One last thrust pushes him over the edge.
“Mine,” he growls, grinding against me as he spills inside me.
Mine, whispers something deep within as I soothe my hand down his spine.
Chapter 13
Zyla
True mating bonds formed between two consentingdreiadults cannot be broken. Mating alliances may be made for political reasons, but the bond itself is rare.”
—KARI SILVENDALE, AUTHOR OFA HISTORY OF THE DREI
The after-effects are cataclysmic. My body aches and Bael’s seed is still slick on my thighs. I’ll have to take some moonflower seed, or find whatever the equivalent is here on this world, because I definitely do not wish to sustain any long-lastingimplicationsfrom this night. Not with everything so turbulent.
I don’t know how my heart feels. There’s a part of me that’s still in shock, still reeling.
Aylin is alive.
She’s safe, at his home.
And I just fucked him.
I lie there in Bael’s arms, barely breathing as he brushes his fingers back and forth across my hip. I don’t know what this is, but I’m too afraid to make the first move and shatter the moment.
A hand strokes along my side, toying with the silk sheet that drapes over me. “Are we going to talk about that?”
“No, we are not.”
A kiss brushes against my bruised shoulder, right where he marked me. “She’ll fling herself into the teeth of a storm, or headlong into a pack of armed warriors without flinching, but the moment I want to talk about what’s happening between us, I have her on the backfoot.”
I turn my head, glaring at him. It’s hard to maintain when one is pressed intimately against each other, and someone is clearly not entirely finished with me. “What do you want to discuss? The fact I slept with the monster who stole my sister from me? The fact I’ve spent nine years in agony, wondering if she’s dead, trying desperately to get her back, and thenthisis what I do?”
I clap my hands over my face. My shields are down, my heart viciously scored. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I did.
No. I do know. I fucked him.
And I want to do it again.
The desire burning in my belly terrifies me so badly I don’t know if the world will ever stop reeling.
“I shouldn’t have kissed you,” he growls, cupping his head on his palm, his biceps flexing. “I should have let you come to terms with everything.”
In his defense… “I kissedyou. And then you grew claws and decided to bite me.”
His gaze slides to the mark on my shoulder. I touch it shyly and find the indent of his teeth there. I’ll feel this mark forweeks, I think. That and the one branded between my thighs, where he claimed me.
His eyes narrow. “Why didn’t you tell me you were untouched?”
Oh, no. We’re not doing this.
I slip from the bed and haul his shirt over my head. I can still feel him between my thighs. But I’m not going to think about that. “Why is it that men always focus on that? I wasn’t saving myself for you. I was saving myself for entrance into this world, because the Knights of Malus check for chastity amongst their tributes. It was the only way I could come after her.”
And wasn’t that an experience.
Bael pushes himself upright, the sheet draped over his bare hips. Every inch of his gilded skin gleams beneath the torchlight, and part of me wants to return to the bed. “Perhaps because I was rougher with you than I would have liked. If I’d known the truth of the matter, I could have prepared you. I could have been... gentler.”
“I don’t mind rough.” A little part of me liked it. “And I’m fairly certain you prepared me.”
