Page 67 of Bound

Eighteen

Iwould never sleep again if I got to have this,Slate thought as he rolled onto his back, careful not to dislodge his knot.I would stay awake for the rest of time to make sure I never missed a second.

Ruby made a shocked noise as she settled above him, as if she couldn’t believe his knot was really inside her. Then she braced her hands on his stomach, her hips moving in tiny motions against the knot.

He grabbed her hips, stilling them. “Careful. I will get hard again before we make it to the ward stone.”

“How awful,” Ruby teased. She rocked again, squirming against his hard hold.

Slate’s smile dimmed. The ritual was so close. Then she would be gone from him. He would visit, of course. But she would be gone so fast. Eighty years was barely a blink for a Skullstalker. No, she was almost thirty—onlyfiftyyears to go. The concept was indescribable.

Ruby dug her teeth into her lip. “You could anoint me while you’re still inside me. No need to stay soft.”

Slate’s anguish over her leaving vanished into lust as he imagined it: lying her out on the tiles, their bodies still joined as he smoothed blue oil over her naked chest.

“I could carry you,” he said slowly.

She nodded eagerly.

Slate gripped her thighs and stood. She yelped, the sound turning into a moan as his knot tugged at her inner walls.

“Gods,” she whispered. “That’s so good. I never knewanythingcould feel this good. I’m never going to get used to it.”

Slate stopped. He looked down just in time to see her pleased smile turn stiff.

“I mean,” she started. “It… will be difficult to settle for mortal men.”

Her words filled Slate with bitterness. For a moment, he almost wished the mortal had left him to his slumber. He could have slept another century and never known she existed. Instead, he would be left with an empty realm frequented only by lost souls he was bound to fail as the centuries passed.

Maybe there will be another mortal, he thought. The thought made his stomach curdle. There was no other mortal. Only Ruby. Ruby and her sweet, stubborn nature, her kindness and her curiosity, and her eager, tight cunt.

There would never be another. Slate had never loved before this. He would never love again. It was a harrowing realization to have when he was still inside her, his knot binding them together in the nest he had constructed around her while she slept.

“Slate?”

Slate startled. He had been making a low, mournful whine without realizing it.

He cut himself off and nodded. “I will take you to the anointing oil.”

He walked her there slowly, through every twisting hall she had started mapping out in those first few weeks.

She stayed silent, for the most part. A few whimpers when he readjusted her, a gasp or two when his hips twitched against his will. But mostly she was quiet, her cheek pressed into his chest and her hands on his shoulders.

Finally, Slate led them into the bathroom where he had first anointed her. The jar of blue liquid remained, with traces of liquid dried to the floor where they had dripped off her body.

Slate held her close, considering.

“Hold still,” he told her. Then he knelt and lowered her carefully to the floor, propping her hips up on his legs.

He leaned back. She looked delectable, laid out like this, with her hole stretched out around his knot.

He traced the place where they were joined, making them both hiss.

“Don’t get distracted,” she reminded him with a grin.

“Iwanted to go to the stone ward,” he replied. He took the jar and set it next to her head. Then he dipped his fingers to the hilt.

Ruby stayed still as he wound lines around her breasts, her navel, and her neck. She didn’t look away once, her breath slow and even as she watched him paint her. Slate couldn’t help but think back to the first time they had done this, her breath quick and panicked, how she had trembled under his touch.

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