52. Gwyneira

52

GWYNEIRA

R oan let out a shaky breath, opening his eyes. When his gaze found me again, fire lived at the heart of it like the core of a dark star.

“He…” Clearing his throat, he tried again. “He wants to mate bond you. His way.”

My lips parted, speechless.

“He thinks it’ll be good for you. Be good for all of us, really. Helpful or… something. And, I mean, he’s definitely got an ego so maybe that’s not—” Roan winced and I wondered what protest the demon had just made. “Look, I’m not saying you’re wrong ,” he started, not sounding like he was talking to me anymore. “I just?—”

I put my hand to his chest, and he cut off, his gaze returning to me. “Yes.”

The fire in his eyes flared brighter.

“If,” I continued, “it won’t damage my connections to anyone else.”

Roan shook his head immediately. “He swears it won’t.”

My eyes darted around, but Ozias’s consent was more than clear and I found only curiosity on the faces of the rest of my men. “Okay, then.” I nodded. “What, um… what do we…”

A breath left Roan. “He might be too big to have you like… like this.” He nodded toward where his cock rested against my thigh. “But if you’re willing, he still wants to try. And if it hurts, he swears he’ll stop and just”—his shoulder rose and fell in a small shrug— “give you pleasure with other parts of himself. Is that okay?”

Clay made an appreciative noise only to cut off as Lars jabbed him with an elbow yet again.

My amusement couldn’t quite beat out the tangle of apprehension and desire coiling in my core.

“We won’t do this if you don’t want it, princess,” Roan cautioned, drawing back a bit like somehow he could tell what I was feeling.

Though maybe it was the demon scenting that, like Roan once said.

My fingers took his arm, stopping him. “I want it. This.” I looked deep into his eyes, praying the demon could hear me. “You.”

For a heartbeat, Roan didn’t breathe, and then his head moved in a small nod. “Okay.”

Again, somehow, I didn’t think it was only me to whom he was speaking.

He drew back, a shift coursing through him. His muscles and bones grew. Wings erupted from his back and claws lengthened on his hands and feet. Blazing fire consumed his eyes, leaving only a dark pinprick at their core. His long, sinuous tail lashed the air, and his sharp, vicious features curved into a fanged smile while he regarded me on the ground below him.

Even if Roan had just come, it meant nothing for the demon. His thick, ridged cock jutted out between us, hard and leaking glistening pre-cum.

“My mate,” he growled, tracing his fiery eyes over my naked body. He glanced at my men, his gaze landing last on Ozias. “ Our mate.”

Ozias tilted his head in a small acknowledging nod.

The demon grinned, turning his eyes back to me. “Share you. But only with them or only with ones you choose.” His brow arched. “Deal?”

Swallowing hard around the lump that had risen in my throat, I nodded. “Deal.”

His grin broadened. Bracing himself with one massive, clawed hand beside my head, he straddled me with his knees on either side of my hips.

I stared up at him. He really was huge .

His tail thrashed the air for a moment, only to curl past him and slide along the inside of my thigh. “Begged me to put this in you once, yes?”

My core throbbed. Desire soaked me. “Yes.”

His tail dragged along my slit, making me gasp and buck beneath him. “Liked my cum soaking into your soft, beautiful skin, true?”

Gods… “True.”

His grin turned hungry. “Good. You will like it even better inside you.”

Twisting between my folds, the tip of his tail coiled around my clit. My back arched involuntarily, the jolt of pleasure making me cry out.

He made a pleased sound. “Always so responsive.” His tail slipped farther down to tease at the edge of penetration, like he was testing something. “Other mate stretched you wide for me. Other men left you soft and ready to take my cock. They are satisfactory mates for you.” He rocked back, his hard length replacing his tail. “And so am I.”

The tip of him pushed into me, each ridge stretching my entrance just to get through.

I gasped, my eyes going wide. Gods, he was thick. Huge, even. Pleasure and pain mixed, inextricable from one another. The vampire side of me rose, almost as if to drive me to escape, only to become equally transfixed by what was happening.

The demon was every bit as much of a predator as Ozias. As Casimir.

As me.

And the feeling of his cock entering me made me want to bite him and mewl at the same time. Inch by inch, he eased deeper, moving just slowly enough to make me think maybe, just maybe I could take him.

If I didn’t break something first.

“Good mate,” he crooned as desperate little noises escaped me, involuntary and beyond my control. ”Good.”

He traced his claws between my breasts. I fell silent, shuddering as my attention scattered between the strain of being penetrated by his cock and the scrape of his deadly claws on my skin.

“Now…” He stilled inside me.

My heart racing, I lay beneath him, my pussy stretched to the point of breaking but slowly—gods, so slowly—starting to adjust to his girth.

“You are such a good mate,” he murmured again. “You take my cock so well.”

His words made heat coil low in my belly. My fangs pricked my lips, aching to bite him, taste him.

But between my legs, a new need started to build. Whimpering sounds left me, becoming wild and pleading for something I couldn’t capture with words.

“You are okay, my good mate?”

My head moved in a jerky nod. “I… I…”

He made another satisfied sound. “You wish me to begin, don’t you?”

My mind was reeling. I needed that. Gods, I needed that. “Y-yes. I… please.”

“Good mate.”

Slowly, he eased back. Each time a ridge of his cock drew past the entrance to my pussy, a throb of pleasure went through me that tore a moan from my lips. At the cusp of pulling out entirely, he reversed course, slowly thrusting back in.

My eyes swept the cave ceiling, unseeing. My hands fumbled wildly before finding his broad forearms and clutching them tightly. I didn’t understand what this was doing to me, to the vampire within me either.

But the pressure in my core was becoming overwhelming.

“I…” Begging sounds escaped me before I could find words again. “I need to come. Please, I… please, Demon, I need to…”

His satisfied sound was more of a growl this time. His thrusting sped up, and his tail whipped through the air only to dive down behind him.

I cried out as the tip of his tail thrust into my rear opening, filling me so full, so tight, I couldn’t have stopped my orgasm if I tried.

I screamed as I came, my body gushing again around his massive cock. I jerked with the force of it, my muscles no longer under my control.

The demon roared as his own release overtook him. Hot cum, scorching cum filled me, making me gasp and jerk forward, clutching my belly.

Exclamations of worry and alarm came from around me, but curled in on myself, I couldn’t react to them. My vampire side wasn’t trying to flee. It reveled in the burning, in the claiming.

And the burning sensation was already fading, like the bite of incredibly hot water right before your body adjusted to its touch. Soon, there was only the tingling feeling of pinprick heat surrounded by a delicious sort of warmth.

“I’m… I’m okay.” I opened my eyes, still hugging my middle, but now because of the warmth that made me feel so full and sated inside.

My men quieted. Inside, my vampire side rested, soothed on some deep level I couldn’t define.

Leaning back, the demon regarded me, his cocksure smile radiating satisfaction. “Mine.”

I looked up at him and nodded.

His smile spread. He lifted one hand, his black claws glistening in the light of the glowing plants around us.

Flames surged up from his palm to dance around each claw.

My eyes went wide. “What are you…”

His eyebrow arched like it was obvious. “Mate mark you.” He lowered his claws over my skin. I could feel the heat radiating from them. “Brand you.”

At my silence, he paused, a hint of concern flickering in his dark eyes. “Yes?”

I swallowed hard. This was going to hurt. I knew it would.

But my bond to Ozias had changed my life. My bond to these men had made us stronger. My vampire side was practically preening and purring at the idea of bearing the demon’s mark too, but in a way that didn’t feel dangerous somehow. More like the idea of his mark soothed something.

I nodded, my eyes on the demon’s. “Yes.”

The outer edges of his claws came to rest on my chest, opposite of Ozias’s mating mark.

I choked on a scream, but the demon moved fast. With his other hand, he scooped up some of his cum leaking from me and smeared it onto the wound.

The pain vanished almost as quickly as it had come, turning into a strangely tingling throb that left me stunned and blinking on the ground.

Trembling, I looked down.

Four blackened ovals formed an arc with a fifth below them. Specks of orange light glimmered inside like embers trapped in my skin.

The demon brushed his fingertips over the marks.

My body quivered and arched toward him instinctively.

He smiled. “So responsive. My good mate.” His gaze went beyond me.

I felt Ozias coming closer. A rumbling sound left him, satisfaction radiating through our connection, and he crouched down beside me, the movement fluid and effortless.

His beast was close to the surface. Its hunger and desire lurked in his eyes as he traced his gaze over my naked body. With a glance to the demon, he lifted an eyebrow, some unspoken question passing between the two predators.

As one, they pressed their hands to their individual mate marks on my chest.

Pleasure hit me like a bolt between the eyes, whiting out my vision and making me arch away from the ground, instantly overcome. My hands flailed blindly for something to hold onto while my pussy clenched and fluttered, burning with the intensity of this sudden orgasm.

When the wave finally passed, I sagged back to the ground, limp, wrung out, and panting.

But I wasn’t the only one.

Blinking, I looked around to find my men on their knees, breathing hard with their cocks in their hands and their release on the stone and moss beneath them.

“Holy fuck, ” Clay gasped.

I stared. “What…” My voice was raw. “What happened? You felt that?”

Casimir made a rough sound like an incredulous scoff of confirmation.

To his right, Byron nodded. “Your starlight. It… It used your connection to Ozias and the… the marks, and it transmitted the impact to…” He shuddered, seeming unable to find any more words.

“He means yes,” Lars translated.

“ Gods , yes,” Niko added emphatically.

Dex reached over, brushing my hair from my face. “Your pleasure was ours, little one.”

Ozias nodded. Everything I could feel from him said he didn’t mind a bit that I’d involuntarily pushed our connection out to the others, albeit only when I came. It had only lasted as long as my orgasm, and it hadn’t changed a bit of what the two of us still shared.

Seated beside me, the demon simply smirked, pride and satisfaction practically radiating from him. “I said it’d be good for all of you if I matebonded our beautiful treluria, didn’t I?”

Clay chuckled in breathless agreement. “You all know what this means, though, right?”

I twisted a bit to see him. “What?”

He grinned. “When we make it through this, we’re going to need a much bigger bed for fucking you. Like, huge. Bigger than giant-sized. Because we’re all going to want our hands on you when that simultaneous orgasm thing happens again . ”

A laugh burst from me and his grin broadened.

Dex’s hands returned, drawing me away from the ground into his arms. I nestled close to his chest, resting but no longer exhausted. Warmth pulsed through me now, not just from the blood I’d taken from Casimir or the way Lars’s magic had licked away any trace of a chill.

It was the power Roan shared with me, and the thrum of the demon’s bond still quivering through my body, both at the same time. Where his claw marks had left brands on my chest, a small current of energy continuously fed me his strength.

Gingerly, I reached out in my mind, tracing along the threads of sparkling light I could feel more than see. My links to my other men glistened in my mind’s eye, binding us together and giving us all strength. The brilliant ties radiated out from me, and even if it wasn’t like the empathic bond Ozias and I shared, it still let me know where each of them were and if they were well.

But when I looked closer, my breath caught. Tiny orange embers coursed through those connections too, but not coming from the demon.

From me.

His power flowed to me, and out from me to them.

Further strengthening us all.

I looked over at where he still sat nearby. His fiery eyes met mine, and though he still held himself with pride and arrogance, there was something else in his gaze.

Love.

My lips moved, mouthing the words silently. “Thank you.”

He nodded once, regal and yet kind. The dark star at the center of his fiery eyes grew larger as he reached out and took my hand, his gray palm engulfing my fingers.

“The unbroken one and I will always protect you,” the demon said. “This we both swear.”

My lips parted in surprise, a warm, pained, but happy feeling swelling in my chest at the words and the title alike.

The un broken one.

A shudder rolled through him, and the demon shifted back into Roan, but the look on his face didn’t change. My somber giant only nodded like he was echoing the demon’s sentiment.

Dex tightened his arms around me. “We all swear it.”

Sounds of agreement came from my men.

My eyes prickled with tears. “And I’ll always protect?—”

A cascade of light suddenly rolled across the symbols inlaid in the walls. A clang like a gong being struck reverberated through the air.

Straightening fast in Dex’s arms, I stared around in shock. “What is that?”

The hard crystalline sense of the wall that I’d spread to all of us shuddered inside me.

And I had the answer to my question.

“Oh gods,” Niko whispered.

I nodded. “My stepmother’s magic is attacking the Wall of Erenelle.”