An irresistible urge overcame her; without thinking further, she released him and brought her hand up to her mouth to suck his taste off her thumb. His flavor burst across her tongue; sweet, potent, and inhuman. She moaned.
It was delicious.
Adalynn opened her eyes to find his upon her, glowing brighter than before. Blue energy raced along his skin, pulsing out from his eyes and the tips of his fingers like restless electric currents. The light he emitted was intensified by its contrast to the thick shadows forming above and behind him, which seemed to writhe and move as though they were alive, throughout which was present a suggestion of light—like stars viewed through a black veil.
He was otherworldly; she had the sense that his body was merely a shell, that the true Merrick was magic, was power, that he was that song she’d played downstairs.
Merrick wrapped his hand around her wrist, and that energy thrummed into her, so strong and pleasing that it stole her breath. He guided her thumb from her mouth to his and slipped it between his lips. His tongue swirled around it as he sucked.
His eyes flared; despite the intensity of their light, it wasn’t painful, and she didn’t look away from him until she realized her clothes were glowing not with his radiance, but with their own.
She glanced down to see her shirt unraveling, separating into individual threads that broke apart into tiny bits of dust before vanishing entirely. The process spread to her bra, to her pants and panties, and then to his pants, revealing their bodies rapidly. The feel of it was unlike anything she’d ever experienced—it was like a million whispered words breathed over her skin, raising goosebumps in their wake and sending a thrill to her core.
The fabric over her pelvis was gone, having disintegrated into nothingness. Before the process had reached her knees, Merrick released her wrist and shoved himself back toward the foot of the bed. There was no hesitation on his part as he dropped to his knees and lowered his face to her sex.
Adalynn gasped, eyes widening and back arching, as his tongue swept between the folds of her sex. As though by instinct, her legs moved to close, but he caught them in his hands. Dragging her closer, he shoved her thighs open and used his thumbs to spread her sex.
“Merrick,” she rasped, her fingers clutching at the covers.
His tongue was unrelenting; it lapped at her, explored her, and teased her clit. Her breaths became rapid, shallow bursts of air. Her breasts felt heavy and needy, her nipples were tight, and her body was flooded with delirious heat.
Merrick’s ravenous groan vibrated through her as he drank, and drank, and drank. His touch was fire and ice, and it spread the pleasure from her core to permeate her entire body. His unwavering, glowing gaze only heightened the sensations. He stared at her as though she were the only thing in all the universe.
The sensations soon became too much. She writhed on the bed, unable to keep still, with perspiration beading on her skin as Merrick brought her close to release repeatedly—only to back away each time, tormenting her. She gyrated her hips, needing his lips there, on her clit. He offered only fleeting brushes of lips and tongue, each sending a shockwave of pleasure through Adalynn that wasn’t enough to push her over the edge. It left her whimpering with frustration—she needed more.
She touched her breasts and attempted to move a hand down to sate her own need, but something knocked it away. That invisible force pulled both her wrists over her head and pinned them on the bed, refusing to let her touch herself, refusing to let her take the release she needed.
“Merrick,” Adalynn cried, begged, straining against the magical bonds, straining toward him, his mouth, his tongue.
“I will take as long as I please,” he said against her sex, his deep voice alone enough to make her hips undulate.
A light, airy sensation—like a soft, sheer fabric against her skin—coursed over her legs, and she looked down to see those moving shadows spread outward from behind him and descend upon her. Their touches were ethereal, caressing her calves and thighs, brushing over her hips, so gentle and yet brimming with power. They stretched upward to circle her breasts, twining around them, and Adalynn gasped, her hips bucking as the shadows solidified and tweaked her nipples. Another rush of heat flooded her, and her sex quivered. It was like a dozen hands stroking her all at once.
“Please, Merrick,” Adalynn panted, her every muscle trembling with need. “No more. I need you.” She didn’t expect his compliance.
When his lips closed around her clit, his tongue pressed down on it, and he sucked it into his mouth, she shattered utterly. Her cries filled the room as she drowned in ecstasy bordering on pain. He didn’t pull his mouth away, didn’t allow her suddenly tense body any path of escape. The pleasure was pure and explosive. And she didn’t want it to stop, even though it was consuming her from within.
Adalynn was in a haze, panting with her face buried against her arm, when he finally relented.
He lifted his mouth from her sex to place gentle kisses upon her inner thighs—but even those little kisses were charged with magic that pulsed across her skin, rebuilding the sensation at her core faster than she’d realized possible.
Merrick rose slowly, continuing to trail his lips over her pelvis and across her stomach. Shivers of delight followed in their wake. Adalynn forced her eyelids open to stare down at him as he closed his mouth around her nipple. She arched her back and struggled to raise her arms, to delve her fingers into his hair—which was now tickling her chest—but his power held them firmly in place. All the while, his shadows continued to caress her legs.
He slid a hand down and cupped her sex; the pressure alone was thrilling, but the way he thrummed with energy put every vibrator she’d ever owned to shame. He teased her nipple with his lips, tongue, and teeth, keeping his eyes locked with hers; his stare was a branding iron on her soul.
“Kiss me,” she said, tugging on her arms again. “Let me touch you.”
Merrick lifted his head, biting lightly on her nipple and tugging on it for a moment. “Is that what you desire, Adalynn?”
She caught her lower lip between her teeth and moaned. “Yes.”
He pushed himself up farther, his mouth continuing its slow, blazing trek across her collarbone and up her neck before finally meeting her lips. And in that instant, the magic holding her arms dissipated. Her senses reeled and her emotions whirled as their mouths moved against each other in a consuming kiss. She raised her knees, squeezing his hips with her thighs.
His cock was hard and heavy against her belly.
Lifting her hands, she smoothed her palms up his arms, over his shoulders, and along his neck before delving her fingers into his hair. Merrick deepened the kiss, slipping his tongue into her mouth to dance with hers. All his movements were set to that haunting, internal music Adalynn always sensed when he was near, were set to his song—which was now clearer than ever.
“Going to take you, Adalynn,” he growled against her lips, shifting his hips.
The head of his cock pressed against her entrance. She wanted nothing more in that moment than to push up against him, to feel him sink into her. But despite floating on a wave of pleasure, she retained a degree of clarity.
She dropped her hands, flattening them against his chest, and broke their kiss. “Merrick, wait.”
He lifted his head, his brow furrowing slightly. “What’s wrong?”
“Do you…do you have protection? Just in case?”
“Just in case of what, Adalynn?”
“A…baby.”
Though the energy coursing over his skin didn’t diminish in the slightest, his expression softened. He moved a hand to her face and gently brushed the backs of his fingers over her cheek. “There will not be a baby.”
“How can you be sure?”
“You’ll just have to trust me a little more.”
Adalynn smiled up at him. Knowing that he had magic at his command, that he could bend the rules of reality, there was no need to question him further. She li
fted her head and kissed him. “I trust you.”
Merrick cupped the side of her neck, positioning his thumb beneath her chin to tilt it up as he reclaimed her lips with his own. He rocked his hips forward, and his cock slid into her, stretching her, filling her inch by tantalizing inch. They moaned in unison.
Adalynn undulated her hips, urging him to go deeper. Without hesitation, Merrick pulled his hips back, withdrawing from her almost completely, and surged forward again, thrusting deep. She gasped at the sudden fullness.
His heartbeat pulsed through her, a steady, strong underlier to the more frantic buzz of his magic, which itself was strong enough to make her toes curl. She felt it radiating from him constantly, washing through her, striking a chord within her that nothing else could. His song was inside her now—but she also sensed the melody he’d added to it. Her song.
Merrick tensed. Being inside Adalynn was the most overwhelming, impossible blend of agony and ecstasy he could ever have imagined—even while he was still, just the feel of her sex around his shaft was almost enough to send him over the edge, pushing the pressure in him well beyond what should’ve been his limits. She was a sampling of heaven made all the sweeter with her resonance singing within him. Magic coursed through his body freely, flowed into her and back again completely unhindered, heightening every sensation.
Their mana songs played in unison; Merrick and Adalynn were in exquisite harmony with one another, body and soul, were closer in that moment than he’d thought possible.
He shifted his hips back. The slide of her sex around his cock nearly undid him, but he groaned and held out—he wasn’t willing to let this end, not yet, not so soon. She looped her legs around him, ankles crossing over his backside, and pulled his pelvis against her again with increased force. He broke the kiss and gritted his teeth as a shudder wracked him. The intensity of his pleasure was too much for him to keep still any longer; he needed to move, he needed her.
His shadows wrapped tighter around her legs and held her against him, their little movements producing phantom sensations along his back; he could almost taste her through them. He’d never revealed this aspect of his magic to anyone—he’d never used them to touch anyone. The sensation was wholly new and utterly thrilling. Drawing in a trembling breath, he forced his hips into motion again.
They fell into a steadily quickening rhythm, his every movement complimentary to hers, each of hers complimentary to his. Their hearts pounded at the same elevated rate, their breath came in the same short, heavy gasps, and the sounds they made wove together until he could no longer tell what was him and what was her—there was only them, only their immense, consuming pleasure.
The pressure in him grew with every thrust; his magic carried the sensation throughout his body, but even that wasn’t enough to assuage it, to ease it, to make it bearable. He needed release, needed that little death, but it would not come.
And why should it be so easy? He’d waited more than a thousand years for this, for her.
Adalynn’s nails bit into his shoulders, and her throaty moans filled his ears. Her sex gripped his cock, and he felt the first flutters of her impending release. Her movements gained more urgency as their mingling songs reached a crescendo. Linked with her through his magic, Merrick increased his pace accordingly, and his breath caught in his throat as ecstasy seized his muscles.
He looked down at her. Adalynn’s eyes were half-lidded with lust—and shone with intense blue light to match that of his magic.
It was the final thing he saw before he snapped his eyes shut against the overwhelming force of his climax, which was only increased when she cried out in her own release, her sex clamping around him as liquid heat flowed from her core.
For a moment, Merrick had the sensation that he was floating in the air outside his own body—like he was his mana song, intertwined with hers, more intimately connected than any two individuals had ever been in the entirety of existence. Pleasure permeated his being.
Just as quickly, he was in his body again. He sagged over Adalynn, catching himself with an elbow atop the bed, and panted to catch his breath. Their bodies were hot and damp with sweat, and her sex quivered around his throbbing cock in the aftershocks of her climax.
The air was perfumed with a new scent—their scent, the result of their individual smells interweaving to create something intoxicating.
Adalynn, who had been clinging to him, released him to lay limp upon the bed, breath ragged. She turned her face to the side and closed her eyes. A soft smile curled on her lips. “Mmm. I shouldn’t have waited so long.”
“And I shouldn’t have let you,” he replied with a smile of his own.
She opened her eyes to look up at him. He watched as their blue glow faded, leaving only her lovely, natural brown. She grinned cheekily and ran her fingers lightly from his bicep to his shoulder. “Can we do it again? And I…seem to have developed a thing for…tentacles.”
Laughter bubbled up from Merrick’s throat; he hadn’t expected anything like that from her. “You can have as many tentacles as you want.”
“You seriously can’t just whip those out and not expect some kind of reaction.”
“Oh, I expected a reaction. Just not this reaction.” He moved a hand to her face and swept some of her damp curls back from her cheek. The perfection of her features, enhanced by the flush of her cheeks, struck him anew, and he couldn’t help but stare in awe. His heart skipped a beat. “You are beautiful, Adalynn. More so than words can describe.”
Her smile softened, and she lifted her face, brushing her lips over his in a gentle, lingering kiss. That kiss led to another, and then another—and it wasn’t long before he flipped her over onto her stomach and put his tentacles to good use.
Chapter Eleven
Merrick sat up suddenly, eyes snapping open; he’d gone from sound asleep to fully awake in an instant. Adalynn stirred beside him, her sleep-warmed body shifting against his beneath the covers.
Something had breached the wards around his property. No, not something, but somethings—a group of five, moving at great speed. Though he could not determine their nature through the wards alone, he guessed they weren’t human.
His bedroom was lit only by pale, yellow-tinged moonlight from outside, which flowed in through the drawn curtains. The night sky was a murky midnight blue behind a vague gray haze that left the stars obscured.
“What’s wrong?” Adalynn murmured.
“Get up,” Merrick replied, tossing aside the bedding as he hurried out of bed.
The grogginess in her expression quickly gave way to concern and confusion. She pushed herself up into a sitting position. The blanket fell away, exposing her pert breasts and rosy nipples; under different circumstances, Merrick would’ve leapt back into bed after that glimpse and put all his focus and energy into pleasing her. But entirely different instincts were at play in him now—he needed to protect her from this sudden, mysterious threat. Nothing mattered beyond keeping her safe.
He strode to the armoire, tugged it open, and pulled out a black silk robe. He tossed the garment onto the bed beside Adalynn. “Put that on and fetch your brother.”
Though her confusion didn’t ease—and her eyes now gleamed with a hint of fear—Adalynn grabbed the robe and pulled it on as she climbed off the bed. “What’s going on, Merrick?”
“Intru—”
A deep, unnatural howl sounded from outside—too deep, too layered to have come from any normal wolf. Adalynn’s face paled, and Merrick’s magic flared in his chest, building to crackling heat in a flash.
“—ders,” Merrick finished. “You’ve heard that sound before, haven’t you?”
She pressed her lips into a tight line and nodded.
Merrick took a pair of pants from the armoire and tugged them on. “Get Daniel in here.”
Adalynn rushed to the bedroom door as Merrick went to the windows one-by-one, scanning the grounds outside for movement as he closed the curtains. His latest uninvited gue
sts were nowhere to be seen—yet—but their trajectory when they’d crossed the wards would take them directly to the house.
Five werewolves. He’d never encountered werewolves running in a pack before the Sundering, but he imagined they’d changed when the moon shattered just like so much else had.
For one, they were in wolf form—but the moon-shards were not full.
A door opened down the hall. Adalynn and Danny had a brief, whispered conversation, their voices too soft for Merrick to make out their words.
Merrick glanced through doorway to see the siblings jogging down the hall toward his bedroom. He walked to the chest against the wall and knelt in front of it, lifting the lid to rummage through the bedding and old clothing inside until he found what he wanted tucked neatly at the bottom.
At the corner of his vision, Adalynn—holding Danny’s hand—led the boy into the room, closed the door, and locked it.
Merrick removed the wool-wrapped bundle from the chest, along with the box of shells that had been nestled beside it. He unwrapped the bundle as Adalynn and Danny moved to stand near him, revealing the old but pristine pump shotgun it contained. He opened the box and fed shells into the tube.
“There’s one of those werewolves outside, isn’t there?” Danny asked.
A chorus of eerie howls answered before Merrick could, all closer than the first. Adalynn and Danny crowded closer to Merrick, their eyes wide with fear.
Merrick stood and worked the shotgun’s slide action to chamber a shell. The sound shattered the relative silence of the bedroom with an ominous finality. “There are five of them.”
“What’s that for?” Danny looked from the gun to Merrick. “Don’t you have magic?”
Merrick met Adalynn’s gaze and held the shotgun out to her. “I do. But you two don’t.”
Only hours earlier, he and Adalynn had been in each other’s arms, drifting on seas of passion, relishing the joining of their bodies and souls. During that time, there’d been no other cares—the rest of the world had ceased to exist. Future and past had faded into meaninglessness. The present was all that had mattered. Adalynn was all that had mattered.
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