Page 30 of Claimed By the Mothman

One of Sig’s wings twitched. “I overrode the Lustrum’s claim with mine. It could not take you, because I already had.”

Nell’s opal ring pulsed, sharp and angry. She stared at the strange, terrible beauty of this cryptid, folded in on himself. At the hunched breadth of his shoulders, the slumped arc of his spine.

The mark between her thighs throbbed.

He flinched. A single twitch of his shoulders. A slight flick of one antenna, as if it had caught something electric in the air.

Oh.

“You feel that,” she said, her breath hitching shallowly in her chest.

His ruby eyes finally met hers. “Yes.”

Something was building in her, slow and low and molten.

“So…” Her voice quivered, barely holding together. “What does this mean? This—this whole claiming thing. What does itdo?”

Sig shifted on the chair, claws clenching into fists. He looked very much the picture of someone holding himself still through sheer force of will.

“You shouldn’t have done it,” Nell whispered. She stood, her bare feet on the warm, pulsing floor, holding the sheet tightly to her chest. It itched against her flushed skin, suddenly too rough, too hot. The mark was pulsing now in time with her heartbeat—no,nother heartbeat. Was it—his? Was that even possible?

“I had to,” Sig murmured in a strained voice.

“Youhad to?” she repeated, eyes wide, voice cracking around disbelief. “You had to just—what? Decide I was gonna be yours?”

“I did not—” he began, and then gasped, doubling over with a hand pressed to his sternum.

“You claimed me like athing, ”she spat, fear clawing its way up her throat. Her brain was short-circuiting, still reeling from the Lustrum, from almost dying, fromthis.

“It saved your life,” he snapped, eyes flaring.

“I didn’t ask to be saved!” she shrieked.

Sig stiffened, his wings shuddering.

Nell moved towards him. Her hand lashed out and jabbed his chest with two fingers.

“Listen, buster—”

The instant her fingers touched his skin, heat detonated in her core, rolling through her like a seismic wave. Her knees buckled and her vision went white at the edges.

And she launched herself at him.

The sheet around her body dropped like a defeated flag, and she didn’t care, didn’t think, justneeded. She straddled him in one breathless motion, thighs spreading wide across his lap, andgods,her skinsangwhere it touched him. She wrapped her legs around his narrow hips and—

—oh gods—

Her whole bodyarched,head thrown back as pleasure exploded through her like a live wire. The pulse between her legs surged into a flood as her mark flared at the touch of his skin.

Sig bucked and he surged from the chair, his wings propelling them forward as he pushed her atop a nearby table. Nell cried out and her hands flew downward, frantic.

“Take it off,” she rasped. “Now.”

His pants shredded open in an instant. Two smaller arms unfurled from above his hips and coiled around her thighs like living ropes. Just below the smaller arms, a ring of glowing red nestled at his abdomen, thrummingagainst her skin. Nell groaned, tightening her grip on his waist with her thighs as the marks aligned. The surge that followed slammed through her and shewailed,head thrown back.

Like a snake, Sig lunged and clamped his mouth down at the curve where her neck met shoulder. His breath came in ragged bursts, hot against her skin, and his teeth sank deeply into the flesh. Her blood spilled in a slow, hot line down her shoulder, and she arched into him

“More,” she gasped, her breath wrecked and unashamed. “Please—more.”