by Maia Dylan
“I think, Argon, that you not only enjoy your little sessions with that whip, but you think that it somehow makes up for the fact that you are Aeron’s whore.” The gasp of rage behind him signaled that her next swing of the whip was going to be strong. The crack the whip made when it connected sounded loud in the dungeon he had called home now for more years than he cared to remember, the sound however, not loud enough to hide his short grunt of pain.
“Shut the hell up! This is all your fault!” Rohan had heard it all before. “If you had just loved me like you were supposed to instead of her”—the hatred that filled that one word had his anger rising within him—“then we would not be in this hell, this Otherworld! We would be as we should have always been. Together!”
Argon had been screaming the same thing to him since he had been lured into this realm under the pretense of saving his true beloved. He felt his heart swell with love within him at the thought of the woman that held his heart. He had once thought her delicate and in need of his protection, but knowing what she’d endured to protect the Earth realm, he now realized she possessed a strength of will and courage that put any other to shame. Including himself.
Argon had wanted to torment him as much as possible, so had allowed him to see and hear everything Olwen had endured. The countless times that demon had thrown himself at her demanding that she bond herself to him, but his Olwen had held strong. Strong in the belief of what was right, but also in her love for him.
He remembered back to the first time Olwen had been able to hear him. It had been just after the prophecy had been triggered, and two of her warriors had stood strong against his onslaught. They had held the line and kept him from claiming the portal at the Pagan Stone where people would worship his goddess. He had been talking to her for years, telling her to be strong, but on the day the first portion of the prophecy had been solved, he had shouted Olwen’s name.
In the shimmering mist that showed him where she was and what she was doing at all times, her saw her jolt in shock. She had heard him! “Stay strong, my beloved! I will come for you! I love you!” He had screamed at the top of his lungs. Olwen had thrown her head back, tears fell unheeded and she had pressed a hand to her chest. He knew she heard him, and that gave him the strength to fight to get to her.
Argon had whipped him into unconsciousness as a result of that, but he hadn’t cared. He would take that punishment for the rest of his life if it meant his Olwen heard him tell her he loved her one more time. He had kept talking to her, hoping that she would hear him and at times it appeared that she could. Lately, when he sensed her fear, or her despair, he could reach her more easily.
“You are a fool, Rohan. I can see by the absurd smile on your face that you are thinking of her. My beloved sister.” Argon cracked the whip against his back, but he was beyond feeling the pain anymore. “Aeron has a plan to end this prophecy. To drive back Olwen’s ridiculous Elementals and claim the Earth realm for himself. He has promised that I will rule with him.” There was a pause as Argon sighed. “But I find myself still having feelings for you. Choose me. Bind yourself to me and give me your heart.”
Rohan lifted his eyes and stared at the wall of his cell. In all the years he had been here, Argon had never shown herself to him. Although he heard the truth in her words, he could never do what she wanted him to do, and he certainly couldn’t give her what she wanted.
He lifted his head, pushing the pain aside and reaching within himself for as much strength as he could. Ignoring the flash of Agony in his shoulders, he pushed to his feet to stand instead of swinging between the metal trusses that held his shackles.
“Argon, I have said this before, and it remains as true now as it did then,” Rohan put as much hard resolve into his tone as he could. “I cannot give you what I do not have. Olwen holds my heart. She has from the first day I saw her. I have nothing left to give you. Nothing except my pity and my distain.”
There was silence behind him for a moment, before he heard the slight sound of a sob being muffled. Argon took a deep breath to calm herself. “You’ll change your mind once Aeron has claimed what is rightfully his.” Rohan had thought he would be whipped again for his insolence and refusal to accept her, but was surprised when her voice drifted away as she left the room. “When she is gone and beyond your reach forever, then you will see things differently I’m sure.”
Rohan shook his head. Argon just didn’t get it. If Olwen was beyond his reach in this life, then he would simply end it, and look for her in the next.
* * * *
Water is last as winter sets in
To fight in a battle they all must win
Carnage will know his chances are done
When Spirit and Water are united as one
Liam thought he might actually be going cross eyed as he stared at his tablet. He had read this passage every which way possible but there was nothing in it that spoke of when this last battle would begin, or a clue as to what they needed to do to win it. They only had two weeks left of winter, and time was running short.
It had been a month since they had encountered Agnes in the forest. His relationship with Neve was stronger than ever, and ever since she had moved in with him, he had been the most at peace and calm he had ever been in his life. Even his damn bear practically purred when they stepped through their door each night, and Neve was waiting for them.
Liam turned off the tablet and rolled onto his side, wrapping his arm around the woman next to him and curled up behind her. He pressed his face into her hair and breather her in. Her scent was so beguiling it had his head spinning. It also had his dick hardening to granite proportions in seconds.
“Is that a baton in your pocket, Deputy Sheriff, or are you just pleased to see me?” Neve’s sultry voice sounded like sin and smoke.
“Well, Ms. Hale, why don’t you just reach your little hand on down there and see for yourself?” Liam murmured as he pressed an open-mouth kiss to her bare shoulder. His woman loved to sleep naked and he was never more thankful for that than when he was about to slip inside her heat.
Neve lifted her top leg and shifted it to lie over the top of his behind her, and he shuffled forward so that he pressed tight against her. He groaned when he felt her fingers reaching through her own legs to reach his dick. When she tugged him forward and stroked him from root to tip, he groaned and ran the tip of his tongue up the side of her neck. As she tugged and stroked him, he reached over and palmed her breast.
He rubbed her extended nipple between his thumb and forefinger, listening to her breath rate increase. When he tugged sharply in a way he knew she loved, her hand stuttered in its rhythm. Liam knew that mean his baby girl was starting to crave him just as bad as he was her. But it would be ungentlemanly not to make certain.
He glided his hand down over her tummy, loving the way the muscles there fluttered beneath his fingers. He noticed her breathing rate increased another notch as his fingers slid either side of her clit. When he squeezed his fingers together, applying a little pressure to her clit, she arched into his hand with a cry.
“Does that feel good, baby girl?” He breathed directly into her ear.
She moaned and moved against him, pressing her ass against him, rotating her hips so that she rubbed against his cock and pressed her pussy up into his hand in the same movement. “Oh shit! I am so close, Liam.” The sound of desperation in her voice had Liam growling.
“Are you wet for me Neve? Is your tight little pussy dripping with the need for me to fill it?” Neve panted at his voice and Liam found the image he was painting affected him as much as it did her. Neve suddenly pushed against his chest with her back.
“Lie back, baby.” Neve pushed again and taking the hint, Liam rolled onto his back, but he kept his arm wrapped around her so that he pulled her atop him, facing his feet. He groaned when she sat up on him, and he could feel for himself how wet she was. “I am always wet for you, my love. Every time you come home to me, every time you talk to me, he
ll every time you simply look at me, my pussy weeps with need for you.”
Liam growled and was about to swing her around to face him, when Neve took things into her own hands. Literally! She pushed up to kneel, gripped his cock in her hand and impaled herself on him. Both cursed at the feeling of her burying him so damn deep within her, her felt the head of his cock press against her cervix.
Liam closed his eyes for a moment to savor the feeling, but his eyes flew open when she suddenly leaned her hands back to rest on his chest, knelt up and started to snap her hips against him. Driving him in and out of her pussy in a rhythm designed to drive him crazy.
“Oh fuck. Yeah, Neve, fuck me baby!” Liam groaned as she groaned and the air was filled with the perfume of their lovemaking, as sultry and unique as the woman herself. He leaned up so he could watch where his cock disappeared into her, and the firm round orbs of her ass bounced against him. “I can see your pussy taking me, baby girl, and it is the hottest damn thing I have ever seen in my fucking life!”
Neve panted as she lifted herself up and down, and Liam loved that she never censored the sounds she made when they made love. “Liam.” her voice was filled with need and Liam held still. Waiting for her to tell him what she needed. “I-I need you to…I want to… Damn it!” Liam frowned. His brain was so fried at the feeling of her taking him into her body that he was completely unable to interpret what she needed from him.
He didn’t have to question her or wonder any more when she reached for his cock, and gently pulled him from her pussy. He growled at the feeling of being pulled from her, and that turned into a strangled groan when she moved him to the edge of her back entrance. Liam held his breath as she gently fed his cock into her back entrance. Neve loved anal sex, and over the weeks that they had been lovers, she had told him that sometimes when her need and desire were riding her hard, this was what she needed most.
He waited until she sat completely upon him, his dick twitching with her ass. He remained still to give her time to get used to the feeling of him deep within her, and once she started to move on him, he groaned at the tight, hot feeling of being so completely connected to her.
Liam could feel his release building within him, and he craved to have her riding the edge of insanity as he was. Grabbing onto her hips and lifting his feet so that he had leverage, he began to thrust his hips up against her. Within moments the two of them were groaning their combined pleasure to the room. When his movements became jerky he realized that he was close to coming, and he had yet to feel the flutter of her ass as she came around him. A feeling that, as far as he was concerned, was the best fucking feeling in the world. Liam slid his hand around her hip, reached between her beautiful thighs and rubbed his thumb against her clit furiously.
“Liam!” Neve screamed as she shattered and the pulsing squeeze of her ass around him drew his orgasm from him. He roared her name to the room as he jerked into her. His orgasm was so intense he saw stars. Neve collapsed back against him and he instinctively wrapped her in his arms, rolling to cradle her to him on the bed.
Liam fought to drag enough oxygen into his lungs. His entire body hummed with the sated lethargy of a man that been thoroughly fucked by his woman. His legs felt like they were made of rubber and he seriously doubted he would be able to stand if she asked him to. Oh, who the hell was he kidding, he would find a way to fly using nothing more than his arms as wings if he asked her to.
Neve giggled breathlessly. “I think I would pay big money to see you try to fly using nothing more than your arms.”
Liam grinned when he realized he must have said that out loud. “To save my fragile male pride, perhaps you could refrain from asking.”
Neve giggled once more and they both moan as his semi-flaccid cock slipped from her body. He always felt a small sense of loss when they were no longer connected as intimately as a man and woman could be. Neve must have felt the same way because she turned in his arms to wrap her arms around him and press her lips to his neck.
“Do you ever wonder that if we had met first…?” Neve’s quiet voice drifted to nothing, but Liam knew what she was going to say.
“Would I have recognized you as my mate instead of Agnes?” Liam asked gently as he squeezed her tightly in his arms.
“Don’t answer that, I know you wouldn’t have. There is only one person who triggers the mating bond in a shifter I get that,” Neve said as she burrowed closer to him, rubbing her soft face against his chest. His bear loved it when she wallowed in their scent. “I just wonder what would have happened if we met first. What I feel for you is… well it’s…”
Liam pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “It is all-consuming and eclipses every other thing in the world?” He smiled when she nodded against him. “Yeah, I wonder what would have happened too, Neve. Everything within me, man and bear, needs you with intensity that, if you were clued up to just how intense it was, you would run a fucking mile. That intensity began the minute I lay eyes on you up at the Pagan Stone.”
Neve sighed. “For me, too. It’s really nice to know that you are starting to feel for me, what I have always felt for you.”
Liam froze for a minute at her words. Neve still didn’t get it. He rolled off the bed, pulled her into his arms and strode with her into the bathroom. How the hell did he make her understand that she was it for him? Mate or not.
* * * *
Neve peeked up at the man who held her in his arms, as they waited for the heat of the shower to reach perfection. She knew that for some reason he was upset with what she had said, but she wasn’t sure why. She stayed quiet while he looked lost in thought or was potentially lying there trying to think of the right words to articulate what he was feeling. One of the things she had come to learn about her bear was that he was definitely a thinker. Someone who liked to plan out what they wanted to say and how they were going to say it.
When the water reached a nice hot temperature, Liam stepped with her into the shower. Only once she was under the hot spray, did he allow her to stand on her feet, but he never dropped his arms from her completely. He slid his hands up and down her back, looking deeply into her eyes.
Liam reached around with one hand to gently cup her face, holding it gently. “That first day we met up at the Pagan Stone, when you emerged from behind that shimmering water shield you had erected, I knew you were the one that called to me above anyone else. My heart stuttered when we made eye contact and it was almost as if it were saying there you are. I had been looking for you all my life, and I never even knew it. I don’t know why my bear was so insistent on our mating with Agnes. I may never know. But he and I are in absolute agreement that our future is here.
“You are who we want to come home to every night. The thought of you full and round, carrying our cub, makes the bear in me roar with satisfaction, and the man ache with longing. When we encountered Agnes a month ago, there was absolutely nothing in that woman that called to either the man or the bear. My one and only concern was for you. She stood there naked in front of other men and I didn’t give a shit. I can tell you with complete honesty that if you were naked in front of other men, the bear would remove their eyes and the man would tan your backside for allowing anyone to see what belongs to us.
“And when she pulled on another man’s shirt, basically wrapping herself in the scent of another man, again, I couldn’t have cared less. If it were you, it would be my shirt you were wearing and if that weren’t possible, I would be wrapped so fucking tightly around you, you wouldn’t know where you ended and I began. I don’t know how to say it any cleared than that, Neve. You are it for me. The love I feel for you, it has no end, it has no beginning, it is simply all-encompassing.”
Neve felt tears falling unheeded down her cheeks. His words shattered that last thread of doubt that she had harbored that perhaps she still had to earn his love. She knew that was ridiculous, but sometimes reason and logic just simply to do not mix with emotions.
“You said it quite clearly
, my love,” Neve whispered as she pressed up onto her tip toe and pulled him close so she could press a soft kiss to his lips. She moaned when he pulled her flush against him and stood up so that her feet dangled a foot from the floor. Never breaking the kiss, Neve wrapped her legs around his hips, slipped her hand down between them and placed him at the entrance to her pussy. She pulled back so she could watch his eyes as she rotated her hips, drawing him deep inside her.
As soon as she was seated completely, and had taken him to the very hilt, Liam grunted as he turned and pressed her to the shower wall. Neve grinned as she remembered the first time they had made love. Neve’s grin slipped and she gasped when Liam rolled his hips dragging his cock almost completely out of her before driving back to the hilt. She bit her lip as she watched Liam’s eyes flash.
“Hello my bear,” she said as she squeezed her inner muscles against his hardness, loving the way the move had him shuddering.
“Fuck, Neve,” Liam whispered as he watched her run her tongue along her bottom lip. “You not only have the man on his knees, you fucking own my bear. He would do anything for you, as I would.” Liam began to slam into her, twisting his hips as he bottomed out within her. The move proved to be a double banger so to speak as his pubic bone rubbed against her swollen clit, and the hard length of his cock stroked against her G-spot. Liam had an unerring ability to hit both when he took her in this position and she loved every fucking minute of it.
Her orgasm rolled over her unexpectedly and she screamed her joy out loud, her cries echoing off the shower walls. Vaguely she heard Liam roar her name as her orgasm dragged him over the edge, and he joined her in the unique maelstrom of intense pleasure they created between them.
