by Aidy Award
He found the nu-skin hypo-spray and gave her cleaned wounds a quick burst. It gave him a second to formulate how to tell her exactly how stupid he’d been.
“I should have trusted my instincts and the Fates when it came to you. I could have rescued you from that place the first time we met and instead I turned my back on you. I have failed you as a mate from the second we met, and my soul ember practically exploded trying to tell me we were meant to be together. I am sorry and ask for your forgiveness even though I don’t deserve it at all.”
She thought about his words for a minute and he hoped she understood how ashamed he was. He wouldn’t blame her even a little if she wanted nothing to do with him.
No way he would let her stay mad forever though. His lion was already forming plans on how to woo and court her.
Sometimes, the animal part of him was a whole hell of a lot smarter than his Honese side.
Tia crossed her arms, then uncrossed them, looked away, then back at him. She frowned and wrinkled her nose.
It was killing him to wait while she waged this battle in herself. Hate him or forgive him.
Please, Fates, let her forgive him.
“I didn’t even think you were real.”
Her admission was a feeling he could relate to, some common ground. Not forgiveness, but a way to start communicating. “I never expected to find my true mate either.”
“No. I mean. I thought you were a hallucination.” She cleared her throat. “I used to dream of you.”
Fed’s lion practically purred at that statement. “What did we do in these dreams?”
Great, dumbass. That’s the way to get her to trust. Insinuating she’d had naughty dreams about him was the last thing he should have said.
Tiaret got a far-off look in her eye. “Run. In wide open fields.” She reached out like she could touch the ruminations of her mind. “Sometimes through a forest. You would chase me. I liked the ones best when you caught me.”
The way she so sweetly admitted to that surprised him an had a major effect on his libido. Maybe he wasn’t as dumb as he thought. “Did you, then? What would happen when I caught you?”
A pretty pink rose across her cheeks. He’d seen this happen in some of the other Earth witches. Black had told him it meant either that the woman was embarrassed or sexually aroused. Which was it for his witch?
Fates above, let it be aroused. That he could work with. He could show her with his body how sorry he was for being an ass.
“Umm.” She turned her face from him.
Damn. Embarrassed. Except she squirmed, and the scent of her need hit him so hard that he went from aware of her as his mate to instantly erect and ready to tackle her to the bed.
He couldn’t do that. This needed to be about her and fulfilling her needs before his own. She was both nervous and turned on. That wasn’t something he’d seen on a woman since...
Fuck.
If he wasn’t so Fates-damned focused on what his dick wanted, he’d have thought about her background. According to Ash and Kady, she’d been imprisoned by the TFO, and before that kept by dark witches.
When in there had he thought she could have possibly lost her virginity?
That’s right.
Never.
She hadn’t.
The primitive alpha male part of him thought that was the best news ever. His mate would only ever be with him, know only his body. No one else had ever or would ever touch her.
Hell, yeah. He was such an asshole, but he loved knowing she was his and his alone.
Fed set the hypo down and very gently caressed one finger along her newly healed skin. He needed to go very slow, and make sure she wanted every single thing he was going to do with her. He could at least do this one thing right.
Her chest rose and fell faster than before, and she stared down at where he touched her. “Fed.”
His name sounded amazing coming from her lips. Had she really never said it before now? It wasn’t like they’d had proper introductions. He certainly wasn’t going to tell her was the crown prince of Honaw right at this moment.
“Mah wah, I haven’t been the mate you deserve, but if you’ll allow me, I swear on the House of Semper that I will do everything in my power to make it up to you, protect you, and take care of you.”
“Kady said she would tell me what it meant that I was your mate. But we didn’t get around to talking about it. Are we supposed to get married? Do I have your children? What’s happens next?”
Have his children. Fed’s gut felt as if he’d been sucker punched. He could hardly breath imagining her belly round with his child.
He moved from the spot kneeling in front of her to sit on the cot beside her just to get a moment to get his body under control.
That wasn’t his smartest decision. Now, it wasn’t just his hand on her leg. His entire right side was pressed against her left. His arm to hers, his leg to hers.
“Earth’s mating customs are quite different from my home. We don’t usually have a ceremony when we mate.” Unless of course there was also a crowning. She didn’t need to know that. “It’s more about the couple, uh, coming together.”
“Sex.” She said it so matter of fact. There was no trepidation or fear.
That was good. “In part. The mating ritual is as old as our people. First, I will mark you.”
He reached up and ran the backs of his knuckled across the crook of her neck. A trail of light sparkled where he touched her.
Her skin was unbelievably soft and if the urge to bite her there wasn’t so damn strong, he’d wouldn’t. He hated to mar her porcelain throat with his mark.
His lion didn’t agree. He wanted to bite her now, see the bruise he would create, his teeth marks, and then watch the magic happen as it transformed into the golden mark of a royal lion.
Anyone who saw her would know immediately that she belonged to him. If she let him.
“Ahh.” She let out a soft sigh and leaned into his touch. “Your touch makes me tingle inside.”
Yes. It did the same to him. If tingle meant a raging torrent of lust and need. That he would control no matter what. “I want to kiss you, but I don’t want to scare you, sweet Tia.”
She looked up at him and touched his face. “I’m not scared of you.”
“But you have no experience in what I want to do to you.” He corrected himself. “With you.”
“I know what sex is. I may be inexperienced, but I’m not completely naïve.”
A low growl from his lion rumbled through his chest. Had he been wrong? “Have you been with a man?”
“No.”
Thank the Fates. Unless— “Have you been with a woman?”
She frowned, and her eyes wandered around the room, processing his question. “Oh. No. I’ve only been with myself.”
Holy shit. Fed’s brain exploded and every bit of blood in his body drained down, rushing toward his cock. She had touched herself to find her own pleasure.
He swallowed hard. “How did you learn to do such things with yourself, about sex at all?”
“Books.” She brushed past his concerns like that was how every twenty-something got their sexual education. “What happens after you mark me? Do I do the same to you?”
He would relish having her teeth sink into his flesh. “You can if you feel compelled to, but it doesn’t matter if you do or not. I will already belong to you.”
He did now.
“How will I know what to do? This isn’t like in the books.”
“You simply do what your body wants. You’ve already figured some of it out when you touch yourself. The rest, I will show you if you’ll let me.”
Tia shifted and tucked her legs under her, kneeling on the bed beside him. “What if I want to, if my body wants to do this?”
She leaned forward and softly pressed her lips to his. A blue glow filled the sleeping bay, not from his ember this time, but from her.
Heat from a thousand super novae coursed through hi
s veins with the simplest of kisses from her. His own soul burned white hot but was cooled by her tiny whimper of pleasure.
He closed his eyes and pushed his fingers into her hair to hold her close and deepen the kiss. She sighed, parting her lips and he lightly swept the tip of his tongue across her bottom lip.
She breathed against his mouth. “More. Do more of that, please.”
Anything she wanted. This time he pressed his tongue into her mouth and inhaled her sweet taste. She learned quickly and soon her tongue was touching and tasting him. They dueled and danced that way and he hadn’t gotten so much pleasure out of deeply kissing a woman ever.
He could go on like his with her forever. She broke the kiss way before he was ready.
“Did I do that right?”
He chuckled. “Yes. But we’d better do it again just to make sure.”
“Wait. Will you do that, kiss me with your tongue, between my legs now? That’s the part in the books I like the most.”
She blinked her eyes and in an instant their clothes had disappeared in a flash of light, and they were both stark naked.
Fates help him.
His eyes wandered over her body. Her tits were full and plump, with nipples he wanted so badly to suck on, he had to bite the inside of his cheek. She had lush, soft curves, a rounded belly that was perfect for carrying his babies. Her hips were ample, so he had something to hold onto as he took her from behind or to guide her as she rode him. He could hardly wait to see and lick every part of her perfect ass.
“We shouldn’t move too fast. I don’t—” In another second he was going to have to set her away from him and go take about fifty laps around the town to work off this sexual energy. He did not want to hurt her with his own enthusiasm for her and her body.
What a fucking body.
She shook her head. “You said before that you didn’t think you’d ever find a mate. Yeah, well, me either.”
She stared first at his lips and then into his eyes. He could get lost in her gaze. “Not even in my dreams did I dare to hope I would be allowed out from under Omega’s control, much less meet a man who made me feel like you do. So, I don’t want to wait. I don’t want to take it slow. I want to do all of the sex things. I want to feel and be free. Will you do that for me?”
Eight: Claimed
Her question hung between them for far too long. She’d never asked for something she wanted before. Not anything that wasn’t a basic necessity like food or water.
She’d learned very early how to provide for herself. This wasn’t a need she had any control over.
Fed had made himself vulnerable to her in a way she could tell he wasn’t used to doing. He wanted her forgiveness. She didn’t even know if she knew what that meant.
Everything that had happened since that first moment she saw him in the underbelly of Omega was new and strange. All these feelings, these new wants, the fact that she was allowed to ask for anything, it was all uncomfortable.
The only time any of it felt right was when she was here with him.
He thought she was angry with him. Why would she be? Because he wanted justice for the death of his family? That she could understand. She wanted that for her own parents.
Until her sisters and their mates, she completely blamed herself perpetuating a horrible evil that had taken away so many lives. It was still hard to accept that it wasn’t her responsibility.
No. She wasn’t angry with him. Not anymore than she was with herself.
Fed twirled a strand of her hair between his fingers and took a long breath. “I would love nothing more than to help you let all the passion inside of you free, if you’re sure that’s what you want from me.”
“I’m positive. I want nothing to do with my old life. You’re my future. I’m sure that’s why I’ve been dreaming about you for so long.”
“You are a dream I didn’t even know I had, sweet Tia.” He pulled her body in close to his and kissed her again.
She loved the press of his body against hers, but she wanted more. “Please, Fed. Make me yours. Mark me like you said and make me your mate.”
A low rhythmic rumbling sound came from his throat and he moved his mouth down her throat, scraping his teeth over her skin. A surge of magic shot through her awakening every part of her and new pieces in her soul she didn’t know existed until now.
“Oh, yes. Do that. I like how that feels.” Like didn’t even come close to how she felt, but she couldn’t come up with better words. Her brain wasn’t working right.
“You make it hard to control myself.”
“Then don’t. Be wild, be free with me.” Like the lion in her dreams. Even saying that didn’t get her all that she wanted. Until she showed him that she meant it, he wouldn’t let go with her, and that’s all she wanted.
He’d said he would mark her and that if she wanted to, she could mark him too, that she only needed to listen to her body.
What she could do to put her mark on him? One idea played through her imagination. She placed her fingertips over the same place on his neck where he’d put his mouth and stroked his skin, feeling his pulse.
They rhythmic rumble from him got louder with each pass of her fingers and beat of his heart. She’d never heard anything like this sound of pleasure from him. If he liked her touching him there, she would try kissing him there too.
Tia grasped his head between her hands and extracted herself from his ministrations. “Let me.”
His eyes grew dark and sparkled at her making her want to play out her fantasy even more. Tia lowered her lips to his throat and kissed him in the same way as he had her.
“Do you like that too?” she whispered.
“Fates, yes, Tia. Don’t stop there. Bite me.”
How had he known that was what she’d wanted to do? She thought it would shock him to think of marking him with her teeth.
Her mouth was suddenly dry, and she had to lick her lips. He groaned when she did.
“Do it, mah wah. Mark me so everyone knows I too belong to you.”
She wanted that more than anything. He was her lion. Hers.
She bent her head again and nipped at his skin. His hips jerked, and his breath shuttered. She did it again, harder this time and he wrapped his hands into her hair and held her mouth to him. His response gave her the courage to go all in.
With one final breath, she gripped his skin between her teeth and bit down until his flesh gave way and she tasted his blood.
“Fuck, Tia. Yes.” The amulet around his neck lit up and poured its light into his body and then flooded into hers.
Her own soul responded in kind, letting its pale blue energy join with his brilliant gold and wash over them both.
The magic had always felt cold to her, but mixed with his, it wasn’t. He made her warm and peaceful.
Tia lifted her mouth and licked the tiny wound she’d given him. The shimmer of their soul magic swirled over the bite mark and turned it from dark and bruised to a mass of blue and gold, and as it settled like ink soaking into his skin, the form of a lioness emerged.
“Amazing.” Fed said the word out loud at the same time as Tia thought it in her mind. Then he pushed her back on the bed and covered her body with his.
“My turn.” His eyes still glowed from the magic and Tia was mesmerized by him.
“Yes. Mark me too so everyone knows I belong to you.” She mirrored his words from before so there would be no mistake that she wanted this.
Fed nipped and teased her skin like she had done to him. Every touch sparked a new light in her soul. When he finally bit down her body exploded with pleasure and she cried out his name.
“Fed, yes. Yes.”
She gasped in huge breaths trying to find her equilibrium again. When had she even closed her eyes?
When she opened them again, he was staring down at her with a look that made her heart feel all gooey in her chest.
“That is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. You are so
fucking perfect.”
That goo in her chest melted into a big puddle and warmed her from the inside out. “Can we do that again?”
Fed smiled and brushed his lips across hers, “No, the marking is done, but I’m hoping you’ll enjoy the claiming part too. Spread your legs for me. I promise to be as gentle as I can.”
She’d read this part over and over in the two books she’d found that had love stories. In one, when they joined it had hurt for the woman. In the other it had been quite the opposite. She hoped it would be the latter.
Fed reached between them and stroked his fingers first along the inside of her thigh, and then across the sensitive folds between her legs.
“Is this where you have touched yourself?”
“Yes.” But it hadn’t felt as good as what he was doing right now. “There’s a spot at the top that—”
His thumb found that sensitive spot and swirled around and around it. “I know, my sweet. I promise after I have made you come for me with my hands, I will give you that kiss between your legs you asked for, right here, too.”
He continued to rub her and two of his fingers caressed her lower, finding the entrance to her body. “Tell me if anything hurts. Okay?”
She nodded and simply couldn’t find the breath to respond. Her lungs were already working overly fast to keep up with the beating of her heart.
He slid one finger into her and then a second, slowly pushing in and out, deeper with each touch. Not once did he take his eyes from hers, not even when the light lifted off her skin and danced across his body and through the air around them.
Her muscles wound tighter and tighter, well beyond anything she’d done to herself. “Fed, I need...I don’t know. Please. I need you.”
“I know, you’re almost there. Let your desire take you over.”
He took her lips in another kiss, his tongue mimicking the motion of his fingers. In and out, caressing and teasing, until she was wound so tight, she thought she would snap.
He whispered into her ear. “Now, my sweet. Let go. Come for me.”
