Page 5 of Stormbinder King (Stormbinder Pack #1)
J ack’s strong fingers gently drawing the remainder of my torn dress from my body woke me up.
“Good morning,” he said, dropping a kiss on my lips. “I woke up wanting to protect my beautiful little mate.”
“Protect from what?” I asked sharply, fear pulsing through me as I thought of that dark, dripping forest.
“No need to worry,” he said reassuringly.
His fingers felt so good on me. Cool, assured, their tips dragging down my heated skin.
Jack raised my arm up, his fingers holding my shoulder and elbow tightly in place.
“What are you doing?” I squeaked in surprise.
“Just a little protection spell. To show that you’re mine. You wouldn’t want to go out walking in the woods and have some strange wolf seize you, would you?”
His voice was teasing, but I heard something intense underneath his tone.
He was very anxious for me to be protected.
What was out there in the forest?
“They could do that?” I asked, feeling tendrils of panic.
Jack’s lips captured mine, his tongue silky and luxuriant.
“They could. But with these binding marks, you’ll be mine permanently. And no one will dare to mess with you. Would you like that, sweetheart?”
His breath was cinnamon and sweet.
I thought of the wolf in the woods, of the stained bloodred on its pelt.
“Yes,” I said shyly. “Of course, Jack.”
He grinned, kissing me again, so hard and fast I felt breathless, flicking the piercing against my shivering skin until I was whimpering with need.
“I love the color of your eyes. You look like the sky right before a storm, all that deep blue, mixing to almost black.”
He put a handful of leaves in his mouth, their color a deep, sage green. After a few moments, he spat them in a bowl and added a bright golden splash of some oil, then another herb that smelled strong and pungent.
It was so strong my nostrils burned a bit, but I said nothing. Then the prince scooped the paste up and rubbed it on the top of my shoulder, beginning to sing in a low tone.
The herbs stung my flesh, and I bit down on my lip to not cry out.
“Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh,” Jack sung, and I felt the magical oils from the herbs burying themselves deep into my flesh as Jack took out a knife and began to trace shapes I didn’t recognize on my skin with the heated blade.
I didn’t know if they were words or symbols, but each cut was like a line of agony so intense and searing that I felt like flames were licking and singeing my skin. Cut after cut, the unfamiliar words running together in my mind.
I felt the new sting of magic in my nostrils, swirling around me like a chill wind.
I began to tremble with the cuts, and only Jack’s strong thighs kept me from falling back into the bedsheets.
The pain was white-hot agony but I pressed my lips together and tried to breathe slowly.
In and out
Jack was protecting me.
After long, painful minutes dragged by, he cocked his head in that clever, puckish way he had.
“There you go, Andromeda,” he said, his lips curving up in a clever smile as he admired his handiwork. “Bound together, forever. I fell in love with you at first sight, and now everyone can see.”
Forever?
I looked down at my arm to see beautiful, sharply defined whorls and swirls of jet black color, and I felt Jack’s hand move almost reverently over the whole of my new tattoo, from my shoulder stretching to my upper back.
A low gravelly sound of pleasure broke from his throat, and Jack suddenly pulled me up and in front of the mirror in the corner of the room, dragging the ruins of my dress further down my back so my breasts tipped and tautened in the cool early morning air.
There stretched across my back was a mixture of dark symbols I didn’t recognize, and a picture of sharp teeth with blood, a pair of silver eyes, their expression cold and fierce.
It bled too, scarlet pinpricks of color over the dark swirling marks.
But if this was what it took to protect me from whatever lurked in the forests. . .
My new mate held his hand over the tattoo. He was shirtless, his loose pants sitting low on his narrow hips, and I felt an immediate pulse twitch between my legs, still wet and damp from last night’s pleasures.
I heard something that sounded like the sharpening of an ax, and it made the hair on my neck stand on end. The prince smiled in satisfaction, each curl of his fingers over my tattoo sending sparks of heat and need flowing to my core.
"Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh,” said Jack.
Tied together
Forever
“What does this word mean?” I asked, pointing at some letters at the edge of the tattoo, because I was too frightened to think about the eyes, fang, or blood.
“Crave,” he said, wrapping his hand around my throat and pulling me closer, and I melted into him, opening my thighs eagerly for my new mate. “I crave you, I need you so badly.”
My heart was thudding painfully.
“So that’s how you claim a mate here?” I whispered, feeling a heady mix of fear and arousal, awestricken that I had been the one he had chosen. He could have had anyone.
“Yes,” Jack murmured.
His lips tasted tart and smoky from the herbs as he gently nudged my legs apart.
My cunt and thighs ached from his size, but I opened eagerly, panting, my hips undulating.
“I need you inside me,” I whispered, feeling bold with my newfound mate.
Mate
That meant my stutter didn’t matter, my shyness didn’t matter, the fact that I wasn’t wealthy and sophisticated and clever didn’t matter.
Even though it was in a strange and unfamiliar land, I was more accepted here than I ever had been.
Jack picked up my leg, kissing down the length, and I stretched, having to grip the bedsheets to keep myself from moaning with need.
“I love you too,” I said, still a bit shy, but knowing in my heart it was true.
I had always been a romantic. Always believed in true love, in love at first sight. But I just hadn’t been sure it would happen to me .
“From the f-first moment I saw you . I-I couldn’t look away. Even in your shifted form.”
Jack grinned, and I saw the wolf inside flash silvery in his eyes.
“Then that’s perfect, isn’t it?”
He carefully positioned the engorged head of his cock at my entrance and began to press inside.