Ididn’t want to believe the powers Claire had received during Temperance Kemp’s death ritual were from the very demon I once banished. But it was hard to deny what was right in front of me. Just as I was starting to suspect that horn had not come from a sheep, but fromhishead.
In my youth, he was the first person I’d met who was like me. We both had tempers. We both didn’t quite belong. And we were both attracted to men and women.
My coven wasn’t a safe place for those like me, as my own mother often said. And the demon fed off my desire to explore my sexuality. I’d like to say he used me, but perhaps I used him, too. It was hard to remember now.
I took comfort in the fact that he was safely locked away in the Underworld. And the powers Claire had weren’thim. They were only a piece of him. A piece that he must’ve seeded into the Kemp family. I also knew that his horn was just a source of power, not his mind. I’d told Claire Dark Witches weren’t evil, and I’d be a hypocrite if I started treating her power as if it were.
This was about my past. Not her. I was the one seeinghimwhere he wasn’t. Claire was just trying to figure out how to live with her new magick. Something told me she was reaching for her magick because I was making her feel ashamed. And I didn’t want to shame her in the way I’d been.
“I’m still waiting on your penance,” Claire said. “How long are you going to keep me waiting, Bastien?”
I took her face between my hands and smashed our mouths together, mating our tongues in a wild dance. I grabbed fistfuls of her skirts, dragging them up until they were around her waist. Letting my fingers scrape over her garter belt as I did. I wound my finger around the strap and tugged at it, making her moan in my mouth. But I didn’t stop there. No. I wanted more. I trailed the curve of her deliciously full ass and squeezed her hard. Reveling in the way her warm skin felt against my palm.
“I should terrify you,”I said between kisses.“Right now, I want nothing more than to tear your clothes off and drink my fill of you.”My fingers brushed against something lacy and soft, and I realized she was wearing some little scrap of fabric masquerading as undergarments. The knowledge sent fresh hot blood straight to my cock until it ached.
“Such a big, bad vampire,”she teased.
Through our connection, her pleasure crashed into me, and suddenly, I was overcome with her emotions. With her deep feelings for me. And with...her desire for more.It was endless.She just wanted me inside her. Proving to her that I’d never try to send her away again. I could feel it as though she was shouting the words in my head.
Carefully, I bracketed her face with my hands. We could tease each other, but before this went any further, I wanted her to know the truth.“You mean everything to me. Everything. Morethan the moon or the stars or this castle. You are my world. My whole world, Claire. And I just want to be good to you in the way you deserve.”
Candlelight reflected off her brown eyes, making them look molten gold. So delicate. So sweet.
She cupped my cock over my trousers and squeezed. I sank my teeth into my lower lip. Hard. Threatening to draw my own blood.“The only thing I’m scared of,”she said,“is losing you.”She dragged in a slow breath. “Tell me you’d never try to sever our bond.”
I threaded my fingers into her hair and drew a long, measured breath. This wasn’t just about some carnal need for her. It was about feeling close. About knowing I wanted her close.
“Never,”I murmured.
“You’re sure?”
I pulled her closer, until my lips were nearly against hers. This time, I spoke my feelings aloud. “You are mine. I told you that the night I made you my wife. But if you need to hear me say it again, I will. Our love isn’t about bonds. There is no cosmic tether holding you to me or me to you. Only the certainty that my life is yours. My breath is yours. We belong to each other. Even on the day Damien calls you to the Underworld, I will stand between him and you and demand he step aside.”
The tension in her body melted like frost under the sun.
It was in that moment that her realization crystallized. She finally understood that nothing she could ever say or do would alter the depths of my feelings for her. Our bond was inextricably intertwined. My love unyielding. I was hers, and I would move heaven and earth to protect her.
Our lips met again in a maddeningly slow kiss. Open and wet and deep. It invaded my heart as much as it did my skin.Like I was trying to consume as much of her goodness as possible, and she was trying to swallow all of my darkness. The centuries of war and pain and loneliness. There was room for all of it inside her.
Like I was enough for her.
She moaned again, accepting my tongue as it slid inside her mouth. Claiming her. Tasting her. I broke off the kiss, both of us breathing hard. For a moment, I was lost in the lines of her face, standing atop that chair like my very own goddess.
Carefully, I removed the pins holding her hair up until her long hair flowed down her shoulders in shades of burnished copper. Another tear of blood dripped from her cut, and I couldn’t stand it. So I reached for the last piece of my humanity that still pulsed with warmth. Though I lacked the power to heal her wounds completely, having sacrificed much of my power to become what I was now, I could at least close it.
I brushed my fingers over her skin and called to the very last of the magick that I had reserved for our treacherous journey through the mountains. It would be two weeks before I could recharge what little power remained to me.
Once it was done, she said, “How could you ever think you’re bad?”
I lifted a brow. So, she wanted to see just how bad I could be? I backed up a few paces and turned the lock on the door, ensuring no one would interrupt us. Standing on that chair with a dress half-ripped, I admired my mate.
“Take off your dress.”
The order was firm, and I enjoyed watching her eyes widen in surprise. “What if someone hears us?”
I smirked. “This is the consort wing. All these rooms have silencing enchantments on them.”
Claire returned my smirk, then carefully stepped off the chair and undid the remaining buttons on the front of hergown, teasing me inch by inch. She slipped off one sleeve, then the other, and the dress easily fell to the ground. Showing me what was hiding beneath the heavy fabric.
