His weight settled onto me, careful not to crush, face buried in my neck. Every few seconds his cock pulsed inside me, another aftershock, and each one drew a whimper from my throat that made his arms tighten.
When the knot finally released, the loss of fullness left me gasping. He pulled out slowly, his cum spilling from my pussy onto the rug, and neither of us moved to clean it up. He rolled onto his back and pulled me against his chest, his heartbeat slamming against my cheek.
“Ruined your rug,” I murmured.
“I’ll buy another.”
“It’s a nice rug.”
“You’re nicer.”
“That’s the worst thing you’ve ever said to me.”
His chest shook with a laugh that I felt in my teeth.
I stared up at him. This man… aking.
Five hundred years old, knotted inside me on his living room floor, firelight on his skin and the bond between us pulsing.
I’d really done it.
I’d let a lycan king claim me on a rug by the fireplace.
My life was officially the plot of one of my own books.
And the bond was already whispering that this was only the beginning.
22
— • —
Solomon
The first claiming had changed her scent.
I noticed it the moment she came downstairs that morning. Subtle, layered beneath the old books and honey I’d memorized months ago. A thread of pine and frost woven into her, permanent, marking her as claimed. As Lucian’s.
My wolf noted the shift with predatory precision. Not jealousy. We didn’t work that way, the three of us. What Lucian had with her didn’t diminish what I wanted.
If anything, the new depth in her scent made the pull stronger, a reminder that the bond was activating, that she was becoming ours, and the part of the thread reserved for me was still waiting.
Still empty.
Patience. I’d spent centuries mastering it. A few more days wouldn’t kill me.
Probably.
She wanted pancakes.
For a dish that was supposedly his specialty, Percy had burned his fourth batch this week. The kitchen smelled of charred batter and defeat, and Percival stood at the stove with a spatula in one hand.
“The heat distribution on this stove is criminal,” he said. “In Veyndral, I could make these blindfolded.”
“In Veyndral, you set the kitchen tent on fire during the harvest,” Lucian said from the doorway, not looking up from the folder in his hands.
“That was a grease fire. Completely different.”
“The tent burned for three hours. Ironic you’re a firefighter here.”
