"You want more fire, little thief?" he asks, reading my desperation easily.
"Yes," I gasp between thrusts. "Please, yes."
This time he doesn't make me wait. The flames sweep across my other nipple, the heat biting just long enough to leave me screaming his name. The pain blooms instantly into the most intense pleasure, sending shockwaves through my entire body.
I'm riding him frantically now, chasing the building pressure in my core while my marked nipples throb in perfect time with my pulse. Through our bond, his pleasure crashes into mine, amplifying everything until I can barely tell where I end and he begins.
"Look at you," he says, voice rough with awe. "Taking everything I give you and begging for more. You're so fucking perfect."
The praise makes me clench around him again, drawing another curse from his lips. His free hand slides up my body, fingers finding the nipple he'd marked first. The skin is stillhypersensitive, and when he brushes his thumb across the pink flesh, I nearly come apart.
"I'm going to do it again," he warns, flames already moving toward my breast. "And then I'm going to bite you while the fire still burns."
The promise makes my thighs shake with anticipation. I can only nod, too overwhelmed by sensation to form words. When the flames kiss my nipple this time, I'm ready for the bite of heat, but it still makes me scream.
Before the sensation can fade, his mouth is there, teeth sinking into the tender, fire-kissed flesh with brutal precision. The combination of residual heat and sharp pain sends me over the edge so hard I see white.
My orgasm tears through me like wildfire, every nerve ending exploding with sensation as my body convulses around his cock. Through our bond, I feel his answering surge of pleasure as my inner muscles squeeze him rhythmically, pulling him deeper.
Before I can even catch my breath, the world tilts as he flips us over with inhuman speed. My back hits the mattress hard enough to drive the air from my lungs, but I barely register the impact because his hand is already wrapping around my throat.
"Mine," he snarls, fingers tightening just enough to make breathing difficult.
The pressure on my windpipe should terrify me. Instead, it sends another wave of heat through my already oversensitive body. My orgasm, which had just started to fade, reignites with vengeance as he begins to pound into me with ruthless intensity.
His cock drives deep with each thrust, hitting angles that make me see stars while his grip on my throat keeps me teetering on the edge between consciousness and oblivion. The restriction of airflow somehow intensifies every other sensation—the stretch of him filling me, the burn in my marked nipples, the delicious ache where his fingers dig into my neck.
"You love this," he growls, reading my body's responses even as I struggle to form coherent thoughts. "Love being completely at my mercy."
I try to speak but can only manage a strangled whimper around his grip. Through our bond, though, he can feel my agreement, my desperate pleasure at being held so completely in his power. My legs wrap around his waist, pulling him deeper as my hips rise to meet each brutal thrust.
His rhythm becomes punishing, each drive of his hips sending shockwaves through my body. The lack of oxygen makes everything feel distant and bright at the same time, like I'm floating while being split apart by sensation. My vision starts to blur at the edges, but the pleasure only builds higher.
"That's it," he pants, sweat beading on his forehead from the effort of maintaining control. "Take everything I give you."
I can feel him getting close through our bond, his pleasure building to match mine. His thrusts become more erratic, less controlled, as he chases his release. The grip on my throat tightens fractionally, and suddenly I'm coming again, my body convulsing around him as another orgasm crashes through me.
The sensation of me falling apart beneath him pushes him over the edge. With a roar that shakes the walls, he buries himself to the hilt and comes hard, his cock pulsing inside me as he fills me with his release. At the exact moment of his climax, his grip on my throat releases completely.
The rush of oxygen to my brain hits like lightning. My vision explodes with color as every nerve ending fires at once, sending me into another orgasm so intense I arch clean off the bed. My scream echoes off the walls as wave after wave of sensation crashes through me, each one more powerful than the last.
Through our bond, I can feel his satisfaction at my response, his possessive pleasure at reducing me to a trembling, incoherent mess. His hands smooth over my body as I shake through the aftershocks, gentle now where they were brutal moments before.
"Breathe," he murmurs, voice soft with concern as I gasp for air. "Easy, little thief. I've got you."
It takes long minutes for my heart rate to slow, for the trembling in my limbs to subside. When I finally feel human again, I find him watching me with an expression of wonder and possessive satisfaction that makes my chest tight with emotion.
"You're incredible," he says simply, fingers tracing the marks on my throat with reverent touches. "Absolutely fucking incredible."
I try to speak but my voice comes out as barely a whisper, throat raw from his grip and my screaming. "Mihalis..."
"Shh," he soothes, gathering me against his chest. "You don't need to say anything."
But I do need to say something. The words have been building inside me for days, maybe weeks, growing stronger with every gentle moment with Irida, every heated exchange between us, every time he's shown me the man beneath the monster.
The soul bond didn't create what's between us—it just revealed what was already there, waiting to be acknowledged. What I feel for him goes so much deeper than magic, deeper than lust or even the twisted affection born from shared trauma. It's something pure and terrifying and completely beyond my control.
"I love you," I whisper against his chest, the words barely audible but carrying the weight of absolute truth.
