Page 135 of Given to the Black King

A third venom pulse.

Something opens behind my ribs, as real as the bite itself. A place that did not exist a heartbeat ago fills with him.

Torgan’s hunger floods into me first.

A hundred years of it.

The nail in his jaw. My heartbeat in his fangs. His terror that wanting me would make him a creature who took.

Then his relief.

It is so enormous I begin to cry.

He feels the tears.

I know because his grief enters me in answer.

The bond moves both ways.

My fear on the wall. My fury at the council. The exact thrill of hearing him behind me in the garden. The moment I saw him rise beneath Osk’s riders and knew there was nowhere else I intended to go.

All of it enters him.

His claws punch through the furs.

He remains still.

The venom spreads deep through my belly and pelvis. The lock pulses again, heavy and inescapable.

My climax begins at the bite.

It moves down my body in a long seizure. Throat. Breasts. Stomach. Cunt tightening around his swollen root.

I cannot move away from it.

Neither can he.

My pleasure pours through the bond and enters him.

His answering climax enters me before his body releases.

For one impossible moment, I feel both sides.

The tightening in his spine. The pressure at his base. The helpless need to thrust even while he holds himself still to protect my neck.

Then he comes.

His release enters in several heavy pulses. The full swell contracts with each one, held deep inside me. My body grips him harder. My orgasm returns through him and feeds his back into me.

The last private edge between our bodies disappears into pain, venom, pressure, and pleasure.

I hear myself sobbing his name.

He cannot answer. His fangs remain set. His mouth is sealed to my blood.

He holds me through every pulse.

When the venom glands finally stop clenching, the bond settles from fire to heat.