“You good?” he asks through gritted teeth.
Feeling like I’m a puppet and my strings are being yanked by something I can’t see or comprehend, I nod. Camden leans down to kiss my neck, his fingers still working their magic below, as he continues sliding himself further and further into me. It feels like my body’s tearing and stretching to accommodate him, but with his fingers on my clit and lips on my neck, the sensation isn’t entirelyunpleasant. Foreign, yes,but no longer terribly painful—just a reallyreallytight fit topped off with a burn.
By the time he’s seated all the way inside me, our bodies fully connected, I feel like he’s rearranged my internal organs to make room for his entire length. He pulls away from my neck to look down at me and take in my reaction. The sensation of fullness is overwhelming, making it difficult to breathe, but what supersedes even that is the strange, almost religious sense of connection from staring into his eyes. His gaze is completely open and unguarded, possibly for the first time since I’ve met him.
Being raised here, in this palace, Camden probably had to master his emotions and expressions—I can glean his moods from his nonverbal cues and mannerisms, but only if I lookreallyclose and analyze everything. Right now, everything is laid bare for me to see, and it’s more than I can handle.
In his gaze, I see endless affection, a surplus of desire, and a great deal of uncertainty. Uncertainty of this, of us, of our circumstances and everything it means, but also the desire for more. More than physical pleasure, more than being able to stand being in a room with each other—I can both see andfeelCamden’s yearning for everything I have to give.
Unexpectedly, I feel tears well up in my eyes at the rawness of his stare. It’s touching, humbling even, because I don’t know that Cam has ever allowed anyone to see him this way; raw, vulnerable, a person rather than an Alpha and monarch. Right now he appears to be a man, with all the imperfections thereof, instead of the hardened leader he presents himself as to the rest of the world.
Ever so slowly, he reaches his hands up to plant both on either side of my head and slides his length out of me, pulling a small whine from me. Then, just as leisurely, he sinks back in. He repeats the smooth,prolonged gesture again and again until my body starts to become accustomed to him, allowing him to slide in even deeper and with less resistance. I arch my back, lifting my hips in offering and in an attempt to get him to gofaster.
Though the initial frenzy of lust that had me literally tearing off his clothes has subsided, in its place remains a sense of connection—almost frightening in its depth—and the need for the pain that it took to get here to culminate in pleasure. Slow isn’t going to achieve that.
Camden’s lips tick up as he quickens his thrusts. His cock slides over places in me I didn’t even know existed until now, sending starbursts of pleasure across my nerve endings, and causing a knot of tension to form low in my belly. The faster his pace, the further that knot expands, holding the promise of mind-melting pleasure on the other end. Cam’s breathing stutters as his pace accelerates until it’s brutal and painful, but I wouldn’t stop it for anything.
He reaches down to twist my nipple between two fingers as his mouth crashes onto mine once more, and that’s all it takes—my orgasmeruptsfrom within me. Camden swallows my scream as I clench and convulse around him, out of control and desperate for this feeling toneverend. My skin feels like it catches fire with the heat radiating off of us, every nerve ending tingling and pulsing as hormones flood my mind, turning my vision hazy and making me feel like I’m seeing everything through rose-tinted glasses.
Camden only manages two more thrusts before he stills above me, the veins bulging on his neck as he rips his mouth from mine and lowers it to my neck, shocking me by sinking teeth that aren’t blunt human ones but sharp like a canine’s into my skin. Dimly, I realize he’s actuallymarkingme—breaking my skin and embedding his saliva to permanently scent-mark meandpermanently bind us together.
What should have me absolutelylividand what I thought would be painful beyond comprehension instead sets off anotherstrongerorgasm—one that nearly causes me to choke on my own cries, my body thrashing under the onslaught of pleasure that’s too much to handle. I rake my nails down his arms deep enough to leave gouges, then do the same to his back—trying to get a grip, to find purchase while a torrent of pleasure threatens to sweep me away. His teeth withdraw from my neck at the same time that I feel his cock pulsing inside me, followed by a warmth that spills from him, bathing my channel.
As my orgasm ebbs, a full-body feeling of weakness sweeps over me, blurring my vision and making me feel like I’m experiencing the world from within a dark fog that pulls me deeper and deeper. I barely feel Camden pull out of me and roll onto his back, I’m too depleted to say anything or even fidget as he pulls me into the circle of his arms. My eyes feel like they’re lead weights, impossible to keep open. Unable to do anything else, I let the darkness pull me into a deep sleep.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Camden
Iawake at around the same time the sun starts to rise, early in the morning, feeling more satisfied and complete than I ever have. On the tail of the horrific day I experienced yesterday—filled with the pain of losing my father, though his deterioration had made our relationship a lost cause for some time—came the greatest blessing of all; I finally got to have Sierra entirely. I can feel that the bond that connects us has strengthened significantly, though it’s not yet complete. Completion would require complete intimacy on both sides, not just physical or emotional, and I understand that will take quite a bit more work.
I’ve been watching her the last several hours as she sleeps, comfortably nestled in my arms, admiring her skin as the early morning sun bathes her in a golden glow, studying the steady rise and fall of her chest, and marveling at the new depth of the connection between us. She’s mine now, completely and irrevocably. More than knowing she’smine, I alsofeelit; I feel a new strength of the connection between us, one that’s soul-deep. I feel slivers of her emotions passing through our bond—faint feelings of contentment and restfulness, ones I somehow know come from her, tickle my chest.
I knew that a blood moon had a lustful effect on witches—there’s a reason I insisted on her staying with me last night—but I didn’t know just the extent of that lust. I didn’t expect her to tear my clothes off or claw at me like a woman possessed, but I’ll admit her actions and reactions delighted me. Every one of them.
The sheer, raw force of her passion was unveiled for the first time, and the result was nothing short of enlightening and addictive. Previously, a mere few touches or feeling her come undone around my tongue and fingers felt close to a religious experience, but last night was nothing short of an epiphany. Being inside her, with her moans in my ear and demands for more, felt like coming home after years away at battle.
I didn’tintendto mark her, per se, but I’m glad I did—with a mark and consummation, our bond is now irreversible. Of course, reversing it before would have required the sort of black magic she has no access to, but the small possibility is now gone. She can’t run from me; the need to return to her mate will now be too strong, too consuming. The weight this knowledge lifts off my shoulders is profound, as I hadn’t realized just how much I continued to worry about her leaving me, even as she’s started to settle into her role in the castle.
Recalling the way she held and soothed me last night, I can’t stop my eyes from dropping to her flat stomach. With our bond marked and physically consummated, she’ll now be able to bear my children—add in the fact that blood moons are hyper-fertile times for witches, and I do believe there may be a new addition to the castle quite soon. I’ve seen her with Leisel, seen her maternal streak frontand center, so there’s no doubt in my mind she’ll be the best mother to the children we have.
Sierra blinks her eyes open sleepily, appearing hazy and discombobulated for a moment. She looks up into my face, and upon realizing she’s half-on top of me with my arms around her, she stiffens slightly before shooting up into a sitting position. She looks around the bedroom and I hear her heartbeat speed up when she reaches a hand up to touch the red skin where I marked her, and then turns eyes laced with confusion and fear on me. Then, realizing she’s still naked and my eyes are drawn down to her breasts, she yanks a blanket up to cover herself.
I feel faint echoes of her fear and panic radiating through the bond, and both prickle at my instinct to soothe and calm her. Since I know that touching her right now might only stress her more, I manage to keep myself in place and try to keep my expression calm.
“You…” She trails off, staring at me, more and more fear creeping into her body language and expression. Her hand continues rubbing at her mark, with increasing harshness, until her nails start digging into her skin.
I lean forward to lightly clasp her wrist and lower it from her neck. “Don’t scratch at it, it’ll probably be tender for a while.”
“Camden…what the fuck?” she says, jerking her wrist away from me. “How could you…how could you do that without asking me? I wasn’t—still am not—ready for that!”
As she speaks, she gathers the blanket before standing from the bed and looking around with growing alarm. Right now, she appears like a cornered animal—or witch—and I know I have to approach with caution or risk her incinerating my bedroom.
“I got carried away. Full moons have that effect on wolves,” I tell her with some truth. Sure, I was swept up in the moment, but marking her was, at least in the back of my mind, a goal of last night. We were bothswept away by lust, it was an ideal time, and now I have the defense of being in the thrall of the moon to shield myself from her anger.
I don’t think Sierra’s yet caught on that there is literally no length to which I won’t go to keep her. Nothing I won’t do, no line I won’t cross—she is essential to me, and if some light manipulation combined with the moon’s thrall is what it takes to further bind us, that’s what I’ll do. I’m surprised I hadn’t gone to more drastic measures sooner.
Sierra deflates a little. “But…this means permanence.”
