Chapter 41

I NEED TO GET OUT of here. There’s a conflagration of lust trying to consume every inch of my body, and if I don’t find somewhere to cool off, I’m going to go up in flames any second now. It’s ridiculous. I shouldn’t be this hot and bothered simply from being pressed up against Aeson Noctis for only a handful of minutes, and certainly not while I’m wearing an alarming amount of his blood. But it’s as though acknowledging this bond between us has somehow strengthened it, and now my head and body are a tandem riot of lascivious longing.

His touch, that smug smile he favors, the way his eyes become a deeper blue when he’s digging between the lines of everything I say—I can’t get any of it out of my head. I’m fixated, which is really fucking inconvenient, because I have enough shit to worry about. I don’t need Aeson Noctis and this bond trying to weasel its way higher up on my list.

My vision tunnels toward the exit I used to sneak into the ballroom earlier. I just need to make it past the columns, and then I’m free. Free to question everything that I’m doing here. Free to lock myself in my room, get myself off, and scream my release into a pillow so no one can hear me. Free to freak out about the fact that the commander is my Bonded fucking Mate.

Someone calls my name, but I ignore them. I can’t stop or I’m going to spontaneously combust.

Escape is fifteen feet away.

Twelve feet.

Nine.

I’ve set one heel in the shadows of the columns when, out of nowhere, I’m tackled from behind. Shock slows my reaction, and a large palm over my mouth stifles my cry of alarm. I start to fight back, but the next thing I know, my back is plastered to the cold stone of a column, and Aeson’s there, looming over me, his eyes blazing with hunger.

His chest rises and falls with quick breaths, the motion teasing my nipples as he wedges a muscular leg between my thighs and drops his head until his lips skim the shell of my ear. His hand moves from my mouth and wraps possessively around my throat.

“I believe I was clear what would happen if you kept running from me,” he growls in my ear.

I gasp as he nips my earlobe, and I automatically grind down on his thigh in search of friction, frantic for relief. He purrs with satisfaction and pulls back to look at me. The cuts on his face and hands have healed, leaving only lines of blood as evidence that they were ever there. His suit jacket is sliced up beyond saving, and the few butterflies that I have left around me get to work destroying it completely.

“You may not know this about me yet, Claws, but I’m a man of my word. I do not make idle threats, and I do not back down…ever.”

He presses his lips against mine, but instead of kissing me like I’m suddenly desperate for, he sucks my lower lip into his mouth and bites it just hard enough to coax a little whimper out of me before he lets it go.

“You think your ominous little warning is the end of our discussion?” he asks me as his other hand drops to my thigh and starts to slowly work its way up. “Think again, Claws, I’m nowhere near done with you.”

“Aeson,” I pant, and I have no idea if I’m begging him to stop or begging him not to.

He’s too close, too hot, too all consuming. If I was a blaze before, I’m a raging inferno now. I writhe against him, and that maddening self-satisfied smile of his is back.

“What do you need, Claws?” he purrs, like he doesn’t already know. “Tell your Bonded what he can do for you.”

Like a match to dry kindling, I ignite and then I burn.

“Kiss me,” I command. “And then take me somewhere so I can fuck you and no one will hear me scream.”

Fast as a flickering bolt of lightning, he claims my mouth, and I claim his right back. His lips are supple and soft, but his mouth is hard and demanding. His tongue teases mine, luring me deeper until I’m lost to the heady taste of him. I thread my fingers in his hair, needing more, needing him everywhere.

My heart races to catch up with the frenzy building between us, and my blood sings a carnal ballad as every nerve in my body flares with need. The vicious butterflies diving and darting all around us match our insatiable fervor and once again draw Aeson’s blood. His hand drops from my throat and he grabs my ass and lifts me. I wrap my legs around his waist and devour him.

He sucks my tongue as he pulls back, breaking our kiss, and I mewl an objection. But then my eyes fall on a tendril of scarlet that’s just started slipping down his throat. I don’t know what comes over me, but I lean in and lick it up, my tongue stroking over the new wound like Aeson’s blood is my favorite flavor of ice cream.

I greedily swallow my little taste of the commander, and his desperate groan is all the salacious endorsement I need to trace the lines of his dragon mark with my tongue before I lick the line of his cut again. Fuck, he tastes good. It makes me instantly want to drop to my knees and test the flavor of his cock down my throat.

“I need to be inside of you, Claws. Can you make it to the rookery? I want your cum all over our sheets and your screams embedded in the walls of our rooms.”

“Anywhere closer?” I pant and roll my hips against the hard bulge in his pants. “Because if you’re not fucking me in the next minute, I’m going to start fucking myself. Where in the keep that happens is up to you.”

His answering moan is both pained and encouraging. His eyes dart toward the shadowy exit behind us, and then we’re moving. He doesn’t put me down, and that’s fine by me. I take the opportunity to familiarize my lips with the line of his jaw and the curve of his ear, while I let my hips bounce against his with every confident stride he makes.

In a blink, we’re racing down a dark hallway, and then all at once the last of the butterflies attacking Aeson go crashing to the ground. Outrage pours through me, but then Aeson pins me against another wall and kisses me until my indignation burns to ash and my white hot desire is soaking his pants.

Aeson snakes a hand between us and finds his way under my skirt. His fingers immediately caress the seam of my pussy, and he hisses and jerks his face back with shock.

“You’ve been bare this whole time?” he demands, the look in his eyes wild and hungry.

My answering smile is sultry as I ghost my lips over his. “Bare and dripping down my thighs even before you locked me in that room.”

I bite his lip hard to let him know exactly how I feel about that shit.

The vibration in his answering growl works its way through my body and settles deliciously in my clit. I wiggle against Aeson’s fingers, and he parts my lips and slips the tip of one inside of me.

“Fuck, you really are dripping,” he moans. He trails his finger up to my clit and starts to slowly, methodically circle it. “All this for me, Claws?” he purrs as he plays.

I’m pretty sure this asshole is trying to edge me, but jokes on him, I’m so turned on right now, I can probably come from just this. Like he can read my mind, and he refuses to allow it, he pulls his hand away and continues down the hall.

“Aeson,” I beg, but there’s a distinct note of a snarl in it.

“Ever,” he counters innocently like he has no idea what my problem is.

“Fuck me here,” I order impatiently. “I need you,” I whine, hoping the declaration will help push him over the edge I’ve been teetering on for entirely too long.

“Give me two minutes, Claws. I know a place, it isn’t far,” he counters, and I groan with frustration.

“Then give me your fingers. Let me ride your hand until I can ride your cock.”

He squeezes my ass cheeks harder and grinds me against his shaft, which is annoyingly still tucked into his pants. “You can have my fingers another time. I want you screaming my name while you’re impaled on my dick not my fingers.”

I whimper at the visual that teases my imagination and clench my inner walls around nothing.

That’s it. Time to take matters into my own hands…literally.

“I warned you,” I snap at him, every ounce of reason and patience sapped by the overwhelming drive to have him in me, under me, on top of me, and dripping out of me everywhere. But if I can’t have that right now, I can at least take the edge off.

I snake my own hand between our bodies as Aeson slips through another one of those side hidden doors that I had no idea was there until it’s opening.

“Claws, what do you think you’re doing?” he demands, and it’s his voice now that rings with a subtle note of hysteria.

My only answer is to moan as I dip my fingers inside myself. I get them nice and wet and then I pull them out and start stroking my clit just the way I like it. I put a little extra oomph in the satisfied sounds I start making, and a string of very colorful expletives spills out of Aeson’s mouth before he starts down a flight of stairs at a breakneck speed.

“Don’t you fucking dare, Ever,” he barks as I plunge my fingers back inside my pussy and wiggle them around a little so he can hear how obscenely wet I am. “I swear, if you come on your own hand instead of my di—”

An extra loud moan cuts off his threat, and I throw my head back like I’m on the cusp of a life-shattering orgasm. “This could have been you, Spare,” I taunt as I ride my own fingers. “Don’t worry, I’ll send a wish you were here postcard to your blue balls when I’m done.”

I press my tits harder against his chest and pant hot staccato breaths against his shoulder. I have no idea where he’s taking us. The stairwell is dark, but there’s a faint glow to the smooth gray stone all around us that washes us with enough light that I can still make out every detail of Aeson’s pained face and taut body.

Another exaggerated mewl slips out of me when I start back on my clit, and I notice a strange sparkle of light ripple through the surrounding stone in an unmistakable wave that quickly fades.

The beginning of an orgasm starts to take root, and all my attention is sucked away from wherever we are and zeroed in on the building release my fingers are eagerly coaxing from my body. My muscles start to tense and I rub my clit even faster, chasing release.

Out of nowhere, Aeson spins us. I yelp and am forced to try to grab onto him with both of my hands when my weight shifts back and I’m pretty sure I’m about to fall. Strong arms keep me pinned to Aeson’s chest, but then the smooth edge of the stone steps cuts into my back, and I realize he’s now pinning me against the stairs.

Aeson hovers over me, and the look on his face is menacing. He snatches my hand so fast I flinch and brings it to his mouth, while his fiery blue eyes do their best to smelt me. His lips close around the two fingers that were just inside of me, and his face morphs into a look of pure ecstasy. His groan is sensual satisfaction in its rawest form as he sucks my arousal from my skin, tonguing my fingers like he’s giving me a taste of what his mouth intends to do in other places. He meticulously licks every last drop of desire from my digits, and then he pulls them out of his mouth and looks down at me with a punishing glare.

“From now on, you will only come on my cock, my fingers, my hand, my mouth, and my tongue. Every orgasm, every moan, every gasped word, and every drop of cum is mine. And do you know why that is?” he asks as he pulls the tatters of his jacket and shirt off.

My mind stalls as I take in the wide expanse of hard muscle that’s intersected by the black flames of his dragon mark on his chest, shoulders, and upper arms. He reaches for the clasp on his pants, and I’m all but drooling from multiple places as muscles flex and strain in time with his hurried, jerky movements.

My chest heaves even faster and my heart pounds excitedly against my sternum in anticipation of what I know is coming. Desire floods my core, and every inch of me grows hot and sensitive. I suddenly want my dress off, but as I run my hands across my chest and down the sides, I don’t feel a zipper or a clasp or anything else that will help me get it off.

“You asked me what your dragon felt like, but I didn’t answer the question. Ask me again, Claws.”

I tug on my dress, my movements growing more and more frantic, but it still doesn’t budge. Aeson lifts his hand, and a small orange flame flickers to life in his palm. At first I think he’s trying to illuminate the stairwell to help me figure out how to take this thing off, but then he flicks the flame at me. I yelp and try to scramble back in panic.

“It’s okay, it won’t burn you,” he hurries to assure me as he keeps me pinned against the stairs. “I control the flame. I decide what it consumes and what it doesn’t.”

“Burners can do that?” I ask, aghast, my wide eyes jumping frantically from his calm face to the flame that’s flickering on my stomach like it’s waiting to be given orders.

“Not all of them, but I can,” he tells me evenly like it’s no big deal.

I shove at his chest, but he doesn’t move so much as a centimeter. “How ’bout you clue me in to the whole I’m not trying to immolate you thing before you start chucking flames at me next time.”

“I can agree to that if you agree to my previously stated terms.”

My brow furrows with confusion.

“Your pleasure is mine. Your orgasms are mine. If you play with yourself, it’s either because I want you to or because I’m not there and you’re thinking of me.”

His demands are ludicrous. He’s being domineering in the most absurd way. Who agrees to hand over the reins of their pleasure like that, especially to someone they barely even know? So why am I dripping on the steps below me at the thought of it?

“You want to own my orgasms?” I dispute. “Then earn the privilege. I’m not agreeing to shit unless I know I’m in good hands. Then we can talk.”

He smiles like I just said exactly what he was hoping I would. With a flick of his hand, the stationary flame on my stomach starts traveling up my torso, and I realize it’s burning the gossamer fabric of my dress away as it goes. It’s hot but not painfully so. The solitary flicker of fire doesn’t hurt me as it trails its way up my body, but I still hold my breath, worried I’ll feel a bite of pain seconds before my skin starts to scorch. However, Aeson’s control on his affinity must be second to none, because the fire doesn’t so much as singe a hair on my body; it only burns a line up my dress like a fiery zipper.

Aeson kicks off his pants and lifts me off the stairs. My dress falls away with the motion, and the flicker of flame dancing across my chest instantly dies out. We’re skin against skin now, and there’s something about it that’s so intimate and erotic that the haze of manic lust clears for just a breath, and the impact of what we’re doing registers.

I’m about to fuck my mate for the first time.

Not too long ago, the thought of a mate, let alone the reality of being bonded to Aeson Noctis, second son of King Noctis and Scion of The Dragon Horde, would have made me laugh my ass off, because fuck no , that would never happen. I know this will change things, shift things, and as stupid as it is, as selfish as this choice will undoubtedly be, I’m making it.

Aeson carries me into a large room that’s made up of the same smooth gray stone as the stairs. He lays me down on what feels like a floor made of sparring mats, and I hiss at the cold touch of the semi-spongy ground. The noise makes flashes of sparkles detonate like glittering fireworks on the ceiling, and I pause to watch it.

“Where are we, and what is that?” I ask, and several places in the room light up at my voice.

“A training room, and that’s Flare Moss. It reacts to sound. Our tutors used this space to train stealth. As younglings, we had to execute all of our forms without triggering any of the moss. Most programs use magi-tech to do that, but our instructor was old school,” he answers absently, and I look down to see that his eyes are tracing a path down my body and he’s pumping a fist up and down the thick shaft of his cock.

He catches me watching him, and that arrogant smirk makes an appearance. He guides his big hand up and down once, twice, his eyes watching every eager, wanton, needy flash of emotion that flickers across my flushed face.

“I’m dripping for you too, Claws,” he murmurs as a glistening bead of precum spills from his tip. “Now ask me what your dragon feels like to me. Ask me what right I have to demand dominion over your desires and pleasure.”

I lick my lips and pull my enamored gaze from his cock and look up into his scorching blue eyes.

“What does my dragon feel like to you?” I half whimper, half sigh, spreading my legs as wide as I can to make room for his massive frame.

A possessive heat banks in his gaze, and he leans over me until our noses are almost touching. “Your dragon feels the same way that you do…like you were made for me and me you. Like the metric of my happiness rests solely on yours. Like I could never be complete without you by my side.”

He kisses me then, and his lips and tongue walk a fine line between feral and fervent. It has all the edge of wild abandon, and yet it’s deeper, more profound, utterly life-changing. It’s reverent and resplendent, and I voraciously accept every promise I feel on his lips, every covenant I taste on his tongue, and every oath our mouths make.

My lungs begin to scream for air, and he pulls away, dropping his mouth down my throat, descending my chest until he’s claimed a nipple in his hot, wet, talented mouth. He sucks and toys with his tongue, and I gasp desperate breaths between moans, while I writhe under his massive frame. His hips rest in the cradle of my thighs, and I roll against him, borderline distraught with how much I need him inside of me right fucking now.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers against my sternum as he focuses his wicked mouth on my other breast.

“No,” I bark at him, and he looks up at me, confused. “None of that sentimental tender shit,” I breathily scold him, needing to draw the line somewhere if there’s any hope of maintaining dominion over my heart.

His scowl is indignant. “Oh, right. We’re supposed to be enemies,” he deadpans, like it’s the most asinine thing he’s ever heard.

“Exactly,” I agree. “Now fuck me like you hate me.”

My kiss is bruising, vicious, demanding, and he growls his approval into my mouth and lines himself up between my thighs. He palms my ass and tilts my hips up, and then he thrusts into me, seating himself fully in one smooth drive. I throw my head back, my deep, satisfied moan lighting up the walls in time with his.

Finally! I scream in my head as my body adjusts to the delectable intrusion of his cock.

“Fuck, you feel so good,” he rasps. “I knew you would, but this…”

His words get lost as his lips once again claim mine, and he drinks me down like I’m the elixir of life and he’s fighting his way back from the brink of death. I need more, more of his mouth, more of his cock, more of all of him.

He pulls out of me to the tip and pistons back in. We both swallow each other’s moans, and then Aeson stops holding back. He fucks me hard, fast, and deep. Exactly the way I’ve been craving for longer than I’ll ever admit. I tear my mouth from his as desperate breaths pepper my sonorous moans.

He touches places inside of me I thought were more myth than truth.

Each thrust is punctuated with a roll of his hips, and my clit sings praises to his technique while my vagina starts buying merch that says Property of Aeson “Fucks Like a God” Noctis.

All too quickly, the tingling in my limbs begins to coalesce at my core, and I know this orgasm is going to be one for the record books.

“I’m going to come,” I mewl as he starts driving into me even faster.

“Soak my cock, Claws. Give me what I need,” he growls in answer as he nips the top of my shoulder.

White hot pleasure detonates through me, and I wail my release as I almost black the fuck out from the rush of it. Aeson stills inside me as his name bounces off the stone of the room. The echoes sound fittingly like a hymn that might be sung at the foot of the shrine I now have to build for him. Light flares on the other side of my closed lids, and I bite back a laugh at the thought of the Flare Moss getting off on what we’re doing just as much as we are.

I lie back, sated, sweat dotting my skin, and my body completely boneless. I have no idea how I’m going to get up off this floor, let alone walk, but that’s a problem for later when I’m not still twitching with the aftershocks of the best orgasm of my life.

“If I’d have known it was going to be like that, I would have fucked you in Lairwood right after you tackled me in the street.”

I laugh and then sigh happily. Aeson’s quiet, probably recovering himself, but I realize he’s still inside of me, and I wiggle my hips to signal he can pull out now.

He doesn’t move.

I open my eyes and find him staring at me, and something about the determined look in his eyes makes me pause. “What are you doing?” I whisper warily.

“Waiting,” he answers matter-of-factly.

Confusion trickles through me. “For what?”

“For you to be ready to continue.”

I reel back with surprise, my gaze jumping down to the cock that’s still inside of me. I roll my hips once, and, yep, he’s still hard.

What the fuck?

“We’re not done?” I query, like the thought itself is beyond my comprehension.

“Oh, Claws,” he croons at me, punctuating his saccharine sweet tone with a firm thrust of his hips. “We’re just getting started.”

A larger flame than the one he threw at me last time alights in his hand, and I don’t freak out this time when he sets it gently on my chest. As soon as the fire kisses my skin, it splits into half a dozen smaller fireballs, which then shoot off into different directions down my body. I gasp and goose bumps skitter across my bare skin as the chill in the room wrestles with the heat of the flames roving over my torso.

I moan, and my startled gaze snaps up to Aeson’s when two little fireballs start to circle my nipples. His gaze is like a hot brand against my skin. It stamps ownership all over me while his affinity helps him stake his claim.

The flickering flames darting down my body are hot enough to leave a tiny sting in their wake, but they don’t hurt exactly. Instead, they seem to make everything they touch infinitely more sensitive. The fireballs on my nipples almost feel like Aeson attached heated nipple clamps to the tips of each of my breasts. I’ve never felt anything like it and, while unusual, I quickly succumb to the sparks of pleasure it’s stimulating.

Just when I get used to the naughty flames plucking at my nipples, two others slip between my thighs. I gasp, and my spine bows as one flame starts bouncing on my clit, while the other begins to slowly circle the base of Aeson’s shaft where it’s pressed against me. It’s like he’s rubbing a hot finger around my entrance at the same time I’m stretched to the brink and as full as I can possibly be with his cock.

The final roving flame makes me yelp when it dips down my ass and settles between my cheeks. It starts to pulse in time with the one flickering at my clit, and I’m instantly a puddle of sensation and need. My murmurs are incoherent. My mind can’t figure out which sensation to focus on, so instead, it seems to misfire, holding me hostage in this weird state of limbo where everything feels like too much and yet somehow not enough.

Aeson wraps his arms around me and then sits back on his heels, bringing me with him. We’re now upright, still chest to chest, and he’s still settled deep inside of me. I anchor my arms to his shoulders and start to slowly languidly rock against him.

“Mmmmm,” Aeson hums his approval as I start to ride his cock in time with the throbbing heat of his fire. “You light up for me so beautifully.”

I lick up his throat, and then he takes my mouth again, searing me with a bone-melting kiss. I rub myself against the hard planes of his mouthwatering body, and I suddenly want to lick and claim every inch of it. The black flames of his dragon mark dance in the flickering glow from the flames lighting up every erogenous zone I have.

Flare Moss glitters on and off all around us as our moans grow louder. Aeson starts meeting my bouncing hips with hard thrusts of his own, and something untethered and feral starts to build within me.

My dragon fluxes through me, pressing against the barrier of my skin as though eager to feel everything that I do right now. It’s a sensation I have no words for. This being inside of me is both everything I am and yet not. It’s like coming home while also feeling completely foreign and new.

Aeson’s flames all suddenly sync up in time with his pistoning cock, and the inferno I was combusting into earlier is now a supernova intent on wholly consuming me—mind, body, and soul.

The gray stone room all around us blazes to life as my ecstasy sets off the Flare Moss. Suddenly it’s as though we’re suspended in deep space floating amidst a sea of endless stars.

It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, next to the drake fucking me like he was created to do nothing else.

“Give me one more, Ever,” Aeson commands, and my body submits instantly, giving me no choice but to shatter into a thousand pieces as a screaming orgasm claims my fucking soul.

Tears slip down my cheeks as he drives me over the edge again, and this time, he follows me with a roar that has the stars all around us swelling into the suns. His hot release fills me, one more flickering flame hellbent on fracturing me with pleasure beyond all repair.

I float in a pool of euphoria, distantly aware that Aeson’s gently caressing my body and kissing me softly as my mind tries to make sense of all the ways he just ruined me. I cling to him, like I’m afraid of what will happen if I let go. I told myself I couldn’t belong to him, that this curse corrupting my blood would also taint the connection we’d have and I’d be safe from ever falling.

But I was wrong.

Because I can feel his dragon.

It’s coiled in the center of everything he is, and somehow…wrapped around everything that I am too.

Realization falls into me, stealing my breath.

I don’t think Aeson Noctis is my Bonded Mate.

I think he might be my Soul Tied.