72. Veyka

If Arran heard the words I let slip through the bond, he did not respond to them. Desperate, wanton thing that I was, I was grateful that he didn't. His mouth was on mine, gentle but insistent. His hand dropped between us, already questing beneath the heavy fur of my cloak. I did not want it to stop. The darkness and isolation of the ice cave was giving us something beautiful amidst a desert of despair, and I was too weak to turn away from it.

I leaned further into him, one hand reaching to unfasten my cloak while the other slid up his leg. But Arran's fingers hovered in the air between us.

"You can touch me," I moaned against him. "I will not break."

Not physically, at least.

The pain in my head was gone. My leg ached, but it was not sharp anymore. The throb of healing. We would have to be careful, but I was strong. My need for him more powerful than any wound.

Softly, so gently I almost thought it was a wish, his fingertips touched my stomach. There were layers and layers of clothing between us, and I would happily shed them all, despite the oppressive cold. But when Arran touched me, through the thick wool of the tunic I wore—his tunic—the linen shirt and boned bustier beneath, it was reverent. His fingers stroked again and again, massaging the layers of fabric, the soft skin a curve of my stomach beneath. It was the sweetest sort of torture as his lips mirrored the slow, persistent exploration against mine.

He was discovering, as if for the first time, all over again.

The weight of it could have suffocated me. This would not be the half-conscious fucking of a few nights ago, driven by unbridled need.

That need was still there, to be sure.

But this was deeper. This was a choice.

Finally—oh, yes, finally—Arran slipped his hand beneath the layers of fabric to touch my fevered skin. He caressed the inch of exposed skin between the bottom of the bustier and the waistband of my leather leggings. I pressed my hips into his hand, urging him to slide lower. But Brutal Prince that he was, he chuckled against my mouth.

"Needy thing, aren't you?" he murmured.

The darkness was so intense, every other sense was heightened. Every breath felt like fire as it skittered across my skin.

"Only for you," I said, shivering at the intensity. "Always for you."

Arran's beast rewarded me with a low growl that filled up my being nearly as full as if Arran's cock was buried inside of me.

The hand that was not teasing my waistband cupped my chin, thick fingers splayed out across my throat. "You truly are at my mercy," he said, so low it was nearly a growl.

Desire, liquid and hot, pooled between my legs. The cave was steadily filling with the scent of desire. I whimpered—every bit as needy as he'd said—as he slid his fingers back into my hair and lowered his mouth to replace where his palm had been.

Such long, languorous swipes of his tongue—along the line of my jaw, over the pulse hammering in my throat. He paused, sucking hard enough that I knew there would be a mark. I thrust into his hand again, using my uninjured leg to press myself up, to do something to ease that painful, building ache.

I could not get myself close enough, and he knew it. I wanted control, to at least drive the direction of this. But I was stuck there, back against the wall of the ice cave, legs straight out in front of me. I could turn, I could reach for him, but Arran was in charge.

Fuck that.

"Put my cloak down on the ground. Lay with me," I moaned as his lips reached the bottom of my ear, teeth closing around the earlobe.

Arran caught his canine against the amorite stud, dragging it over the tender skin with such precision while his hand drew infernal circles on that tiny sliver of exposed skin.

"Not yet," he said into my ear, before sliding his tongue rapidly up the shell to the pointed tip.

I whimpered again. I was a mess. A needy mess, emotional and physically injured and—

"I can practically hear the tempest in your mind," Arran said against the nape of my neck this time. "Am I not doing a good enough job distracting you?"

"Arran," I said, not bothering to hide the desperation in my voice. "I need you, naked against me. I need your mouth everywhere. I need your cock buried inside of me until I am so full, I think I will burst, and then I need you to fuck me until we are both screaming loud enough to bring this ice cave down around us."

He froze.

Tongue on precise point of the curve where my neck became my shoulder, tunic shoved out of the way to make room for his mouth, fingers curled under the rigid lower edge of my bustier.

"Veyka," he said hoarsely. "Are you trying to kill me?"

I laughed, which scraped my nipples against the tight constraints of my bustier, and the laugh turned to a moan. "Maybe," I admitted through my teeth.

Arran sucked in a breath, his mouth so close to my skin it felt as if he was trying to sustain himself on me, rather than the thick air around us.

"Hold still," he ordered.

I revolted against that command immediately when he drew his hands away from me. I tried to grab them back, but he caught my wrists deftly, even in the dark. Our bodies in sync, as always, even when nothing else about us was.

"I said hold still," he growled. It was not the male that spoke, but the beast. I could tell by the way the command reverberated through my body, my soul bowing instinctively while heat raced through me, unrestrained.

No. I cannot. I need to touch you—the growl rose up again, fierce and menacing.

I stilled, my struggles against his grip halting instantly.

Good girl, his beast growled. My pussy was drenched. But I did not move as Arran carefully released my wrists, waiting several heartbeats to see what I would do. I lowered them to my lap and kept them there.

His hands went to my throat again, fingertips skating over the hollow of my throat. But then they went to the knot that held my cloak in place. Released it with deft, practiced ease. It took all of my restraint to keep myself still as Arran's hands skimmed my breasts through the wool tunic, down to the hem, catching the linen undershirt as well and drawing them up over my head.

I had to shift my head to the side, shimmy my body to help him get them off. A low warning growl.

I paused with my hands over head. Let him see my breasts curving, straining against the bustier. Even Arran's legendary control would falter. He adored my breasts.

But it was dark. So fucking dark, he could not see them.

I let out a growl of my own and arched my back so that when his fingers came back down, he could not help but touch me.

This time, we growled in unison.

"You are terrible at taking orders," Arran said, his voice strained. I took sadistic pleasure in knowing he was just as tortured as me.

"Give better ones." I rolled my shoulders back, pressing my breasts into his palms. He hissed through his teeth. "Take it off."

"Are you the one giving commands now?"

Ancestors spare me, but he sounded like he might actually enjoy it if I did.

Another time, I promised myself.

I needed his hands on me—here, now.

"Take it off. And do not rip the ribbons. I do not have another set with me."

Arran's mouth was on mine as the last syllable left my tongue. Gone was the gentle exploration of mere minutes before, replaced by the feral need that coated every interaction between us. I would not let him rip apart my bustier, so he nipped at my tongue and lips instead. Not sharp enough to draw blood, but enough to have me moaning for more—more pain, more intensity, more Arran.

I was so caught up in the savage battle of our mouths, I did not realize he'd unlaced my bustier until it fell away. My breasts sprang free, heavy and full and tingling at the cold air. If he did not touch them soon, circle his tongue around a nipple and suck it tight and hard, I was going to die just to spite him.

Instead, bastard that he was, he skimmed my burning skin with only his fingertips.

Arran was an absolute fucking liar.

Hewas the one trying to kill me.

Because instead of sucking a nipple into his mouth, or taking the weight of my breasts into his hands, he leaned forward oh-so-carefully and kissed my throat again. He braced one hand on the ground, the other against the wall of ice just above my shoulder, as he branded me with his tongue but did not touch another inch of my body.

And Ancestors be damned, but I loved it. I savored the sweet torture—that Arran even wanted to torture me like this. That on some instinctual level, he knew what this would do to me, how sweet it would make that final joining. It felt like a step closer, to who and what we'd been. Whether he could hear it or not, that tentative hope colored every beat of my heart, every moan that he coaxed from my lips.

Arran's mouth finally, finally moved lower. Past where the skin of my neck was pulled taut by the weight of my breasts, to the spot right above my heart.

"I need to taste you," he breathed, so low I almost did not hear it between my gasps and moans.

"You've already destroyed my leggings." I did not clarify whether I referred to the pieces he'd cut away to tend my leg, or the mess of sticky desire between my legs.

"Not that—yes, always that," he amended. But he paused where he was, elongated canines snagging on my breast. Pressing into the skin, just where the curve began. "This."

Oh. Oh.

There was no hesitation. He'd asked—sort of—but he did not need to. Not of me.

Maybe another female would have been cowed before him, this powerful male, the most powerful in millennia. But even before I'd inherited a power to match his, I'd given myself to him without restraint, showed him the darkest parts of myself.

Giving him my body was nothing, everything—because it already belonged to him.

"Yes," I breathed. "Always, yes."

Arran's breath shook as he exhaled. He slid his hand between us. "That Ancestors-damned scabbard—"

"It cannot stop you." I pressed my eyes closed, even in the dark. I would not let those memories, that terror, into this moment. This stolen, sacred place between us. I had walled off parts of myself for years, I could do it now, even as I was forced to explain. "You are the other half of my soul. The scabbard cannot protect me from you."

If Arran realized the implications, it was impossible for me to see. All I had was the flaring ring of desire in his eyes, a black circle of fire visible even in the interminable darkness of the ice cave.

I felt his nod, because I could not see it. And then a second later, I felt him sink his elongated canines—the mark of a terrestrial, of the beast within, of the differences between us—into my vein.

Neither of us moved. It was too excruciating and exquisite.

Every sensation was heightened.

I could feel the curve of his teeth embedded in my skin. The contrast of his lips, soft against my breast. Then the scrape of stubble on his chin, pleasant but dull compared to the sharpness of his bite. He sucked, drawing my blood into his mouth.

"Arran," I moaned, every vein in my body sizzling in awareness. "Arran, yesss."

He pulled his mouth away from my skin, pressing his lips to mine. Our tongues tangled, the taste of my blood coppery and sweet but mixed with the essence of him. Oh yes, it was intoxicating to taste the way we joined together.

But that was not all. The twin wounds where his canines had broken my skin bled.

My senses screamed in awareness, tracking the thin line of blood as it slid down my breast, circling around my nipple. Another second, and it would slide downward. Further, over the hills of my stomach, toward my pussy.

Arran did not let it get that far. He kneeled over me and caught that rivulet of blood against with his tongue just before it reached my navel. Traced it upward, over my stomach, turning his head so he did not miss a single drop as his mouth curved up my breast.

He reached my nipple, twirling his tongue around it, biting. Not hard enough to draw blood this time—no, there was no need. That wetness that around the taut bud was part Arran, part me.

He had tasted my blood before, but never like this. While his mouth worshipped my breasts, his fingers slid higher.

He pressed at the wound, coating his fingertips in my blood. The pain was sharp, intense, but not too much. Especially when he slid his hand inside my leggings and found my clit.

Arran did not tease, now. He massaged my clit in hard, tight circles that drew cries of pleasure from deep in my chest. It did something to me, that massaging, knowing that it was me that provided the lubrication. Not just my desire, but the very blood from my veins.

At the edge of my awareness, I felt his other hand in my hair. Stroking, slowly rubbing at the roots. Then moving around to my face, pressing against my mouth.

An offering.

I wanted to do it—to sink my teeth into the mound of flesh of flesh at the base of his thumb. I wanted to smell both of us, taste the way we mingled together.

But I couldn't. Something inside of me recoiled with fear. I could not hurt him—not again. Not after Avalon.

"Arran," I whimpered again. Even in his lust, he heard the plea in my voice. His hands were on my face, holding me steady, his forehead pressed against mine.

"Stay with me."

It was a command I desperately wanted to obey. I answered by pressing my mouth to his and tasting myself on his lips.

Without pulling away, somehow still avoiding my healing leg, Arran lowered me to lie on my fur cloak, now spread beneath us. I recognized the motions of his hands, urgent now—pulling down my leggings, then his own.

Then his cock was nudging at my entrance. For the first time, I wanted to curse the darkness of the cave that had, until that moment, made everything about this even more erotic. I longed to push myself up onto my elbows and watch the moment he slid his cock into my cunt, to see him pull himself in and out, his shaft shiny and wet with me.

I lifted my uninjured leg, opening myself for him, trying to get him deeper, closer. Arran caught it, lifting it to his shoulder.

He held tight as he slid inside of me, deeper and deeper. No easing in, no testing some of his length and pulling out. He knew I could take it, and the arch of my hips said what I needed—every inch of him. Now.

There were no more words between us. Only the rough gasps as he pumped into me again and again. Maybe the wound on my breast had healed. I was too far gone to care. All I knew was that Arran was inside of me. My Arran. My mate.

He pressed a kiss to the inside of my ankle. Then more—snagged his teeth on the bone, and grazed just deep enough to draw a well of blood. Too dark to see, but I knew it was there by the way his mouth fitted around it and sucked hard. I felt myself filling his mouth, filling him. A second later, his cock began to pulse inside of me, spurt after spurt of his come coating the insides of my pussy. The heat of it, the way we filled each other in time—I lost myself entirely.

Who and what I was did not matter as I cascaded over the edge, climax ripping through me. My pussy clenched, milking every last bit of come from Arran's cock until my legs were shaking with the force of my orgasm.

Arran pulled his mouth away from my ankle, and I whimpered as loudly as if he'd pulled his cock from me. The feeling of loss was just as profound. But then his tongue was back, smoothing over the cut that had already begun to heal. His hands stroked down my leg, constant and smooth until I finally stopped shaking.

"Arran," I whispered into the darkness. Half plea, half prayer. All love.

"Veyka." He lowered himself down to the fur cloak, not nearly big enough for two, especially of our sizes.

Good thing we were one.

Avoiding my injured leg, he settling himself, tugging me flush against him. I did not resist. How could I—in this moment, just for a moment, everything was perfect.