Chapter 26

Dura

I am kissing Marvik like I can fuse our souls together by the action. I tear at his clothes, ripping his tunic over his head, baring his delectable chest to my view. Marvik is pulling my clothes as well, and as I am not wearing much, I am soon naked in the cell. We move back into our embrace, delicious skin against skin, and my thrum bursts from my throat.

I am . . . happy. It is strange to be so, right on the edge of certain disaster, but my Ash’ka ’s acceptance of me, the following of my mother’s traditions, has brought me joy. And made me feel very, very lustful.

Marvik’s hands find my breasts, kneading them expertly, and I mewl through my thrum. My hands go questing for his trouser strings. After a week of oral sex, I am extremely ready to have him inside of me.

“Fucking love those little sounds, huntress,” he murmurs against my lips. I finish untying his trousers, and he kicks them off. His hands come under my bottom and lift, hauling me against him. My long legs come around his waist and he whirls us around, pushing me up against the cool stone wall.

When I am rested between him and the wall, Marvik kisses me, licking into my mouth with passion, masterfully stoking my ardor. Shivers run down my spine and my center primes.

My Ash’ka pulls back from me, a fierce grin on his handsome face. “Tell me, my dirty, dirty huntress, if I touched you now, would I find you wet? Does your hungry pussy want to take my hard cock?”

I shiver again at his words, my sibilance increasing. “Yes,” I boldly tell him. “My pussy always wants your cock.”

He chuckles darkly at my declaration. “You’ll be the end of me, huntress, but I’ll gladly let you lead me to my doom.”

His clever fingers snake down my body, finding my clit, and begin lightly massaging around it, slipping through my natural wetness. I keen out, uncaring at how loud I am. I know we are likely not alone in the dungeon, but it doesn’t matter. Let them hear as my mate claims my body. Let them hear how hard he makes me come.

At the thought, my body tightens and releases, my climax taking me almost by surprise. After going several days without my Ash’ka ’s touch, I am feeling desperate for it. Amid my climax, I feel a thick intrusion into my body and know that Marvik has entered my squeezing channel with his thick cock. He pushes in again and again, making my climax reach new heights and before I know it, I am coming again, screaming out my pleasure.

Marvik keeps going, a look of intense concentration on his features, before pulling out of me, his cock spurting up, dirtying our naked bodies. When he finishes, I am still thrumming, and he is still hard. Without missing a beat, he pushes back into me and we begin again.

“You . . . don’t . . . need . . . to . . . do . . . that,” I tell him between thrusts. Another climax rolls into the edges of my awareness, but I try to hold it off. This is important.

“Do what, huntress? Push into your pretty pussy? Make you come so hard you see the gods? Worship your beauty?” He hitches an arm around one of my legs, tilting it up higher so that his angle changes. He hits even deeper inside of me, hitting my most secret places, and I whimper. I won't be able to last long.

I huff out a breathless laugh at his dirty, cocky words. “No . . . come . . . uh! Come outside . . . mmm! You don’t need to come . . . outside of me.”

Marvik goes a little more serious, but keeps pistoning his hips into me, his rhythm brutal, punishing even. I’m going to come soon. “I do not know if I want a child huntress,” he tells me. “We should not bring a life into this world before we are both ready. ”

I don’t know if I want a child either. Especially not with war or banishment blooming on the horizon. But there is more than one way to prevent a child, though I’ve never had to use it before.

“That's what I’m . . .huh! Trying to tell you. I can . . . mmm! I can use my . . . healing powers to prevent your seed from taking. I just . . . . need, uh! To do it before a day passes.”

A wild look enters my lover’s eyes. “Good to know, huntress. Then, I'm going to fill your needy pussy with my spend until you can’t walk anymore. ‘Til it’s spilling out of you and running down your legs in rivers!”

Marvik changes angles again, and without warning I am coming. My channel bears down on Marvik’s cock and I milk him with my release. Marvik comes inside me, filling me, just like he said. I enjoy milking his cock, his hardness staying in me while my climax finishes. It’s a luscious, complete feeling and my Mating Instinct purrs in approval. I collapse onto him and though I know I am not light, he holds us both upright. My head rests on his shoulder, both of us breathing hard, and after a moment, he tilts his head, baring his neck to me.

“Do it, huntress. Claim me.”

“What?” I say, scrambling up. I pull away slightly, but there isn’t much of a place to go as I am trapped between him and the wall. My eyes find his, but he is merely looking at me with a hint of amusement and calm.

“I mean it, huntress,” he says, “I want to be Claimed by you. I want to be your Ash’ka in more than name only.”

“But . . .” I flounder. I know we just did the Exchanging, but this seems so fast.

“Look,” says Marvik, taking my hands. My claws are already sheathed, and he weaves our fingers together in an intimate gesture. “I know we’ve done this all wrong, you and I. We had sex without doing the Exchanging first and it’s not a full moon, so we cannot do the Speaking, but we are meant to be mates. I love you, Dura, more than I ever thought would be possible. I love your courage and your kindness and your wit. I love your honor and your sense of sacrifice, even though it has placed us in a terrible position right about now.”

I snort at that. “All I did was tell the truth.”

Marvik quirks a small smile. “In the very worst light possible, as you know. But I don’t want to argue about that. I want to be Claimed by you. I want to be together, in a way that cannot be severed. I want to know what goes on in that infuriating head of yours and soothe you when your thoughts are telling you that I don’t want you. Because I do . I want to stand at our trial and tell everyone that we belong to each other and be telling the truth for all to see. And I want those things now .”

I wrinkle my nose in suspicion, even as I am touched by his words. “Are you just doing this because I am going to be banished in a few days’ time?”

“ We are going to be banished, my Ash’ka . Because wherever you are going, I go too. If you are sent to face the deadly sands, I will come with you. Because I have learned that my life is not worth living if it doesn’t have you in it.”

It is the first time he has called me his Ash’ka and my heart flutters in my chest. My eyes flick to his neck, to the join of his shoulder, and my fangs practically ache to bite into his delicate human skin.

Fuck it . He’s asking and I don’t want to say no. And if we are headed to the Killikar in a few days’ time, I want all my actions to have been worth it, to go to the Nether justified. I want to be bound to my Ash’ka and him to me. I push against him, and when he lets me go, a bemused look on his face, I order, “Get on the bed.”

He goes to lie down on the cot, obeying me without question, and I shake my head. “No, sit on the edge.”

“I like it when you’re commanding like this,” teases Marvik, doing as I say. When he is positioned on the edge, I straddle his lap and begin to thrum again. Marvik’s cock hardens beneath me and I slowly lower myself onto his length. When I rise up again, it’s slow as well, a deliberate tempo.

My Ash’ka hisses and lets out a low chuckle. “Naughty huntress. You’re killing me with this slow pace.”

“I need you nice and ready,” I tell him, “on the verge of orgasm, but not falling over the precipice. The Mating Bite is painful if it is not done well.”

With a torturously slow pace, I ride his cock, sinuously moving my hips in a rhythm that builds toward climax, but will not take us there right away. I thrum with all my might, needing him to be so sensitized that he walks the knife’s edge between pleasure and pain. I need him to be desperate for it.

Marvik suddenly thrusts up with his hips, hitting me hard and deep, and we both groan. But I grab his hair in my hand and yank back on his head so that he is staring up into my eyes.

“No,” I tell him, deliberately slowing my pace even more. “Bad human. I told you, not yet. I need you to come when I bite you.”

“But it feels so good, huntress,” he pants. “I’m almost coming, but I need more pressure. It’s maddening. You’re vibrating all around me and you’re going so slow.”

“Slow like this?” I tease, almost stopping entirely, but still using my sibilance.

Marvik groans. “Evil, evil huntress. I’ll make you pay for this later.”

“I look forward to it,” I say, telling the truth. I enjoy when he punishes me. It usually involves him making me come until I can’t anymore and I love it. The games of pleasure we play with each other are about to get much more intense now that we are fully mated.

Without warning, I speed up my pace, pushing to a brutal rhythm. Marvik shouts in pleasure and I know it is time. Pulling his head to the side, I bite down on the join between his neck and shoulder. I thrum so hard that I can feel the vibrations, and then I feel him coming inside me. I get the idea to use my healing to slow the bleeding of his wound and grab his shoulders, letting my magic flow into him. My magic comes easily, rushing to the wound, but I’m startled when my feelings blend with his. I can feel his pleasure, as if it were my own, multiplying my own. Is this a side effect of the mating bond? But, no, I’ve never heard of that before. I stop healing him in my surprise, pulling away my hands, and the connection severs. Using my healing magic while we have sex allows me to feel his pleasure?

“That felt fucking good,” Marvik says, pushing into me with his still hard cock. “Do it again.”

I look at him in surprise. “You felt that too?”

“I did,” he confirms, “and I want to feel it again. Fill me with your magic, huntress. Let us fly together.”

Tentatively, I put my hands on him and let my healing go into him. He thrusts up his hips and we both moan in pleasure; the feeling ricocheting between us, the ecstasy of sex multiplying exponentially as we share it. Soon I am riding him and he’s pushing up into me and we are both going wild with it. We come together with lips and tongues and teeth, kissing and nipping all over our sensitized skin. Marvik’s lips find my nipples and bite lightly on the responsive nubs. An electric shock of pleasure reverberates between us. I pull back on his head and take his lips with mine, all the while riding him with abandon. His hands go to where his lips were, kneading and pinching as our tongues twirl together. I come again and again, and I feel him come too, his seed dripping out of me like he said it would. Finally, I can take no more and I pull my magic back into myself, letting it disperse and collapse onto Marvik, my thrum silencing. He lays back in the cot and his cock slips out of me. His arms are around me and his fingers trace soothing circles onto my skin.

After a long period of silence, I finally say, “My mother never told me that healing magic could do that .”

Marvik barks out a laugh, and I feel a wave of amusement in my chest that is not my own. In the heat of my discovery, I hadn’t even noticed that the bite took, that we are now bound as one.

“Do you feel that?” I ask, reverence and peace filling me. I stroke my Ash’ka ’s chest with my fingers.

Marvik’s arms tighten around me. “Yes, huntress. It worked. We are mates. No one can separate us now.”

Happiness fills me, mine and his, but a hint of trepidation lingers. I still don’t know what the future holds, but I fear it is certain death.

“None of that,” Marvik says, kissing the top of my head. “We can trust Adalind. It will be alright.”

“If you say so,” I say, still fearing that I have dragged Marvik into my dark fate.

“I do say so,” he says, kissing my head again. “Now, sleep, huntress. It’s been a long few days.”

I am tired. The bloodroot is wearing off and we haven’t slept in days. So, safe in my Ash’ka ’s arms, I let the darkness claim me.