Page 69

She huddled there, thinking the height would protect her. I let the silence stretch, watching her from the shadows until her head turned, her eyes searching the dark floor below.

The moment her gaze found me, she panicked. She tried to leap to an adjacent branch, her body a blur of silver and gold in the moonlight, but her foot slipped. She began to fall, a small gasp escaping her lips.

I didn't move my hands.

My tail snapped out like a whip, the thick, muscular limb coiling around her waist with the precision of a snare. I caught her mid-air, my tail’s strength absorbing her momentum instantly. I didn't set her down. Instead, I retracted the limb, hoisting her until she dangled in front of my face, her feet inches off the ground.

I leaned in, my breath hot against her face, my eyes locked onto hers. I didn't just see the fear in those blue depths; I saw the reflection of my own monstrous hunger staring back at me.

"One more chance, Ly-ra," I whispered, my tone a toxic blend of seductive hunger and lethal intent. "Run again. Make me work for the third mark. Because when I catch you next... I won’t be stopping."

But I wasn't finished with the second catching yet.

As my tail held her aloft, a dangling prize against the silver-bark of the tree, my hands moved. I didn't use the gentleness I had practised in the hut. My claws were fully extended, gleaming like obsidian in the moonlight. With a series of sharp jerks, I shredded what remained of her silver-fox finery. The fur and silk fell away in ruined strips, fluttering to the mossy floor like dead leaves, leaving her pale, trembling body exposed to the cool night air and my blistering gaze.

I leaned in, my tongue dragging a wet, searing line from the hollow of her throat to the curve of her breast. I bit—not enough to draw blood, but enough to mark her, to leave the brand of my teeth in her soft skin. She let out a broken, high-pitched whimper that vibrated through my tail, her body jerking in a desperate search for friction.

"Please," she gasped, her fingers clawing at the thick muscle of my tail. "Kaelen, more... I want more."

"You have not earned 'more' yet, little human," I growled.

I uncoiled my tail with a deliberate, slow friction that made her skin prickle, letting her feet find the ground, but before she could flee, I slammed her forward. I pressed her front-first against the massive, rough trunk of the silver-bark.

"Hands against the tree," I commanded, my voice a jagged edge. "Brace yourself. If you move them—if you even lift a finger from this bark—I will stop. I will walk away and leave you empty under these moons. Do you understand?"

"Yes," she sobbed, her palms flat against the wood, her knuckles white.

I stepped up behind her, my chest a wall of heat against her back. I allowed my length to finally spring free from its sheath—a heavy, dark, and ruthlessly thick weight that throbbed with every frantic beat of my heart. I rubbed the length of it against the swell of her backside, feeling the slickness she was already weeping. My own body was screaming at me, cursing the moons and the stars for this self-imposed torture. Every cell in my body demanded I sink into her, to claim her core and end this excruciating tension.

But I wanted her willpower to snap. I wanted to hear the exact moment her stubborn heart gave up the fight.

"You want this so badly," I hissed, nipping at the sensitive muscle of her shoulder. "But your body isn't ready to hold me yet. You're still trying to stay whole."

Instead of giving her what she begged for, I brought my tail back into play. The thick, prehensile limb coiled around her torso, stroking upward over her breasts before diving down between her thighs. I used the specific, slightly rigid end—the part meant for gripping the slickest vines in a rainstorm—and pressed it firmly against her core.

“F-f-fuck,” she whimpers out on a ragged breath.

I began to swish the tip, a rhythmic, slapping motion that stimulated her nub with a precision that made her knees buckle. She let out a series of frantic, disjointed moans, her head thrashing against the bark, her hands trembling as she fought the urge to pull away.

"That's it," I rumbled, biting deep into her shoulder, my markings pulsing with a dark, possessive gold. "You’ll be begging for the real thing in no time. I can feel it, Lyra. Your stubborn little heart is about to snap."

I didn't give her a second to breathe. With a sudden, powerful thrust, I drove the rigid end of my tail deep into her warm and welcoming core.

Her scream echoed through the canopy, a raw sound of total surrender. My tail was thick, unrelenting, and alien, filling her in a way no human ever could, and as I began to pump the limb inside her, I knew the third mark was already as good as mine.

Chapter 46

Lyra

The world had reduced itself to the rough, abrasive texture of bark against my palms and the terrifying, relentless invasion behind me.

I wanted to scream something defiant. I wanted to tell Kaelen that he was a monster, that this was barbaric, that I wasn’t some prize to be won in a forest game. But the words died in my throat, replaced by a high, keening moan that I couldn’t suppress. My soul felt like it was being pulled through a needle’s eye, stretching toward him, begging to be closer to the very thing that was currently unmaking me. It was as if the Alignment had stripped away my skin and left my very essence exposed to his touch, raw nerve endings vibrating at his command.

I was a quivering mess, my knees shaking so violently I thought I’d collapse into the moss. But Kaelen’s tail was an uncompromising pillar of muscle. It didn’t just fill me; it possessed me, expanding within my centre until I felt like I was being reshaped from the inside out.

"K-Kaelen..." I gasped, my forehead thumping against the tree trunk as the rough bark grazed my skin. "Please... it’s too much... I can’t⁠—"

"You can," he growled, his voice a dark, tectonic vibration against my spine. "You will stay against the wood, Lyra. You will feel every inch of the mark I am leaving on your soul."