Page 14 of Bound

Ruby cried out, grabbing onto his horns. “Gods!”

More sweet liquid rushed to meet his tongue. Slate lapped it up, dimly aware that his cock had not gone down like he had told it to when he realized she was too small to fit him. Instead, it was throbbing, evenleaking.Slate hummed in annoyance as he felt pearly liquid drip down his shaft and onto his swelling knot.

Ruby’s legs went rigid around him at the vibrations. Her hips bucked, her clit grazing the edge of his skull mask.

Ruby yelled. Another gush of liquid soaked Slate’s tongue, more copious than the last. Slate lapped at it, sucking it out of her hole with a narrow-minded determination he had not felt for an age. It filled his head like a spell, huge and intoxicating. For a moment, nothing mattered in any realm except making her tremble around his tongue.

Finally, Ruby sagged against the warding stone, a triumphant smile quivering on her face.

“Are you sure that didn’t work?” she panted. “It felt… effective.”

“I am sure,” he replied. “You must take my knot to renew the ward.”

He slipped a finger inside her. Ruby jerked, her heel bumping into his shoulder blades.

The first finger fit well. Thesecondfinger was a strain, and he could hear Ruby holding back a pained hiss.

So small,Slate thought. He wanted to be annoyed at her for offering herself up for a ritual she knew she couldn’t complete. But for some reason, he couldn’t muster the irritation.He watched her tight hole stretch around his fingers, her legs shaking with effort.

“I think…” Ruby swallowed. “How long will we do this? I don’t know if…”

She trailed off. He heard it anyway: mortals could not keep doing one thing for long. They neededrestandfoodandwaterall the time, like some baby Skullstalker whose skull mask was still soft and rubbery.

He sighed and stood, noticing with some surprise that his cock wasstillhard and leaking. He picked up his loincloth and knotted it over his erection.

“Come,” he said impatiently. “We can prepare more after you have rested. I assume you need rest?”

“Yes,” she said, sounding surprised. Her gaze darted down toward the bulge in his robes.

He willed his cock to go soft. It was a simple enough request. But it stayed stubbornly erect. It even spasmed, a tiny wet patch forming at the tip.

Ruby made a soft noise in her throat. “Are you sure you don’t want… anything else?”

Slate wanted little. He wanted to eat her. He wanted to be left alone. He wanted to rest. He wanted to take care of his void, though that got less important over the millennia. If a lost soul appeared, he sensed it, woke up, took care of it, and returned to his slumber. Easy.

Slate considered what she was offering. It would be pleasurable, letting her service him. And yet, there was something uncomfortable about being so driven by these desires. He had so few. Not to mention these desires transcended the physical; beyond his throbbing cock was a deep craving he could not name, a need deeper than hunger. He suspected that if he gave in to her, that nameless craving would only grow.

“No,” he told her.

“Oh.” Her legs came together, her brow wrinkling. “Alright.”

She rubbed her arms. Cold again, he realized, just like she had been when he anointed her. Were humansalwayscold? He could not fathom an existence of constant eating, drinking, sleeping, and warming oneself. How did they have time for anything else in their short existence?

“Come,” he said again, rolling his eyes. “I will take you somewhere warm.”

He took them to a bedroom. There were many in the castle, all of them covered in dust from centuries of disuse.

She ran her hand along a dusty coverlet and coughed, waving the puff of dust out of her face. “If you have this castle, why sleep in the forest?”

“It is more comfortable in the forest,” he replied, giving the bed a dismissive look. “No reasonable Skullstalker would bother sleeping onthat.”

“Right,” Ruby said distractedly. She stroked the coverlet again. For a moment, he thought she was brushing off the dust. Then he noticed the wonder in her eyes and remembered how small these mortal lives were. She had probably never been outside of her little town before, let alone her realm.

It made him feel…something, watching her stoke the soft material. He didn’t quite know what, but it was flickering warmly in his chest.

Ruby shivered again.

“It is notthatcold,” Slate argued. “Here, I will light a fire.”

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