Page 68 of Snag
He thrusts into me from behind, fully sheathing himself.
I scream, only partially muffled by the bedding.
I don’t intend to. I don’t want to. I’ve never been a screamer, not in any situation. But it’s torn from me.
The gryphon controlling Rought’s body holds me down and fucks into me, pounding thrusts. It should hurt. It should be too much. But I take it, absorbing it. He bottoms out against my cervix, and I usually don’t like that. But every inch of him going in and out of every inch of me is fucking glorious.
Because something else is shifting between us now. Beyond the primal claim that the gryphon is obviously enacting, and which I’m most uncharacteristically allowing.
All the essence that poured through me comes surging back now, doubled in intensity. Swollen, robust, as if my essence reached out and collected streams of extra energy — from the intersection point and from the gryphon.
That essence floods into me, filling me. The pink diamond that has fallen on the bed beside me blazes with it. The purple of my eyes is reflected from the walls, as it seemed to light up the clouds above the estate when I claimed the intersection point.
Absorbing every joule of that energy, I press down intothe bed with my hands and forearms. I arch my back against the gryphon’s firm hold. He gives into my press, either ceding it willingly or unable to force me back down without hurting me.
I lift my head, realizing that we’re reflected in the tall mirror on the back of the partially open closet door. I moan at the sight of the two of us. Rought all golden-skinned, taut muscle, and tattoos thrusting into me from behind. The golden gaze of the gryphon fixed to me, flicking between the mirror and down to where we’re joined. And me on my hands and knees with the necklace swinging forward from my neck. My breasts, no matter that they’re small, bounce with each thrust. And my eyes …
My eyes aren’t my eyes anymore. Purple nebulas of sheer power practically swamp my face.
As if the universe is gazing through me and into this moment.
I press my hands and forearms against the bed, then start meeting the gryphon pounding into me from behind, thrust for thrust.
It quickly becomes too much to hold, all that energy, all this pleasure. Too much to contain. My body convulses with it — pleasure and pain crashing through me. That mind-altering combination crests, then tumbles over into sheer pleasure. My eyes close. I lose control of my limbs.
The gryphon snags me around the ribs, right where he held me with the soul bond, and pulls me back against his chest. He bites the junction where my neck meets my shoulder, but through the bliss I’m riding, I feel no pain.
Essence twists and snaps all around us — I’m feeding into him, and he into me.
He thrusts into me once more, stiffens, and stills.He growls into my neck, into the bite. His hips stutter as he comes.
My heart pounds against my chest. My head feels light. And completely, blessedly empty.
The gryphon slowly withdraws his teeth from my shoulder. He hasn’t broken the skin, though I might bruise. Then he holds me aloft, limp in his arms with his face pressed to my neck, even as his cock slowly softens inside me.
As if he can’t bear to let me go.
I groan quietly in protest when he finally slides out of me, accompanied by a gush of come. But he just gathers me up into his arms, resettles us on the bed, and curls tightly around me.
Mate, he whispers in my mind.Mine.
I shiver from the press of that psychic touch, but I’m too fucking blissed out, too utterly content to worry about him apparently now having unfettered access to my mind.
We’ve fully bonded, I realize, with that immense exchange of essence. The demigod inhabiting my soul-bound mate must have telepathic abilities. Maybe fully realized only now, brought forth with the exchange of power, because he spoke out loud before, however begrudgingly.
“Mine.” I voice my claim on him out loud, overwhelmingly possessive about a connection I never thought I’d have, never even dreamed of having. “Mate.”
I understand that all of this — the soul bonds, the demigod mates — might simply be an extrapolation of being the Conduit. Of holding an intersection point. I understand that I’m still not really a person who is allowed desires and whims. Lovers. Anyone who I might place above my duty to the universe … but …
“My aunt didn’t have soul-bound mates,” I whisper.Maybe my aunt’s reality and everything she taught me, everything she made me become, doesn’t hold true for me. Me, Zaya, as the Conduit now.
Maybe this moment is just for me to savor, to celebrate. A gift from a fickle and capricious universe.
The gryphon’s chest rumbles behind me. It’s not a purr. More of a rattling coo. But with that gentle comfort vibrating against my back, I’m asleep before I form another thought.
NINE
RATH
