Page 37 of Hunted (Love and Revenge #5)

Ruya

A cool breeze flitted around the courtyard as the magic from the simple charm circle faded. I knew such spells were limited in their effect and scope, but just now I was convinced all the good fortune in the world was mine.

I let out a startled laugh when Sadavir scooped me up in his strong arms, lifting me as if I weighed nothing.

He carried me a few steps, then lowered me gently to the ground.

My hands found thick, soft grass beneath me, and I felt the soft hum of the earth—an elemental sort of power I rarely accessed consciously, but which was always a part of me.

Naga magic was also attuned to the earth.

Of course Sadavir’s beast side would want to make love here, as close to the wilderness as we could get within the city.

I wiggled into the ground as a delicious wave of lust washed over me at the thought.

I wanted that too—the primal wildness of making love under the open sky, of being one with our natures.

It was a sentiment that Cicely, a very devoted follower of Pan, had opened my mind to when we first met.

And I had a brief moment of longing, wishing he could share this with us now.

Was that possible? Would Sadavir and Cicely be open to sharing in a more intimate sense? Something told me they might...

I filed the intriguing thought away for the future, all of my focus narrowed to Sadavir’s powerful presence as he hovered over me. His big hands caressed my body, his touch a frustrating tease over the top of my thin clothes.

I couldn’t take it. No more delay. Magic and want surged over and through me in constant waves, and I felt flushed and nearly incoherent. I was sick of constantly denying myself. “Sadavir,” I pleaded, my thoughts scattering before I could form my demand into a full sentence.

He chuckled, low and full of promise as he kissed me, pressing his body to mine while he devoured my mouth. He’d taken off his shirt. My hands landed on warm, smooth muscle and the want in me kicked up even higher. “I’m here,” he voiced against my lips. “My needy omega. Do you want me to fill you?”

I shuddered at his words, and the dirty visions they conjured in my mind.

“Yes.” Goddess, I felt like I was on fire.

Like my heat had spontaneously kicked in and was determined to burn me alive.

I needed him inside me like I needed oxygen to live.

“Please,” I whined, scraping my nails over his chest. “I need... I need...” My words died on a whimper as I was hit with a craving. ..

Oh, Goddess. I had never consciously had the thought before, but I slowly realized it had always been there, lurking behind the self-imposed wall that I’d erected to hide all the “things I shouldn’t want.

” I wanted... I needed to be filled with his seed.

I wanted him to hold me down and fuck me so thoroughly I ended the night with his baby in my belly.

I groaned. What was I becoming? It was mortifying.

If Robin was here... if she knew I had these thoughts, these desires when I was with her as well.

.. she’d run screaming and never come back.

Or, she’d give that disdainful shudder and her voice would go all haughty and disgusted.

Losing her control and impregnating an omega was clearly something to be scoffed at.

But Sadavir wasn’t Robin. His hand moved from my breast up to my neck, gripping firmly but gently and tilting my head back, and I knew it was so he could see my face in the dim light, read whatever was written there.

“What is it?” he said, his voice firm and calm, even as his energy against mine raged like a mad beast. “What do you need, Ruya?”

I squirmed, hot and flushed, and eaten up with desire. I had been learning to embrace my sexuality, to communicate my wants and needs with Sadavir and with the others. But this was different. This particular desire still made me cringe with the fear of judgement.

Impure, wanton acts resulted in unwanted burdens , according to The Mother—children, she meant.

Bastards that would pollute my magic, weaken me or lessen me in some way.

In the same way sex would lessen my value.

All men would want to do was use me and sully me, that was why I was safer locked away in my tower. ..

The damage that evil woman had done to my psyche seemed like it would never end. Just when I thought I had weeded out every unhealthy bit of programming, another poisonous belief cropped up. This desire wasn’t wrong. I knew that. And yet I blushed and stammered, and feared I’d be scorned.

“Ruya?” Sadavir said, his thumb stroking the side of my jaw as he continued to grip my throat in a loose grasp. “Omega. Tell me,” he commanded.

A surge of alpha power washed over me, compelling, drawing me out of my insecurities. I writhed, mad with need. My alpha was here. He would take care of me. And he wanted me to tell him. I didn’t want him to be displeased with me. I lived to make my alpha happy.

“I want... I want...” I gasped, then expelled the words on a sigh. “I want you to fill me with your cum, alpha. I want...” I gripped his waistband, pulling him hard against me, then released him to try my best to sign as I spoke. “I want your baby inside me. I want. I need ... please.”

He chuckled, the deep sound pleased and full of promise. “Good girl,” he said as he leaned in to kiss me again, short and sweet. “Good job telling me what you want. Let your alpha take care of you.”

He pulled back and stripped us both of our clothes, quickly and efficiently, before pressing me back into the grass again.

The chill in the air raised goosebumps on my skin, but the heat of my alpha kept me warm.

The tickling caress of nature played against my bare skin as Sadavir got to work fulfilling his promise.

His hands on my body were heated, his touch somehow both gentle and possessive all at once.

I tangled my hands in his soft curls as he trailed lingering kisses over my skin, pausing to suckle at my breasts and tease me with his forked tongue before moving lower, across my belly and to my aching core.

When he finally spread my thighs and swiped his tongue across my folds, I gasped, arching my hips into his touch and begging for more, though I knew he couldn’t hear me.

He gripped my thighs and dove in, chasing my pleasure with a fervent determination that made me feel like a goddess he was born to please.

His talented tongue swirled around my clit then undulated in fast pulses, driving me right over the edge. Every fiber of my being contracted as I curled in half, my thighs crushing his head as the force of the climax crashed over me.

I collapsed back onto the grass, limp and breathless. “That was...” I murmured, unable to finish my sentence.

Sadavir pressed a kiss to my belly before moving up to lay at my side, propped up over me on one elbow.

“That was only the beginning,” he reminded me.

“I still haven’t given you want you want, omega.

You’ll come around my cocks screaming my name with my fangs in your throat, my venom in your blood, while I fill you with cum. ”

I wanted to laugh at the over the top declaration, but the intensity of his words had my throat drying up and my pussy gushing wet. I reached for him instead, desperate to take what he promised.

A shiver of magic washed over me, and I felt Sadavir’s position change beside me. The soft, warm slide of a heavy tail against my leg made my thighs clench together in anticipation. “I want to take you in my true form tonight,” he voiced from above me. “Any objections?”

I answered by running my hand up his thick, muscular naga tail to the bulge in front. Pressing the heel of my hand to the base of the bulge, I urged his cocks out of their pocket. “No objections at all , I confirmed.”

He pressed me back again, his serpentine lower body sliding against me, wrapping around one of my legs as he lifted the other upward and outward, making room for his torso. He dragged the head of both cocks over my pussy and hissed in pleasure. “So wet. Are you ready for me, my omega?”

I nodded fervently, hooking my leg over his hip and urging him closer. “Yes, alpha. Please.”

He leaned down to kiss me, slow and deep, then pulled back, his forehead resting on mine. “I can’t promise I’ll be gentle. Not tonight. Not with the snake riding me so hard. But I promise I will try.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want gentle right now, Sadavir. I wanted to be claimed. ”

He kissed me again, the kiss turning deep and feral as he confirmed my acceptance.

I bit his bottom lip, smiling when he growled at me.

Then he was done playing around. Done being careful and considerate.

He undulated his hips in one powerful, sinuous movement, sliding both big, hard cocks inside me at the same time, in one deep thrust.

I cried out in surprise at the sudden invasion, but my body was primed for this, ready to take him all, like a good omega.

Ready to claim him as much as he claimed me.

I arched my head back, my body bowed as the discomfort of being stretched morphed almost instantly into mind-bending pleasure. I sucked in a breath.

Then, he moved. And it was all I could do to cling to his muscular back as my alpha pounded into me with deep, powerful, undulating thrusts, claiming my body, demanding a response.

I came hard, digging my fingernails into his back, and yet he never stopped, never paused, fucking me through my climax and right into another one.

“Mine,” he said in a rough voice, tangling one hand in the back of my hair and yanking my head back, exposing my throat to him.

I shuddered, a fresh spike of need coursing through me even as he surged inside me.

He ducked his head, and needle-sharp fangs scraped against my skin.

“Sadavir,” I whimpered. Not out of fear, but out of pure need.

I felt like I stood on a precipice, the thing I’d longed for all my life just out of my reach.

He gave me what I wanted, slicing his fangs into the space where my shoulder met my neck.

Magic pulsed through me, new and powerful.

The bond snapping into place, my alpha’s will tying us together as his venom flooded my veins.

He grunted against my skin, shuddered in my arms, and thrust even deeper, holding himself there as he came inside me, filling me each pulse of his cocks, flooding me with his seed, giving me everything I’d asked for.

He removed his fangs from my neck and moved to kiss me again, slow and tender, both of us breathless and reeling.

Magic pulsed around us. It was everywhere.

Outside me. Inside me. Linking us together.

I could feel him there. A sense of his wonder and awe.

It was a mirror of my own feelings. I had never felt so. .. connected, so safe and whole.

Magic slammed outward from The Fox like a bell tolling, ringing through my aura and leaving a physical aftershock through my body. A roar tore through the air.

Robin. She and I weren’t fully mate bonded, but we did share a close connection, and our auras were attuned to each other. She had to have felt the bond with Sadavir snap into place.

I could sense the chaos inside The Fox. That ripple of magic just now was one of Sanaka’s protective fire wards. It was powerful enough to feel way out here... because it was made to withstand a fully rampaging dragon.

She screamed again, a beast of legend with its heart torn out.

I heard the anguish in it—felt her pain with the part of my being that was tangled with hers. The grief. The rage. The loss. The desperate feeling of heartsick betrayal...

Sadavir shifted back to human form and pulled me onto his lap, cradling me in his arms. “Shh...”

I didn’t realize I was sobbing until he spoke. His big hands soothed over my hair, and he wiped my tears away with a thumb. “It will pass. She’s strong. She’ll find her feet again.”

I tried to hold it back, but a broken sound escaped me. “She’s in so much pain . I didn’t realize it would hurt this much. I... she didn’t want... but... I did this to her.”

He just pressed a kiss to the top of my head and pushed some of his strong, grounding aura my way.

“Tune it out, omega. Focus on me.” His voice was gentle as he urged me to press my face to his chest. To shelter there.

“This pain isn’t yours to bear. She knew it was coming.

It’s just her animal nature. She’ll work through it. ”

I hated it. But I did what he said. I did my best to pull back from my connection to Robin, to dampen my natural attunement to the whole court and my healing abilities—my omega nature. Finally, I was able to draw in a breath. Then another.

I had known this was going to be hard. I knew my decision would have far-reaching consequences.

But the burden wasn’t all mine to bear. Robin was suffering right now, yes, but largely by her own choice.

Even she had seemed to agree that I should be bonded to Sadavir.

This was what was best for me. And ultimately the entire court, including the wounded dragon who was probably trying to burn the theater down right now.

Drawing in one last calming breath, I straightened a bit and reached out to touch Sadavir’s cheek, some of my wonder returning at the way I could sense him now—not his exact thoughts, really.

.. but the general tone of his thoughts and feelings.

He was so strong and unwavering in his convictions.

His current stoic concern warred with his elation, with the euphoria of our bonding and our intense lovemaking.

“I love you,” I said softly, pulling back to make sure he could see my face as I spoke. “The night might have had a few bumps thanks to my other... attachments... but I want you to know that. I regret nothing. I’m proud to be your mate.”

He gripped my hand and turned it to press a kiss to the palm. “No regrets,” he voiced slowly. “We share everything now. Even our burdens.”

His words settled something inside me, and I realized that, for the first time in forever, I felt truly at ease.

Even with everything I still had to face, all of the problems that still loomed over our heads—the constant anxiety and worry that had plagued me for so long was just..

. gone. I felt safe in a way I hadn’t before.

Even though I had all of my other connections and my place in the court, the omega in me had needed this anchor.

I thought I understood what that meant before. But only now was I truly beginning to understand exactly how powerful a true mate bond really was.