Page 97 of Innocent Until Proven Witch

"I'm trying."

"I know you are." I press my forehead to hers, feeling her pulse hammering under my palms. "You're not alone in here. You're never going to be alone again. Whatever they said, whatever they made you believe — it's not in this room. I'm in this room. You're in this room. That's it."

Her breath hitches, for a moment I think it's going to break the wrong way — but then her hands fist in my shirt instead, gripping hard, like she's anchoring herself to something solid instead of drowning in something that isn't.

"I need you," she breathes heavily, and the words aren't about the relic anymore. "Finn, I can’t imagine an existence without you in it. Mate bond or not, you are the man I chose. I need —"

"You will always have me." I don't let her finish. I kiss her instead, slow and certain, pouring everything I can't say fast enough into the points where our mouths meet, and I feel the exact moment the panic in her starts losing ground to something else — something steadier, something that's only ever been about us.

"I’m yours… for as long as you want me, " she breathes against my mouth. "Please don’t let go."

I won't. Not until every voice in her head has nothing left to compete against but my hands on her skin and my name in her mouth.

I get her cloak off her shoulders, my own following a second later, both of us moving with an urgency that isn’t romance but survival — hers, mine, the bond's, all of it tangled into the same desperate need to feel real again after the relic tried to convince her she wasn't worth defending. I back her against the cold stone wall and kiss down her throat, her collarbone, and the sound she makes is less pleasure than relief, like she's surfacing from somewhere dark.

"Finn." Her fingers dig into my shoulders. "I can still hear them. Just —."

" Don’t fret…." I drop to my knees in front of her, working her jeans down over her hips, my mouth following the same path her hands had traced down my back the night before. "I'm not letting anything in your head win. Not tonight. Not ever."

I press my mouth between her thighs and her whole body jolts, a gasp tearing loose that's raw with how much she needed exactly this — something undeniable, something present, something that drowns out everything the relic dragged up out of years of buried shame. I work her with deliberate intensity, one hand braced against her hip to keep her steady against the stone, listening to every sound she makes shift from fractured to focused, the tremor in her thighs no longer panic but pure, building need.

" Mmmm… I'm — "

I don't stop. I can't, not when I can feel through the bond the exact moment the voices finally lose their grip entirely, replaced by nothing but my name and the white-hot pleasure cresting through her. She comes apart with a cry that echoes off old stone, her hand fisting in my hair, her whole body shaking through it in a way that has nothing left of fear in it at all.

I'm back on my feet before she's finished trembling, catching her mouth again, walking her backward until her shoulders meet the wall, my hands already working at my belt.

"Now," she says, dragging me closer by the back of my neck, eyes clear and present and entirely mine again. "I need you inside me. I need you to claim me one more time,”

I lift her against the wall and she wraps her legs around my waist. My hard dick caresses her sacred region, teasing and listening as it blows her mind apart. I never knew a voice could be a powerful aphrodisiac until that moment. Her moans make me even harder , pulling me close to the pinnacle.

And when I sink into her the sound she makes is pure clarity — no fracture in it, no fear, nothing but her and me and the bond roaring up between us bright enough to drown out anything the relic ever tried to plant in her head.

"There," she gasps, nails biting into my shoulders. "Finn — that's it —"

"Stp teasing me with those moans, beautiful. Unless you want a quick job, " My voice comes out wrecked against her throat. "This all I want you to feel. You and me. Nothing else gets to live in here."

I thrust inside her hard and deliberate, her back braced against cold stone, her body taking every inch of me with a desperation that matches my own. There's nothing slow about this one — no time for it, not with the chamber shuddering somewhere behind us and the storm still screaming through the cliffs above. This is urgency distilled down to its purest form, both of us chasing the same singular truth: we're here, we're real, and nothing gets to take that from us.

"Harder," she begs, her head dropping back against the stone, throat bared, magic flickering silver-blue and unrestrained along her skin. "Please — I need to feel how real this is."

I give her exactly that. I brace one hand flat against the wall beside her head and drive into her with everything I have, the sound of skin and breath and her broken, gorgeous moans filling the small stone room, her whole body lit faintly from within now, magic answering need the way it always does when she's lost in this with me. The wolf surges close beneath my skin, gold-edged, every nerve narrowed down to her — the clench of her around me, the drag of her nails down my back, the way she says my name like it's the only word she trusts anymore.

Every swing feels different, more intense than the last, more defined and precise in a way that had me breathless. Her soft ass cheek on my palm as her breasts dance on her chest with the rhythm of our flow.

“What is this?” the question escapes my lips softly, my dick twitches and throbs within her. A loud growl rumbles within me, my hands tremble from the pleasure storming through me violently.

I can smell it. I can smell all of her and saliva pools in my mouth as I gaze at her hungrily, enjoying the view of how ecstatic she feels.

"Mine," I growl against her throat, not quite biting, just enough pressure that she shudders hard around me.

"Yours." No hesitation. No fracture. "Finn, I'm yours — I'm here, I'm whole, I'm yours⁠—"

My own control is fraying to nothing, the connection blinding now, demanding completion, demanding her. "I've got you. Whatever's left out there, it doesn't get you. Not while I'm breathing."

That's what breaks her — not gently this time, but completely, violently, magic flaring bright enough that the stone around us seems to hum with it, her whole body clenching tight enough to drag me over the edge right behind her, my own release tearing through me on a groan that's half her name and half a vow neither of us bothered putting into words.

We stay tangled together against the wall, both of us breathing hard, her forehead pressed to my collarbone. I feel the change in her before she even speaks — something settling, something locking into place that wasn't there before. The shame is gone. Whatever the relic dredged up, it's been answered, decisively, by something stronger.