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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ROOK

What’s wrong with me? I’m behaving like a virgin who just discovered fucking, even though I have all the experience of a successful incubus in his prime. Hell, Pyrah was truly a virgin when we first met, though she knew what she wanted and she wasn’t afraid to demand it from me.

“You're hard again," Pyrah says.

“With you, I’m often aroused.” The words rasp out of me, betraying my desire.

“How often?”

Her question lingers in the air between us. “Far more than I want to admit.”

Her eyes darken, her pupils blown. “I’m still hungry.”

Somehow, I don’t think she’s talking about just food, though it’s unlikely she wants me as much as I want her.

I’m an incubus. A sex demon. No one has ever been able to match my appetite. During her heat, I feasted on her lust, gorging myself by bringing her orgasm after orgasm, but now…

Now I’m hungry again. And she won’t be in heat again until next year.

Despite my obvious arousal, I turn my face to stone. “Eat.”

I offer her another slice of venison. Thank God she obeys me, biting it from my hand. I contemplate my next move. It would be safest to bury my needs deep, where no one—not even myself—can find them.

“You must be rock hard.” She reaches for my erection.

I capture her by the wrist before she can touch me. “Don’t.”

She sucks in her breath, her eyes flying open wide, betraying a hint of fear. This shouldn't arouse me, and yet it does. As an incubus, I love it when my prey wants to run away from me.

“Don’t touch me there,” I clarify, “unless you want me to hunt you down in the forest and fuck you like my prey.”

She shudders, unable to hide her reaction. "That is what I want."

I release her wrist as if her skin scalded me. It’s dangerous to touch her for too long, dangerous to succumb to my primal desires. “Are you certain? You would be the prey of an incubus.”

“Would you devour me?”

“Correct.”

“Yes, please.” She shivers. “Hunt me down.”

Filthy thoughts flood my imagination. I want her begging me to fuck her harder, so slick with my seed and her own arousal that she's dripping between her thighs. A shaky breath escapes me.

“You consent to it all?” I ask.

“I do.”

I’m the luckiest demon alive.

My shadow wings erupt from my shoulders, menacing. “Run.”

She leaps into a sprint and flees deeper in the forest.

The muscles in my thighs tense. I'm tempted to lunge after her, but tonight, I’m feeling indulgent. I need to give her a head start. Otherwise, this hunt will be over far too soon. My tail snakes from my spine and whips with impatience. I wait until my erection subsides.

Evening shadows gather beneath the forest. I prowl into the gloom.

I can see in the dark, but so can she. It makes her more challenging to hunt down.

I stop and hold my breath to listen for any sign of movement.

A dead leaf crunches underfoot. It’s surprisingly close.

I cock my head, listening for movement. She must be taunting me, circling me.

Of course. She’s a dragon shifter. Always the predator, never the prey.

Until tonight.

I breathe in deep until I detect her scent drifting in the air. She’s sweating. Her heart must be pounding. Does she fear me? Does she fear what I will do to her? I would be lying if I said this didn’t thrill me.

Pyrah flees from me. I glimpse a flash of her red hair before she disappears again. Leaves rustle in her wake, the forest closing behind her again.

I veer to the left, faster than her, and overtake her.

When she runs past me, she doesn’t even see me crouching behind a tree.

I’m ready for her. My body is a weapon.

I lunge. We hit the ground hard, my arms caging her. She struggles to break free, but I flip her onto her back and pin her wrists down to the dirt.

“Mine.” I grit out the word.

She braces her legs on the ground and tries to push me off her, but she succeeds only in lifting her hips against mine. I grind against her, my cock still trapped behind leather, and a sweet little whimper escapes her throat.

“Your cunt belongs to me,” I say.

She gasps, her eyes even wider, and keeps fighting me. The intoxicating scent of her arousal thickens the air. She likes the word cunt . Good.

My shadow wings arch high above us both.

She’s my prey, and I don’t want anyone else to see her.

When I release one of her wrists, her hand fists in my long hair. She holds me there, her teeth bared at me, before grabbing me by one of my horns. She’s still battling for control.

“Fuck you.” She’s daring me to do something, her eyes challenging me.

“Fight me as much as you want, but you won’t break free.” I slide my hand between her thighs. My voice has plummeted an octave. “Not while your cunt is drenched for me.”

I dip the hard point of my demonic tail into her wet heat. She shudders, her eyelids flickering shut, her mouth rounding with momentary bliss.

“You want me inside you.” It’s not a question, but I pause long enough that she can refuse me or revoke her consent.

“I do,” she confesses.

When I claim her mouth in a fierce kiss, she gasps against my lips. I swallow the sound along with a hint of her desire. I’m not devouring her, not yet. Her hand slides down the armor on my chest before finding my cock, still trapped beneath my leather trousers.

She breaks the kiss. Breathless, she speaks. “Get off me. Let me go or I can’t suck your cock.”

Fuck. My mind blanks.

She’s never sucked my cock before. How did she know the fantasies in my head? Perhaps I was staring for too long at her mouth while she was kneeling. This wasn’t part of our game. It wasn’t one of the rules of our hunt, though I would be a fool to refuse her curiosity.

“You haven’t done this before, have you?”

“Never.”

Cautiously, I release her and let her crawl away from me. She gets onto her knees. Her cheeks look pink, betraying her innocence at this kind of fucking. There's so much we have yet to explore together.

“Close your eyes,” she says.

Suspicion jolts through me, but I obey, knowing damn well what she’s about to do next. My eyes fly open the instant she flees from me. She laughs with delighted fear. It’s a dare for me to catch her.

I chase her down and tackle her from behind. I pin her against a tree, her breasts pressed against the bark. She's struggling beneath me, trying to escape. I admire her beautiful ass from behind.

“Wicked girl.” A low growl rumbles from my throat. “Don’t you dare trick me.”

I want to punish her with bliss.

When I unbutton my fly, my cock springs free. I stroke myself in my fist. The spikes on my cock glide with my foreskin, sensitive to the slightest touch, and ache to be buried inside her. She fights to break free, but I part her thighs with my knee and bare her cunt to me.

The blunt head of my cock demands entrance. She tenses up beneath me.

“Easy.” I murmur the word as if speaking to a wild animal.

“Rook,” she gasps.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” It sounds like a gentle threat when I say it, which wasn’t my intention. “Tell me when to stop.”

“Don’t stop.”

She’s shivering beneath me, her whole body alive with unspent tension. I stroke into her slowly. The ridges on my cock grind into her, harder than flesh, until she’s forced to take all of me.

My breath hisses out through my gritted teeth. “Your cunt feels like heaven.”

She shudders, her inner muscles clenching around me like a prelude to climax.

I fuck her from behind. Slow at first, then faster and harder. She arches her hips, seeking more pleasure with shameless little whimpers. Her legs start trembling beneath her so I hold her against me.

“Please,” she whispers, breathless.

I close my shadow wings around us both, hiding us in a dark cocoon. My wings have spikes on them, one for each digit, much like the claws on my fingers. I’m careful not to hurt her with them.

My tail wraps around one of her thighs with a mind of its own. I slide it higher between her legs and play with her cunt until her whole body tenses. She flings her head back against my shoulder. My claws twist in her hair and hold her exactly where I want her, a willing victim for an incubus.

When I devour her mouth, it’s enough to push her over the edge.

She cries out, coming hard, and I drink down the sound along with every drop of her ecstasy.

Her knees buckle and I let her fall down to her hands and knees.

At this angle, I can fuck her deeper. I slide my claws along her throat, no more than a sharp caress on her skin, and tilt her head skyward so I can keep kissing her from above.

Ruthlessly, I hammer into her until she’s writhing beneath me and trying to ride my cock from below.

She’s close again, I can taste it, but she needs more.

“Come inside me,” she begs. “Fill me until I’m overflowing.”

Fuck. My balls tense up. Her request evokes a primal urge in me, and I’m forced to obey.

Groaning, I chase my own climax. An intense wave of pleasure roars through me.

I slam my hips forward with a hoarse grunt and unload my seed in her.

She follows me a second later, screaming through her climax until I silence her with another devouring kiss.

Lost to bliss, she collapses beneath me.

I roll us over, protecting her from the hard ground, and let my body be her bed.

We lie there together, staring at the sky, while the first stars blink into life.

Finally, the gnawing empty feeling inside me is gone, and my incubus hunger is satisfied for one night.

One night has to be enough.

“My cunt feels like heaven?” she asks, echoing my words from before.

I grunt. “I’m not lying.”

“Says the man with a cock from hell.”

I freeze. Was she disappointed by me? “Would you like me to be less demonic?”

She shakes her head. “Wouldn’t you need to be less aroused?”

“Yes.”

“Then I wouldn’t ask for anything else. Although I won’t lie, your cock scares me sometimes. It’s so big and it has spikes.”

“They aren’t sharp,” I say, in my defense.

“I know.”

She gives my cock a squeeze, even though it’s soft right now and my spikes are hidden, much like my shadow wings and tail. I’m not sure anyone has ever touched me there in a gentle way before.

“What are you doing?” I ask, puzzled.

“Sorry. I can’t keep my hands off you.”

“Even when I’m not hard?”

“You’re still Rook. Still mine.”

I’m silent for a moment, pondering her words. She loves my body even when I’m not aroused. It’s an unusual feeling for an incubus, a sex demon.

“We should go back,” I say.

She laughs softly. “Sorry, I can’t walk. My legs have become boneless.”

I grunt. That’s easy enough to solve. With minimal effort, I lift her into my arms. She leans her head against my chest as if she wants to hear my heartbeat.

We aren’t far from her cave, so I carry her all the way back home.

Beneath the darkening sky, the lake looks a deep purple, the color reminiscent of plums.

“Let me take care of you,” I say.

I bring her down to the water. It’s cold enough that she sucks in her breath when I wash her. The lake must be fed from snowmelt higher in the mountains.

“Sorry this isn’t a hot bath,” I say.

“The inn in Havenwold had a nice one.”

My mouth twitches with a smile. “Shame you destroyed the place.”

“I blame the queen’s knights.”

I would rather forget the queen right now. “How many times have I needed to wash you, woman? You’re always dirty.”

“I blame you.”

“It’s a price I’m willing to pay.”

Pyrah rolls her eyes at my joke. She walks back to her cave by herself, even though I’m more than capable of carrying her there. I can’t help admiring her ass while she walks ahead of me. We enter the shadows of her cave together.

“You’re shivering.” I hold her close against me, trying to lend her my warmth.

She yawns. “I’m so tired.”

“Sleep.”

She glances down at her naked body. “Not like this. I always shift into a dragon when I sleep in my cave. It’s more comfortable that way. Safer.”

“I can’t hold you in my arms while you’re a dragon.”

“You could try.” A corner of her mouth bends into a smile.

I fold my arms across my chest. “Don’t tease me. It won’t work.”

“But I like teasing you,” she purrs.

That’s a decent attempt to distract me, but I have work to do. “Save your seduction for later. I’m heading out.”

She hugs herself as if she’s cold without me. “You’re leaving?”

“Can’t forget the rest of the venison. And we left the campfire burning.”

“Don’t start any wildfires in my territory.”

“Not tonight.” I twist my mouth into something that resembles a smile, just to show her I’m joking.

Alone, I return to the campfire, which has died down to embers. I scatter them with my boot and kick dirt over the remnants.

When I turn around, my blood turns cold. Like ice in my veins.

The deer carcass is gone, nothing left of the venison but bloodstains. Not even bones or antlers. I crouch by the trampled grass. Judging by the tracks, the deer wasn’t dragged away, so a predator must have consumed it here.

Dire wolves? I’m not aware of a pack this far outside of the Thornwood. Even dire wolves would have left bones behind.

Only a dragon could have swallowed a deer whole.

“Fuck.”

Dragon shifters are rare. Too rare to leave me with much doubt about our intruder.