Page 106 of Blood Fist

Ridan blinked the shine from his eyes as his hands slipped into Brune’s hair, kissing him again. There were no words needed—Ridan’s response was in the way he kissed, the way he smelled. He rolled his hips and Brune found they were not far from where they started, interest sparking between them just as hot as before.

His tongue was as daring when he kissed as when he spoke, muddling Brune’s thoughts and turning his blood to liquid fire. Ridan slung a leg around Brune’s hips, pulling them so close there could be no confusion as to just how interested they both were, when suddenly he was being flipped onto his back. With the air rushing from his lungs, Ridan straddled him with a wicked grin.

“Alpha,” he purred, rocking his hips down so that any response Brune had died on his tongue as he groaned, hands falling to Ridan’s hips. The omega sat up, pulling what was left of his shirt off.

Brune had seen Ridan without a shirt before. Many times. But nothing could have prepared him for seeing him like this. Smirk sliding across his face, the mottled moonlight caressing his skin in a way he wished his hands could. There was something so intimate in the way he let Brune look. Like he knew the alphaneededto map every inch of his sun kissed skin.

And oh, how he needed. Brune didn’t think he’d ever been so hard. He ached. Not just his cock,although he was pretty sure Ridan was trying to kill him with the way he rolled his hips just so. No, it was everything. Every part of his body thrummed with the desire to touch, to taste, to hold him, to find out where he could touch and how it would make his pretty omega moan.

Fingertips sliding up, his palms pressed into Ridan’s muscular stomach, rising and falling with his quick breaths on skin so hot it nearly burned. Ridan purred, loud and unashamed, the vibrations nearly knocking Brune’s hands free. With half lidded eyes, he leaned down and kissed Brune again.

“You want to make me wait, alpha?” Ridan slurred, his lips not lifting from Brune’s. “Shall I show you just what you’re missing?”

His words were like a sword pointed directly at Brune’s chest. He couldn’t help but pull him forward, kiss the threat from his lips and open himself up to whatever kind of punishment his omega would gift him.

Desperate fingers scrabbled in his hair as he was tugged up, sitting up so he could sling his arms around Ridan, hands splayed across his back as they moved together. Brune only stopped kissing Ridan to breathe, to fill his lungs with the delicious scent of arousal. Ridan set the pace, savagely kissing Brune while he rolled their hips together, breath stuttering every time Brune’s cock slipped against his own in a maddening tease of friction.

It was only the distraction of his omegas lips that kept him from ripping his pants off and taking him then and there. Things like respect and honoring traditions paled compared to the warm damp of slick pressing against his achingly hard cock. So close,so close, it would be nothing to just dismiss it all.

But then Ridan would keen softly, hips jerking as he took his pleasure. Soft little whines wrung from between swollen lips and Brune would remember where he was and why he had to wait. To treasure.

Brune’s orgasm came fast. It built up in his thighs before being wrenched from him. His entire body jerked; mouth open as he gasped against Ridan’s lips. His knot popped right in his pants like he was nothing but a freshly presented pup. Whatever blood wasn’t in his dick roared in his ears, vision spotting as he rode through what was assuredly the most intense orgasm of his life.

When he came to, his forehead was resting on Ridan’s shoulder. They were both covered in a thin sheen of sweat, chests heaving. Their mutual arousal soaked the air in a mix of cooling desire and ruined pants. He was clutching Ridan to him, arms wrapped so tightly there was no space between them. Not that the omega seemed to mind. His nose was buried in Brune’s hair, fingers shaking against his shoulders as he came down from his pleasure high.

He smelled like slick and Brune, and it brought back all their discussions of divinity to the forefront of his mind. “You smell so good,” he panted, nosing along Ridan’s jawline.

Ridan hummed, beginning to play with the hair at the base of his neck.

“Like mine,” he growled softly.

With a snort, Ridan jerked his head back by his hair, looking down at him with a haughty expression. “Not yet, alpha.” He bit Brune’s lower lip, tugging it none too gently before he released him. Standing, he swiped his shirt from the ground and used it to clean himself up.

Brune watched him hungrily, his lips sore and his pants ruined.

CHAPTER TWENTY

LEGENDS

Corric stared at the smoldering hearth and tried to swallow past the knot of tension that seemed to lodge in his throat anytime he stepped into this tent. Even with the flames low, it was warm in the tent, maybe too warm, as sweat prickled uncomfortably at his nape. Neither of the tents current residents seemed to mind. Schok was lounging close to the fire, his eyes downcast as he watched the wood break apart. Buzzard was behind him, leaning against the support pole as he picked at his talons.

The harpy had been unusually quiet. Corric’s presence dampening whatever mood the two seemed to live in. That had been a revelation to him. That the two did, in fact, talk. He heard them once when he came to visit them earlier than usual. Their words were lost in the hushed whispers, but they were there. As real as a knife to the heart.

Corric wasn’t foolish enough to believe that he and his brother could suddenly have a relationship. Looking back, they never really did. Truthfully, their only similarities had been the blood running through their veins.And their mutual hatred for it. But he thought that could be enough. The foundation of something.

What he didn’t realize was that the foundation was shoddy. Built on lies, deceit, pain, and a history so vast neither one of them could breach it.

Schok had been through so much. Torture Corric couldn’t even begin to imagine. Buzzard too. They had a shared pain that brought the two together. A unity that Corric couldn’t broach. Shouldn’t really even try, and yet here he was, sitting cross legged across from his brother, pleading for something he had no right to ask for.

His brother didn’t smell like anything. Corric took scents for granted, so much it took him a while to notice. Even Buzzard, without a subgender, had a certain smell about him. But not Schok. As an alpha, he should be the most potent thing in the room. Scents were everything—communication at an olfactory level that was nuanced in ways words could never be.

But Schok had none. His glands were burnt. He was an alpha without a scent. A byproduct of his abuse made worse because it was probably unintentional. On the whole, it didn’t seem any worse than anything else he did, but it meant that Krait Tylock didn’t care if his son made it out of his torture alive. He didn’t care if he would emerge whole. He stripped more than just Schok’s flesh—he took his identity.

“The clan would take you in,” Corric said, his voice like shattering ice in the quiet tent. It was an old statement. One he made nearly every time he could get his brother within earshot. With each syllable Corric grew more and more desperate to have Schok hear him. To know therewasa future for him. Here, in the same place, Corric found salvation all those years ago. With the Stone Blade there was hope. A home.

Buzzard looked up. His queer eyes narrowed, feathers rustling behind him.

“Buzzard too,” Corric tried again, looking past Schok to the harpy. “It might take a while, but they would accept you. And maybe Iylah could find a way to?—”