Page 57 of Lord of the Lone Wolf (Bonded Hearts #3)
His dragon came to the forefront, no longer content to lend power from within. “You dare to use the souls of the fallen as weapons?”
Nasume’s mad grin grew wider. “So beautiful. You are magnificent in your rage, Kitsuki. This is what I have always wanted.”
“Then see what you have awakened,” Kitsuki’s dragon snarled. He swung his blazing sword in a wide arc, cutting through the attack. His silver fire cleansed them, burning away the corruption and releasing the trapped souls in flashes of light.
Nasume howled in rage and pain as his power rebelled against him. “What are you doing? Stop it!”
“Freeing them.” He cut through the shadows, liberating the souls from Nasume’s grip. “I am restoring the peace you stole from them.”
The wolf king staggered back, his power diminishing with each soul released. The oppressive darkness receded, and the natural light of the room reasserted itself.
“You cannot do this,” Nasume gasped. Green veins stood out against his ashen skin, pulsing with each labored breath. “Their power is mine.”
“They were never yours to claim.”
Nasume’s expression twisted with hatred and desperation. “If I cannot have you, no one will. Especially not my bastard whelp.”
Cold hands wrapped around Kitsuki’s throat, shadow claws digging into his skin. Nasume’s face was inches from his own. “I have you now,” Nasume hissed, his breath smelling of death and decay, as if he were rotting from the inside out. “If I cannot have you willingly, I will take you by force.”
The shadows surrounding them swirled into a cocoon that enveloped them both in darkness. Kitsuki could feel the necromantic energy pulsing from Nasume, reaching for him with hunger.
“You cannot force what we will never give,” Kitsuki’s dragon growled, struggling against Nasume’s grip. He raised his sword, but the shadows wrenched it from his hand.
“Watch me,” Nasume replied, his grip tightening as he forced Kitsuki backward toward the massive bed. “I have waited centuries for this moment. I refuse to be denied any longer.”
Kitsuki’s dragon channeled his fire to raise his body temperature, bringing dragon scales to his skin that glowed silver-white with heat.
Nasume hissed in pain as the heat burned his hand, but he refused to let go. “It will take more than that to drive me away. I have endured centuries of rejection. What is a little pain compared to that?”
The heat intensified, Kitsuki’s scales now glowing to illuminate the shadow cocoon from within. Nasume’s skin blistered where it touched Kitsuki, but the wolf king held on, his madness giving him strength beyond reason.
“I will never let you go,” Nasume declared, his voice a mixture of pain and perverse pleasure. “Never again.”
Nasume threw Kitsuki onto the bed hard enough that the ornate headboard cracked against the obsidian wall. Before Kitsuki could recover, Nasume was upon him, his knees digging into Kitsuki’s thighs as he straddled him.
“Get off us, you depraved animal,” Kitsuki’s dragon roared, his fist connecting with Nasume’s jaw. “I would rather die than let you touch me.”
“Your resistance only makes my conquest sweeter,” Nasume purred, using his magic to force Kitsuki’s arms above his head, binding them to the black silk sheets with shadows that tightened until blood trickled from beneath them. “Fight me. Hate me. It feeds my desire for you.”
“We will tear you apart for this,” Kitsuki’s dragon promised, silver fire erupting along his arms only to be smothered by waves of green-tinted darkness. He bucked hard, but Nasume maintained his position.
“Keep struggling. I want to feel every inch of you fighting me before you submit.” Additional shadow restraints materialized across Kitsuki’s legs, spreading them wide beneath the wolf king. “After all these centuries of denial, you are finally beneath me.”
The wolf king’s shadowmancy stripped away Kitsuki’s armor piece by piece despite his continued struggles.
The shadows slithered across Kitsuki’s body like ravenous serpents, tearing his tunic to shreds and exposing his bare chest to Nasume’s hungry gaze.
Nasume moaned at the sight, running his hands over Kitsuki’s exposed skin with possessive greed, tracing his shifter markings with his claws.
“We will never submit to you,” Kitsuki’s dragon spat. “We would sooner tear out our own heart than give you a moment’s pleasure.”
Kitsuki’s defiance made Nasume shudder with perverse delight.
His breathing grew shaky, his pupils dilated with a lust that had crossed into insanity.
“I will carve my name into your very soul,” Nasume hissed, dragging corrupted claws down Kitsuki’s chest, leaving trails of black frost-burned flesh.
“By the time I am finished with you, you will thank me for the privilege of having my cock inside you.”
The dragon king’s silver fire flared again in revulsion, burning through the shadow restraints before Nasume smothered it with a crushing wave of necromantic power. The corrupted magic pressed down on him, stealing the breath from his lungs.
“You repulse us to our very core,” Kitsuki’s dragon gasped, blood trickling from his lip where he’d bitten it in his struggle. “There is nothing in this realm or any other that would make us want you.”
“And yet here you are,” Nasume replied, seizing Kitsuki’s jaw with bruising force, forcing him to meet his gaze.
His other hand trailed lower, past Kitsuki’s navel, following the path of his shifter markings with invasive intimacy.
“I only need your body to surrender. The rest will follow once I’ve broken you.
And I will break you, Kitsuki. I will fuck you until my name is the only one you moan. ”
The shadows constricted around Kitsuki’s wrists until his bones ground together.
Nasume lowered his face to Kitsuki’s neck, sinking his teeth into the vulnerable flesh hard enough to draw blood, his tongue lapping at it with revolting eagerness.
“And when I am done with you, when you are mine, I will hunt down my worthless bastard son and make you watch as I tear him apart piece by piece while you ride my cock and thank me.”
The vivid threat ignited Kitsuki’s dragon fury to new levels. “He is ours to protect. We will kill you before we let you touch him again.”
Nasume froze, his body going rigid above Kitsuki. He pulled back, his expression transforming from lust to a rage. “What did you say?” When Kitsuki didn’t respond, Nasume seized his throat, squeezing until Kitsuki’s vision darkened at the edges. “He is yours to protect? Yours to fuck ?”
The wolf king’s face contorted with jealousy, spittle flying from his lips as he screamed. “All this time, your rejections, your coldness toward me, were because you are more interested in fucking my worthless son?”
“You are deranged,” Kitsuki’s dragon choked out, but Nasume was beyond sanity.
“You would choose that pathetic halfling over me?” Nasume roared, slamming Kitsuki’s head back against the headboard with enough force to crack the obsidian, making the dragon king’s vision swim. “Why would you take my bastard to your bed to humiliate me?”
When Kitsuki’s dragon remained silent, it pushed Nasume over the edge of sanity. “Then I will chain him at the foot of this bed so he can see me fuck you until you scream my name. And after I finish, I will make you watch as I kill him.”
Kitsuki’s dragon fought with renewed desperation, silver fire erupting across his skin in violent bursts that illuminated the chamber before being smothered.
“We will destroy you first,” he promised, his voice carrying the weight of certainty despite his vulnerable position.
“If you harm him, there will be no realm where you can hide from us.”
“Threaten me more,” Nasume demanded, his voice an unrecognizable guttural sound as he ground his erection against Kitsuki. His hands were everywhere at once. “Stop fighting it, Kitsuki. Accept what we both know is inevitable. You are mine.”
Kitsuki’s rage and disgust reached new heights, his dragon’s fire surging against the necromantic bonds in silver flashes that cracked the obsidian walls. But the corruption was too strong, the shadows too dense, reinforced by souls Nasume had not yet released.
As Nasume’s mouth descended to claim Kitsuki’s, the bedchamber door exploded inward, sending splinters of obsidian wood shooting across the room like deadly projectiles, stopping the wolf king short of his goal.
A gust of fresh air swept through the fetid chamber, carrying the scent of sunlight and forest that cut through the revolting stench of decay.
Maseo .
Kitsuki’s reaction was immediate and complex, a storm of emotions washing across his face.
Shame burned through him at being seen so vulnerable, so powerless beneath Nasume.
Relief followed that Maseo had arrived before Nasume could complete his violation.
Then came terror, fearing that Nasume would turn his rage on his son.
A grim certainty settled in knowing that Kizoshi’s prophecy was unfolding before them, that Maseo would face his father in combat alone.
Nasume, however, interpreted Kitsuki’s expression through the lens of his own jealous obsession.
“You brought him with you?” Nasume screamed, backhanding Kitsuki, making his blood spray across the black silk sheets. “You dare to insult me by bringing him ?”
Nasume reinforced the shadow bonds holding Kitsuki, adding layers of necromantic energy that pinned him in place with crushing force.
“Stay there and watch like a good boy,” he commanded, rising from the bed, shadows swirling around him in violent tornadoes as he turned to face his son, his arousal still present.
“Watch as I destroy the whore who stole you from me.”
Maseo responded by drawing his sword and holding it against his advancing father. Despite his captivity, Kitsuki felt pride that the half-wolf shifter’s blade didn’t waver.
“I should have killed you in your crib,” Nasume snarled at Maseo, shadows gathering around his hands.
“I should have strangled you the moment you drew your first breath. But I will enjoy making your precious dragon king watch as I erase you from existence before I use your blood to ease my way into his body and claim him as mine at long last.”