Page 75 of Earth-Bound

“It’s sex!”

For a second, I was speechless. Then I had to ask, “Are we already mated? We’ve had sex—”

“No, I’d never mate you without your consent.” Terrund shuddered at the thought. “It’s just that a certain… exchange is required and then I must use my magic to seal the bond between us. Shifters bite their mate with a claiming bite, marking them physically – you might have noticed the scars on the witches – but the dryad mark their mate with their own unique flower, the ones that bloom on their skin when touched by their mate.”

“No shit,” I cried. “That flower tattoo on Dee’s neck was a mating bite?”

“It was a claiming mark. Not a bite.”

“And what do earth spirits do, Terrund? What will you do to me?”

Just the idea of Terrund claiming me as his had made my body start to react. I was excited to be claimed, wanted to belong to him. I knew that we’d only known each other for a few weeks but I- well, I loved him. I wanted to be his. And, if claiming me made that happen, I was up for it.

Terrund’s voice dropped lower and there was a decided amount of lust in the sound of it as he said, “I’ll put my mark on your chest. It will hardly be visible, but you and I will be able to feel it. You’ll feel our connection and I’ll be able to sense you anywhere, as long as you are in contact with the earth.”

I was already unbuttoning my shirt.

Terrund spluttered, “You want to do itnow?”

“Why not now? You want it, I want it, what’s the point in waiting?”

“It’s very sudden.” He said the words but there wasn’t much heat in them and I noticed he was eyeing my chest where I was still undoing the buttons, revealing my torso to him. I wanted his mark on it.

“What’s the big deal?”

“It’s permanent, Joe. You can neverunmate me. You have to be sure.”

“Iamsure.”

“I would prefer somewhere a little more private.”

Terrund was looking around us furtively and I glanced around, too. There was nobody around. Nobody near us. As far as I was concerned, we were good to go.

“I thought you liked the fields,” I said, teasing. “The grass and the earth… it’s a perfectly good place for us to mate.”

“It’s out in the open and broad daylight.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“I don’t- I’ve never—”

There was no doubt about it any longer, Terrund was definitely blushing. His cheeks were flushed and I was sure it was a combination of embarrassment and arousal. Sure enough, there was a significant bulge in those leggings. They showed me everything.

I reached for his dick automatically.

In that instant, I’d actually forgotten what we were talking about. I just knew that Terrund was hard and so was I and therefore we were going to have great fun getting off together. It meant I couldn’t work out why he grabbed my wrist and stopped me from touching him.

“Joe, I really think we need some privacy.”

“You were happy to do it out in the open the other day,” I pointed out.

“Yes, but that was… not our mating.”

“Fine, fine, if you want to go somewhere private, let’s go. But hurry up or I’m just going to jump you.”

Terrund turned and practically bolted across the fields towards the woods, where we’d been working the other day. And where I’d sucked him off. I grinned as I chased after him. I could go with that. In fact, I might mentally appoint itour place, and drag Terrund there often.

Chapter 31: Terrund

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