Page 18 of Bound By the Alien King

“No. Not until your wound is healed. Then, Manna save me, you can touch me anywhere you like.” He stood, lifting the hem of her shift as he went, stripping her bare, save the gauze strapped to her inner thigh. He picked her up and laid her out on the bed, frowning as he cut the bandage off her, too, revealing a deep incision that still seeped blood. “That idiot thought I’d believe his lies about your courses. As if a Nightborn nose can’t tell the difference. I will kill him for this.”

Aster grinned in spite of the tiny lance of pain from her wound. “Don’t waste the effort. He really believed it. The cut was my mother’s idea to prevent the wedding. She knew we couldn’t keep his hands off my ribbons, but if I convinced him I had my courses, it would at least delay the consummation.”

Damir raised his head to look at her, and she blushed at the vision of him between her legs even though he was only examining her wound still. “Why would it?”

She bit her lip, embarrassed to explain. “Colony men think it unclean. It curses the union.”

He laughed. “Your blood? The purest, sweetest thing on Salaan, a curse?”

“So they say.”

Damir was suddenly grave. “If I had known what they were like, I never would have sent you back.”

“I’m not sorry you did. Listen to that.” She paused, letting the sounds of the joyous Revel outside permeate the sanctuary of their chamber. “It was a small sacrifice to ensure the happiness of so many. And now we can have our happiness, too.”

In answer, he licked along her wound, making her shudder with needful pain that had little to do with her injury. “My mouth is flooded with venom at your scent, Aster,” he murmured against her thigh. The points of his canines gently scraped around the cut as he licked it again. “This way, it will knit your skin without making you wild.”

“I don’t mind being wild,” she reminded him. “Not if you’re there to tame me.”

“Maybe your blood is cursed,“ he hissed at her, though the light in his eyes told her he was only playing. “Now that I’ve tasted it again, I’m very nearly convinced.”

When her cut had healed enough that he was satisfied, he crawled up to lie beside her, combing his claws through her braids to loosen them, too, and the slide of his fingers against her scalp loosened every part of her.

When she was thoroughly undone, he took her hands and placed them on his own chest. “Touch me now. In all the ways you begged me on our first night. They’ve been turning in my imagination ever since.”

“In mine too,” she admitted, fingers already moving over him. “I’m glad to have my hands free now that I’m no longer a danger to you.”

He laughed and pulled her into a wet, possessive kiss that heated her core. “I think you’re more a danger than ever, my pretty prey.”

He released her to explore, and she took her time, soaking in every scent, every texture of his velveted skin as she worked her way from his lips, down the column of his throat, and over his broad shoulders to feel where his wings were folded flat against his back. He shuddered at her touch, eyes on her all the while as she moved to toy with his flat, gray-blue nipples and then slid her palms down his belly, pulling more sounds out of him.

When she reached the lace of his breeches, she paused, skimming her hand over the soft animal hide, and felt his heated hardness underneath, impossibly large. She only wondered for a moment how they could possibly fit together before the question was chased away by a surge of pride. She had caused that. She had made him groan and swell.

“You’re mine now,” she reminded him, squeezing him through the leather, tensing against the answering ache that hummed between her legs.

His breath hissed out between his teeth, making the nearest candles flicker, and his claws dragged over the lace, severing that, too. “Take what’s yours, then.”

Warmth rushed over her skin. The power he gave to her so freely was exhilarating. She pushed his breeches down over his hips, baring his length. It looked nothing like anything she’d known but somehow exactly as she’d imagined, dark as midnight at the root but blushing up to dawn at its thick tip, the shaft wrapped in veins like knotted ribbons.

“You’re beautiful, Damir, like you belong in the sky alongside the twins. I can’t stand it.” She grasped him, though her fingers didn’t meet around his girth, and guided him between her legs until he was pressed against her opening. Her hand came away slick and sticky with the wetness already gathered there. He took it and licked it clean, his tongue snaking hot around each finger, fangs grazing her knuckles, and she felt herself opening for him against the pressure of his cock.

He must have felt it, too, because he grasped her hips, rocking into her the barest amount before her walls clamped down, allowing him no further. “I don’t want to hurt you, but you feel so good. Even better than you taste. Even better than you smell. Like you were forged for me, Aster.”

He was the one who felt like iron fresh from the forge, like a scorching hard bar of it. She wanted him deep inside almost as desperately as she had under the influence of his venom, and her own body’s resistance infuriated her. She threw one leg over his hip, leveraging herself closer to push through the pain, and Damir’s eyes shuttered.

“If you could feel this...”

“I can,” she panted. The burning stretch of his invasion overwhelmed her senses, like sea swells pushing her down any time she tried to catch her breath. A little panicky and lost around the edges, she added, “It’s all I feel. You’re all I feel. It’s so much.”

In one quick twist, he rolled them over so she lay on top of him, still partly speared on his length, his arms wrapped around her waist, binding them together.

“I have you, my honey-blooded wife. Is this better?” He kissed her deeply, rolled his hips gently, and slowly, slowly, it made sense, the ebb and flow inside her like the tide, pushed and pulled by the gravity of her husband and his care for her.

“It’s perfect.” She reached up and twisted her fingers in his dark, silky hair as they kissed, lips whispering endearments between long draughts of each other that felt simultaneously new and ancient, like they were unearthing something long-buried.

Finally, finally, he slid home, and her body embraced him, the sharp pinch transforming into a surprising burst of pleasure once he was fully sheathed in her. He gripped her hips, and she could feel the prick of his claws denting her skin as he moved her up and down on his shaft. Her walls fluttered around him, seeking the pressure, and she sat up to better her angle.

“You feel like wings,” he grit out, moving her faster so the heavy veins encircling his shaft thrummed inside her. “Like flying.”