Page 45 of Claimed By the Mothman
He didn’t answer right away. Just kept staring at his hands around the mug. She remembered how those same claws had gripped her as he—
Stop it, Nell.Stopit.She wasn’t sure if she was going to cry or climb across the table and ruin both their lives.
“It depends on the Harbinger,” he said, voice nearly a whisper. His wings gave a slow, involuntary flutter.Click.“And the lingering. A bond claim is not meant to hover without landing for long.”
Her chest ached. “And you did this anyway?”
Ruby-red eyes snapped to hers.
Her breath caught. She saw him as he’d been the day before, towering over her, glowing with heat and violence and need. Her body recognized it before her mind could catch up. Her thighs clenched and her nipples peaked andoh gods above what is wrong with me—
“I just—” Her voice cracked. “I don’t understand what happened. I don’t understand what we did last night—”
A pulse of heat rolled through her pelvis and she gasped. Her grip tightened on the cup and memory hit—his mouth on her throat, the grasping of his fingers, the way her body had opened for him like it had been waiting for just that moment.
Sig’s hands slammed down flat on the table with a loud, jarringthud. His fingers splayed, claws digging into the wood, anchoring himself. He inhaled sharply. Shuddered.
Neither of them moved for a long moment.
“What occurred yesterday… was an aberration.” The muscles in his jaw jumped, and a flicker of something dangerous flashed in his expression. “It is not unheard of for such an event to follow the act of claiming.”
Heat surged low in Nell’s belly, traitorous and sharp. Her thighs pressed together beneath the table, pulsing slowly with want and need. Just her body reacting to someshitwith no permission from her brain whatsoever.
All the gods above, I am about to leap his bones. Think of something unsexy. Tax season. The DMV. Raw chicken breast pooling on a plate.
Nothing worked. She was drowning in the memory of his mouth, his voice, the way he'd held her like she belonged to him.
“As you may have discovered in your research,” Sig said, each word sounding like it was pulled unwillingly from his chest, “claims are not made without courtship. And so…an event such as last night…would be considered… expected.” A pause. “Even welcome.”
Her whole body buzzed.Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck.
“But,” he said, voice lower now, almost broken, “there has been no courtship. And so this is… unprecedented.”
The word hung between them like a guillotine blade. They were breathing too loudly now. Both of them. Not quite panting, but close. The table was too small. The room too warm. Her skin too tight.
Nell cleared her throat, trying to ground herself. “So now what? I have to accept the bond or we’re just in this liminal space?”
“You may also reject it,” he said after a moment in a voice rougher than sandpaper. “It is not a chain.”
“What if I just reject it right now—”
A low, grinding pressure snapped through her ribs like an invisible rope pulled too tight. She stumbled back from the table, her chair scraping loudly behind her. Her vision went white-hot at the edges.
The opal ring on her finger flared with sudden heat—tightening, tightening, like it wanted to burrow into her bone.
Her lungs seized. Her knees buckled. Everything went dark for a second, and when her vision cleared, she was on the floor, breath heaving. The tea mug lay shattered beside her, its contents blooming like across the floor.
A soft trill filled the room. Sig crouched over her. His hand hovered just above her shoulder, not quite touching, but close. Too close. His entire body was vibrating with restraint. And his eyes—those terrible, beautiful,terrifiedeyes—were fixed on her like she might disappear if he looked away.
“That was the Lustrum, wasn’t it?” Nell whispered.“If I reject the bond, those doors decide it’s open season on me?”
“I do not know for certain,” Sig said hoarsely. “But yes. It is possible.”
“Possible,” she echoed, shaking. Her voice cracked at the end, and that only pissed her off more.
“The Lustrum has tasted you, and now it is curious.” He paused. “If you do not bond with me, it may return. The ritual was interrupted. I acted out of instinct, not—”
“Great,” she barked, cutting him off. “So I’m just fucked either way. Good to know.”
