He was mine. He’d always been mine. Since the dawn of creation, since I’d been born into this world for the first time.
Portraits flashed through my mind, a collage of all the moments we’d already shared, and all those that had yet to come. “Now do you see, Little One?” he asked, his grip tightening as his cock drove through me. His mind tunneled into mine, reaching into the depths of my soul.
The connection we’d shared the night before, taking my breath away in that moment, was a pale imitation of this. Now he showed me how much he’d held back with every portrait he painted in my mind. With the promise of a future I hadn’t even known I wanted. In my mind’s eye, the skin above his heart gleamed with strange black markings, an extension of the Mark we shared as it curled over his bare chest.
Caldris squeezed my throat, drawing me back from the haven he’d created inside my mind. The reality of my knees freezing in the snow was so much more painful than the utopia that he showed me waited for us on the other side of these hardships to get there. “I asked you a question,” he said, his voice dropping deeper as he lowered his mouth to the skin just above my ear and sank his teeth into it. He bruised the skin, worrying it between them.
“Yes, I see it,” I admitted, fighting back the sting of tears. I understood now why he was so angry when I fought our bond, why he wanted me to give in and be his mate. Accept him for all he was, above all else, because he saw what waited on the other side.
He saw the beauty in the madness.
But I saw the coming struggle to get there. I felt my lingering heartbreak like a phantom pain, tearing at my insides and trying to claw its way out. Something lived inside of me, and I couldn’t shake the notion that it would be freed more and more with every step I took toward my mate.
“Accept me,” he ordered, lowering a hand to the apex of my thighs. He stroked the flesh between my legs, bringing me closer to an orgasm as he used my body to find his own pleasure.
“I can’t,” I said, protesting on a sob. Not in the way that he wanted; not in a way that would commit me to him permanently. There were too many unknowns, too many secrets still hanging between us. I barely knew the male who existed beyond the Veil or the life that he lived there. There were too many questions about who or what I might be, as well.
Caldris growled, the sound feral as he shoved me forward into the snow. I landed on my hands as he placed a hand against my spine, pushing me further down until my stomach touched the snow and only my ass remained in the air. The position was animalistic; it was brutal.
I felt him in the deepest part of me as he drove inside, showing me how gentle he’d always been when he’d fucked me. “Estrella,” he warned, malice tinting his voice.
“This has to be enough for now,” I forced out, turning to look up at him from over my shoulder. “You have my body. You have my mind. I’ll take your blood, but I can’t accept you fully until I know everything.”
He growled but didn’t argue. Even in his half-feral state, he knew I’d already given him everything I could for now. Giving him that last part of me felt like signing away my soul, like making a deal with a daemon from the underworld, knowing I would never get that piece back.
He slid a finger inside of me alongside his cock, pressing into the spot that made me see stars. “Oh my fucking Gods,” I whimpered, squeezing my eyes closed, the unbelievably tight fit sending me crashing over the edge. I hadn’t even known that could be possible.
I screamed my orgasm into the clearing surrounding us, my legs twitching with the force of it as I came down from the high of my ecstasy. While I recovered, Caldris removed his finger from my drenched core, slipping it free from beneath my body. I jumped when he touched it to the other place that no one had ever touched.
The one he’d threatened to take one day.
“What are you doing?” I asked, diving forward. His cock dislodged from me as I tried to escape, wincing when he followed after and slid back inside. That finger pressed against my rear entrance all over again, the pressure steadily increasing as he moved his hips, slowly gliding in and out of my pussy with smooth, passionate lovemaking.
The note of something other that had filled his voice was gone when he answered me. “If you will not give me all of you in this way, then I’ll take it in another,” he said, pressing more firmly. He never breached my flesh, keeping the pressure there as if he simply wanted to get me used to the feel of it. To the forbidden touch as he slid his cock through my wet, swollen tissue.
“You are not sticking your fucking cock in there,” I protested, shaking my head.
First of all, ew. Second of all, just no.
“Not today,” he said with a chuckle. I glanced up at him, finding amused blue eyes gleaming down at me, the darkness from before faded from his brow. “We’ll need a bath and special oils when that day comes.”
He moved through me more slowly, covering my weight with his as he reached forward and wrapped my braid around his hand, using it to pull my head back so that he could nip at my shoulder. “Would you fucking come already?” I asked, hating the second orgasm that was building within me. He would be the death of me.
He chuckled, pulling free from me entirely. My body mourned the loss of his skin against mine as he knelt in front of me. “Then give me your mouth, min asteren. I want to paint it with my cum.”
I flushed as I sat up, crawling to my knees in front of him as he rose to his feet. His cock dangled in front of my face, angry-looking and throbbing with purple veins as I wrapped my fingers around him and stroked him from root to tip. I shifted my gaze up to his face as he let out a ragged groan.
I’d experimented with taking him in my mouth the night before, running my tongue over and exploring his cock the way he did my pussy. He’d lost control long before he’d finished, tossing me down on the bed and fucking me until I felt as if I couldn’t breathe.
I leaned forward, dragging my tongue along the underside of his shaft. He groaned, grasping me by the braid and guiding my head the way he wanted. There was no time to explore the way I had the night before, only time to let him thrust into the heat of my mouth. His harsh breaths seemed to echo over the plain and he struck against the back of my throat.
“Swallow around me,” he instructed, pulling back and pressing deep once more. I tried and failed, gagging as I tried to understand how I was meant to function.
How I was meant to breathe.
He thrust forward, keeping the pressure at the back of my throat as I swallowed and finally managed to take him into the haven of my throat. I couldn’t breathe around him, feeling him slide as deep as the angle of his cock would allow. He stared down at me as if I’d hung the moon in the sky, touching a taloned finger to my cheek and wiping away the tear that fell as he made slow, small movements within me.
He pulled free, giving me a moment to suck back deep lungfuls of air before he made shallow thrusts, gliding the head over my tongue. “Again,” he instructed, pushing forward. I swallowed, relaxing around him as he slid within me all over again.
As uncomfortable as it was, I watched his face. I watched the way he came undone with his cock in my throat, and knowing I was able to give him that brought me comfort. His hand pressed against the front of my neck as he thrust once more, feeling his cock move against it, consuming him.