Page 4 of V for Vilified (Hunter V #4)

Thank the Bloody Season

Cassius

T hank the bloody Season! My darling girl chose me. Well, her Fae blood had. But that was no matter. A partner wasn’t chosen by chance. They were a physical and magical match in every sense of the word. Had it not been for the devil darkening her doorstep, I might’ve enjoyed the moment more.

Unfortunately, time was not on our side.

No location was safe against someone as powerful as Lyra, not without the proper magical intervention.

And that required favors I’d waited to call on.

Favors I wasn’t sure had survived all these years I’d been away from the realm.

The Nether wasn’t an easy place to roam for the ones I’d garnered favors from.

“Oh fuck, Cash!” V gasped. “Why are you so fucking huge? How does that even make sense?”

I huffed a laughing breath into the crevice of her neck, overcome by the tightness and heat of a woman who’d plagued my dreams for months. Since meeting her if I was being absolutely honest. Having her like this was positively obscene, but I’d relish the moment.

Any way I could have her, I would.

It’d been quite a time since I’d been under a seasonal spell, and never like this.

Depending on the connection, satisfying it varied.

Ours was stronger than I could’ve ever hoped or imagined.

No matter how much I did in this bed, it wouldn’t satisfy it for longer than a day or two.

Rather untimely, but I’d sell my soul for any excuse to have V in my arms, moaning her pleasure, accepting everything I gave her.

I’d dreamt about a moment like this. I never once considered exploring it through the Season. It’d risk too much to have her here in the Fae realm, but even more so, I never once thought we’d be a match for it. Now it was only death that would take me from her side.

Because it wasn’t just her body I claimed today, it was a place by her side now and forever.

Some deep part of her recognized me as a perfect match.

I only had to wait for her head and heart to understand what her body and magic already knew.

She didn’t know it, but the Season was often how Fae found their mates.

My eyes caught on the mark glowing an elusive lavender on her neck. Every Fae had a rune their magic formed. The purple symbol that appeared on her skin was mine, and I’d have one to match.

Hers.

Thank the bloody fucking Season and all it’d already given me.

The fiery beauty on my lap pressed her chest into mine as she sunk deeper onto my cock. Her soft curves melded with my firm ones. Her pretty little mouth opened to curse me—breathless whispers that stroked my cock like her tight cunt already was.

I shuddered and held back the urge to drive in deeper and take her the way I’d always dreamed of doing.

Spear the pretty Hunter on my length and make every bit of her body sing my praises.

It was bloody maddening how good it felt to finally be inside her.

A dream, really. Nothing compared to the pleasure of having someone you’d been sure you’d never get.

Her breath caught, then her mouth formed a seductive ‘o’.

Her gasps and heady moans were in my ear, pressing me on.

Asking for more. Begging for it in a way only she could.

When my hands settled on her hips, guiding her waist into a downward roll, she clung to my back like she was terrified she’d fall into ruin at any moment.

I’d never let her, even with the Season’s heat warping my usually clever mind.

V was mine, and I’d treat her right.

Unlike those blasted barbarians.

Trouble was, the only way I’d satisfy this vixen was likely a few rounds of rough and overly thorough shagging.

Not exactly how I saw our first time together, but what was a man to do when his dove needed him?

Nothing would satiate the heat but this.

I might be a self-serving bastard, but even I didn’t want the first night we shared together to be wrought with regrets.

I had to appeal to my dove in every way I could.

I was hers to command.

V’s fingers swept my hair back before grasping handfuls. “Don’t stop,” she whispered, weak to the Season in a way I couldn’t be.

Even as the stimulation of her tight hold on my cock threatened to do things no one had in the thousands of years I’d lived, I couldn’t lose all sense and reason.

I needed to stay in control to ensure my dove was well cared for, her every need met.

I’d never make this about me. All that mattered was her.

My first taste of the Season was a memory best left forgotten. Hers couldn’t be. I needed it to be the moment her heart and body aligned. I wouldn’t be the villain in her bed; I’d be the champion of her pleasure.

Sucking in a sharp breath, she rocked back and forth and fucked herself on my lap. I snapped my fingers and the glamor holding my human shape together fell away.

I’d erased some of my runes with one of my stones.

Mostly the ones marking my face because of how difficult they were to hide.

The remaining few that scattered my body I kept as a reminder of the man I couldn’t slip back into being.

A promise to honor every vow I made to my sweet little dove.

Because she’d accepted me when no one else had, and I’d become a man worthy of her.

Tendrils of black snaked across her body, stimulating all the right places. My power was as desperate as I was to touch her. The misty black that most feared tenderly stroked, flicked, and curled around every part of my dove, keeping her close.

V’s breathing shuddered to a halt and failed as soon as she felt the elusive glide of my magic and saw me for the Fae I truly was.

Her fingers danced around the pointed shape of my ears, then across my brow where my personal rune was tattooed with magic in the center of my forehead. The same one marking her neck.

In this form, I glowed even with no light to catch my skin, and it gave her far too much pause as her eyes dipped and strayed to my luminous chest. She glowed when she used her abilities, but perhaps she’d never seen it on anyone else.

I closed my eyes and breathed out a sigh, her caress the gentlest it’d ever been.

V had never touched me like this, never been so open about her desires, not since she consumed Blue Magic.

But that’d only been a glimpse. A taste.

Nothing like this. Not this pleasurable torment devised by the gods themselves.

I couldn’t get enough of it.

I was surrounded by her blissful heat, and I was so desperately afraid of doing anything that made her stop.

I didn’t move or breathe much. I stayed perfectly still as her fingers continued to trace the new shape of me.

It was positively torturous not to taste her lips and bounce the beauty on my cock, but I refused to break whatever spell my new appearance cast on her.

Her hazel eyes had a bit of red in them when they took in my real form with another curious sweep, no longer hesitating.

She leaned in and brushed her lips along the slope of my neck.

I swallowed and my cock jumped inside her.

A gasping breath escaped her. I caught the faintest glimpse of fangs, but they were quickly hidden behind those lush lips I’d been kissing.

It’d been a long time since I was this powerful and still felt like prey, but V had a way of doing the impossible.

Her tongue dragged along the pounding pulse in my throat and left a path of wet heat on my skin that went straight to my cock.

It was evident that whatever interest she might’ve had in my altered figure had been replaced by other urges, because she slipped in closer and teased her lips across the line of my jaw.

Without waiting, her hips swiveled and swallowed the length of me over and over. It was clear my little dove always got what she wanted. I was helpless against her. She set the pace and I matched it.

Her breaths grew frantic the closer she got to climax.

I both wanted it to come and hoped it never would.

The sooner we had a plan in action, the better I could keep her safe.

Neither of which I could do from the bed.

But I was a bloke in love with the object of his desire finally in his arms. I was selfish, motive-driven, and a somewhat reckless opportunist. The greedy part of me always won when it came to her.

I pushed her back and laid her beautiful body out under me.

I slowed the pace. I kept her on the edge of an orgasm, my hips a deliberate, hard slap against hers.

Our mouths met in another heated kiss, but she bit me and licked my bottom lip when my blood touched her tongue.

I’d nearly forgotten she was part vampire until she hurried to chase every drop before my skin naturally mended.

Curiosity got the better of me.

“Want another taste, love?”

Her eyes were unfocused as I pulled away, thrusting without realizing. “Cash…”

“I thought it was clear that I’d do anything for you. You need only to ask,” I whispered with another long kiss. Her hips moved with mine, her moans quickly smothered by my flicking tongue.

“Yes,” she murmured, blunt fingernails scraping against my throat. “You taste…different.”

I preened with the compliment. My thumb brushed her lower lip before I sucked it into my mouth, denying my fangs the same pleasure as hers.

Blood wasn’t why Fae bit, and it certainly wasn’t why we had fangs. Our venom was a very strong aphrodisiac like everything else about us. One that was better left to later with the Season already wreaking havoc on my love. But a little vampire bite couldn’t cause too much trouble, surely.

I tilted my head. “Best have another taste, then.”