Chapter 13

Cragnorr

M y blood is hammering in my ears as they drag Mia off the platform and, in one push, shove her over the wall.

No. Not my Mia. She can’t be down here with me, with this monster. Perhaps it was horrible to see her in the King’s lap, but it’s even worse to see her sentenced to the same fate that I am.

She tumbles down and lands on her side, letting out a terrible cry of pain. The lion is just as distracted as I am by this new arrival. When Mia moans in agony, the lion pivots towards her, drawn by her cries. Then it careens away from me faster than I can track.

Fuck. I can’t let it get anywhere near her with fangs and claws like those.

I charge after it at full speed. Though the lion is fast, my woman is lying on the ground on the other side of the arena, and a fresh heat is pumping through my blood that grants me new strength and speed .

I throw my whole body at the big animal, slamming into its hip with my shoulder. The lion stumbles to one side, away from the impact. It skids, then spins around so we’re facing each other.

I glance at Mia from the corner of my eye. She’s trying to stand up, and I don’t think anything is broken.

The lion advances on me, but I can’t play this game anymore, not with Mia in the ring with us. I have to end the fight immediately if I want to keep her safe.

“Cragnorr!” she calls out. “The axe!”

Her voice attracts the lion’s attention, just long enough for me to run toward the axe where the blade is buried in the ground. When I sweep it up into my hand, the assembled crowd cheers and howls. The lion is stalking toward Mia, and she backs away until she’s pushed up against the wall of the pit.

I have one job. There is a single reason why I was born into this world, and it’s to protect her. I will be her guardian from now until the day I die, which might be today.

“Beast!” I shout, stomping one foot so hard the ground shivers. The lion-monster turns its head, regarding me. My vision is honing in on my enemy, and the air shimmers with red. I will kill it before it touches a single hair on her head. I will kill anyone and anything for Mia.

I charge. The lion raises a paw to bat me away, but I’m swinging with the axe at the same time, and I bury it in the lion’s front leg. Rearing back, it lets out an ear-piercing roar.

Now it’s exposed to me. My blood is rushing fast, making all of my limbs taut and strong. I’m consumed by only one need: to kill. To destroy. To protect my Mia from anything that would try to hurt her.

I will erase any obstacle in my path.

I raise the axe high up over my head and, with a bellow, I slash down with all the might in my body. It slices the lion clean through, from throat to chest .

Blood spurts out, and this time the lion’s cry is a shriek. Gasps rise up from the audience as I cut across again, making sure to tear through its throat. With one last terrible burble of blood, the huge body crumples to the ground with a thump .

I’m panting hard, hot fury filling every one of my veins. When I’m certain that the lion is no longer breathing, I stalk over toward where Mia is staring at me, eyes wide in horror. But I don’t care how she sees me. I care only about her, right here in front of me, in all of her perfect beauty. The rage pulses inside me, twisting and curling into something else. Everything is driving me towards her—tangling my hands in her long hair, wrapping her up in me.

I grab Mia, seizing her whole body in my arms, and crush her to my chest. She squeaks, but I don’t let her go. I hold her there, breathing in the smell of her, knowing that she is safe.

But I have ignored the world around us for too long. The King is now on his feet, shouting an order.

“Drop them!” he calls. Then, quite suddenly, there’s nothing underneath us.

When the trap door opens, we tumble straight down into it. I twist my body in the air to cushion Mia’s fall, and my back connects with something impossibly hard. It sends a ripple of pain through my body, and I grit my teeth—but the bloodlust still filling me absorbs it. I manage to land with Mia on top of me, but now she’s spilled out of my arms onto the floor.

Overhead, the trap door closes again, leaving us in near-total darkness, only a strip of light shining down between the doors.

I roar in fury, trying to reach out and push them open again, but it’s far too high up.

“Cragnorr?” Mia says in a small voice. Behind me, she’s getting back up to her feet and once again my eyes hone in on her.

Mia. My Mia.

The power flowing through my body redirects into one purpose: making her mine.

Mia

In all the years I’ve known Cragnorr, which is almost his entire life, I’ve never seen him like this. His teeth are gritted and his brows are furrowed, his nostrils flaring with every labored breath. His eyes are wild, pupils blown-out and gigantic, and his fingers are clenched into stiff claws. Even his muscles look bigger, all swelled up with blood.

That’s not the only place it’s gone. Under his pants, his cock is thick, pressing hard at the fabric of his dirty pants.

He takes a step towards me, and if it were anyone but Cragnorr, I would back away, and perhaps try to hide. There would be nowhere to go in this little dark, underground room. The one metal door is heavy and locked.

“Mia,” he says, and I’m so unused to hearing his voice that I freeze. “My Mia.”

In one swift, rough motion, Cragnorr grabs me and wraps me tightly in his arms. His hands cover every part of me, my back, my hips, my ass. His hot breath hits my ear as he lowers his head and brushes my cheek with his tusk.

“Cragnorr?” I ask, unsure what’s come over him. He rubs his nose against my throat and groans in a way that’s pure animal. He holds me tighter, squeezing me, as if he’s not sure I’m real.

I’m overcome to be with him again, to smell him again, to be held by him again. I clutch him back just as hard, pressing into his hands purely on instinct.

“Cragnorr, I’m so glad you’re all right,” I say, my voice cracking. “I missed you. I’m so sorry. I don’t want anyone but you.”

He nods in approval. He knows that it was a show, that Zake means nothing to me. Then he grabs the strip of fabric that’s doing the bare minimum of covering my ass, and yanks them down my hips, tearing them. Suddenly, I’m bared to him from the waist down.

Something has changed in my ogre. Seeing that huge lump in his pants straining, his eyes focused on me—he’s become nothing but pure, raging instinct.

“Mia,” he growls low in his throat. He rips off the tie holding his pants on and that massive cock pops out, full and fat. Veins spider up the sides from the thick root, and it pulses as I stare. Liquid is dripping from that slit at the tip, and I think it’s his bare hunger for me. The fury in his soul has taken over, the one hidden beneath the gentle giant, and it wants me . I’m throbbing between my legs, imagining where that immense thing of his will go.

Cragnorr grunts as he lifts me up by my bare ass, his strong hands digging into my flesh. I wrap my arms around his neck to hold on while he stumbles forward, until my back is up against one of the dirt walls. He breathes hard and fast as he holds me up with one huge arm, then reaches between my thighs with the other. His fingers find me surprisingly wet there, and without preamble, he slides them inside me.

Oh, how he feels. Those two fingers are so thick, so wide, that I struggle to accommodate him. But he doesn’t relent, pumping them in and out of me, his palm dragging over my clit with every thrust. I moan as my head falls back against the wall, and his hand continues fucking me.

Then, he pushes in a third finger. My body fights back for a moment, too tight to allow it in, but he’s determined. With shocking force, he wriggles all three fingers inside me, thrusting them in and out so fast that it’s making obscene, wet sounds. My face falls into the crook of his neck, overwhelmed by how good he feels with how my pussy is desperately trying to stretch open for him .

Surely someone is going to hear us out there. But do I care if they do?

“Cragnorr,” I whisper, my hips bucking against his invasion. I don’t know what it is that I want, but I know I want more. I want him deeper. I want him completely, all of him, forever.

He groans against me as he spreads his fingers even wider, forcing me open. I cry out, desperate to obey.

And then, quite suddenly, he pulls his hand back. He holds up his fingers, my slickness reflecting in the thin band of light coming from above, and he shoves them in his mouth. His eyes fall closed as he sucks me off his hand. But when he opens them again, they’re alight with a fire I’ve never seen, and his cock jumps against me. Whatever happened in that arena, it has driven him to something wild, something new and fearsome. Still, I know that he would never, ever hurt me.

He may be a monster, but he’s my monster.

Cragnorr presses his cock between my thighs, groaning when the length of it slides along my sensitive center. Is he going to fuck me like this? My pussy tingles, and I gasp as he once more drags me over his shaft, lighting up every inch of my skin.

I need him. I need him as much as he clearly needs me right now. His eyes are bloodshot, and his chest is still bleeding from where the lion broke through his defenses, but none of that matters to him. Staring into my eyes, his lips curled in bloodlust, he lifts me up, and the thick, soft head of his cock rises until it’s lined up with my slit.

“Cragnorr,” I moan, hooking my thighs over his hips and pressing down, so he slips through my folds, to that wet place reserved for him. “Please.”

With a victorious roar, Cragnorr slides me down over his cock. It happens all at once, this huge, soft object pushing its way inside me, stretching my edges wide and demanding I open for it. I cry out as it breaches me, and Cragnorr shoves himself as deep as he can, burying himself in my body like he was always meant to be there.

I sob his name as I stretch to accommodate him, and I’m so full that I’m spilling over. My ogre roars as he lifts me up, almost falling free of me, before he brings me down onto him once more. He sinks in, settling into the place where he belongs.