What Lies Beyond the Veil (Of Flesh & Bone, #1)(113)

He stared down at me, his chin tucked into his chest slightly and his eyes lighter than normal for a moment. “There you are,” I said, a semi-relieved sigh escaping me. He was alive. He was safe.

Even if he was fucking terrifying.

“Is everything alright?” I asked, tipping my head to the side as I smiled up at him innocently, as though I couldn’t sense the monster lurking beneath his skin’s surface: the beast the mate bond wanted to turn him into.

But I knew the man he really was. I knew how gentle he could be when he rocked himself into me, and how sweetly he caressed my skin when he thought I was sleeping, as if he couldn’t quite convince himself I was real.

And I was his.

“You should be sleeping,” he said, his deep voice rolling between us as he took a step toward me.

“So should you,” I remarked. I suspected we’d passed the time when it was supposed to be Beck’s turn to take watch, and yet the other man slept while Caelum stalked through the woods alone. “What are you doing?”

“Always so inquisitive,” he answered, tucking his fingers beneath my chin. “Are you ready for the answers to those questions yet, my star?”

“I don’t know,” I murmured, the words coming out far more hushed than I’d intended. I didn’t know how to cope with the man in front of me; the monster staring down at me like I’d hung the moon in his sky of shadows and he intended to devour me whole.

He grabbed my hand from my side, lifting it to rest against his chest, just over his heart. He hummed, the sound rumbling against my hand as he regarded me. “Why don’t I make you forget all about those questions dancing in your pretty little head, then?” he asked, laying out his cloak and drawing me down to the snow-covered ground with him. I followed, knowing I would follow him anywhere when he looked at me in that way.

He laid me down on top of his cloak, then unknotted the laces of my trousers, tugging them over my hips so that the cold air made me wince. He smiled, stripping them off my legs and depositing my boots along with them. Spreading my legs wide while I stared up at him in shock, he settled himself between my hips.

“Have you healed yet, Little One? Because I’m going to break you again,” he murmured, reaching down to unknot his own laces. The head of his cock dragged against me, bumping against my clit repeatedly and sending a jolt of pleasure through me.

Caelum terrified me, but I wanted him all the same.

Pushing inside of me slowly and spreading me open to his assault, he groaned the moment he filled me, his balls resting against my ass and his body leaning over mine. Cradling me in his grip, he slid an arm beneath my shoulders as he set a slow, hard pace.

Each drag of his cock through me echoed in my soul, drawing a pleasured whimper from my chest. “What will it take, Little One?” he asked, his glittering stare intent on mine. He held me captive, the intensity of the expression on his face making my lungs cease to function.

“What will what take?” I asked, wrapping my hands around to his back. My nails dug into his shirt, pleasure spreading through me with his possession.

“What will it take for you to admit that you are just as fucking in love with me as I am with you? For you to admit that your heart beats in tandem with mine?” he asked, touching his hand to the spot where my heart pounded in my chest.

He held me still, sinking his fingers into my skin until I knew they would bruise.

“Caelum,” I gasped, squeezing my eyes shut against his words. I didn’t want to give them, didn’t want to concede this last part of me.

What would happen when he owned it, too?

“Say it, my star,” he ordered, touching a finger to my clit. He circled it carefully, never giving me enough to send me spiraling into an orgasm, but driving me mad as he made deep, slow thrusts with his hips to work himself in and out of me.

Every ridge of his cock dragged through my flesh, every press of him against that elusive spot inside drove me wild. He lifted his other hand off my chest, pressing down on my lower stomach and sending the ache inside of me running rampant. “Gods,” I groaned.

“I’m your God,” he said with a smirk, mischief dancing across his face. “Now tell me you fucking love me.”

“I love you,” I sobbed, the words torn from a place inside me I hadn’t known existed. Like they’d always been meant to hang between us, out in the open for the world to know.

“I know you do, Little One,” he said gently, sympathy filling his gaze as he worked my clit harder and drove into me faster. “Now you come for your God.”

I saw stars, my vision filling with the blackness of night as my body followed his command. He owned it in that moment. My body. My heart.

Me.

He warmed me from the inside as he followed after me, murmuring sweet nothings in my ear as his chest dropped to mine and he covered me with his weight.

Horror filled me immediately, a reminder of everything I hadn’t meant to voice. He was gentle as he pulled free from my battered pussy, staring at the space between my legs where cum slid free and coated my thighs.

He dropped his hand to it, gathering it with two fingers and pressing it back inside of me with a victorious look on his face. I swallowed with a shudder, the monster in his gaze so close to the surface that I thought I might be facing my end.

But he helped me into my pants and boots, guiding me back to where Melian and Beck continued to sleep, as though he hadn’t turned my entire world upside down yet again.