by Alex Lidell
Her eyes flared. “I’m shaking because I’m cold. Not because I’m afraid of you. I’ve never been afraid of you.” The last part came out more softly. “The connection will make us stronger,” she whispered. “Help us get out of here. I felt it happen with the kiss alone. I’ve had sex for pettier reasons than saving our lives.”
Ellis nodded, the bravery in the little witch’s eyes making his soul clench. He was a broken toy, and mating with Sam would be overwhelming for her while he took his fill. Oh, he could make her feel the pleasure, he would enjoy watching her scream in release as he brought her to climax over and over, but it would be on his terms. He was too much a predator, and she…
“Do it, Ellis,” she whispered, hazel eyes burning with want. Conviction. “I can take—”
Ellis lunged at Sam, pinning her to the floor of the cage. Holding himself in a pushup position, he loomed over her small body, taking up all the space she considered hers. Inhaling the scent of her fear and thick pulsing desire.
“I can’t make this gentle, Samantha.” Ellis’s words were ragged. “But I can stop now. I will always stop. But short of that… You’ll have to trust me. Can you do that?”
A tremor ran through her, making those lush breasts tremble.
“I don’t know.” The truth of her words made her look even more vulnerable, more irresistible. Her mouth was open slightly, her full pink lips so inviting that Ellis wanted to suck on them as badly as he wanted to feel one of her nipples inside his mouth. Even now, the bunched peaks poked through her bra with the same insistence his cock pushed against his pants.
Shifting his weight onto one arm, he let his free hand roam the girl’s body, watching her face as he finally cupped her breast, squeezed it—so full and tender that it must be aching—before brushing a thumb over her engorged nipple. The delicious sigh that escaped Sam’s lips made his head spin.
He pressed his face into her flushed skin, inhaling deeply as he moved from her pulse down the length of her neck to her clavicle. Back up the other side. Growing dizzy on her spiked scent, making her breath come in small panting moans.
He spread his hand over her taut belly. She was small, but the muscles had been building in their time together, and her now-firm abdomen quivered beneath his touch. When he dropped his hand lower, edging into the top of her training pants, she shuddered and closed her eyes.
“No.” His voice was harsh enough that her eyes snapped open, a gasp lifting her chest. Ellis glowered at her. “Keep your eyes on me. If you can’t handle this, you won’t be able to handle what comes next.”
It came out sounding as much a promise as a threat, Sam’s answering shiver of excitement and anxiety and arousal making Ellis forget the iron entirely. Holding her gaze, he untied the string at the top of her pants and slid his hand down until her moist panties greeted his fingers.
“Eyes on me,” he said again. Sam’s body trembled as he slipped under the waistline, over her silky hair, and brushed his thumb firmly between her folds. She moaned, nearly making him come right then. Wet and hot and as needy for him as he was for her. That was to say her body was ready. As for her mind… He brushed the top of her clit with the gentlest of pressures and poised his finger at her entrance, watching the witch tighten with anticipation. With anxiety.
Sam’s wetness heated his fingers, and Ellis was certain she’d taste sweet with a bit of a spicy bite there, just as her mouth had. There was so much more of her to taste, to take under his power. If she would let him.
“Do you want me to stop?” Ellis asked, sounding strained, though he was ready to comply.
She shook her head.
“Tell me in words,” he said. “Do you know that you can?”
“Yes,” she breathed, the word hanging on her lips.
He held her gaze waiting—demanding—more.
“Yes, I know you will stop if I ask,” Sam finished firmly, though Ellis could tell that it was her mind talking, her treacherous emotions still shifting with every breath. But that was all right. She would not learn the truth about her body and his until they started. “But I don’t want you to stop.”
“Brave witch.” Leaning down on his arms, Ellis brushed a gentle kiss on Samantha’s parted lips. A moment later, he thrust his finger inside her channel.
She clenched around him automatically, eyes glazed. She was so hot, so tight, her body constricting around the intrusion. Nervous even as she was needy.
He pumped his finger in and out several times, getting a feel for Sam’s channel as she started to writhe beneath him. Pulling out, he ran his fingers all around her slick folds, teasing her apex until it hardened, swelling out of its hood. Until just the mere flick of his finger over her clit made her body arch beneath him.
Just as Sam started to gasp and buck, Ellis sat back on his heels and licked his fingers clean, letting the pleasure of her taste show in his face. Enjoying her wide, bewildered eyes. Oh yes, he thought at her as he sucked on his middle finger, I like how you taste. I like it very much.
And with that, he yanked Sam’s pants and panties clean off.
29
Sam
Cool air brushes over my exposed skin, sending waves of ice and heat through my body. I’m exposed and naked, Ellis taking up all the space and air around me, my heart racing like a galloping horse as I’m on the ground, splayed before him. When I try to reach for him, he places a strong hand right on my sternum, pinning me to the ground, his knees pushing my thighs apart, his hands exploring my wet thighs.
The more I struggle against his hold, the more I discover how unyielding the male is, the power exuding from him as frightening as it is exciting. I’ve had sex before, for many reasons. To prevent a beating. To pay for debts I had no money to cover. I’ve had my body taken from me by force. But I’ve never been captivated like this, my sex longing for a man’s touch. Totally out of control, able to do nothing but feel every magnified sensation.
Ellis’s fingers makes their way possessively around my swollen clit, circling it on one side and the other as my hips buck beneath him. A moan escapes my lips, the emptiness inside me begging to be filled. I try to bring my thighs together to relieve the unbearable building pressure, stopping when Ellis’s teeth snap wolfishly at the defiance.
Wrapping his arms around my thighs, the male yanks my bottom off the ground, and, before I can squeal in protest, strokes his tongue between my folds.
Fucking hell. I gasp, floundering against his unyielding hold. “Wait.”
Ellis’s yellow eyes grip me, pinning me in place. His white hair is loose around his face, jaw clenched. Demanding my trust. His cock, still in his pants, pulses against the fabric.
I take a deep breath and make my body settle. If Ellis is tasting me, he must be enjoying it. His cock certainly says he is. Trust.
With a small groan, he flicks my apex with the tip of his tongue, the sensation just enough to keep my arousal to a wild simmer without letting it leap to a full blaze. The wet lap lap laps fill my ears as the male returns his attention to my folds, each stroke sending a zing of sensation through me.
My toes curl, as the building need inside me rises and rises toward a great yawning abyss, my nails digging mercilessly into Ellis’s shoulders.
I whimper, my need throbbing, the moisture between my legs growing thick and warm. Dripping. Heat rages through me, my hips undulating beneath Ellis’s steel grip as his tongue laps up that slippery wetness.
“Ellis. Please.” My voice is too desperate to be my own, but there’s no surviving the blazing need that the male stokes with every flick flick flick of his tongue. “Please, damn you.”
“No… I don’t think so.” His tongue draws a line through me. Lifting his face, the male licks drops of me from his lips. “I think I rather like seeing you this way.”
His mouth descends on me again, this time circling mercilessly around my opening, which pulses in instant response. I gasp. Buck. Twist atop the rough ground of the cage in search of the relea
se the warrior dangles before me.
“Please. Please. Please.” The words spill, tripping over each other, the promise of coming pleasure so intense, it’s too painful to bear.
The tip of Ellis’s tongue traces my hood, brushing my engorged clit just enough to take my breath.
I moan, my head swimming, my body so deep in need that I’m dizzy with it.
“Now, Devinee,” he growls, and for a moment, I don’t understand the order until… Oh fuck. Sealing his mouth around my clit, Ellis sucks.
For a single moment, I try to fight it. To hold off the utter terrifying loss of control to free-falling pleasure. But I can’t. Not with how far Ellis has pulled back the bowstring of my body’s instinct before finally loosing me headfirst into release.
My thighs quiver as the first wave of the orgasm starts around my clit and spills like a storm along my nerves. Every muscle clenches, my nails leaving deep desperate marks along Ellis’s shoulders. By the time the second and third waves come, I’m screaming into the night, my body and soul exposed and uncontrolled for Ellis to see.
My screams settle to low pants, my body feeling like a boneless mass void of strength. I didn’t know it was like this—sex. The good kind. Maybe it usually isn’t.
Ellis grips my hips. “I think you are ready,” he says into my ear.
It takes me a moment to realize what he’s talking about, and another moment to believe it. I can’t do this again. Not now.
Except his hands are moving again, waking my tender sex. Stoking the fire with a skilled ease until I can’t help writhing on the cage floor once more.
Sitting back, he frees himself from his pants, his cock springing out with so much force that a bead of moisture on the tip flies across the cage. Thick and erect, his cock twitches with each throbbing heartbeat, the velvety skin bulging from the pressure inside.
Just as I fully appreciate the sheer size of him, I realize there’s no way he will fit inside me. Fit inside anyone. He can’t.
“You can take me,” Ellis says in a thick rasp as he flips me over onto my hands and knees. I’m about to protest, already looking back around at him, when I feel the heat of his hips hovering inches away from mine, feel his bulge pressing against my backside. Feel it slide through my wet folds, forward, back. Again. Then I can do nothing but press back against him mindlessly, a moan falling off my lips. With one hand, he reaches around to stroke my swollen clit, the traitorous little thing singing beneath his touch despite my trembling nerves.
Before I can brace myself, the great head slides easily through the slickness, filling my channel in one thrust. I cry out, the fullness and stretch and power so intense, I can’t catch my breath. Then, with the next breath, the tightness from the penetration turns to the molten heat of pleasure as he strokes my clit with two callused fingers.
Ellis holds still inside me for a moment, letting me adjust to the great size of him, though truly, such a thing isn’t possible. And then he starts moving. Slow, languid pumps that get faster and faster as I adjust, harder, our damp skin meeting loudly in the quiet night. His hips slam against mine in a rhythm that echoes through my whole body, his breaths growing harsh. I push back against him desperately, silently begging him to thrust deeper, panting into the darkness.
Wrong. It has to be wrong, this pleasure at the strength with which he holds me, giving no choice but to take him, no chance to move, to think.
Thrust thrust thrust.
Ellis’s hot breath brushes the back of my neck, and a sharp sting pierces my shoulder.
“Mine.” His growl is as primal as his bite, the claim vibrating through our connection. Mine. Mine. The meld of bite and claim penetrate deep into the darkness of my soul, which—for the first time ever—yawns open wide in answer, just as Ellis’s seed fills me, our joint cries of release carrying to the stars.
Yes, yes, yes, my soul agrees over the waves of orgasm contorting my body. Finally. I’ve been waiting.
Fucking hell. My damn soul talks.
30
Ellis
Ellis couldn’t tear his eyes away from Sam’s delicious body, the scent of sex and pleasure clinging to her like perfume. His scent clinging to her. She was gorgeous when she climaxed, a pink flush rising to her skin and face, her body quivering. Bloody hell, she was gorgeous all the time.
He swallowed as she pulled on her clothes, the pants sliding over the full curve of her hip, her rebellious red hair flipping in the wind as if it were embodying the same wild spirit that the little sprite contained. It made him hard all over again.
Though he tried not to make it obvious, he couldn’t stop tracking her, drinking in her every small motion while his soul repeated the word he’d screamed as he’d taken her. The word he hoped she wouldn’t remember as much as he hoped she would. Mine.
Samantha Devinee was his. His mate, though fae rarely had such things nowadays—though he hadn’t found one in the hundreds of years he’d been alive and had never expected to.
Bloody hell.
Ellis hadn’t understood the full meaning of mating until after it happened, when he’d been inside Sam and felt a missing piece of his soul find itself deep in hers.
His jaw tightened, and he shimmied himself into his pants.
The problem was that his soul hadn’t been just unfulfilled before—it’d been broken. Or, more accurately, had a piece broken off. And his gut told him Sienna might have been behind that.
Mating within a species was rare. Between species?—Unheard of. Which strengthened Ellis’s suspicion that this was orchestrated. It had to be. Crazy as it sounded, he was sure that Sienna had somehow carved out a slice of all their souls and set them waiting. Waiting for a witch who would not be born for centuries, but who would one day carry those shards inside her. Connecting the species together—finally completing the work the horsemen had set out to do all those years ago, when the world was not yet ready for it.
That would certainly explain how broken Sienna had left the four of them. How perfectly Sam had filled his jagged wound.
Ellis’s heart sank, the darkness that Sam had lifted descending on him once again. She couldn’t know. He couldn’t tell her. She deserved to have her own life, make her own choices, find her own love—not play out a role assigned to her by a sadistic dead witch. Ellis might be a slave to Sienna’s machinations, but he would ensure that Sam, at least, would be free.
“Ellis?”
He paused, hands on the shirt he was about to pull over his head. Poised on her knees, Sam cradled her marked palm, her face tight.
“What is it?” Ellis crouched beside her, his heart spurred into a gallop. She’d buffered the iron’s effect on his magic, but was it hurting her now? Bloody hell. He gripped her wrist. “What’s wrong?”
She blinked up at him, plainly confused by the overreaction, and Ellis schooled his face quickly. This would be another new thing to get used to now that Ellis’s mating bond had snapped into place, his instinct to protect her at all costs. “What’s wrong, Devinee?” he repeated, finally managing to summon up the proper distance for his voice, as if nothing of importance had happened between them.
Sam flinched away as if struck, a rare wave of vulnerability fluttering over her face before she pulled herself together. It tore at him, hurting her. But it was better this way. For her, if not him. Cocking a brow, Ellis waited for the answer.
“I’m not sure,” she said, her heartbreaking soprano clear and distant.
“Then I’m not sure I can help.” He started to rise. “Let me know when you find words.”
Yes. He was an arse.
“My blood’s vibrating,” Sam snapped, stopping him in midmotion. “It feels like there’s a swarm of bees buzzing inside my blood. Do you know what that is or not?”
“A buzzing,” Ellis repeated, her words now gripping all his attention. “Inside your blood. Like liquid power?”
“Yes… Yes. That sounds right.” Sam’s brows pulled together, her too-intelligent eyes bori
ng into him. “You know what it is.” Not a question this time.
Ellis scrubbed a hand over his face. Their mating had unlocked the witch’s magic. Lovely.
31
Sam
I shift my weight, staring suspiciously at Ellis. The damn male is as volatile as a teenage girl. My fault for having started to care. For believing those words he growled when he was inside me. Mine.
“Earth to bloody Ellis. Will you tell me what’s going on with me or not?” I step closer to him, intending to shake his shoulder, but the proximity agitates that swarm of phantom bees to new levels. With Ellis’s bare, marked chest just inches away, my hand moves of its own accord, like the compulsion of a vampire but a million times stronger.
Ellis knows something. My body whispers to me. And I need to know it too.
Without thinking or stopping, I give in, laying my hand over the male’s chest. This time, the rush of power flowing through me feels more like a volcanic eruption than a yellowjacket outing.
My body shakes, and I’m aware in a peripheral way that Ellis is calling my name, the words, “Devinee? Devinee,” echoing through the forest without meaning.
I’m plunged into darkness. A tunnel, like a slide at a playground, except this one opens to a sea of terror.
I’m shackled. No, not me. I know it’s Ellis’s eyes I’m looking through, his hands that are shackled with iron chains. We are in a small, dim room, with three males. With a woman who is a witch.
“Devinee.”
A scream pierces the air, echoing off the damp stone walls, the voice familiar. When I turn my head, I find Cassis strapped to a splintery work table, howling in pain as the witch carves his back with a wooden stake. Asher and Reese struggle against their binds.
