Page 7 of The Alpha's Warlock
“Yeah?” One fingertip dipped inside, and I squirmed, clutching the sheets and trying my damnedest not to slam my legs closed and try to get away. He didn't sound all that composed anymore, his voice hoarse and scratchy.
I swallowed hard. “Have you ever done this before?”
There was a long silence, and Ian's hand stayed where it was but stopped moving completely. The pillow was cool against my burning cheek, and I focused on that as much as I could, trying to ignore the way his thick, callused finger was still pressed inside me. It felt huge. I knew it was nothing compared to what I'd get next.
“I'm not going to hurt you,” was all he said at last. And then, in a grudging tone, “I know what I'm doing.”
“Yeah, not so much with the taking you at your word when you won't tell me —” My words died out in a cry as he suddenly pushed his finger in all the way to the knuckle and crooked it at the perfect angle, hitting my sweet spot with force. “Fuck,” I gasped. “Jesus fuck.”
“Told you.” Fucking smugasshole.
Ian didn't let up, just kept working me open and making me moan into the pillow, until I was biting down to stifle the humiliating sounds that kept on pouring out. How the hell he was so…damn…oh fuck…goodat this, I didn't know, but when he finally pulled his fingers out, I pushed my ass back, achingly empty.
He slid his hand around and stroked my cock — which was completely soft. His hand jerked back like I'd burned him. “Fuck, Nate.” He sounded gut-punched. “You're not even —”
“I can't,” I whispered into the pillow, and then started to laugh, or maybe sob, hysteria bubbling up. I was too fucked up from the drain on my magic for my body to get there. If I'd been myself, I'd have wanted to will any erection away, salve my pride by pretending I didn't and couldn't want him. It was too fucking ironic that the curse that was killing me was also letting me one-up Ian.
“Nate,” he said, sounding almost frantic now. “Nate, come on.” He slid his not-lubed hand under my cheek and turned my head out of the pillow, bending down to peer into my face. He was frowning, lines of worry between his eyebrows, his eyes feverishly bright. “If I'm hurting you, then this isn't going to —”
“Like you care,” I gasped. Even though, bizarrely, it seemed like he did. What the fuck was wrong with him? Was I so pathetic that even Ian felt sorry for me? Fuck that. “Just get it over with.”
“Fine,” Ian growled, and dropped my head back down so that it bounced on the bed. I squeezed my eyes shut against another wave of nausea.
I heard the slippery sounds of more lube, this time going on Ian, and then he was pressing into me, carefully but not slowly enough. I moaned, half pain and half…something that wasn't pain, something I didn't want to acknowledge. My head spun, from the curse, and the feeling of an enormous alpha cock filling me, and just fromeverything.
Too much of everything, all at once. My back bowed as I clawed at the sheets, and Ian stopped, all the way in, his supernaturally warm and heavy body pushing me down. I felt like I was about to fly apart, or maybe split in half. Fuck, but the rumors about alphas werereally not exaggerated.
And then Ian started to move, and I lost the plot completely. It was an overwhelming blur of curse-induced dizziness and Ian thrusting so hard I shifted up the bed, his hands anchoring my hips hard enough to bruise, and finally, impossibly, Ian's cock gettinglarger.
It was his knot, swelling up and forcing me open. It hurt. But it was the kind of pain that could have been something more, if I'd only been able to do more than lie there and take it, if I'd been anywhere close to normal. It grew and grew, and Ian's hips pounded into my ass, and I jolted with each thrust, my whole body strung as tense as a stretched rubber band.
I'd never been so full, and the pressure kept mounting. I scrabbled for leverage, but my whole body slid up the bed as I squirmed, helpless. I opened my eyes. Nothing but white sheets, and the wood-paneled wall, blurred in my watery sight.
“Are you ready?” he growled from somewhere above me. “I'm going to do it, hold on.”
He leaned down and set his mouth against my shoulder, pressing what could have been a kiss into my skin — probably not — before I felt the scrape of fangs. I tried to pull away, instinctively needing to escape from the apex predator with his teeth right by my jugular, but he took one hand off my hip and planted it between my shoulder blades, pinning me down onto the bed.
And then he bit, a throbbing, stinging pain that jolted through me like lightning and spread out along every nerve. I screamed, and my lungs burned. Every muscle and tendon tightened and tightened — I was going to fly into pieces, oh gods his knot was so fucking huge and his teeth were still clamped in my flesh and — I felt the magic of the bond snap into place, the rushing uncontrolled flow of my power diverted and pooling between us rather than emptying into the ether.
It felt like being plunged deep into a cool lake at the height of summer, soothing and refreshing and invigorating and terrifying all at once. I couldn't breathe, but I didn't care. I drifted, letting go of it all.
Chapter 6
The Honeymoon’s Over Already?
I woke up.
That was noteworthy on its own, because I'd been convinced I wasn't going to make it — that the drain on my magic was too much, and the mate bond wouldn't happen in time to save me.
So I luxuriated for a few minutes, enjoying unexpectedly being alive. I ached, starting with the stinging bite on my shoulder and ending with the throbbing between my legs, but that was fine. I was alive to ache.
And as I started to adjust to consciousness a little, I realized I wasn't hurting nearly as much as I'd have thought. My magic really was connected to Ian's, now. I might be mated to Ian — oh, fuck, I was actually mated toIan, and now I was seriously wide awake — but at least I was also mated to Ian's super-speed werewolf healing. I wouldn't recover as quickly as he would have, but it'd be at least twice as fast as a normal human.
I rolled over in bed and blinked. The shack of solitude was quiet, with that echoing stillness that comes with the absence of other people. I reached out a tiny bit with my magical senses, careful not to overdo it, and couldn't feel him in the house or the immediate vicinity. I stretched a little more, following the filament of energy that now connected us. It took a minute to interpret what I was feeling, but then the information began to flow into me, forming concrete impressions.
He was alive, and he was somewhere within a few miles of me, and he was in a bad mood.
Well, what the fuck else was new.
