trembling.
"Knox." Sarah's voice, soft behind me. "Look at me."
I turn.
She stands a few feet away, her eyes searching my face. The fear I scented earlier is gone completely. In its place: trust. Warmth. Something deeper that makes my breath catch.
"I almost killed him," I say.
"But you didn't."
"I wanted to." The admission scrapes out of me raw and bleeding. "I wanted to tear him apart piece by piece. Watch him bleed. Listen to him beg the way he made you beg."
She doesn't flinch. Doesn't step back. Just closes the distance between us and puts her hands on my face, her palms cool against my overheated skin.
"I know." Her thumbs stroke along my cheekbones. "I know you did. And I love you for stopping."
The words hit me like a physical blow. My lungs seize. My hands find her waist without my permission, fingers digging into the curve of her hips as I pull her closer.
"Say that again."
"I love you." She rises on her toes, pressing her forehead to mine. "I love you, Knox Stone. All of you. The president. The prince. The beast."
My mouth finds hers—not desperate. Tender. She answers by melting into me, her fingers sliding up my chest to curl around the back of my neck.
"Knox." She pulls back just enough to meet my eyes. "I'm scared."
My heart clenches. "Of me?"
"Of how much I want this." Her voice drops to a whisper. "Of how much it's going to change everything."
I rest my forehead against hers. My hands find her waist, and I realize they're trembling. Me. The orc who's faced down warlords and walked away from his birthright without flinching. Shaking like a prospect on his first ride.
"I'm scared too," I admit.
Her eyes widen. "You are?"
"Terrified." I brush my thumb across her cheekbone. "I've never wanted anything the way I want you. Never had anything I was afraid to lose."
She kisses me again—soft, slow, her lips barely brushing mine.
We undress each other slowly. Her shirt over her head.
My cut laid carefully over the chair. Her jeans sliding down her thighs while I watch her face, memorizing every flicker of expression.
My shirt joins hers on the floor, and her fingers trace the scars on my chest like she's reading a map of everywhere I've been.
When we're both bare, I lift her and carry her to the bed. Lay her down like she's made of glass. She reaches for me, tries to pull me down, but I catch her wrists and pin them gently above her head.
"Let me take care of you." My voice comes out rough.
I kiss my way down her body. Worshipping her. My lips trail across her collarbone, between her breasts, down the soft curve of her stomach. She trembles beneath me, her pulse quickening under my mouth.
"Knox..." Her voice breaks.
I settle between her thighs and look up at her—holding her gaze while I lower my mouth to her pussy. "I know, little human."
She's already wet, but I take my time anyway.
Long, slow strokes of my tongue, savoring her taste.
My fingers slide inside her—one, then two—stretching her gently while I work her clit with an unhurried pressure.
She needs to be ready for me, but tonight isn't about getting her there fast. Tonight is about making every second count.
Her hips roll against my hand. Her breathing turns ragged.
"Please," she whispers. "Knox, please..."
"Not yet." I curl my fingers, press deeper, adding a third. She gasps at the stretch, but I feel her body yielding, opening for me. "I need to make sure I won't hurt you."
"You won't." Her hand finds my hair, fingers threading through the strands. "You could never hurt me."
I work her slowly, patiently, until she's dripping wet and trembling on the edge. Only then do I pull my fingers free and climb up her body, positioning myself between her thighs.
The head of my cock notches against her entrance. I freeze.
"Look at me." The words scrape out. "I need to see your eyes."
She looks. And I see everything—fear and trust and love so fierce it steals my breath.
I push inside her. Slowly. Inch by inch. Watching her face the whole time, ready to stop the moment she needs me to. But she doesn't ask me to stop. She wraps her legs around my waist and pulls me deeper, her lips parting on a silent moan.
"Sarah." Her name falls from my mouth.
I move inside her—not fucking. Making love. Slow, deep strokes that let me feel every flutter of her inner walls, every hitch of her breath. Her hands frame my face, her thumbs stroking my cheekbones while I rock into her.
"I love you," she breathes.
"I love you too, Sarah." I press my forehead to hers. "More than anything. More than everything."
The pleasure builds slowly, a rising tide instead of a crashing wave. I feel her getting close—the way her body tightens around me, the way her breath comes faster—and I hold myself on the edge, waiting.
My mouth trails down her throat, kissing and licking, until I reach the junction where her neck meets her shoulder.
I still inside her, buried to the hilt, and she makes a sound of protest.
"Knox—why did you stop—"
I brush sweat-damp hair from her face. "I need to ask you something."
Her eyes search mine.
"I want forever." The words scrape out rough. "With you. I want to make you mine in every way that matters to an orc. A claiming bite, stronger than any human marriage."
Her breath catches. "Knox..."
"It's permanent, Sarah. It changes you. Binds us in ways you can't undo.
" I cup her face in my hands, making sure she sees the weight of what I'm offering.
"You'll live as long as I do. A hundred and fifty years, maybe more.
You'll heal faster. You'll feel what I feel—my pain, my rage, my grief.
If I die, you'll know the moment it happens.
If I'm hurt, you'll feel it in your own body. "
"I know."
My brow furrows. "What? Who told you?"
"The girls." A small smile curves her lips. "I asked questions, Knox. I wanted to understand what I was getting into. What it would mean to be yours—really yours."
My heart slams against my ribs. "And you still want this? Knowing everything it means?"
"I want YOU." Her hands frame my face, thumbs stroking along my jaw. "I've been yours since that first night on the road, since you put a helmet on my head and told me to hold tight. The bite is just... making it official."
"Sarah—"
"Claim me, Knox." Her voice drops, steady and sure. "Make me yours forever."
I thrust deeper, grinding against her clit. "Come with me. When I bite you, come with me."
Her eyes lock on mine. Trust. Surrender. Forever.
"I love you." I breathe the words against her pulse point. "More than I've ever loved anything. More than the club, more than my freedom, more than the life I built running from my past. You're everything, Sarah. Everything."
"I love you too." Her voice breaks on the words. "Please, Knox. I'm ready."
I bite.
My teeth pierce her skin—not deep, not savage, but enough. Her blood blooms across my tongue, copper, salt and underneath it sweetness, the taste of home. Magic floods through me. Ancient orc magic.
Sarah gasps beneath me. Her eyes fly open—and for one heartbeat, they flash gold.
The bond snaps into place, a cord stretching between her heart and mine, and suddenly I feel her. Not just her body wrapped around my cock, but HER. Her shock. Her wonder. Her love, so bright and fierce it burns through me like sunlight.
I pull back, my mouth still wet with her blood, and watch the mark settle into her skin. It glows faintly for a moment—the magic finding its home—then fades to a permanent scar. My teeth. My claim. Visible to anyone who sees her.
"Knox..." She blinks up at me, dazed. "I felt... I felt your heart."
"That's because it belongs to you." I brush my thumb across the mark.
I move—just a small shift of my hips—and we both gasp.
The sensation hits me twice. My pleasure AND hers, reflected through the bond, amplified and returned. I feel myself inside her—the stretch, the fullness—at the same time I feel her tight heat gripping my cock. Two bodies. One feeling.
"Oh wow." Her nails dig into my shoulders. "Knox, I can feel—I can feel YOU—"
"I know." I thrust again, shallow, testing, and the doubled sensation nearly breaks me. "Fuck. I know."
Nothing in my life has prepared me for this.
Every stroke sends pleasure cascading through both of us—mine bleeding into hers, hers flooding back into me, an endless loop that builds and builds with nowhere to go.
She feels what I feel when I sink deep inside her.
I feel what she feels when I hit that spot that makes her cry out.
"I can't—" Her voice stutters. "It's too much—I can't tell where I end and you—"
"Don't." I frame her face with my hands, force her to meet my eyes. "Don't try to separate it. Just feel."
I move faster. Harder. And she feels it—feels my pleasure layered over hers, feels the pressure building at the base of my spine as clearly as her own approaching orgasm. Her pussy clenches around me and I feel that too, feel myself gripping myself, and my vision whites out at the edges.
"Knox—" She's sobbing now, overwhelmed, her body arching off the bed. "I'm going to—I can feel you're going to—"
"Together." I bury myself to the hilt and grind against her clit. "Come with me. NOW."
She comes hard.
And I feel it from the inside—her orgasm crashing through her body, her pussy clamping down on me, pleasure exploding through every nerve. It triggers my own release, which amplifies hers, which amplifies mine—an infinite feedback loop of sensation that tears through us both like wildfire.
I don't know which scream is hers and which is mine. Don't know where my body ends and hers begins. We're one creature, one heartbeat, one endless wave of pleasure that goes on and on until neither of us can breathe.
We collapse together, both of us trembling and gasping, the bond pulsing between us like a second heartbeat.
Sarah traces the bite mark in the mirror.
I stand behind her, arms wrapped around her waist, watching her reflection study the scar at her throat. My teeth, permanent as a tattoo, declaring to the world what she is to me.
"It's beautiful." She tips her head, examining the mark from different angles. "I thought it would hurt more."
"Orc bites heal fast on claimed mates." I press my lips to her shoulder, right beside the mark. "The pain fades but the bond doesn't."
She turns in my arms and kisses me—soft and slow. This is the rest of our lives stretching out before us.
"My queen," I murmur against her hair.
She pulls back to look at me, her eyes shining. "What?"
"That's what you are." I cup her face in my hands, stroking my thumbs across her cheekbones. "The queen of the Feral Sons. My mate. My claimed."
For the first time since I met her, Sarah smiles without shadows. No fear lurking at the edges. No ghosts of the past dimming the brightness.
"I like the sound of that."
Whatever comes next—my father's summons, the threats we haven't even imagined yet—we face it together. My past. Hers. All of it.
Let them come.
They'll learn what it means to threaten an orc's claimed mate.