They coiled around my wrists and pulled my arms behind my back, cool darkness against my overheated skin. The shadows around my breasts tightened, creating a sweet, aching pressure. Their fingers found my nipples and twisted them mercilessly.
I whimpered, trying to move, but the shadows held me in place—preparing for their master to use and claim me.
Mercy!
The shadows were everywhere now, caressing where his hands could not reach. Shadow tendrils coiled a faint, claiming pressure around my throat, and teased between my ass cheeks.
“You’ll come only when I say so, mate,” he commanded.
“Is that so?” I purred through the haze, defiance coloring my submission.
“Don’t you want to be a good girl for your king?”
“That depends.”
My own power surged in answer. Golden and silver threads spiraled from my bound fingers, weaving around his shadows and shattering his control.
I smirked over my shoulder. “How’s this for being a good girl, husband?”
He laughed, the sound dark, delighted, and full of lust. “You’re absolutely fucking perfect for me. Never be good for anyone but me.”
“Are you sure you can handle me?”
“Let me show you.”
He abandoned all restraint and fucked me with everything he had—pure male need, love, domination, and possessiveness. No holding back. No careful build. Just raw claiming.
“You’re the only one for me,” he gritted out, each word punctuated by a brutal thrust. “Always were. Always will be. No one else. Never anyone else. Only you. Forever you.”
“Together,” I promised. “Forever.”
“Come for your king,” he ordered. “Now.”
“Aren’t you tired of bossing me around?” I challenged.
He pounded into me, harder and faster, until his last perfectly angled thrust shattered me.
I screamed as the orgasm tore through me, every muscle in my body locking tight. My back arched. My pussy clenched around his hard length with pulses so intense that he rolled his eyes back. I milked him mercilessly, demanding his release.
My mate surrendered, roaring as he came. His cock pulsed inside me, filling me with his bountiful seed, marking me and making sure every inch of me knew who I belonged to. My king reclaimed me in the most fundamental way possible.
The climax crashed through us long and hard. Our powers surged with each vibration, spreading farther across the realm with every heartbeat.
Electricity crackled. Shadows and golden threads entwined—death and life and fates rewritten. Pain laced through every fiber of my being. Our combined power was too much even for our divine forms. It felt like being torn apart and remade. Every cell singed.
Yet the pleasure was greater. And it was utter completion, joy, and a homecoming after an eon of misery.
Magic erupted from us, sweeping across the realm and covering every inch of the Underworld. It sank into black stone and dark water, into the eternal night, restoring and awakening.
The Underworld answered. Pillars of hellfire stretched toward the blood moon like an offering to their returned rulers. Crimson lava ignited, brighter than it had boiled in millennia.Black lakes shivered into motion. Obsidian forests rustled as wind returned to them.
The mist shifted with purpose, souls shimmering within it. Demons prowled with fresh vigor. Creatures stirred in the deepening dark.
Around us, black roses erupted from the stone, petals soft as sin.
My mate and I watched Amaranth Palace as black glass and steel glowed from within its gothic splendor. And my garden, the one I’d cultivated for an eon before the curse, burst into life behind the unfading palace.
Belladonna, wolfsbane, hemlock, oleander, nightshades, and every dangerous, beautiful plant I loved bloomed and spread.
