Page 12

Chapter Twelve

Balor

I had to hand it to the human, when she set her mind to something, there was no changing it.

I’d meant what I told her about being content to watch her on her hands and knees, searching for her four-leafed clover for all eternity if that’s how long it took.

At least, for this eternity, I’d get to watch her. Especially with her in that scrap of a skirt, no panties. Bent over and weeping for me, from one end or another.

Knowing that she was mine, and that our bond was just within reach…

All I had to do was get up and take her.

Every fiber of my being burned for her. Our unsealed bond was like an open wound, festering and rotting the longer we left it untouched.

But a deal was a deal, and I was a monster of my word.

As the days passed, I found myself growing soft to her, at least where my cock wasn’t concerned. I thought I’d known her before. It turned out, you could only know someone so much when stuck behind a painting.

I’d created a different version of Maeve McCrum in my mind. The perfect victim. That wasn’t the real her. This version of her was tender and sweet beneath the hard exterior she wore around me. I wanted nothing more to break her open and enjoy all her softness.

Maybe I would have killed her no matter what, regardless of the kind of person she was, and that the only thing that had saved her was the simple fact that I could touch her. The more time I spent with her, the more I doubted it. I liked her. Plain and fecking simple.

As my appreciation for my wee mortal’s personality grew, so did my lust. Day by day, my control was waning. No matter how much Otherworld fruit I ate, I couldn’t drown the taste of her cunt in my mouth.

My mouth watered, thinking about how thick and sweet her cream had been. I could be locked up for another eternity if it meant tasting her one more time…

I closed my eyes, trying to think of anything but her. Then she started to moan in her sleep again.

“Balor, please…” She tossed and turned under the curtain of leaves she slept beneath, her soft whimpers stirring my cock.

Dark, devious thoughts danced in my mind, knowing she was dreaming of me.

I’d guessed—hoped, even—that it was me plaguing the nightmares I knew she had most nights. On one evening, her hand had even crept between her thighs and she’d lazily stroked herself while she writhed in her sleep.

This was the first night she’d said my name.

My name in her mouth was like that of a prayer on the lips of a damned priest. Powerful and desperate.

Fire and fecking fury.

My need for her was tearing me apart from the inside out. I needed her like the breath in my lungs and the fire in my heart.

We’d struck a deal. I wouldn’t claim her until she gave up her search for the four-leaf clover.

But I never said I wouldn’t touch her. Monster of my word that I was, I was still a fae creature, after all. It was in my blood to find loopholes in the deals I struck with mortals.

I stood up, shrugging my duster jacket off, and left it on the pillar along with my eye patch. The magic leaking from the crack in my gem lit up the night, casting everything in a warm amber glow.

I strode across the bed of clovers, knelt beside Maeve and swept the leaves out of the way.

She was a vision, wrapped in the blaze of my flame light.

She still wore the purple sweater with the logo of the antique shop on her breast, the clover with the eye in its center.

Maeve loved the sweater. Over the last handful of days, she’d taken care to keep it clean.

She’d drawn the clover herself, she’d told me when she ordered them to carry in the shop.

Back when she thought I was nothing more than a legend.

She’d been so excited.

Guilt stabbed at me.

“Balor… Please .”

I bit back a groan as her pathetic little mewl slipped from her lips. Just like that, the urge to kiss her was greater than my guilt. Bowing my spine, I gently—more gently than I thought myself capable—brushed my mouth to hers.

At the contact, I was treated with a moan that started in her throat and ended in mine.

“I’m here, wee one. Tell me what ya need,” I whispered against her mouth.

“I need… I need…” Her whispered words were rife with need and frustration.

I positioned myself so that I was kneeling over her and cupped her calf, slowly gliding my fingers up the back of her leg. Her flesh began to heat, and a fever-red blush spread across her body. I wasn’t the only one fighting the magnetism of our bond.

“Yes. Use your words. Tell me what ya need.” I found it easier to be softer with her when she wasn’t awake. When she was awake, she was a torrent of fire. Defiant and full of hate.

When she was like this, she was a little doll beneath me. So pliant and easy to break. It wasn’t in my nature, but I had to be gentle. If I broke her, what else would there be for me?

This wee woman was my only reason left for living.

“I—It hurts…” she mumbled, her face contorting with anguish. “Please.”

She wanted me to make her pain go away. Who was I to deny my mate?

While I couldn’t burn her skin because of our bond, I could burn her clothes.

I pulled her sweater off first, careful not to singe it—knowing how much she loved it—and placed it under head like a pillow. I burned the rest. Her skirt fizzled away in a puff of ash and cinder, followed by her bra.

When I’d finished burning off her clothes, she was left in nothing but socks embroidered with shamrocks. I couldn’t help but smile at the irony. Poor girl. Though, she did look cute, laying there naked in nothing but her holiday socks.

For several minutes I sat there, simply admiring her.

Everything about Maeve McCrum mesmerized me.

My curse had been broken, only for the gods to chain me with another, cursed to mate what was supposed to be prey.

In my old life, I would have been disgraced for such a match.

My people would have seen it less odd to be mated to a leprechaun or a pig.

Socially unacceptable and logistically impossible.

But my people were extinct, and I’d been living as a house for the last eight centuries. So there was no room for shame. Only curiosity for this tiny mortal.

It wasn’t cold out, but the gentle breeze had her nipples pebbling and blushing a mouth-watering pink. I arched down and sucked on one of the swollen nubs until she whimpered.

Feck me . She made a throaty, animalistic noise when I took her into my mouth. The filthy little sounds she made for me. Her puckered skin flushed and raised with goose flesh. Arousal leaked from her core, covering her plush and milky thighs.

Her parted lips on either end of her, begging to be filled.

Before the battle, before my defeat and the curse that robbed me of my life, I’d been mated before. We hadn’t been fated. Our flames had burned hot during our mating, and it nearly burned half the Otherworld down.

It was giant tradition to fight before each mating, a battle for supremacy. If the male won, he’d stick his cock into his mate’s mouth and make them suckle, like a gold-draped pacifier. It would calm them and their mate's seed would soothe their flames.

Maeve wasn’t a giant and hadn’t allowed her mind to accept me yet. And as a human of this modern age, she’d see this old mating ritual as rape. But she already saw me as a sexual barbarian.

If I fucked her mouth in her sleep, I could ease the ache of our unsealed bond, gnawing at her core.

I undid my belt, thinking how pretty it looked around her throat back in Cork, before letting it fall to the grass.

My length sprung out, ravenous and leaking. I crawled over her, and positioned myself so my knees were on either side of her head.

I barely breathed, so as not to rouse her and gently nudged my tip against her lips.

When her lips parted of their own volition, taking me into her mouth, it took every fiber of my will to keep myself from busting all over her face.

My hand cupped the back of her head, allowing a couple more inches to slip in. I didn’t dare go any further for fear I’d choke her and she’d stir to consciousness.

It was too soon for her to wake up. She needed the seed of her mate and king to calm her. “That’s it, my wee Maeve. Take your mate into your mouth,” I cooed in as soft a voice I could manage with my gravely timbre.

Another whimper. Her eyebrows scrunched together and, for a second, I thought she might turn her head in rejection. But her lips closed around my girth and she suckled me, tongue hungrily lapping up my pre-cum.

“That’s my good little human.” I smirked, my free hand tucking a rogue lock of her wavy blonde hair behind her ear. “If only yer monster hunter ancestors could see ya now.”

I thought it might be frustrating having her mouth on me, knowing she could only fit the tip and nothing more unless I shoved myself down her throat. But the satisfaction of it—even just her milking the head of my cock—ripped through me like a lightning strike.

“T—That’s it... Almost— ugh .”

My balls drew up and my cock pulsed. Hot torrents of milky fluid filled her mouth. There was so much of it, it leaked past the seal of her lips, over her chin, her cheeks and down her throat—as I hoped it would—by the way she coughed and sputtered.

Then, my wee human, covered in my cum and looking like a beautiful mess, opened her eyes.