Page 47 of Ashwood (Wallflowers and Demons #1)

His breath catches. That tiny tell, barely there.

“I’ve never been done with you,” I add.

The space between us vibrates. I feel it in my teeth, in the backs of my knees.

“You and I will always have unfinished business, Dorian Storm.”

We are alone for the first time in what feels like a lifetime. No guests, no guards, no alchemy, or dying woods.

“You shouldn’t tempt me,” he says.

“You’re already tempted.”

I reach for the buttons of his shirt.

“Perhaps that is true, Vixen.”

He doesn’t stop me.

His breath comes slower now, heavier.

I press my hand flat against his chest. I can feel the heart beneath.

Still his.

My thumb brushes his collarbone. I lean in, lips just beside his ear.

“You’re not the only one who’s changed.”

When I kiss him, it’s not innocent.

It’s not sweet.

It is ravenous .

DORIAN

She kisses me and I forget how to breathe.

Her lips part against mine. Her fingers press into my chest as she imbibes me as if I were chocolate. I should stop her. I know what I am, what I’ve become. I know what waits beneath my skin like fire under glass.

But I don’t stop her.

I kiss her back.

Not this time.

Not any longer.

There’s a tightness in my spine. A pull under my ribs. My claws bloom just beneath the nailbeds. My vision sharpens. The temperature around us climbs, and I’m not sure if it’s the fire, or me.

She kisses me harder.

My hand finds her hip. Her robe is silk, but the body beneath is heat. Flesh. Life. I grip her without thinking, and she exhales a sound I feel in my bones. My other hand lifts, cups the side of her face.

“Katherine…”

My voice comes out strange.

Rougher. Deeper.

She pulls back just enough to look at me. Her pupils are blown wide. Her lips are slick. Her cheeks flushed.

“Don’t hold back,” she says.

She doesn’t mean the kiss.

She means everything.

The blood inside me quickens, thickening with heat. I know this progression. Level One. Awareness. Surface fracture. Pupils dilating. Pulse elevated.

It’s starting.

She wants it to.

And for the first time since this curse was born in me, I do too .

I kiss her again — harder this time. She moans into my mouth. Her hands slide down. The robe slips from her shoulder. I break the kiss only to follow her neck, my mouth scoring heat along her throat.

Gods, I’m losing myself.

The bones in my back flex once, loud and sudden — she gasps — and I steady myself against the wall with a growl.

“I can stop,” I rasp.

“You won’t,” she whispers, pulling me back in. “You never could.”

She’s right.

I lift her easily. She wraps around me as if her body has known mine forever. Her breath hitches as I press her back against the stone wall, mouth returning to hers, ravenous now. I feel her legs tighten around me. Her nails dig into my back.

My fingers travel between her skirts and I touch nothing but velvet skin.

I plunge my fingers deep inside her and the room swims madly. The voice inside me screams but it is only my own.

Taste her.

Fuck her

Heat radiates off every part of me. The scent of her drives it higher.

She knows.

She records the transformations.

She studies them with me.

God forgive me

My voice strums her ear as I whisper.

“I’m dust with you, my love.”

KATHERINE

His body presses against mine, hard and burning. His eyes catch the firelight, flickering with black veins. They’re molten — alive with that terrible power inside him.

And I don’t want to look away.

His hands roam lower, claws grazing my ribs. I shiver with a delicious mix of fear and want

Then the tail tongue slips out.

Long. Hard.

A snake in the dark.

He trails it over my throat, and then my breasts where it slips over a nipple and twists. I gasp into his mouth, my fingers at his shoulders.

He growls low, deep in his throat, a sound part animal, part man. His skin blazes red where his claws trail, patches of black shimmering beneath the surface, now liquid ink spread on water.

He transforms again and I rip his shirt open, my hands trembling as they roam over hot, muscle that strums beneath my fingertips.

“Dorian,” I whisper, barely able to hold the tremble out of my voice. “You’re mine.”

He snarls in response.

Then the change erupts completely as his tail spreads me wide. The bones beneath shift and crack, reshaping into something both beautiful and terrible. His skin darkens into obsidian black, reflecting the firelight like shards of night. He grows taller, broader, his monstrous form bursting free.

But he’s no mindless beast.

I chuckle.

Not yet…

With a single jerk, his cock slides inside of me, rock hard and thicker than I can bear. And as he plummets in deep strokes, that tail finds me from behind. I gasp as it spreads hot liquid that drops from within, to the entrance of my derrière.

“I will fuck you there, Duchess.”

I do not deny him.

His cock grows from within, stretching me as he rims me from behind. Then, with a shudder, he groans as he plunges the tip of his cc tail inside my rectum. Filled, I grow slick, and thoughts disperse as my cunt becomes drunk off his rod.

“I am close,” I whisper and he growths thicker inside me. His tail pulls me wider and all I feel is him. “I want your love to drip down my legs, Beast.”

With a single plunge, I grip him and ecstasy floods my womb along with his seed. He comes with a roar that is both agony and ecstasy. And in that moment, the monster, the man and my husband are one.

He presses his forehead against mine as the bed cracks beneath us and I am bathed in litres of white hot liquid.

God’s I already want him inside me, again.

Another crack sounds and then, with a crash the bed collapses beneath us. Still, he allows his head to fall against my breast, swallowing me with his size.

“I love you, Princess.”

And I cannot deny it.

I love him, too.