Page 212

He bent, pressing his forehead against hers as he slowly pulled out of her before sliding back into the warm heat of her body.

“I love you, Aiden,” she whispered against his lips.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he panted over her lips until he couldn’t take it anymore. He rose and took hold of her hips, gripping her in a punishing hold as he started to slam into her, rocking her body with each slap of his pelvis against her. She whined and mewled, broken moans between every gasping sound he forced out of her.

“I love you,” he grunted. “You’re mine, do you hear me?” He thrust hard, jolting her body up the bed, her bouncing breasts hypnotic. “Do you?”

“Yes!”

“What are you?” he demanded.

She sobbed and moaned, thrashing her head as he pounded into her. “I’m yours!”

He fell forward, caging her body as he slowed his movements.

Her eyes fluttered open, staring up at him. The half-lidded gaze didn’t hide the tears forming. It wasn’t from pain or sadness—her love and need for him flowed through their bond.

His sweaty forehead met hers.

“I’m going to bite myself so my blood is available to you, and then I’m going to bite you. When I do, I want you to take a little. You don’t have to take a lot. Just a little when I take yours, and then you can stop.” He didn’t know if she would respond badly, but he wanted her to know what it would take to seal the bond. “Understand, Charlotte?”

Her breath hitched at the use of her name, not the pet name he called her when they normally were in bed together.

Time and a place.

This was something beyond play. A joining that was written in the literal stars. Destined by their creators from their birth.

He lifted up and bit into the side of his wrist. Her mouth parted in surprise as blood ran freely down his arm and dripped onto her pale skin. He needed to bite deep to ensure the wound stayed open long enough to complete the ritual without healing.

Cloaking her with his body, he rocked into her again, slowly and sensually, rotating his hips every time he slid all the way inside her. His lips trailed across her neck and down her sternum to her breasts. He kissed the spot he always marked on the inner top of her right breast. This was where he’d do it. He always knew it would be there.

When her walls tightened around his shaft, he looked up at her while sinking his fangs into the softest part of her breast. He began to drink, lifting his arm up to her face, and she took his hand in one hand and held his forearm with the other as she licked his wrist before latching on.

Groaning, his eyes rolled back in his head. He expected her to take only what was needed, but she started drinking from him like she was starving for it. He detached from her and shuddered as he felt the pull of his blood from the wound.

Moaning, he lowered his head and bit into another spot on her breast, probably deeper than he should have. Blood poured from the wound, and he lapped it up. He fed from her in deep, gluttonous gulps that bordered on too much. He wanted to be careful. Tender. Cherish the moment. But he couldn’t stop. He popped off her breast, lifting enough to brace himself with his other hand on the pillow as he drove into her like a man possessed.

Charlotte’s eyes were closed, and her hands tightened on his arm as she pulled his blood into her mouth.

He’d taken more than he normally would.

Her breasts were smeared with blood but didn’t continue to bleed because of his saliva. The path where he dragged his tongue through the blood that spilled down her breasts and over her ribs painted her pale skin in strokes of deep crimson. His own blood from where he bit himself mingled with hers as it dripped from her smooth skin onto the bed at her sides. Leftover blood ran from his mouth, down his chin, and over his chest and abs.

He bathed in her blood, a baptism that exorcised his former life without her.

They’d done enough to seal the bond, but it didn’t seem like Charlotte wanted to stop. It wouldn’t hurt him, and he knew she wasn’t taking a lot like he did. He understood the desire to continue to drink. His Korrena’s blood made him feel alive. Made him ravenous.

He trailed his fingers of his free hand through the blood across her belly and sucked the digits into his mouth, claiming another taste of her.

When she finally broke free, he leaned back, his hands gripping her hips as he railed into her. She cried out, and the sight of his blood on her lips, staining her teeth and tongue, became his undoing.

His thrusts stuttered and he slammed home, pressing as flush to her as possible as he coated her insides, marking her in all the ways he possibly could.

The way her walls fluttered and clutched at him made him jerk and shudder, his breath stalling at the overwhelming sensation on his sensitive shaft. When the last of the aftershocks faded, he slipped out of her, watching as his cum leaked from her body.

Scooping up what slid out, he pushed it back inside, working his fingers gently in and out of her now tender hole until he was satisfied his essence would stay deep inside of her.

He collapsed onto his side next to her and pulled her back flush to his chest, spooning her.