He jerked back in surprise. “Do you know what it means to bond?”
“Yes. Well, a little. Amaryllis filled me in. You join our emotions together. Forever. In an unbreakable bond.”
“That is correct.”
“It is a bond so strong it can transcend death.”
“Ya.”
“Ya,” she repeated with a hysterical chuckle. “Are you saying you want to bond with me?”
“Ya.”
“I don’t understand. Why? Why me? Why me and not,” she laid her hand over the tattoo on his chest, “and not her.”
Bale sighed and lifted her hand to place a kiss on the knuckles. “I didn’t trust Natalia with what I carried in my soul. I never gave her the opportunity and that is a decision I will always regret. I know what it feels like to lose everything. I don’t want to lose you, Ari. You have seen my darkness and you’re still here. Touching me. Loving me. I may be stupid, but I’m not a fool. I learn from my mistakes. You are what I need, and more importantly, I want to be what you need.”
When he gazed upon her and stroked the curve of her cheek as if she were the most precious object in existence, it wasn’t difficult to fall even more in love with him. Her brain cautioned her to step back and consider the matter for, like, years, while her heart pounded with the urgency to say yes and claim him for all time.
“You and me?” she asked, still in disbelief as to what he was proposing.
Bale nodded.
“Forever and ever?”
“If you wish.”
She held her breath, as did Bale. As her heart thumped he didn’t make a sound or do anything to sway her decision. Their future together was entirely in her hands.
Stars floated in her vision as she released a breath. “I wish.”
Bale blinked once, then twice and shook his head to try to stop the ringing in his ears. Did Ari agree to be his bonded mate? Of course that was what he wanted, but was his dream really coming true?
“You wish?”
The loveliness of her smile blinded him in the shadowed bedroom. “I wish. I choose you, Bale. I choose us.”
Euphoria rippled up his chest and he felt the muscles of his face stretch into the biggest smile he’d bet money he’d ever produced. “You are certain?”
She laughed “I’m certain. Can’t you tell?”
“Ya.” Bubbles wrapped around his body and kissed his skin. “But I want to hear it from your lips.”
Those wonderfully full lips curled into a grin before she lifted up to kiss him. “I want to be bonded to you.”
Tears stung his eyes as he laughed with unadulterated joy and held her close to his hearts, thanking the Gods for granting him a second chance. Hell, more like the seventh or eighth, if he were to be honest.
Ari had been the last person he had expected to walk into that storage room earlier that evening. Of course he figured she’d hear about his self-imposed punishment from Amaryllis, but never did he dream she would confront him so soon.
Gods, she had been magnificent, staring down a killer with nary a flinch. So strong, so powerful in her convictions even though he felt her terror at facing the unknown crawl beneath his skin. Yet she had stayed with him, argued with him and loved him with an intensity that cut him off at the knees. She had displayed more bravery than most of the revolutionaries he had fought. She was his match. Instead of his darkness overpowering her light, her brilliance banished the shadows. Until his dying day he would put his all into being worthy of her trust.
“Come here, liera.” He drew her to the edge of the bed and knelt on the floor between her knees. The quest to worthiness began with asking her properly. Taking her hands, he placed them on his chest over each heart. “Ariel Rayner, will you do me the honor of speaking the Sacred Vows and becoming my bonded mate?”
A warm, velvet clasp of love wrapped around him and stole into his soul as she smiled down on him with love shining in her sapphire eyes. “Yes, Bale…Llanos? That is your name, right?”
He laughed and dropped a kiss into each of her palms before sealing his lips over hers, drinking in her love and giving his in return. Ari sank into his embrace, but her hands were strong as she guided him to lie on top of her and wrapped her legs around his waist. With a frustrated growl, he pulled away and whipped his shirt over his head. The barrier of his clothes between their skin was too much to bear for a second longer.
“What’s your rush?” She giggled as he tore at his pants.
“We don’t have much time before I am taken away. I want to spend every possible second in your arms.”
“Wait. What?” She sat up. “Taken away?”
“Do you not remember?”
“Obviously not.”
“Captain DeWinter expects my answer at five p.m. tonight otherwise he will seek me out at The Cavern. Either I help him capture a criminal, or he will arrest me for the crimes I’ve committed as the Claymore.”
“Oh, right,” she groaned and pulled at the ends of her hair. “I know this is a stupid question but… Do you want to run? I know.” She held up her hands when he raised a surprised brow. “Stupid. But I thought I’d ask. What are your options, really?”
“At this point I have only one. I turn myself in. I will no longer break the law or interfere with its process. The risk to you and the others is too great.” He sat on the bed beside her. “At least when I am gone, we’ll have our bond to keep us together. I find great comfort in that.”
She hugged him around the waist and kissed his chest. “How long do you think you’ll be gone for? Seriously, what can they charge you with?”
“I do not know. DeWinter claimed my punishment would be minimal, but even an hour away from you is too long. Whatever the courts see fit to give me, I will abide by.”
“And I’ll stand by you.”
“Thank you, Ari.” He rolled her onto her back then trailed kisses down her neck and sternum. “No more talk about the Claymore or jail. Now is for you and me.”
She drove her fingers into his hair. “So, how does one bond? Is it like a wedding or a spell or something?”
“I will speak the Sacred Vows while we engage in the most intense sexual experience we’ve ever had,” he explained between nipping kisses to the underside of her beast.
She arched into his touch. “More intense than we’ve been having?”
He let his smile be his answer.
“Oh shit. I may not survive.” She shivered, but the wicked gleam in her eye let him know she eagerly anticipated what was to come.
He buried his nose into the cushion of her cleavage and drew in the enticing scent of coconut and hibiscus soap and Ari’s own unique fragrance. For the rest of his life, the smell would always remind him of home and her loving embrace.
With his hands, he worshipped her. With his lips, he left praises of gratefulness to be granted the opportunity to love her. Her soft sighs and stilted groans caressed him as surely as her hands on his back as she raked her nails across his flesh. She had such sensitive nipples and they puckered so prettily when he took them between his teeth.
The baser, male part of him wanted to plunder her quivering body, claim what was his now before she regained her senses and realized he wasn’t good enough, but the lover in him wanted to steep in the slow boil of her desire. Stoke the flame within her until her world consisted of nothing but him and the pleasure he provided.
“Lie back, love,” he said as he settled between her thighs. “I’ll take care of everything.”
The slick petals of her sex easily parted beneath his thumbs, revealing the ripe, pink berry of her clitoris to his hungry gaze. His mouth watered as he lowered his head and touched the tip of his tongue to the swollen bud. Alternating between licks and nibbles, he worked his bride into a frenzy, reveling in the sheen of perspiration that made her skin glow like alabaster and the mewling cries that rolled down his back in a liquid satin wave. He pressed two fingers into her sheath and the tight tunnel rippled in welcome, bathing
his hand in her sweet cream.
Ari stretched her arms over her head, abandoning her body to his will and he took her offering with great delight.
How magnificent was the female body? How soft and pliant she became under his lips and hands. He explored the satin lining of her sheath, memorizing the different textures. Right before her cervix he felt the tiny impression of rings against his fingertips and he rubbed the area in small strokes. Ari gasped with a jerk of her hips. He did it again, then again, and smiled as she melted into the mattress. Her fingers dug into his hair, holding him in place as she writhed against his face.
“Don’t stop. Please, Lord, don’t stop,” she panted with her eyes squenched tightly shit. “If you stop, I swear to God I will kill you.”
“We can’t have that.” He chuckled and went back to worrying her clit and stroking her walls.
An electric current ran from her body to his mouth and down his torso to wrap around his balls and squeeze in a deliciously painful grip. Against his stomach his cock leaked, ready to spill onto the sheets with the slightest brush, but he diligently ignored the incessant throbbing and concentrated on Ari and the power that radiated from her core.
She stared blankly up at the ceiling, moaning broken words and grunts that grew louder as the pressure grew within them both. His eyes crossed as she pulled his hair, but the pain was worth the overwhelming tide of her impending orgasm as it sucked them into the vortex. So close. She was so. Damn. Close.
Then she hit the wall. With a guttural cry her thighs tightened around his head. Sweet water flooded his mouth and her belly rippled with spasms he felt in his gut. The wave rolled on and on and his balls churned, desperate to come. At this rate he wasn’t going to last long enough to thrust inside her, let alone bind them as one.
He rose to his feet, hooking her knees over his arms and gripped her by the hips. Lining his dripping cock up to her sheath, he lunged and pulled her onto his shaft.
“Ah, Gods,” he gritted from between clenched teeth.
Without the barrier of latex between them, her pussy was scorching hot against his dick. And wet, by the Gods, he had never felt anything as sublime as her drenched cunt sucking away all his rational thoughts. Whatever deity had conjured the Sacred Vows was either a supreme prankster or a fucking genius. A man would have to be incredibly motivated to bond with his mate in order to remember the vows and not spill his seed at the first touch. As it was, he could barely remember to breathe, let alone all the parts of a ritual he had only heard spoken of and never seen in practice.
Focus, Bale. Focus.
Ari’s bouncing breasts drew his gaze. Oh, how he did love the way the soft mounds shook with his every thrust. Ah. Breasts. Right. He reached up and cupped a palm full of flesh. Although she lacked the second heart his race carried, her solitary organ beat hard enough to feel the vibration against his hands.
“Ari, love. Look at me,” he grated.
Her head lolled against the mattress and she struggled to lift her eyelids. He twisted his hips, sending his cock deep into her core. The action made her eyes widen in surprise as she screamed his name.
“Ariel.” He wet his lips and searched his brain for the words to bind them together for eternity. “Ariel, en la nire de demos, Y tesktsen a mi band brigde.”
At his words, Ari gasped and reached out, scoring his forearms with her nails as she struggled to hang on. “Bale. God. What’s happening?”
He groaned and fought to ignore the pressure in his balls. “Ariel, I claim you as my bonded mate. In my hands I hold your life and your love. Two precious gifts I ask you to entrust in my care. Ah, fuck.”
Sweat dripped into his eyes and his lungs burned as her pussy milked his cock. “Fuck, Ari, stop coming around my dick.”
“Don’t stop. God, don’t stop.” She writhed in his grasp, completely oblivious to his plight. “I feel you. Bale, I feel you.”
Damn it. He wasn’t going to make it. “In return.” Fuck. “I promise. To be all things. You need.”
Sparkly white lights appeared in his vision as he felt her heart beat right out of her chest and into his palm. Her cries became his cries. His fire, hers. With each plunge of his cock, he felt the answering thrust spear up into his belly. The ripple of her sheath against his length drew the first spurts of cum he felt splashing the mouth of her womb.
One more sentence. Jesu, just one more sentence.
“Say you accept me. Say you accept my gift. Bond as one for eternity.”
“Bale,” she screamed. “Bale!”
“Say it! Do you accept me?”
“Yes. God, yes. Bale.”
White lightning tore him in two as his cock erupted over and over again. From the center of his soul he felt the cleansing burn of their union scour the darkness of his past and radiate out to encompass their shuddering forms. The bite of her nails into his back and her teeth into his chest where she sobbed against him was a welcome pain, for the all-consuming depth of her love for him eased the ache.
She was inside him now. A living, breathing entity, hovering at the edge of his consciousness, forever in his care. Just as he lived inside Ari and experienced the wonder and awe at their joining with shared intensity.
All his warrior finesse was shot to hell and he collapsed on top of Ari in a graceless heap, pressing their pelvises together to burrow as deep inside her as possible. With their union he experienced the crush of his body as the weight stole her breath.
“Sorry,” he mumbled and slid to the side.
“That’s nifk,” she slurred and weakly patted his chest while her legs remained locked around his waist in an alligator death-roll hug. “We died. Didn’t we?”
His throat burned when he chuckled. “Ya.”
“Knew it.”
Even with exhaustion tugging at his consciousness, he sensed Ari’s thirst and discomfort. The need to tend to his bonded mate swept him away from the abyss of sleep and was the only thing that blasted him from the bed.
“Where do you think you’re going?” She clutched him tighter.
“You have needs.”
“Yeah. I need you to hold me.”
He dropped a kiss onto her forehead. “Water. I’m getting us water.”
“Oh, all right.” She buried her face against the mattress. “Hurry,” came the muffled order.
“Of course. Whoa.” His knees buckled as he attempted to stand and he fell back onto the bed. “Let’s try this again.”
“That was awesome.” Ari laughed with her face still buried in the bedding.
“Do not laugh too hard. I’d hate to accidently spill a full glass of cold water on you.”
“You would too. I can feel your certainty. That’s so weird. How I can feel you inside me? All around me, actually.”
Weird? No. Miracle? Yes.
He used his super speed to make it a quick trip to the sink and back and handed Ari the glass of water. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.” She reached out blindly and struggled to sit up enough to take a healthy swallow of cool liquid. She glanced up in his direction with a smile then promptly spewed the water all over like a geyser. “Holy shit,” she gasped.
He froze in stunned silence for several seconds with water dripping off the end of his nose before reaching for the sheet to use as a towel as Ari climbed to her knees in horror.
“I am so sorry, Bale.” Her sorrow was overcome with laughter as she tried to help him dry off. “I, uh—” Her sentence broke off into another fit of laughter that she attempted to stop with her hands clapped over her mouth. Over her fingers her dark eyes danced with merriment.
Dark eyes? Wait a minute. He looked again. Sure enough, gone were the dazzling sapphire gems of her irises and instead the color was a deep brown, almost black. Like his.
Like his.
Which meant…
He jumped to his feet and raced to the dresser, skidding to a stop in front of the mirror.
“Jesu,” he exclaimed and tugged at the
burnished red lock of his bangs then swiped a hand over the red hair covering his chest and eyed the trail all the way down to his cock before muttering, “The carpet matches the drapes.”
“Come on.” Ari scrambled off the bed, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes. “It’s not that bad.” She caught her first glimpse of her new eye color and her brows shot up as she leaned closer to the mirror. “Wow. Okay, this will definitely take some getting used to.”
The man who looked back at him from the mirror was completely unrecognizable. Gone was the permanent frown and the visible strain on his face and instead was a man who had been granted the gifts of love and hope. A new look for a new beginning. A happy beginning.
“Having second thoughts?” Ari asked at his side.
“You know I’m not. Quite the opposite in fact.”
He drew her into his arms and clasped her to his chest. In the mirror, their reflection displayed the perfection of their mating, with his red hair blending seamlessly with her fiery strands as he rested his cheek against her head. A peace unlike any he’d ever known stole over him as his bond with Ari created a buffer against the volatile emotions of the human race. Her emotional strength stole inside him, lifting him into the heavens where contentment was within his grasp.
Never again did he have to second-guess his place in Ari’s heart for her love surrounded him in its warmth, ebbing and flowing with his love for her in a symbiotic wave so intermeshed there was no line of demarcation. They were truly joined in the most intimate of ways. Even if they were to become separated, they’d never be alone in the world. The connection was pure magic and he was damn lucky to be blessed with such a miracle.
But perhaps his fortune was too grand. What did he do to be granted such a gift when there were others far more deserving than he?
“Bale, you’ve grown so sad.” Ari lifted her head and frowned. “Why are you crying?”
“I do not cry.”
“Sweetie.” She wiped her thumb against his cheek and showed him the wet skin.
He glanced in the mirror and was stunned to see tears streaming from his eyes.
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