She cried out and immediately came again. I gritted my teeth and stiffened, trying to stop myself from falling after her.
Mate, my wolf and I once again agreed.
That unease flickered inside of me again, the one that had hated the thought of a mate and felt it akin to a jail sentence. But I pushed it aside and tried to focus on what she felt like at that moment. Like the best fucking thing I’d ever experienced. She was so fucking tight…and so wet. My dick was in heaven…as was the rest of me. Balancing myself on my forearms, I locked every muscle in my body to keep control, fighting the urge to go fast as I slowly reared back and slid in again.
“You good, baby?” I purred as sweat beaded on my skin from the effort.
“So good,” she moaned, thrashing her head once again as we both fell under a wave of sensations. She cupped the back of my neck with one hand, skimming her fingers down the side of my face with the other. I thrust again, my stomach tightening with each curl of my body as I clung to the tiny scraps of reason that reminded me I couldn’t lose myself. I couldn’t just bite her.
I set the pace with deep, hard, slow strokes that sent exquisite pleasure spiraling through my body. Our breaths grew unsteady as sweat slicked our skin. I didn’t know how this was better than the last time, but it somehow was. Every thrust was better. Every time I filled her, it felt insanely hotter.
I would never get enough of this…of her. Fuck, imagine how good it would be once we had a lot of practice. I grinned at the thought before I pressed another fierce kiss against her lips. I felt her began to grow tight beneath me.
“That’s it, baby,” I murmured. Her eyes fluttered shut, and I memorized her every feature while I had the chance to look uninterrupted.
“You’re mine,” I couldn’t help but growl again, my voice like shattered glass.
She opened her eyes, and I saw something defiant in her gaze, like she’d decided no matter what, I’d never own every part of her.
That wouldn’t do.
My self-control snapped, and I drove into her again and again until she came yet again, her body convulsing around mine. She pulled me over that edge with her, pleasure charging down my spine until I exploded, my vision going black only to erupt in a kaleidoscope of colors. I bit into her shoulder mindlessly before getting ahold of myself and quickly releasing her.
She stiffened beneath me as I horrifyingly watched a few pinpricks of blood fall down her shoulder.
“What did you just do?” she asked hoarsely, her voice gone from all the screaming I’d made her do over the last hour or so we’d been in here.
“Just got a little excited,” I quickly said, even as nerves settled into my gut. I hadn’t initiated the mating bond, I knew that. But what I’d done… Fuck.
“Okayyyy,” she said tiredly. Rune slowly relaxed beneath me, her breath steadying, even as I tried to resist my wolf’s order to bite her again.
Rune was reducing me to truly nothing but an animal, a reason that I’d always dreaded the mating bond to begin with.
I rolled to the side, taking her with me as I pulled her against my chest. The room was silent but for our soft breaths and the pounding of both of our hearts. I swallowed, anticipation and dread coursing through me as I prepared to broach the subject of what I thought was happening. Of what I knew was happening.
She’d want to be mine. I knew she would. What we’d just experienced…it was nothing short of magical. Fated. Written in the stars and all that other bullshit people always said when they were talking about their mates.
Rune lazily traced nonsensical shapes on my chest. “Why are you so tense?” she whispered softly. “I thought orgasms were supposed to relax you.”
“I just need to talk to you about something,” I said against her hair as I inhaled its scent like a lovestruck fool.
She stiffened against me. “Please don’t tell me you’re about to give me a ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ kind of talk. Because that would really suck.”
I snorted, thinking how off the mark she was.
“I’m beginning to feel the mating bond,” I finally reluctantly told her.
She was completely still for what felt like an hour until she scrambled away from me like I was a snake about to strike.
“You’re starting the mating bond with another girl and you’re here with me?” she growled hoarsely, disgust written all over her pretty features.
“What? No!” I told her indignantly as I reached for her. This was not how I envisioned this going.
“Then what are you talking about? What mating bond?”
“A mating bond with you!” I snapped.
If anything, the disgust on her face only deepened. Her disgust…and her fear.
“That’s not possible,” she said as she jumped from the bed frantically and began to throw her clothes on.
“Rune—” I murmured, getting off the bed and walking toward her beseechingly.
She held up her hands to stop me, her eyes wild and out of control. “I have a mate,” she told me, the reminder a brutal blow.
“You told me you didn’t belong to him. You know we belong together. Tell me you feel it,” I said beseechingly, grabbing at my hair as I stood there butt naked.
“I had a mate and he rejected me. I don’t get another chance,” she said coldly.
And admittedly, I hadn’t heard of this happening…but the more time that passed, the more I knew. The mating bond was happening.
“Rune, baby. Just relax. We’ll figure this all out, but it’s happening. And I’m going to make sure you never regret it.”
She looked utterly destroyed standing there, a beautiful, heartbreaking figure with her sex blown hair and her red, swollen lips. “I can’t belong to you when I still belong to him,” she said sadly.
It felt like she’d stabbed me right in the heart as I soaked in the reality of what she was saying.
“Then I guess I’ll have to make sure I change that,” I finally answered before grabbing my clothes and stalking out of the room.
I slammed the door behind me and slipped on my clothes before anyone saw, although obviously, nudity was nothing in a place like this filled with shifters.
I made a vow as I went down the stairs and slipped outside. Rune was going to be mine. No matter what. Even if I had to kill her bastard of a mate to ensure that.
4
Rune
I inhaled sharply as anxiety burned through me.
I remained frozen in my bedroom, staring out the window at nothing, yet at the same time, my mind buzzed about everything that had happened lately.
A mating bond with you.
Wilder’s words spiraled in my mind.
I’d already found my mate, he knew this already. He’d been a monster, but he was my soulmate. The moon goddess only gave you one. My wolf had already made her choice to the point that even now when I thought of Alistair, a painfully dark loneliness tore through me. It was a strange thing to miss someone to the point that it felt like I might die from the agony, yet detest him with every fiber of my being.
The way Wilder had looked at me as he left had me shivering. He was determined to prove me wrong, to push ahead with this crazy idea he’d come up with. What did it say about me that I only ever ended up with crazy people? The reality of that was like a sledgehammer to my chest.