Page 15 of Snared (The Legion: Savage Lands Sector #8)

I watched him emerge from the trees, every line of his body taut with danger.

Lor moved like liquid shadows, his golden eyes scanning the perimeter, his claws still half-extended from whatever threat he’d faced in the depths of the jungle.

The sudden departure had left me naked, wanting, and increasingly irritated.

My body still hummed with unfinished pleasure, the ghost of his tongue against my core, the promise of more lingering in the air between us. I’d had enough of interruptions.

Phil remained curled around my wrist, his vine-body pulsing with something that felt like concern.

I’d stayed where Lor had left me, partly because of Phil’s gentle insistence, but mostly because the thought of Lor returning to find me gone made my stomach clench in a way I didn’t want to examine too closely.

So I’d waited, gloriously naked in our little sanctuary, tracing patterns in the moss with my fingertips while anticipation built inside me like a gathering storm.

When he finally stepped into our clearing, his eyes found mine immediately. Then dropped lower, taking in my bare skin with an intensity that sent fresh heat racing through my veins. He stilled completely, a predator frozen in the moment before the pounce.

“Whatever it was, is it taken care of?” I asked, not bothering to cover myself. Why would I? He’d already tasted every inch of me, had already made me come apart twice beneath his clever tongue. The memory alone made my thighs press together, seeking pressure.

He nodded once, his gaze never leaving my body. “For now.”

“Good.” I slid back into a reclined pose from where I’d been sitting, stretching deliberately. Enjoying the way his pupils dilated at the movement. “Then let’s skip the drama. Just fuck me already.”

The words hung in the humid air between us, bold and unequivocal.

I wasn’t sure where my audacity came from—maybe the lingering confidence from those earth-shattering orgasms, maybe the way he looked at me like I was water in a desert—but I didn’t regret it.

Not when I saw what my demand did to him.

The look he gave me wasn’t shock. Not really. It was more like something inside him had been waiting for me to say it. To ask. To give him permission.

His tail lashed once, hard, betraying the control he was exerting over himself. “Miri,” he said, my name a graveled warning in his throat.

“What?” I cocked my hip, challenging him. “You were fine with tasting me until I couldn’t see straight. What’s different now?”

He took a step closer, then another, moving with the deliberate grace of a hunter who knows his prey can’t escape. “That was just the beginning.”

“Then let’s continue.” I held my ground as he approached, even as my heartbeat quickened to a frantic rhythm. “I’m still wet. I’m still wanting. And I’m tired of waiting.”

He stopped just inches from me, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his body, smell the wild scent of him —jungle and musk and something uniquely Lor. His hand lifted to hover near my face, not quite touching.

“You don’t understand what you’re asking,” he murmured, voice low and rough. “This isn’t just physical. With fate mates, the physical joining is...more.”

I arched an eyebrow. “More orgasms? I’m on board.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “It’s permanent, Miri. The bond becomes unbreakable. You would feel what I feel. I would feel what you feel. Our lives would be entwined beyond separation.”

I should have been terrified by the implications.

This was basically alien marriage with psychic side effects, proposed after knowing each other for what—three days?

Four? Time had lost meaning in this endless green world.

By all rights, I should have backed away, asked for time, demanded more explanation.

Instead, I stepped closer, eliminating the last breath of space between us.

“And that’s different from what’s already happening?

” I placed my palm against his chest, feeling the thunderous beat of his heart.

“I already dream with you. The jungle already thinks we’re a matched set. What’s one more step?”

His hand finally made contact with my cheek, the careful touch of those deadly claws against my skin sending shivers down my spine. “You would be bound to this world. To me. Forever.”

I turned my face to press my lips against his palm. “I know what I feel. And I know I trust you.”

That did it. Something snapped in him—I could see it in the sudden flare of his pupils, feel it in the subtle tremor that ran through his powerful frame. His tail curled possessively around my ankle as he bent to press his forehead against mine.

“There will be no going back,” he whispered, his breath hot against my lips. “Once I claim you, once you claim me, not even death will sever what we become.”

“Pretty words,” I murmured, nipping at his bottom lip. “But I’d rather have action.”

He growled, the sound rumbling from deep in his chest, vibrating against my naked breasts where they pressed against him.

In one fluid motion, he scooped me into his arms like I weighed nothing, cradling me against his chest as he carried me to the moss bed nestled between glowing roots and protective vines.

The look in his eyes as he laid me down was reverent, hungry, possessive—everything I’d seen in our Unity dreams and more. This wasn’t just desire. This was devotion. This was destiny.

And for once in my skeptical, questioning life, I wasn’t running from it. I was running toward it, arms wide open, heart unguarded for the first time since I could remember.

The bioluminescent fungi pulsed with a soft blue-green glow that painted Lor’s bronze skin in otherworldly light as he loomed above me, his expression fierce with want and something deeper—something that looked dangerously like love.

“Mine,” he whispered, the word both question and declaration.

I reached up, threading my fingers through his dark mane, pulling him down toward me. “Prove it.”

The jungle stirred around us, low and warm, like it approved.

Of me. Of him. Of us. The very air seemed to thicken, heavy with anticipation as Lor lowered his body over mine.

This wasn’t the frantic coupling I’d imagined—the quick, desperate release after days of tension.

No, his eyes told me this would be something else entirely.

A ritual. A claiming. The fulfillment of something written in our DNA long before either of us existed.

And then he showed me.

What it meant to be chosen—by fate, by instinct, by a male who would burn down the stars to keep me safe. It was slow, reverent. A claiming made of heat and hunger and the kind of wild tenderness I didn’t know existed outside of fairy tales.

He whispered my name like it was sacred.

I whispered his like it was home.

His hands traced my body with such deliberate care that tears pricked behind my eyes. Each touch was worship, each caress a vow. When his mouth found my breast, the gentle scrape of fangs against sensitive flesh made me arch beneath him, a plea forming on my lips.

“Please,” I gasped, not even knowing what I was begging for. More. Everything. Him.

He smiled against my skin, that rare, beautiful curve of lips that transformed his fierce features. “Patience, kassari,” he murmured. “I want to remember every moment of making you mine.”

The vines around us shifted, responding to some unspoken command—or perhaps to the energy pulsing between us. Thin, supple tendrils slid across the moss, twining gently around my wrists, drawing my arms above my head. Not constraining, not forcing, but offering support, participation.

I should have been alarmed. Instead, I surrendered to their gentle hold, curious and desperately aroused by this new development. Phil remained at the edge of our sanctuary, a respectful guardian, but these new vines—thinner, with a subtle purple-blue luminescence—seemed created for this moment.

“They want to help,” Lor explained, his voice rough with desire. “The jungle feels our bond. It wants to be part of this.”

“Yes,” I breathed, not questioning why this felt so right, so natural. Nothing in my life had prepared me for making love while sentient vines held me open for my alien mate, but nothing had ever felt more perfect either.

The vines adjusted their grip, securing my wrists while leaving me enough freedom to move, to arch, to respond.

Another tendril slipped beneath my lower back, supporting me, lifting me slightly toward Lor’s waiting mouth.

He growled his approval, the sound vibrating against my inner thigh as he settled between my legs.

Though he’d tasted me before, this felt different—more deliberate, more thorough.

His tongue traced every fold, every secret place, learning me like territory he intended to claim for eternity.

When he finally centered his attention on my clit, I nearly screamed, the sensation almost too intense after so much teasing.

“Lor!” I gasped, pulling against the gentle restraint of the vines. “I need—I need?—”

“I know what you need,” he rumbled against me, the vibration sending sparks dancing along my nerve endings. “And I will give it to you. All of it. But first...”

He slid one finger inside me, the careful pressure making me whimper. A second finger joined the first, stretching me, preparing me. His claws were fully retracted, but I could feel the potential of them, the deadly power held in check for my pleasure alone.

“You’re so tight,” he murmured, his voice awed. “So perfect.”

The vines around my wrists pulsed in time with his thrusting fingers, as if the jungle itself was helping to build my pleasure. A delicate tendril even slipped down to caress my breast, circling the sensitive peak in counterpoint to Lor’s rhythm below.

When he finally rose above me, his massive body blocking out everything but his golden eyes and the heat of him against me, I was trembling with need.

The head of his cock pressed against my entrance, hot and impossibly large.

I’d seen him in our dreams, felt him there, but reality was so much more intense—the width of him, the heat, the slight texture of ridges along the underside that I knew would drag against every sensitive spot inside me.

“Look at me,” he commanded softly, and I did, locking eyes as he began to push inside.

The stretch was exquisite—a burning fullness that walked the perfect edge between pleasure and pain.

He entered me with excruciating slowness, giving my body time to adjust to each inch of his considerable length.

The vines around my wrists tightened slightly, helping me remain still when instinct wanted me to buck beneath him.

“So tight,” he growled, his control visibly slipping as my cunt clenched around his invading cock. “So hot. So perfect.”

When he was finally seated fully inside me, both of us were panting. He held himself above me, arms trembling with the effort of restraint, his eyes blazing with primal hunger. I had never felt so full, so stretched, so completely possessed.

“Move,” I pleaded, rotating my hips as much as the vines would allow. “Please, Lor. I need you to move.”

He did, withdrawing almost completely before sliding back in with deliberate precision. Each thrust was measured, calculated to drag those textured ridges along my most sensitive places. The vines adjusted their hold, spreading my thighs wider, giving him deeper access.

His tail curled around my ankle, then slid higher, the tip teasing along my calf, my thigh, adding yet another point of contact between us.

Everywhere he touched, everywhere the vines touched, felt like fire against my skin—not burning but illuminating, making me aware of every nerve ending, every pulse point, every breath.

“Mine,” he growled, his pace increasing slightly as my body welcomed him more easily. “Say it, Miri. Tell me you’re mine.”

Of all the dangerous myths I’ve had to track down, falling in love was the most dangerous of all. “Yours,” I gasped, the word torn from somewhere deeper than thought. “I’m yours, Lor. Only yours.”

Something shifted in his expression—triumph, joy, relief—and his next thrust hit a spot inside me that made stars burst behind my eyes. He angled his hips to hit it again, and again, while one hand slipped between our bodies to find my clit.

The combined sensation was too much. I shattered around him, my cunt clenching rhythmically as pleasure crashed through me in waves. The vines around my wrists pulsed in harmony with my orgasm, the jungle itself seeming to celebrate our joining.

But Lor wasn’t finished. As the aftershocks still rippled through me, he adjusted our position, turning me onto my side while remaining inside me. The vines cooperated instantly, releasing my wrists only to secure one thigh, lifting it to allow him deeper access from this new angle.

His cock felt even bigger this way, stretching me in new directions, hitting places that made me gasp and moan.

His pace increased, each thrust more forceful than the last, but never losing that fundamental reverence.

One hand gripped my hip, the other tangled in my hair, turning my face so he could claim my mouth in a kiss that mirrored the possession of his body within mine.

“Again,” he commanded against my lips. “Come for me again, kassari.”

His tail slipped between my thighs from behind, the tip finding my clit with unerring accuracy, adding a new dimension to the pleasure building inside me.

Combined with the relentless drive of his cock and the gentle restraint of the vines, it was overwhelming.

I couldn’t resist, couldn’t delay—my second orgasm crashed through me with even greater intensity than the first, pulling a cry from my throat that echoed through the jungle canopy.

This time, Lor followed me over the edge.

His rhythm faltered, his body tensing against mine as he buried himself to the hilt.

I felt the moment his control broke—a growl tearing from his chest as his cock pulsed inside me, filling me with his heat.

His mouth found the juncture of my neck and shoulder, teeth pressing against my skin in question.

“Yes,” I gasped, understanding instinctively what he needed. “Mark me. Make me yours.”