A Kingdom of Ruin (Deliciously Dark Fairytales Book 3)(122)

He jolted like lightning had run through him and then grabbed my hair in a hard fist and yanked my head back. He ran his teeth along my neck before sinking them into my flesh, over his bite. My stomach swirled, and hot, sweet pleasure ripped through me. He ran his tongue over the tingling mark before he pulled my hair harder, making me lean back, and sucked in a hard nipple.

“I’m going to fuck you so hard you forget your name,” he growled, kissing up my chest and pulling me in toward him, taking control. “You’re mine, little dragon, and I mean to prove it. Over and over.”

His kiss was dominant and intense and erotic as he pulled me up to standing, trapping his cock between us. He grabbed hold of my jaw with one hand, the fingers of the other curling though my hair. Heat throbbed in my core. His eyes shone like those of a predator looking over his prey. His power curled around us, dangerous and wild but not a threat to me. Never a threat to me. No, he was only a threat to my enemies.

I knew Nyfain would always protect me, even if it cost him his life or his sanity. I’d broken him a little, I knew, needing to feel his pleasure when I was suffused with pain. But he’d never faltered. He’d never pulled back. I knew he never would.

“Take me,” I said in a husky whisper.

“No, princess.” He gripped me through the bond, pulling me into that place we’d found where nothing could reach me but him. “Now you will take me. You will mark me as yours.”

He scooped me up into his arms again, water splashing around us, and walked us out of the now-murky water. Without covering up, he took me through the castle, still deathly quiet. The space was totally empty. The others were giving us time and distance, hoping we’d do what only we could—break the curse. Free them.

My heart hammered. Nervousness peaked inside of me.

Nyfain climbed the stairs to the tower, and the second he pushed his way inside, I knew this had been his home when I was gone. He’d stayed here, with my smell around him. He’d forced himself into a dungeon of his own, trapped with my memory. He’d never planned to move on. Not for a moment.

Desperation overcame me as he set me down, but I didn’t rush. I didn’t jump him. Instead, I peeled back the covers and slipped into the silky sheets. He came in after me, watching my every movement, taking my cues. I could feel his anticipation growing, and mine with it, but he didn’t let it show. He didn’t rush me.

I reached for him, running my hand over his shoulder and across the top of his back, gently urging him closer. Closer still. His hot flesh brushed against me as he put one of those large, strong arms to the other side of my body, holding himself off me a little as he moved his body over mine. His delicious chest, cut with battle and muscle and branded with ink, rubbed against the hard peaks of my breasts. My eyes fluttered shut as I ran my hands across his skin and my thighs up the sides of his hips.

“I envisioned this, when you were feeding me pleasure and power through the bond,” I whispered, fighting the memories. “But it wasn’t the same. I didn’t feel your heat. My memories of your strength were only a pale echo compared to actually being with you.”

I pulled him down until he was flush with me, large and heavy and hard, pushing me down into the soft mattress. His lips found mine softly, and then a little harder, until he was filling my world with his taste. With his body.

“You saved me,” I said, wrapping my arms around him, my eyes squeezed shut, all the pain and fear I’d held back in the demon prison now flowing out of me. Tears fell down my cheeks. “By claiming me, you saved me from…the worst of things. The worst of everything.”

I shook with sobs, still gripping him tightly. This wasn’t why we were here, but I didn’t want to go any further until I got this out. Until I exposed the dark places of my soul and let him wrap me up in his safety.

“You saved us all,” he murmured.

“Hadriel, Leala, and Hannon saved us all.”

“No, they helped you get out of the dungeon. But it is your blind love that will save us all.”

I opened my glassy eyes and met his golden gaze, so beautiful. So full of emotion. And suddenly I needed him inside me with a desperation the likes of which I couldn’t remember experiencing before.

I pushed his hips back, and he caught on to what I needed immediately. His lips crashed down onto mine, and he dragged his big cock down my slippery folds. The blunt tip prodded my opening, and then he thrust. Color and light flashed behind my closed eyes, the feeling of him better than anything I could remember. Anything my (very vivid) imagination had conjured. He held himself fully seated for a moment, his arms wrapped around me, holding me tightly.

I turned my head until my lips were right near his ear and whispered, “I love you.”

He sucked in a breath, and a dam of emotion burst within him. He pulled back and thrust into me powerfully, the slide of him so fucking good. I rocked my hips up to meet him, clinging to his back as he strove, all his fear and misery and yearning in each thrust. I met each of them, working through my own darkness with every crash of our bodies. Exposing it and showing it to the light.

We struggled to get closer. To get deeper. To meet each other in this place of fear and uncertainty and fuse ourselves together so that we didn’t have to endure it alone ever again. I raked my teeth down his neck, and he shuddered in ecstasy.

Not yet, my dragon said, basking in the feeling of his body filling mine, of his power swirling within ours. The bond locked me in, cradling me in his strength and power. I knew I needed to give him the same connection. I needed to create a safe place for him to retreat to—a place within himself, and me, that he could hide without the world knowing he needed to.