Page 8

Chapter eight

Nash

“S top pacing, Nash.”

Vex didn’t sound annoyed, though. My head snapped up to find him grinning at me, a sparkle of mischief in his eyes.

“What?”

“If you are so anxious about it, go into your tent and make up with your mate.” The grin on his face grew wider. “The entire camp knows he belongs to you. Is it not time you showed him the same?”

“I—”

How did I explain to Vex that I’d left Kai in the tent to teach him a lesson—that I could feel the way his body wanted me, and I was using the chance to let him see that running from me was useless?

How did I explain to him that if I went into the tent, there was every chance I wouldn’t be able to resist the need pulsing through me so viscerally I could barely breathe around my want?

I’d been furious when I’d chased him into the trees, so sure that he’d feel the tether between us and he wouldn’t try to run. I’d let my guard down, and he’d taken advantage of it…

And then he’d kissed me like I was the only air he knew, the only way he could breathe, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to put him on his knees and feed him my cock, or if I wanted to put him over my lap and spank him until he was sobbing.

I groaned, my hand coming up to run through my hair roughly.

“I think—”

“Well, there is your problem, Nash. You are thinking .” Vex’s laughter made me glower, but when he shoved me, I couldn’t really argue.

I wasn’t the type of orc who thought long and hard about a situation—I functioned on the desires of my body and the instincts that drove me forward.

And every instinct I possessed was telling me that being away from Kai, leaving him tied in that tent without me when his body had so clearly said he wanted me there, was tantamount to sin against the gods.

“Quiet, Vex.” I finally snapped, but I was already moving. “You exhaust me.”

“Hm, yet there you go, to your tent.” The warmth on his face was infectious, the smile drawing one out of me in turn.

“Because I’m tired. Not because you’re sick of me pacing.” I didn’t look back to see if he was still smirking or not.

Honestly, a gentle breeze would have led me back to Kai. I’d lasted less than two hours.

When I pushed into the tent, I instantly caught sight of his eyes. The blue burned in irritation, but there was a low undercurrent of heat beneath the stare… like he could feel that same tether trailing between us. I knew he’d spent the last week without any kind of relief, and whatever had bubbled to the surface when I’d pressed my lips to his earlier seemed incapable of quieting now that it had fully woken.

I knew fated mates were inexorably drawn to one another even before they took their marks—once they’d found each other, it was instinct to be close, agony not to give in to what the gods themselves had laid out as your destiny.

It was that pull that brought me forward, that draw that had me sitting on the bed beside Kai and running my fingers through his hair.

He moaned before he realized what he was doing, then bit the sound off with a snarl.

“Done teaching me lessons ?” he said through gritted teeth, though I noticed he didn’t jerk away when I trailed my fingers through his hair again—it was slightly damp, like he’d truly been suffering while I was away.

“It depends.” Even as I spoke, I was enraptured by the slight flush of his body, the way the sweat on his skin filled the room with the scent of him. The way he leaned into me even while his eyes flared in irritation and defiance.

“Depends on what?”

“Are you going to run again?”

He looked up at me, honey-colored brows knitting together, then sighed.

“Yeah, probably.” He said it almost helplessly, like he wanted to lie to me, but he realized it was useless.

Something roared to life in my chest at his answer—he would keep running unless he realized he belonged here. The danger with Koth roaming free was… it was too much. The thought of something happening to him, even though I barely knew him, even though he’d yet to tell me much about himself, his life, his wants and needs and desires…

It was too much.

“Maybe you need a different method to learn,” I murmured, dropping to the bed beside him, and Kai seemed so frustrated that he leaned into my touch instead of immediately jerking away when I cupped his face in my hand.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” The rumble of the words were contradicted by the way his lids fluttered.

“You fight this just as bravely as you fought me in the woods. But Kai…” I moved closer, close enough I could feel the heat of his breath against my lips, that I could watch his pupils slowly expand as he stared at me. “You can’t fight fate.”

He shivered, and I wasn’t sure if it was my words or the way I pressed my body closer to his. I just knew that I was drawn into him, intoxicated by the heat of his body and the way he seemed incapable of stopping himself from gravitating toward me.

“I don’t want this,” he murmured in the same breath that he leaned forward, brushing his lips softly against mine like he was trying to feed me the lie spilling from his tongue so we’d both choke on it.

“Then tell me to stop, Kai.” I slid my hand around his waist, pulling our bodies flush together—it was impossible not to feel the hard length of him pressing against my erection. Impossible not to light up when his hips gave an involuntary flex, rocking his cock against mine and drawing a little pained sound from his chest. “Tell me to go, and I will.”

Was this the lesson? A test of his own restraint, of his own desire?

As though his body was answering for me, his hips shifted, rocking against me and drawing a groan from his chest.

“I don’t want this.” He said it again, and I lifted my hand and yanked on his bindings hard enough to hear the cord snap. Though his wrists were still bound, there was nothing to stop them from dropping down.

Nothing to stop them from wrapping around my neck like I was the thing he was tied to.

Like I was the thing keeping him anchored.

“Does it feel better to say that?” My fingers on his waist flexed, and I rolled our bodies, dragging myself into a sitting position and pulling him onto my lap in the same motion. With him straddling me, there was no way to ignore the feel of his arousal, no escape from the way our bodies lined up perfectly with one another.

But this was the only way I could control myself—the only way I wouldn’t flip him over and fuck him open with my tongue, my fingers, my cock. I wanted him stuck on my knot and crying for me.

But this…

Even though he said he didn’t want it, in this position, Kai was in control.

In this position, the only real master he had was his own desire. His own need.

“Mmm…” He dropped his head to my shoulder when my hands settled on his hips, fingers biting into his flesh so I could drag his body forward. “Don’t want this at all.” Kai pressed his lips to the pulse at my throat. “You abducted me .” As he said it, he rocked forward, sliding his cock against mine and groaning at the friction, even though I was growing more and more frustrated with the fabric between us. “I don’t even know anything about you.”

“I would spend the rest of my life letting you learn all of me, if you wanted.”

He moaned at my words, and his fingers at the nape of my neck spasmed.

“I don’t want that at all.” Kai rolled his hips, grinding against me, a little harder this time, a little faster. It was like he was trying to outrun his lies, to find his pleasure before it caught up to him.

I wanted to feel him. I’d somehow already lost the plot that I came in here to teach him a lesson.

I just needed…

I needed him to need me. I needed it more than I needed air, more than I needed the next beat of my heart.

More than anything.

“Tell me no, Little Mate.” I said it again, my fingers sliding beneath the fabric of his pants and dancing along the curve of his ass. Instead of responding, he lifted his hips so I could drag the offending fabric down, and stayed shifted up so I could pull my own cock free of my breeches.

“Mmmf,” he groaned when he dropped back down and there was nothing between us.

I’d fucked more times than I could count, men and women alike, and I’d never felt anything as good as the sensation of his bare skin, hot and hard, as he rocked his hips and thrust against me.

“Tell me no,” I bit out again, but I think we both knew that we were far past that point. There was no more room for no . There was no more room for anything except the desire roaring over me in such strong waves that I could barely think around it, could barely breathe around it.

When I looked up again, Kai’s lids were narrowed to pleasurable slits, and he caught my mouth with his before I had a chance to question him again. Maybe he was tired of hearing it—maybe he was just as hungry for the taste of my tongue as I was for him.

Whatever it was, his fingers tangled in the long, loose tresses of my hair and he moaned into my mouth.

We found a rhythm like that, his body rocking up and down on mine, the slickness of my precum making skin slide easily against skin. I wanted—gods, did I want… and this time when I pulled back and started to speak, it wasn’t to ask him if he wanted to stop.

“I would have you ride my cock just like this,” I growled in his ear, a promise this time instead of a chance for him to get away. “I’d have you split yourself open on me until I was the only thing you knew.”

“Fuck,” he hissed, trying to drop his head to my shoulder again, like it would save him from the knowledge of who he was rutting against. The thought incensed me, and my fingers caught in his hair, tangling and yanking his head back. His eyes were wide now, his cheeks flushed and lips swollen from our kiss.

And now that he was looking at me, it was like he couldn’t tear his gaze away. My free hand gripped his hip, dragging him harder and faster against me.

“I would have you ride me like this until you were crying, Little Mate. Until you were keening and begging for me to breed you.” The word breed made my body give a jerk and my cock twitch in warning. I wanted this to last, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold back.

He was my mate, and we were made for this moment, and we would have a thousand others like it.

“B-breed?” He groaned the word out, and the way it caught in the back of his throat and made his cheeks flush was too much—he knew what it meant. I leaned in, nipping his lower lip, and let go of his hair so I could drop both my hands between us. I took hold of our cocks and pumped us in time with the gasps of his breath and the thundering of my heart.

“Mmmm… yes, Kai. I want to fuck you so full of cum that your stomach swells with it… I want to fill you until your body knows who it belongs to, until you’re mine.” My fingers twisted and he jerked, crying out again. When he fell against me this time, I let him… and when his lips found my neck and he sucked in a sweet pantomime of a mating bite he didn’t even understand, I lost it.

Pleasure flooded me and I came in a hot burst at the same time as his cock swelled and spasmed in my grip. I’d never felt an orgasm so intense, as though the words I was saying were true, and I was actually buried so deep inside him, pumping him so full of my seed that he could somehow carry my young.

The thought made me groan again, and I flipped our bodies so the last few thrusts of my hips were grinding him into the mattress, milking every little cry and whimper from his throat that I could.

I fucked against him until he started to twitch beneath me, until his fingers at my hair tugged in a silent plea for mercy.

And I would have happily refused it, slicked my fingers through our joined spill and used it to fuck him open so I could bury myself in him the way my cock wanted—the way my knot swelling at the base of my shaft demanded—but…

“Nash… fuck… I…”

He sounded breathless, and his fingers at my neck spasmed pleadingly…

It took every ounce of strength I had to pull back instead of driving into him again. I was careful when I untied his wrists, and he watched me with wide eyes as I dropped to his stomach and started to lick him clean of the mess we’d made together.

I didn’t stop until it coated my tongue and I was drunk on the taste of us… and he didn’t pull away when I dropped back on the pillows and gently tugged him to lie on my chest.

I knew he could feel the draw between us just as much as I did, even if he wasn’t ready to admit it yet.

If it took a dozen nights just like this to finally make him say the words, I realized I was more than willing to make that sacrifice.

For a while, he simply lay there, catching his breath and shivering in little aftershocks of pleasure.

Finally, he lifted his head and peeked at me through his hair.

“Uh. Thanks… bro?”

Kai’s voice was cautious, like he was testing whether I was going to let him get away with brushing off what had happened as nothing more than an accident. I thought about rolling him beneath me again, milking another orgasm from him until his tongue was so loose that he couldn’t help but admit it…

But the wary look that chased the pleasure in his gaze told me to wait.

To be patient.

All things I’d never done before, but I was willing to do for him.

So instead, I brushed my fingers through his hair with a soft sigh. He truly was beautiful.

“Are you going to run again?” I asked him the same question I had before, and the warmth of his body tensed for just a second before he shifted closer to me with a soft sigh.

“Yeah. Probably. I have to find my friend—”

“I can help you find your friend, Kai. There is no need to put yourself in danger to do it.”

He rose up, his eyes narrowed… but he still wasn’t fighting against me or the way I trailed my fingers slowly along the length of his back.

“You haven’t been helping me this past week. I’ve been tied up in your tent and—”

I cut him off with a hard kiss, swallowing down the exasperated sound he made with a low, rumbling laugh. When I pulled back, he was still glaring.

“You were trying to run, and there are dangers that would see anything I hold dear hurt. I will help you find your friend when it is safe, and until then, I can ask others if they’ve heard anything.” When he opened his mouth to protest, I continued on. “You’d be more of a threat to him now than you would be a help.”

That brought him up short, and his eyes went wide.

“Why?”

“My enemies are close… any living creature with common sense would see that you’re mine—” I kept going before he could cut me off with a protest. “If you leave now, you’ll lead them straight to your friend.” When he didn’t say anything, I continued. “If your friend came through the portal, I’m sure he’s fine. There are guards posted across every entrance to Belzod, and I would have heard if something had happened. When it is safe, we’ll find him.”

It wasn’t a lie. If Koth was around, if he was watching, there was every chance he’d take Kai to hurt me. If Kai ran off to the cities looking for his friend, there was every chance he’d follow him there.

And maybe there was a part of me that was being selfish. If I took Kai to look for his friend right away, we might find him.

But I wanted him to realize, to admit that he belonged here—with me—first.

Maybe my need for him was my sin, but he blew out a slow breath and nodded.

“Fine. If you promise you’ll help me find him when it’s safe…”

“I will,” I said, but he kept on.

“And stop tying me up and leaving me in your tent all day. If you want me to be here, show me what here is.” His face morphed into the cutest pout, and something in my chest blossomed.

“You want to see what life I live, Little Mate? What life will be yours?”

He dropped his head back on the pillow with a snort. “Not your mate. I just… I’m not used to not doing things. If I have to wait to find Rainn, you need to at least let me do something useful in the meantime.”

Telling him that waiting in my tent, naked and ready for my cock was more than useful probably wouldn’t get me anywhere—in fact, I had a feeling it might walk back the progress we’d made. I nodded.

“Fine. Tomorrow, we will find you something useful to do.”