Page 49 of Branded By Shadow
I spun her around. She felt impossibly fragile in my arms, a negligible weight for a man of my strength. How could someone so frail hold so much defiance? The question haunted me, clawing at my consciousness. The shadows in my mind screamed, a chorus of dark urges that demanded I shatter her then and there.
I refused to let them get to me. When I forced her down, I didn’t let her fall. Instead, I supported her back, guiding her to the stone. Her gasp echoed in the amphitheater as her skin met the unforgiving surface.
Her hands flew to my chest, not to push me away, but to hold on, to find an anchor in the storm. Her eyes, wide and glazed, darted toward the terraced seating, toward the hundreds of silent observers.
“Don’t look at them,” I snarled. “Look only at me.”
She didn’t answer, so I took my own answer from her body. I crushed my mouth to hers, reminding her whom she belonged to. There was no seduction in the act, only the raw finality of a brand being seared into flesh. When I bit her lower lip, I tasted both blood and desire, and I knew she needed me as much as I needed her.
Breaking away, I moved between her thighs. She was already trembling, her skin flushed, her auburn hair clinging to her cheeks in sweaty strands. She was far more beautiful than any of those Aphrodite Omegas could ever be.
I positioned myself at her entrance, the head of my cock pressing against her wet heat. The scent of her arousal was a thick, intoxicating cloud that threatened to shatter me.
In one swift, brutal motion, I buried myself inside her.
Her back arched off the stone. She cried out, a sharp, ragged sound that was half pain, half pleasure. Her inner muscles clenched around me, a tight, desperate grip that sent a tremor through my entire frame. The sensation was a raw shock to my system, a pleasure so sharp it almost felt like a weapon turned against me.
“Alpha,” she gasped, her nails digging into the flesh of my shoulders. The single word was both a plea and a brand.
I forced a slow, deliberate rhythm into my hips. Every muscle in my body screamed to pound into her, to find a frantic release in the heart of her heat. But I denied it, grinding the primal urge into submission with each measured stroke. The drag of my cock against her slick tightness was a torment I craved, a self-inflicted punishment that kept my mind sharp.
With every slow movement, the pleasure fed the darkness inside me. Deep in my core, the Shadow Realm erupted.Yes,it hissed, a chorus of ancient whispers invading my mind.So much life. So much warmth. Feed her to us.
It cackled and reached for her with greedy, insubstantial hands. I could feel its hunger, a ferocious, empty thing that could never be sated. It wanted to rush forward, to use me as a conduit to consume her.
But Cora had trusted me, and I would die before I let the void touch her.
“Damon...” Cora sobbed, oblivious. “Please...”
“Please what?” I growled, my own voice sounding distant, strained. I was fighting a war on two fronts against my own need to possess her, and the Realm’s desire to devour her.
“Faster,” she begged, arching against me, shamelessly seeking the friction her biology demanded.
The sound of her voice, so broken and needy, was both my anchor and the ultimate temptation. “You want faster?” I growled. “Then beg for it properly.”
Shifting my weight, I found the hard pearl of her clit with my thumb. I pressed down, and the simple motion sent a fresh wave of her slickness coating my length.
“Please,” she repeated, trying to buck against my hand, my cock. “Alpha, please... I can’t... Not in front of them...”
Her shame was a wine I could taste on the air, a delicacy that fed my possessive nature. “You can,” I commanded, holding her hips fast. “You will. You’ll break for me, and they will all watch.”
I increased the pace of my thrusts, matching the merciless rhythm of my thumb. As I watched her unravel, her breath caught in ragged cries, every fiber of her being lost in her pleasure. She was right on the edge, prepared to shatter, all because of me. Because of us.
Her scent thickened, her inner walls pulsed frantically against me. But just as she was about to break, I stopped moving completely.
With my cock buried deep inside her, I held her there, suspended in that agonizing moment just before release. A broken, frustrated cry left her throat as her orgasm dissolved, denied at the last possible second. “No. Why?”
The question was a raw, wounded thing, but I gave her no quarter. Instead, I pulled out of her. “Because there is nothing of yours that does not belong to me, Cora. Isn’t that right?”
“I don’t... I don’t understand,” she stammered, confusion warring with the lingering haze of her denied pleasure.
“You don’t need to.” I turned her over, gripping her hips, forcing her onto her hands and knees. “You just need to obey. Say it. Nod for them. ‘I belong to you.’”
She hesitated, the slight tremor in her lips a fragile sign of the war being fought inside her. I leaned in closer, my voice dropping to a merciless whisper. “Say it.”
“I... belong to you,” she choked out, giving a small, jerky nod for the silent, watching audience.
Her verbal submission was the final key. The whispers of the Shadow Realm returned, sensing my dark intent.Hurt her. Break her. Give her to us.
