19. Talon

CHAPTER 19

Talon

A drenaline coursed through my veins and my skin pricked as the claws I shifted my hands into slid back, transforming into normal fingers again.

The house we'd wended to was now drenched in blood, me and the hunters and a few assassins having dispatched over a dozen Sons of Honor who had been holed up here.

We'd caught them gearing up, getting ready to eradicate another list of names of potential powerful bloodlines. But we'd stop them before they could leave and had inadvertently saved over a hundred names on that list.

A list with names we wouldn't have even considered had we not gotten this information.

Had we not forced it out of Cassandra's mother's traitorous mouth.

I stood outside of the house, catching my breath as Ajax, Dagon, Zachariah, and Saint all came to my side. Benedict followed, as did his mate, Jocelyn.

"How are we supposed to protect people that we don't know are part vampire?" Dagon asked the group, eyeing the list that was now in Ajax's hand.

"With the help of your..." Ajax cleared his throat. "With the help of Cassandra, Grace and I can work on relocating and helping these people."

Zachariah nodded, and the sense of battle closure washed over me, making my muscles feel tight and heavy.

"I've barely been able to make sense of what happened on the island," I admitted. "Thinking about an entire new mission is difficult." I shook my head. "Cassandra could have been killed," I continued.

Anger and pain and fear welled up in my chest. "I haven't even been able to speak with her about it. But the way she put herself between me and that knife, the way her brother could have easily gained the upper hand and ended her..."

"She had her reasoning," Zachariah said, glancing around at my brothers, as if they knew something about Cassandra that I didn't.

"I don't care what her reasoning was," I snapped. "She could have died. Why would she be so reckless? Why didn't she let the two of you take the lead?" I pointed to Ajax and Dagon, who'd been with her in that dungeon.

Benedict cleared his throat, looking a little sheepishly at his mate before glancing at me. "Remember that you're in a new age," he said. "The females don't really stay where you put them anymore."

Jocelyn rolled her eyes. "Not when we have something to offer," she said. "Not when our...when someone we care about is in danger. We have just as much right to risk our lives for those we care about as you do."

I nodded, and Benedict and Jocelyn turned around when Hawk called to them, leaving me with just my brothers.

"I've never felt that way before," I said. "I've never felt as helpless and useless as I did when I was buried underneath chains and couldn't move to help her. She may have gained the upper hand, but what if she hadn't? What if I'd had to lay there and watch as she was killed?"

"It didn't happen," Dagon said. "You can play the what-if game all night, but what you should really be focusing on is what is ."

What is.

I hadn't even had a moment in time to talk to Cassandra, let alone make sense of everything that had happened. But did I really need to? I knew one thing with absolute certainty and that was that I couldn't lose her. That I wanted her for who she was because I was in love with everything that made her her .

"We're done here?" I asked, wanting to make sure that I wasn't about to abandon them if they needed me still.

Again, they shared that look, the one that made me feel like I was missing something.

"We're done," Zachariah said. "Go talk to her."

I didn't need to be told twice.

And it didn't take me long to find her, latching on to her scent in the king's residence. I opened the door to my chambers and found her sitting in a chair that had been tucked into the corner of the sitting area.

I closed the door behind me, relief barreling down my spine at the sight of her safe and healthy in that chair.

But it didn't stop me from being angry with her.

"Why are you so mad at me?" she asked, and I tilted my head. "I can feel it."

I furrowed my brow, but shook my head.

She bolted off the chair, stopping within inches of me as she looked up at me. "I saved you. Isn't that proof enough?—"

"You didn't save yourself," I cut her off with a growl, and she blinked up at me with confusion. "I don't know what I'm more mad about," I continued. "The fact that you didn't save yourself or the fact that you put yourself at risk for me."

"I would do it again," she said without of hint of hesitation, and a low growl rumbled in my chest. "Be mad," she said shrugging. "I don't care. You're alive. And that's all that matters to me."

"Why? Why would you put your life above my own?"

"Oh, I don't know," she said sarcastically. "Maybe it's because I'm helplessly in love with you? Maybe it's because I've been in love with you since the day you listened to my past and didn't judge me? The day you fed me and cared for me in a way that nobody else had? Or maybe it's because my love only grew every single night we were together on that mission? Or maybe it was the night this showed up," she said, and hiked up the loose dress she wore, revealing whorls of black ink on her inner thigh.

I immediately dropped to my knees, stroking my thumb over the mark that I'd memorized centuries ago.

My mark.

Mate. No fucking shit, she was my mate.

I glanced up at her from where I kneeled. "Now I know what I'm more angry about," I said, slowly standing to tower over her. "You always save yourself," I demanded. "There's no longer a me without you and there's nothing I wouldn't do if something happened to you. Do you understand?"

She nodded, looking timid and worried in a way I'd never seen before.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Are you upset?" she asked. "Won't you be embarrassed at court, with my history, with who I am, with what blood runs in my veins?"

I slid my fingers through her hair, tilting her head back so she couldn't lose my gaze. "You are my mate," I said the words final and inarguable. "I don't give a fuck about what anybody else thinks." I brought my mouth down on hers, kissing her hard and long. "You're mine," I said against her lips. "And I'm yours. And that's all I want."

"All you want?" she asked, her eyes fluttering up at me.

A low growl rumbled from my chest as I bent down, tossing her over my shoulder. She squealed, laughing as I hefted her onto my bed, my hands splaying her thighs apart, her dress falling to either side of her hips.

My fangs punched out, and I tore through the fabric, shredding the seams and ripping it clean off of her.

She didn't argue, didn't try to slow me down. She reached for me like I reached for her—urgent and greedy. The need to claim sizzled down the bond between us, unrelenting and demanding.

"Mate," I growled, ripping off my clothes too. It took half a second, and I was between her thighs, nothing between us.

No clothes.

No secrets.

Nothing but soul-wrenching trust and love.

"I love you," I groaned as I aligned our bodies and sank into her.

She gasped, arching her hips off the bed to meet my thrust. "I love you," she said. "I love you so fucking much," she said again, emphasizing each word with a claiming roll of her hips.

Each time we connected awakened something in my soul, destroying it and rebuilding it into something stronger and more powerful than I'd ever felt before. In all my years walking this earth, I'd never felt higher than I did in this moment.

Here, with my mate, I was untouchable. Invincible. The actual Viking god she liked to tease me about.

For her, I'd be anything. Whatever she needed.

As she would for me.

I never knew…I never knew life could be as sweet as this.

"Gods, Talon, do you feel that?" she asked, her words breathless.

"I'm with you," I growled, locking onto that connection between us that had nothing to do with the shifter bond we'd shared. This was ancient and primal and indisputable.

This was fate.

I brought our bodies flush, drawing her up so I was on my knees and she was atop me, her arms around my neck, our chests pressed together, our mouths crashing together as if we needed each other's air.

"Cassandra," I said, our eyes locking, the tips of our noses touching as I pounded into her, holding her with one arm locked around the small of her back, my free hand cupping her face as I held her gaze. "My mate, my love," I said in my language, unable to distinguish the shift between the two in my carnal state.

She kissed me, soft and sweet before pulling back. "You're mine," she said, and it unleashed something in me. I pumped into her hard and fast, our fangs punching out as we came.

I bit her neck, and she bit my shoulder, and we drank and drank, one orgasm leading into another as we switched positions and started all over again.

And again.

Our bodies, our souls driven by the demands of fate to lay a claim that would never be broken.

"Mate," she cried out as I fucked her against the wall of my bedroom. "Gods, mate."

"Tell me again," I demanded.

"I love you," she said without needing further explanation, her pussy fluttering around my cock with another orgasm.

I came hard and fast, slowing my pumps until I simply held her there against the wall. My forehead fell against hers. "I love you."

"Hey," she said, gripping my chin to have me look at her. "That doesn't mean we're done here." A mischievous grin shaped those luscious red lips.

"Greedy little viper?—"

Her fangs sank into my neck, and I hissed, turning us and whisking us into my bathing chambers with vampiric speed, where I claimed her in the shower too, claimed her until there wasn't an inch of this room we hadn't made love against. Until her scent and mine were fused. Until we were sated on each other's blood and bodies and that bond between us shimmered with a white-hot light.

And I'd never, in a thousand years, dreamed I could be as happy as I was now.