Denna

DENNA

I watched him, transfixed, as he bathed once more in the luminescent lake. Water sluiced over the hard planes and carved ridges of his muscular form, highlighting every flexing sinew.

He was a sculpture come to life, each movement fluid and powerful. The ethereal glow caressed his wet skin like a lover's touch, making him appear even more otherworldly and beautiful.

Yet a pang of guilt marred the symphony of sensation coursing through me. If we weren't trapped in this strange underworld, would I have surrendered to passion so readily?

"Eventually," I murmured to myself, lips quirking in a rueful grin. How could any woman resist a man seemingly conjured from her most secret fantasies?

With Korrin, I felt cherished, protected, and above all, whole in a way I'd never experienced. It wasn't just his chiseled features and warrior's physique that drew me in, but his gentle strength, steadfast loyalty, and unshakable faith in me.

As he waded from the shallows, beads of moisture trickled along the etched grooves of his abdomen. The erotic display sent tingles skittering under my skin, rekindling the embers smoldering in my core. Even after our fevered lovemaking, his slightest gesture could set me aflame.

Flushed, I busied myself building a cookfire, hands trembling slightly as I arranged dried fungi to roast.

When he settled carefully beside me, still favoring his injured leg, my heart ached for his pain. Yet he moved with more surety than when we'd first sought refuge here, the mineral-rich waters clearly speeding his recovery.

"I should shift again," he said when he finished eating. "I wish you'd keep a safe distance from me when I was in my other form."

Stepping closer to him I pressed my hand on the broad muscles of his chest. "Your Valti is you, is it not?"

He nodded slowly.

"I will not fear any part of you. I promise."

Closing his eyes in acquiescence, Korrin rasped, "Judge me not for the monster within."

"Never," I vowed, voice unsteady. Korrin would not hurt me. I knew this.

Didn't I?

Awe and fear roiled in my belly as Korrin's imposing warrior's frame swelled grotesquely, broadening and elongating and bulking with coils of straining muscle. The sounds wrenching from his throat spoke of unimaginable pain as his injured leg reshaped itself, regenerating before my eyes.

But it was his face, so familiar yet utterly foreign now, that made me gasp. I'd seen him sleeping before, but never so clear.

Korrin's rugged features had sharpened, grown predatory—jutting brow ridge, flared nostrils, widened jaw, glinting fangs. When he opened his eyes, he regarded me with an inhuman intensity that trapped the air in my lungs.

"K-Korrin?" I stammered, scarcely recognizing my own voice. "Are you still in there?"

Reaching out with a trembling hand, I brushed my fingertips over his transmogrified flesh, which felt hot and taut like iron sheathed in leather.

"Foolish mate," the Valti rumbled, his words scraping against my senses like boulders dragged over gravel. "You risk much coming so near. My control in this form grows tenuous..."

The world around me blurred, my senses narrowing to the heat of his gaze and the rough cadence of his voice. My heart thrummed, a wild rhythm that matched the pulsing of the cavern's blue-green glow. I refused to let fear dictate my actions. I had faced too many battles, too many uncertainties, to let this moment cleave a rift between us.

"I'm not going anywhere, Korrin," I said, my voice a mere whisper against the echo of his transformation. "I stand by my promise. I will love all of you, not just the parts that are easy or beautiful."

He growled low in his throat, a sound that should have chilled me but instead ignited a fierce warmth within. His hand, now tipped with lethal claws, rose as if in slow motion. I held my ground, watching with a mixture of trepidation and exhilaration as those wicked talons grazed my arm.

A searing line of heat followed the path of his touch, and I bit back a moan. The pain was sharp, but it melded with the desire that already simmered in my veins, turning to a sensation that was both primal and intoxicating.

"Run," he commanded, the word a guttural snarl that resonated in the marrow of my bones.

But I was done with running. I had spent too much of my life fleeing from one thing or another—my past, my fears, my destiny. Here, with Korrin, was where I chose to stand.

"No," I said, the word firm even as my breath hitched with anticipation. "I won't run from you. Not now, not ever."

The air between us crackled, a tangible force drawing us closer, even as it threatened to tear us apart. Korrin's beastly form loomed over me, a testament to the raw power that coursed through his veins. Yet in his eyes, I thought I saw something vulnerable, a hint of the man who still lingered beneath the surface of the creature.

"One last chance." A chance for him, or myself?

But I already bent towards him, silencing those guttural words with my open mouth. The razor edges of his fangs on my tongue made me dizzy with mingled terror and want.

Surging up on his elbow, the Valti flashed a feral grin. "I'll not be gentle, my reckless mate."

His clawed hand trailed down my chest, the sharp tips grazing my skin from my collarbone to my hip, each touch raising goosebumps in its wake. My breath hitched in my lungs, which seemed to have forgotten how to expand fully.

He dipped his head, nuzzling into my loose hair, as if he could inhale my very essence. A shock ran through me as his teeth clamped onto my neck, not quite breaking the skin but staking a claim nonetheless. His broad palm slid between my thighs, finding me already wet and quivering. Those wicked claws parted me with surprising delicacy, stroking and massaging before he flipped me atop him with a sudden show of strength.

His face disappeared between my legs, and I couldn't help the keening sound that escaped me as his tongue, rough and long, explored my most intimate places. His grip on my hips was unyielding, capable of crushing bone, yet he held back, his growls of pleasure resonating against my core.

Straddling him, I was acutely aware of my vulnerability, the potential for harm in his immense power. Yet it was that very danger that fueled the fire within me, the thrill of being with a creature so untamed.

His relentless mouth drove me to the brink, my body tense and trembling on the edge of release. Then, with a display of preternatural strength, he lifted me and positioned me over his thick, hard length, which sought entrance with an insistent nudge.

All rational thought fled as he thrust into me, the stretch bordering on pain as my body adjusted to his size. But the discomfort quickly morphed into a consuming heat, my inner walls clenching around him as he moved.

I was reduced to a series of whimpers and moans, clinging to him as he pounded into me with a merciless rhythm. His claws dug into my flesh, marking me as his own as he chased his climax with single-minded focus.

As I looked down at him, lost in the maelstrom of sensation, I searched for a glimpse of the man I knew beneath the beast's feral exterior. But there was only raw need etched into his features, a primal drive to possess and dominate.

My orgasm hit me like a wave, my body convulsing around his as he continued to thrust, drawing out my pleasure until it bordered on pain. He showed no signs of slowing, his own release imminent as he drove into me with wild abandon.

I could only hold on, surrendering to the overwhelming power of the Valti as he claimed me, body and soul.

His hips rose beneath me. With a roar I felt in my bones, I felt his cock fill me utterly. Korrin pulled me so tight against him, I thought my back would break.

With a last, mighty thrust, he flooded me completely with his seed. I feared for a split second that he would drive his cock right through me.

Held fast to complete his pleasure, I felt yet another tsunami of joyous sensation drown me.

But he did not let go. I was trapped as his orgasm went on. With a few fierce pumps, I felt him stiffen again, release again.

Struggling for breath, I could only let him use me, let myself succumb to the pleasure that threatened to drown me.

With a final roar, he released my shoulder. Growling, staring into my eyes, I was stunned when he threw me to the ground beside him.

Panting, catching my breath, I tried to move from him.

Huge hands closed over my wrists. He pulled me easily back to him.

I didn't think I could take any more.

No matter how much I wanted it.

Then, a peculiar thing happened. He wrapped his arms around me, firmly but gently. I was trapped against his massive body. Face in my hair, his breathing slowed.

I dared not move, wondering what would come next.

Korrin nuzzled into my neck, inhaling my scent, grazing sharpened teeth and tusks ever so lightly over sensitive flesh. I quaked, fear and anticipation a potent cocktail in my veins.

With a rumbling growl, he rolled me beneath him, his huge frame enveloping me. I felt delicate, breakable, utterly at his mercy. Yet I also sensed the man I adored simmering beneath the beast's skin, knowing he would rather tear off his own limb than truly hurt me.

"I need you," Korrin rasped, his voice laced with gravel. His slitted eyes blazed down at me, wild with lust but also with reverence. "Need to taste you, fill you, make you mine."

I reached up to stroke his transformed face, marveling at the raw masculine beauty of his features—fierce and feral, yet undeniably Korrin. "Then take me, like only you can. I'm yours."

He fell upon me like a starving man at a feast, mouth and teeth and tongue seeming to be everywhere at once, as if he meant to devour me whole. He suckled my breasts with an ardent force just shy of pain, his throaty noises of enjoyment sending lightning straight to my core.

Taloned hands gripped my hips as he notched his thick member at my entrance. I was slick and throbbing, ready for him, but still the fit was snug to the point of exquisite agony and I cried out, fingernails scrabbling at his back. He stilled, giving me a moment to adjust, before moving again.

It was a tender savaging, as he growled his possession into my skin, tongue laving the slight scoring left by his fangs. A distant part of me marveled that I could still feel cherished, worshiped, even as he rutted into me like an animal driven to breed.

Sensation crested and broke within me, my climax hitting in great, shuddering waves that left me mewling and quaking. My rippling sheath squeezed Korrin's pistoning length and he roared, the sound reverberating in my bones as his hips snapped frantically once, twice more before he buried himself to the hilt and released in great, scorching pulses.

I floated in the afterglow, replete and somehow empowered by what we'd just shared. Rolling to face Korrin's bulk, I nestled into him and his beast's arms came around me with surprising gentleness. He stroked my hair, my back, rumbling soft nonsense words of caring. In the shelter of his embrace, I felt delicate and cherished, yet also strangely invincible.

For long moments, we just breathed together, until Korrin nipped at my ear and nuzzled into my hair again, drifting into sleep.

After a time, I finally relaxed, falling into a pile of ravaged jelly. There were scratches all over me, and likely bruises.

But I made no mistake about the arms around me, the grip still tight around me. I belonged to Korrin.

Both to him and the beast inside.