“Yesss.” It was almost painful, how he sounded now, and unlike last night, he was at her mercy. Time to flip him over and ride him like a bucking bronco.
Which is what she did. She barely had to push before he was on his back, and their mingled groans when she lifted her hips and joined with him told how ready they both were for this.
Last night was dominance, was pushing fear away with physical mastery. Now was recommitment, as his hands on her hips steadied and lifted her, as her hands on his chest moved in caressing strokes across his skin while she accepted and loved him in the most primal way a female could with a male.
Larissa took him deep, relishing each slide of flesh and the groans that came from deep inside him, telling of how much of a hold she had over him. Her gaze locked with his, and she willed him to see everything – love and devotion and that she would never falter, would never, to the end of her days, leave his side. He was hers, and she was his, and nothing would change that.
His breathing became ragged and her body responded, everything in her tightening to match his quickening rhythm. He pushed her back against him faster, harder, and her nails scored his chest as her body was abused in the most pleasurable way imaginable.
Terak surged upwards into her, once, twice, and a loud, long growl erupted as he emptied himself into her, her muscles tightening around him as she found her own release, her cries lost in his.
Collapsing against him, Larissa drifted, only peripherally aware of the cooling sweat on her skin and her labored breaths in the still morning air.
“What you do to me, little human.” The voice was rough, though the humor was unmistakable.
“And I plan to keep doing it to you for a very long time, because I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you.” Larissa pushed up, looking down at her lover’s face. “I’m scared, Terak. I’m not ashamed to admit that. We’re in the midst of something big. I hate that you’re in danger – I’m allowed to hate that, I’m allowed to hate I’m a danger to you – but I can’t leave you. So I listen to my warrior mate when he tells me how to stay safe, and I take every precaution to make sure I never do something stupid that puts you at risk.”
The look in his eyes – adoration, gratitude, devotion – kept her enthralled. “I will gladly take every danger known to keep you at my side. Never leave me, Larissa. Not even to protect me.”
Her beautiful gargoyle. She leaned down, bestowing on him the most gentle, most loving kiss she could, willing every emotion she felt for her protector to be expressed through breath, lips, skin. “You by my side, and I’m at yours, and we’ll never leave, no matter what else happens in this world. Right?”
His fangs brushed against her lips, his claws raked down her back, and his tail wound around both their ankles, binding the two of them together. “Right…”
The End
The Cage King
Chapter One
‡
It was in the alleys she had discovered his fear of the dark. As they huddled together, rats unseen but heard scurrying in corners, so dark not even a sliver of moonlight penetrated, he shook. Her big brother shook, tremors he tried to hide by holding her tighter, and all the while he swore, he swore, he was going to get them to a place light and open, where you could take a breath without the stench of garbage and shit.
And where had he ended up? A coffin – small, confined, deep in the deepest dark of the earth, crammed in with so many others, the gravestones not a hands width from each other.
The bump of magic across her skin brought Nalah back to the now, where she was not in a graveyard on the day of her brother’s funeral but wandering familiar and loathed streets. This ability to know magic was the one constant in her life, a life that saw her and her brother moving from shelter to shelter. It was a crawl of heated sensation with a dancing, jagged edge – deep warmth with sharp little teeth.
Ahead of her, the pawn shop. A week ago Nalah came here with the only thing of value they owned, the ring her mother could never let go of, had worked three jobs and yet refused to sell. It had been her mother’s mother’s mother’s, and maybe further back than that. Mama had died too young to tell all the stories, but the one she’d never failed to tell – as she’d wrapped her daughter’s and her son’s little hands around the golden band with bright red stones and pressed so hard the ring left an impression on skin – was of how special that ring was, how they must never lose it.
To protect her brother she was going to sell it, went into the shop willing to face her brother’s wrath and her mother’s heartbreak.