Page 23

Dern

Many years ago on Pharenos

The air caught in my lungs with Ormund’s nimble tongue brushed over my omegahole for the first time. For a second, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t see, and I sure in the hell couldn’t think straight.

I froze under him, mesmerized by his nimble tongue teasing my hole. He lapped up my slickness, reveling in the taste of my arousal as no other man had ever done.

“Breathe, mate,”

he chuckled against my skin. “Breathe or I’ll have to stop. You have to breathe through the pleasure. The air is too thin up here for you not to keep breathing.”

I pushed the air out of my lungs and drew in a breath.

It escaped with a moan as his tongue drew another circle over my sensitive flesh.

Ormund kept his hold on my dick and his other hand kept one leg up against my body.

I moved the other one to rest over his shoulder as his mouth teased and tormented me into a hot, writhing mess of a wolf.

I howled and whimpered, losing my train of thought and any damn composure I had ever possessed.

My fits were always wild beasts, but it was as if each flick of his tongue against my body drew more of it out of me.

My flesh burnt hot even as he licked me and sent lightning bolts of pleasure zipping through my cells.

Reaching down, I ran my fingers through his hair and his feathers.

I held on for dear life as his tongue slid into my slick hole and his fist pumped over my dick as if it was the only thing that kept him from falling off the face of Pharenos.

I lost myself to him and wasn’t sure I wanted to find my way back to the wolf I was before.

The man I was prior to meeting Ormund would’ve never taken out Elke and relished in rolling in his blood until it saturated my skin and fur.

He wouldn’t have spread his legs and let anyone dive tongue first into him like Ormund did to me.

I wanted to be this version of me – fearless and not giving a single solitary fuck about the rest of the world.

They’d tried to take everything from me and they almost succeeded but I was still here – still me and so much more than me.

My wolf brushed against my ribs.

I didn’t know it then but he wanted to get closer to Ormund’s giant bird.

He couldn’t quite reach him even with our being so close.

They wouldn’t be able to cross the boundary of our souls and reach each other until after our claiming vows.

I entwined my fingers into Ormund’s feathery hair and held on for deal life as everything inside me burnt hot and then scorching.

His hand left my thigh, and a single finger slid home into my body.

It was shameful how easily this man made me cum.

The orgasm rattled my brain and my body, making a mess of me and the sheets but Ormund’s torturous tongue didn’t slow down until there was nothing left to milk out of my dick.

He rose up onto his knees.

A cocky smile played at his lips, and I had never wanted – no, needed – someone more in my life.

None of the wolves back home knew what they were missing out on.

I’d orgasmed seconds ago but the heat wasn’t done with us yet.

I was half-hard again and already aching inside for more of his touch.

Reaching out to him, I pulled him down on top of me, ignoring the mess.

We shared a long, slow kiss, his tongue probing into my mouth and whipping around my own. He was hard again. So fucking hard. And big. Phoenixes weren’t too fond of keeping their pants on. So even before I saw my mate sans his pants I knew he would be larger than the wolves I slunk off with for one nightstands during my fits.

“Heat. Heats,”

my wolf corrected. “We’re in heat. We’re not having fits. Fits is so ableist. Fits makes fun of something I can’t quite wrap my head around. It’s not right. Even alpha said it wasn’t quite right.”

“What do we do?”

I asked about the claiming vows, but not all of the thought made it out of my head.

“Anything you want,”

he laughed, leaning up on his elbows.

“For the vows,”

I added and pulled him back down for another kiss.

“Oh, those. We have to exchange bites and drain out the good, magical stuff,”

he murmured against my lips. “Then I’ll be inside your head and your body. Well, if you invite me in.”

“What are you a vampire?”

I laughed. “Need to be invited in?”

“All dicks should be vampires. If you’re not invited, keep them the fuck out,”

Ormund said, his voice turning serious.

“You’re invited,”

I said and kissed him again.

“Even if I leave behind a baby?”

Ormund asked.

“Even then,”

I nodded. “Maybe especially then. My wolf is all fucking moony eyed at the thought of pups.”

“Beautiful pups who look like you. You’re so fucking beautiful, Dern. So fucking beautiful and you smell so fucking good. I could just sniff you all day and never get tired of it.”

“I--- uh—”

my train of thoughts derailed again. “Do we do the vows while we do --- each other?”

“We can. That’s up to us really. It’s whatever you want. I just want you happy, mate. I’d go to the ends of reality to see you happy. I’d take every furry head who knew about your butchery ahead of time if that’s what it took.”

“Maybe later we’ll do that,”

I said after thinking about it for a minute. “But first this. I want you. I want this,”

I reached between our bodies and took his dick in my hand. “Inside me and I want it there soon. I’m about to stuff it there myself if ---”

Ormund smirked at me, and I lost my thoughts again. Between the heat, his scent, and the pull of our mateship I might never have straight thought again.

“You want to exchange claiming vows?”

Ormund offered up to finish my thought. I nodded at him. My cock throbbed and inside my body ached for him to fill me up.

“Okay. We can do that. Do you want me inside of you while we do it? They say it’s more pleasurable that way but we can wait until after if you—”

I stroked his cock and wiggled up to line our bodies out so that I could press the hard, mushroom-shaped head of his prick against my slick omegahole.

He groaned above me, hunger dancing through his glowing eyes.

His bird looked out at me and my eyes shifted to that of my wolf.

They stared into each other as Ormund gave a gentle thrust forward and aided by my copious slickness slid the first few inches of himself into my omegahole.

My brain spun in circles, and I gasped for air, remembering that if I didn’t breathe Ormund would stop everything until I did.

I panted for air as my brain wrapped itself around the new sensation of him pressing against the inner walls of my passageway.

He was big and girthy and made me grit my teeth until my body relaxed around him.

He kissed me softly, coaxing me to relax around him.

Then he thrust forward again, feeding more of himself into me. I gasped and wrapped my legs around his middle so that he couldn’t pull away.

“I’m not going anywhere, mate,”

he whispered, his words laced with the pressure of my body squeezing around his dick.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and our mouths met again, his tongue slipping through my lips.

I was ready for it this time and met him there.

I twirled my tongue around his, reveling in how warm and tasty his mouth was.

He was sweet on my tongue as our bodies found their rhythms and he slid balls deep inside me.

For a moment, with all my nerve endings calling out their euphoria I forgot what we’d set out to do.

We weren’t just making love. We were participating in some ancient ritual between mates.

Ormund buried his face in the crook of my neck on the side of my claiming gland.

His hips worked slowly, sinking his girthy cock in and out of my omegahole as I writhed under him trying to keep up or at least think straight enough.

I didn’t know that thoughts were best left outside of the mating bed yet.

I’d learn that eventually.

“I promise that no one will ever hurt you again. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe. Nothing will ever stop me from protecting you. Nothing is too much to give so that we forever remain by each other’s sides,”

he whispered in my ear.

“I promise I’ll never be a coward,”

I whispered back, my breath hitching in my lungs, as he sank particularly deep into my slick, desperate omegahole. “I’ll always fight by your side and take care of my own dirty work too.”

“You don’t have to. I don’t mind the heavy lifting, mate,”

Ormund whispered against my skin.

“Neither do I,”

I said, my words barely audible to my own ears. “I didn’t mind taking care of Elke at all. It was an honor to even out the universal scales of justice. I think my claws were made to be bloody, mate.”

“I’ll always scrub them clean for you,”

he chuckled and the sound vibrated inside of me.

I opened my mouth to speak again but forgot what I meant to say when Ormund’s endless patience ran dry and his teeth grazed over my claiming gland.

I squeaked as the liquid inside it sloshed around underneath the taut skin and a second later one of his sharp teeth punctured the gland.

I sighed in relief as the pressure was immediately lessened and the stuff inside my gland ran down my shoulder for Ormund to lap up the way he’d done my slickness not so long ago.

He smiled against my skin, his hips still pumping his cock inside my body.

I squeezed him tight, wanting to keep all his attention on me.

Both he and the healer had tried to explain what the claiming vows would do but I didn’t quite get it.

How could I understand something that I never experienced? How could I know something that had never been part of the culture I grew up in? I wouldn’t.

Not for a few more minutes anyway.

Not until Ormund nudged me to bite him. That’s when my wolfy side took over.

One of my canine teeth elongated as soon as I sniffed out Ormund’s claiming gland.

His was squishy and full of liquidy stuff too.

I took a long, deep breath but my furry side urged me forward and I bit him hard.

He growled but that didn’t stop me.

I kept steady pressure until the gland exploded with clear fluid.

I lapped it all up, a happy wolf tasting his mate’s magic.

He tasted like rosehip tea and caramelized sugar.

I couldn’t stop lapping at him.

Then my vision faded and my inner eye saw what had already passed for a change. I saw my mate’s parents and the other chicks who hatched around the same time as him. Suddenly as if brought by the vision I spoke fluently in all the birdy sounds and body language. I knew what it was to fly and how to stay upright in a storm. I knew the names of the other peck members and who their mates were. I understood that they had long watched the eight wolf packs but were careful of us because there was always some war playing out. I couldn’t blame them for that. Wolves did like to fight a lot. I’d never been in a war but after taking Elke’s life I understood the thrill. Only, that thrill wouldn’t have tickled in all my predatory spots if Elke hadn’t been the son-of-a-bitch who ordered the tearing apart of my life.

“No one blames you for reveling in his death, mate,”

Ormund’s voice sounded off inside my thoughts as my wolf’s often did and I startled beneath him, nearly sliding off his dick. He thrust hard, keeping his warm home inside my body secure. I let out a long moan and grappled with the pleasure until I clawed my thoughts back to the forefront of my mind.

“You’re in my head?”

I thought back at him testing our new link out.

“This is our mating link, mate,”

Ormund chuckled. “You’ll eventually be able to filter it and close it off when you want but yes, for lack of better words, I am indeed inside your head. It’s cozy in here.”

I kissed him again. I couldn’t think of anything else to say but it occurred to me we could make out and hold a conversation at the same time now. That might be handy one day. I sank into our connection and his pleasure from our lovemaking mingled with my own. We rode out the waves together, taking solace and rapture in each other’s bodies. I came hard and then came again before Ormund spilled his warm sticky seed inside me. I was his through and through, but he was mine too and before my first heat of our mateship ended, I marked my territory more than once.