Mated to the Warrior Beast

47 Mine, Only Mine*

If you like music while you read, try “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol. It’s what I listened to while writing this chapter.

*****

~ TARKYN ~

When Harth twined their hands and their twin wounds aligned, Tarkyn’s body was rocked by the roar of the bond-flames in his blood, cold comets dancing on his skin, disbelief and awe mingled and echoing in his head until it felt like the top of his skull might burst.

“Harth, can you feel that?” His voice was little more than a gutteral rasp.

“Yes!”

A sound gathered in his chest like a coming storm, and for the first time, Tarkyn fought, wrestling against the tidal wave of emotion and desire, suddenly terrified of losing control. But his tongue named her anyway.

“Love... my love.”

.....

“I love you, Tarkyn,” she whimpered.

“You own me to my soul.” Then there were no words left. He scrambled to his feet and pulled her in, plunging his free hand into her hair to hold her to him.

When his lips found hers, the pulsing coil in his blood burst to life, a forest fire ripping through the WildWood, burning everything in its path.

She sucked in hard, but threw her arm around his neck and pulled him close. And as he bent to the kiss, she arched, pressing herself against him.

Tarkyn trembled from head to toe, his breath thundered to flutter her hair. But she only sighed his name and pressed harder, letting go of his hand to grip at his neck and hold herself against him.

Pure desire shuddered through him, and he groaned, pulling her to him, desperate, hungry in a way he’d never experienced.

Clawing, he drew both hands down her back, gripped her ass, slid one back up her spine to splay at the nape of her neck, the other exploring every ripple and curve. And Harth, whimpering when his thumb passed over her nipple, hooking one leg around his and letting him take her weight as she gave herself over to him.

Only a lifetime of discipline and restraint salvaged his control. His beast roared within, and his body responded, demanding-demanding her, demanding release, demanding the completion of the bond that hovered on the edge of his heart.

As she arched back in his hands, supple and surrendered, the mating call tore from his throat.

Thoughtless with lust, overwhelmed with humility, the two forces battled within him like the Kings of the Forest, their roars echoing to every edge of his soul. He walked her back, step by stuttering step, towards the bed, both of them stumbling when her heel caught on them and they tumbled together to the soft embrace of the furs.

She landed with a breathless laugh because he caught her, didn’t let her fall, not really, but lowered her to the furs, then crawled between her thighs, covered her with his body and finally, with a moaning sigh of relief, nestled over her.

She came alive under him, body rippling to meet his touch, lips wide and soft, her tongue a teasing velvet delight.

Then she drew a hand up, from the back of his thigh, up his spine, to fist in his hair and tug his head back. He hissed as she bared his throat then curled, pulled herself up to lay her mouth, open, on his throat.

“Mine,” she whispered fiercely, letting her teeth graze the point of his throat. “Only mine.”

He had never let a female near his throat before. For a heartbeat, every instinct he’d been provided by the Creator, every instinct he’d honed in decades of training and battle, screamed against the vulnerability. A predator, at his throat! His body tensed, resisted.

Then she closed her lips on his skin and sucked and that sparkling fire in his veins surged to consume them both. He felt it then, the piece of him, buried deep in his heart, his soul, that began to spin, to turn, to tear from its roots, to stretch toward her-reaching, seeking.

And the piece of her that answered the call.

Trembling, shuddering with desire, demand, fear, and faith, Tarkyn ground his hips against her, the hardest parts of him finding the softest parts of her-welcoming, seeking. And when rolled his hips again, pressing himself against her most sensitive flesh, she gasped and lost her grip on his hair, arching her back to meet him, a whimper breaking in her throat when he pulled back.

For long moments they stared at each other, breaths mingled, bodies rolling slowly, finding each other, learning each other, inching ever closer to the moment he would take her in truth.

And as her breath came faster, shorter, held at the peak of each roll, as her eyes began to glaze, and she became slick, ready for him, Tarkyn knew he couldn’t wait much longer.

With a groan of restraint, he buried his hands in her hair and braced on his elbows to draw back and meet her eyes.

For a moment they both stared, her eyes flickering back and forth between her wolf and her gentle, human gaze. He knew his did the same-the call of the predator within as impossible to deny as the bond itself.

“Mine,” he rasped, then ground against her again.

Her mouth dropped open and he took advantage of it to delve those velvet depths, his tongue darting, teasing, a parody of what he yearned to do with his body.

“Mine,” he growled against her skin as he kissed his way down her jaw to her throat. He felt her skin pebble, felt the hair rise with the thrill and fear of it all, and if he’d had half a breath to spare, he might have laughed with sheer joy.

“Only mine,” he grated. Then, knowing he would very quickly reach the limit of his restraint, and that no matter how much she desired him, this was the first time she would ever take a male, he made himself pause, to lift his head again and hold her eyes, searching for any sign she recoiled.

But there was none.

Braced on his elbows, holding her under him, his chest rose and fell far too quickly. He couldn’t catch his breath. Didn’t want to. But even as lust roared through him, even as his body trembled, fighting to take her, his heart sang.

She was here. She was truly here. Finally. The other half of his heart. He had waited so long. And then, even as he lifted a silent prayer of thanks to the Creator, her smile beamed and she put her hands to his face, and opened her mind.

‘Please, Tarkyn. I want to be yours... I want you to be mine. Please.’

He might have wept with the beauty of it, but there was no time. Harth took control, curling herself up, pulling herself higher, to take his mouth, and as their lips met the wildfire within him roared out of control.

The bond, red-hot and pulsing, seared through flesh and sinew exactly like the fire of his vow. The piece from deep within him tore free, a shocking loss. But before he could register the pain of it, it was replaced with the spinning, searing piece of her, thrumming, pulsing with love.

The shredded leash he’d held on his control snapped.

The mating call rolled from his throat to echo in the cave.

Tarkyn swallowed a roar and plunged into her.