Page 23 of Branded By Shadow
“Say it!” he commanded as he slapped my ass, the sting sharp and shocking.
“I’m yours!” I screamed, a tidal wave of ecstasy already threatening to consume me whole.
When his hips stuttered and his breath hitched, I felt the change inside me. His grip on my hair tightened, holding me in place. The base of him began to swell, stretching me impossibly wider. The sensation teetered between pleasure and pain, the feeling of being completely filled, impaled, and possessed. He was locking us together, trapping himself inside me.
I should have wanted to be free of him. This was all a lie, all a scheme. But my body clenched around his knot, greedy for it. “Alpha…” I croaked out. “Damon…”
The knot expanded, stretching me around it, the burn sharp and exquisite. With a final growl, he spilled into me, pulse after pulse claiming me from the inside out.
My climax tore through me like lightning, wrenching a sound from my throat that didn’t sound like my own. The world narrowed to heat and heartbeat, his, mine, fused.
In that moment of absolute sensory overload, as my conscious mind shattered completely, the conservatory blurred and something shifted.
The moon-orchid that had ignored my command, gracefully, silently, unfurled.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t think. We were still locked together by his knot, the primal connection undeniable. In the quiet afterglow, as sensation slowly returned, the realization settled over me. I hadn’t made the flowers open. They had opened when I had let go. The key wasn’t to command. It was to surrender.
Damon stayed inside me, his breathing slowly evening out, the knot a constant, full pressure that was both a violation and a strange comfort. He lowered his body over mine, his chest pressed against my back, his weight a possessive blanket.
“Mine,” he murmured against my neck, the word a final brand. He stayed like that for what felt like an eternity, his scent enveloping me, the feeling of his seed trapped inside me a constant, visceral reminder of the claim.
Finally, the knot began to subside, a slow, reluctant release that felt like a tide going out, leaving an ache in its wake. He withdrew, and the feeling of emptiness he left behind made me shiver. He pulled me into his arms, gathering my trembling form against his chest. I let him, my body too spent to fight, my mind reeling with what I had discovered.
Damon’s fingers traced lazy patterns on my skin as he surveyed the transformed conservatory. Thick curtains of flowering jasmine now hung from the ceiling, their scent heavy and sweet. Flowers had bloomed out of season, a riot of impossible color in the gloom. “Look what you did,” he murmured, his voice rich with a satisfaction that grated on my raw nerves. “The beauty you’ve created.”
“I didn’t mean to,” I whispered, the words slipping out before I could stop them, a raw confession of my own lost control.
“Didn’t you?” He tilted my chin up with his thumb and forefinger, his grip gentle but firm, forcing me to meet his possessive gaze. “Or are you still pretending you don’t want this? That you don’t want me?”
“It’s not that simple,” I said, my voice shaking.
“It is exactly that simple, Cora.” He lowered his head, his lips brushing mine, a soft, claiming gesture that was somehow more intimate than the raw fucking had been. “Your body knows what your mind refuses to accept.”
I closed my eyes, letting a single, genuine tear of humiliation and terror spill down my cheek. “Yes.” The word was a poisoned surrender, a lie wrapped in the most profound truth. My body had responded, shamelessly and completely. During my heat, today, and every other day in between. But that changed nothing.
His thumb moved to my cheek, catching the tear with a tenderness that was utterly terrifying. While he basked in what he perceived as my emotional capitulation, my mind, sharp and cold, began to work.
He thought this was the end of the battle. He thought he had won. He had no idea that in the ashes of my surrender, I had found the one weapon that could win me the war. He had shown me the lock, and in his arrogance, he had just handed me the key.
The orchids had responded to me. Even when he’d fucked me against the tree, the bark had never once hurt me. The plants cared for me. They cared about me, in a way he never would.
For the first time since my abduction, I felt something far more potent than fear. It was a sharp, dangerous, and utterly consuming hope.
10
The Nest
Damon
A few days later
Cora was making a nest.
I stood at the conservatory’s entrance, watching her arrange blankets and cushions under the largest tree. The plants had grown wild since her powers awakened. Vines thick as my forearm climbed every wall, and the humidity made the air heavy enough to taste. She’d transformed the underground garden into a jungle.
Persephone herself would be proud.
“The plants respond to her beautifully.” Cassandra stood beside me, medical bag in hand. Her eyes tracked Cora’s movements with the focus she reserved for interesting cases. “Even they recognize what she is.”
