Even as he lost blood, he gained it. It tightened his balls, threatening the climax he’d been waiting for. He fucked her wildly until the headboard slammed against the wall with each thrust. He didn’t give a shit. Let them hear. Let them all know he was claiming her.
Making her his.
As his balls drew closer to his body, the tingle of climax sharpening his focus, he drank deeply.
There, almost there.
Finally, Heath moved one last time and bellowed as he came within her. The climax was as profound and deep as his possession had been, and Asherah held him through it. The thick Tether they’d created before—so much stronger than a Heart Tether between warriors—melted and spread over their skin. Heath hissed as it burned, sliding over his exposed arms and tracing a tribal mark across him.
He fucked her until he couldn’t, until the burn faded and he couldn’t take one last sip of her. And then he looked down.
The spiderweb silver of their Tether glowed across her chest and shoulders and down her arms. They were linked irrevocably.
Fated.
No one, no matter what they ever thought, would take her from him. It would be the death of them both.
“I can feel her!”
“What?”
“Silva.”
He was off the bed, the mating heat fading as he magicked them both clean and into their clothes. He gave Asherah a pretty, blue sundress and clothed himself with his previous outfit. They only had so much time. If she could feel her sister, they were in danger of being run over. Heath needed to make sure he was in a position to take Dominic off his game long enough to give them a chance to speak.
“Kallan, we need a portal!” Heath shouted. “Right fucking now. Bring everyone through it.”
“Where?” Kallan’s voice was muffled by the door.
“Into the fucking hornet’s nest.”
Chapter Sixteen
Dominic was losing his damn mind. That was it. He couldn’t find a single explanation that fit the sequence of events in his life recently. His daughter looked at him, her violet eyes flashing with awareness that still scared the shit out of him even when it made him so damn proud, he couldn’t help smiling.
Zoey said he was only egging Isadora on, and she might be right.
“Are you scared? Is that what it is, Isadora?”
Everything in his daughter stilled. If he didn’t know any better, he’d swear to fuck she wasn’t even breathing. Isadora didn’t blink, didn’t twitch a single muscle. Covered in a bodysuit of black armor—commissioned by her favorite aunt, Silva—his daughter crouched low in the center of the Arena, the green strip of hair a stark contrast to her dark hair slicked back in a ponytail.
This was how he knew he was crazy.
At one time, Dominic had found solace within these walls of sport and entertainment. It wasn’t nearly as inviting as the Moonstone’s Entertainment Ward in south Encantado, mostly used by the shifters of the north to gamble, fight, and be dirty amongst their own kind.
This was no tourist location.
And Dominic had been one of the most feared fighters in the sands against enough wolves who didn’t get the chance to walk out the same way, if at all. It was the only place he could think of to bring his daughter to work off some of her baser instincts.
He no longer thought of her as a sociopath per se, but he recognized her Alpha wolf was too strong in her rapidly growing body. It needed what an older wolf did, despite her age. She was only two years old and looked triple that.
She grows approximately three years to one, a fucked-up dog years thing.
He shook his head, pushing that thought away. He didn’t want to imagine this could also mean she’d only live a third of her life. A shifter may live longer than humans, for sure, but they didn’t survive like Fae.
“You’re afraid.”
Dominic swallowed, and his heart quickened in his chest before he could stop it. For a moment, Isadora didn’t look like a child, but a little fucking demon with glowing violet eyes and thick claws. Her teeth were too big for her mouth and covered in blood that dripped to the sand below. When she tossed back her head and howled, his hands trembled.
