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Letting go of me, Jules sat up.

“Bunny?” he asked me in his deep forest god voice. The kind of voice that woke my body to his. “Can I…?”

“Can you what?”

“I want to sit on you,” he whispered, his face flushing with embarrassment.

“Baby, yes! Of course.” Offering him my hand, I helped him climb on top of me.

“You can always…ride…me, oh fuck,” I growled the words, desperately holding on as he sank down on my cock and started to move. Like a stubborn bull that he was intent on taming, he rode me. His slick hole gripping my dick while my crown pegged his prostateannihilatedme.

We came way too fast and with inhuman groans.

“Bunny,” he whimpered, collapsing forward into the puddle of his cum on my abs. I hugged him to me.

“Are you alright, baby boy?”

“Yes. It wasso intense. For you, too?“ he breathed.

I tried to contain my feelings but couldn’t. I laughed so hard I cried.

“Oh my God, Jules. I’m sorry. I swear I’m not laughing at you.” Another fit of giggles made me snort. “Baby boy, you made me come in five minutes flat looking so fucking sexy and so hot. Yeah, it was intense.” I heaved a big sigh. “You make me so happy, Jules.”

Forty-seven

Jules

Iloveyou,Jules.

Nikolai’s words were like warm honeyed wine that slid down my throat and warmed my insides.

Let me get drunk on your love, Bunny.

When he left me this time, it hurt more than ever before. Maybe making love was the most crucial part of the mate bond? For a couple of hours, I worried that we had accidentally forged it—unknown to either of us. But there had been no blood when I had cleaned myself afterwards. And I had kept my magic locked away. I’d practiced keeping it tamped down to such an extent that I didn’t even transform my body anymore.

Without having a destination in mind, I arrived by the stream that snaked its way through my land. A flat, mossy boulder was one of my favourite thinking spots. I sat there and observed the frogs and salamanders, the tiny water birds, and Barnabas, who played in a shallow pool above a small waterfall.

When we mate, it will be with the knowledge and consent of both of us.

Why did his absence hurt so much, like I was missing a chunk of myself, then?

Is this just love?

My mother had warned me again and again not to give in, least of all when it came to humans.

It makes you weak, Julius. You cannot afford to be weak. You are a god among men. And gods walk the earth alone.

I remembered how bitter she had sounded. Had she not spoken of herself but of my father, too? I might be wrong, but I had come to accept Cernunnos as the most likely option for my father.

The book had spoken of sightings of an antlered man who walked with a fox and who slept among the deer.

Apparently, they had built him a temple not far from the moor where my mother lived. It hadn’t survived the past centuries years, but stories of it had.

‘Clad in animal hides and pelts, he planted seedlings in the fertile soil. Within a day, thick, gnarly oaks stood where he had planted the acorns. For mighty oaks had always been the forest god’s most favoured trees.’

Did I get my love for oaks from him? It was a strange idea that something like a preference for a certain kind of tree was genetic, but if it was, that must be where I got it.

Or maybe you are just reading way too much into it.