Page 43 of Faeling
“You will,” he insisted, “you were made to take me. My hellion. My mate. You’re mine.”
His words kept time with his incessant pace, his finger sliding in and out of her cunt to wet her thighs as his thumb drove her mad. He nuzzled her temple and neck as she panted and wordlessly begged for more.
“Tell me. Tell me you’re mine.”
“Yes!” she howled. “Yes yesyesyes!”
Ravenna burst. Everything she was and knew came apart at the seams, unravelling her. He overwhelmed her, his fingers, his big body, his words all conspired to push her past limits. She was lost to him and the orgasm he claimed, body frozen in a rictus of pleasure so acute, she forgot to breathe.
Shethrobbed,her cunt clutching him tighter even than her hands in his mane. He coaxed wave upon wave, unrelenting, until spots danced around the edges of her vision. His purr buzzed against her chest, teasing her sensitive nipples, prolonging—
—unicorns screaming—salt burned her tongue—the smell of iron and blood—water in her nose—you’re mad, you know—maman—
—the pleasure until she just couldn’t bear it.
Ravenna gasped, senses failing her. She saw and heard and smelled nothing but him—he was all she knew as her orgasm and vision bled into one. Pleasure mixed with a hurt so deep, it seared her soul.
When both released her, she slumped to the bed in relief.
The world around her swam as the sweat cooled on her skin.
For a singular moment, Ravenna lay still. For a moment, she lay in the arms of herazai,safe and satisfied.
Then, one by one, her realities came back to her.
She gasped again, this time in horror.What have I done?
Sitting up, she pushed his hand away, wincing at how her own slick gushed down her legs. Worse was how she ached for him, immediately bereft without his touch. Still she retreated, flinging herself from the bed.
“Ravenna!” he called after her.
But she didn’t stop. Only drew her arms around herself, her linen robe loose about her shoulders.
She stopped only when she made it to the den, to the chair she’d placed by the window. Into it she climbed, drawing her knees up to her chest.
What have I done? What have I done?
11
Vallek…might need a new strategy. That assumed he’d had one to begin with, which he couldn’t truly say he did, but after the unmitigated disaster of the previous night, whatever he’d thought the plan was clearly needed to go.
The haunted way she looked at him…he wore it as a wound on his soul.
Everything had felt so good, so right; feeling her hot, lithe body in his arms as she came apart fulfilling a very male, very ancient need in him. Nothing had ever satisfied him the way witnessing her glorious climax did. He wanted it again. Forever. Would’ve made her come on his hand all night if she hadn’t pushed him away.
But sheranfrom him. Literally ran away.
His ownmate.
It was a dagger to his pride, and for long moments afterwards, he’d sat alone in his bed, stunned silent. Her slick cooling on his hand, his cock still throbbing in the confines ofhis trou, his mind hadn’t been able to comprehend what’d just happened. Where he went wrong.
Pursuing her into the den hadn’t yielded any answers. If anything, it only made everything worse. Seeing her curled up on that chair, looking for all the world like a wounded animal and at him like he was the very hunter who’d hurt her, had shriveled up his lust faster than cold water and thoughts of his granddam.
He didn’t know what was wrong, but he didn’t need to ask to know she wouldn’t tell him. With how she looked at him, he thought he’d be lucky if she ever spoke to him again.
Vallek hadn’t known what to do. His beast whined inside him, a desperate, clammy feeling overcoming him as he hurried to fetch her a cloth to clean herself and then his coverlet to wrap round her. She sat there stiffly, not moving at all, and Vallek could think of nothing to say.
He retreated alone to his bedchamber, convinced that while he might have won their sparring, goading her with his talk of wives, he also may have lost something far more important.
