It wasn’t finished, not quite yet. His spirit wouldn’t rest until they sealed the bond.
Almost as though reading his mind, Val lifted her head. “That’s it?” she croaked. “That’s all it took?”
Riker snorted. “It’s blood bonded.”
She groaned. Her damp forehead thudded against his breastbone. “For shit’s sake. Are you kidding me?”
Shaking his head, Riker lifted his palm to caress her face, bringing her up to meet his eyes. “Now that the lust has been sated, we’re free to move forward with clear heads. And if you still want me as much as I need you…” His fingers trailed down her bruised jawbone, careful yet deliberate. The way her body shuddered at his touch sent thrills through his every nerve. If she hadn’t known it before, she knew now that pain could mingle with pleasure. It would be his honor to explore that side of her for the rest of their lives.
First, they needed to forge their union.
Bringing his palm to his mouth, he bared his predator’s teeth and bit down until a familiar metallic taste trickled along his tongue.
Val stared at his hand. Her chest heaved with quickening breaths, her breasts sliding against his cooling, sweat-soaked skin.
Riker offered a somewhat sardonic smile. “Go ahead, my dear. Pick your poison.”
She closed her eyes, as though lost in a delectable daydream. Her lips parted, the glint of a crystal stud on her lower lip catching the moonlight.
Infernal human woman. This time the thought carried nothing but tender emotion and overwhelming, selfish instinct. Should she seal the bond, she was his to keep, his to care for, and his to protect.
Val shook her head. A wry smile twisted her lips.
“Oh, what the hell,” she said, raising her palm toward his mouth. “Mom always said I should have been a lion shifter. She can’t be surprised when I’m the alpha’s mate.”
Riker obliged and bit down. A stinging hiss fell past her lips.
But the moment their hands clasped, with their blood flowing and interlacing between their open wounds, the blood song was reborn anew. The pleasant hum surged into an opera of amore, starlight, and the hidden shadows all predators stalked in. Val’s eyes widened and clouded, and he knew she heard what he did: purity, beauty, yet the inherent moonlit nights shifters were known for.
The bond was sealed.
“Oh,” she whispered. “I get it.”
He smirked. Of course she did.
Tonight, Riker had bonded with the first human Pridemate. As his satisfaction and cock swelled with new desires, he saw only possibilities. A potential future for humans and shifters to merge societies, a definitive path unfurling for him to grow his family, spread strong genes, and create new alliances. Literally change the world as shifter and human societies understood it, for better or worse. Now that blood bonded could officially occur between shifters and humans, the potential was endless.
That, however, was for later. This woman had woken a lust in him like never before, and Riker had no intention of doing a damned thing until he took her again.
“On your back, woman,” he said.
A vicious flash in her eyes sent a thrill of delight through his core. “No.” She pushed his shoulder and crawled atop him, those plush lips widening in a smile he hoped to see every damned day. “My turn.”
Very well.
The End
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The Alpha's Pride Page 4
