Surprised to find myself naked and still all alone, I grabbed one of the thin fur blankets off the bed, wrapping it about me as I headed for the door. My skin was itching tenfold, like it was literally crawling. Shivering for more than one reason, I quit the room.
The hall was empty, the hour late.
Where was my mate?
Having a looksee, I’d just gotten to the pool, making to move past, when a ripple in the water caught my eye. Steam rose from the pool, the temperature warmer than the cool night air. Scratching at my arms, I made my way to the lip of the edge. “Adelric?”
Too dark to see below, I waited.
Horns popped up towards the far side of the pool, familiar, a curly mop following. Looking the part of the mythical beast, slowly rising up from the dark depths, his head was bowed, obscuring his face.
“You should have woken me. I’d have joined you.” Dropping the blanket, walking to the sandy bank, I slipped inside the pool.
Lazily making my way towards him, I noted the water wasn’t the only thing giving off heat. Smoke-like tendrils leapt right off of him, wisps, there and gone for more to take their place.
His chest moved, slow and steady breaths, but he was oddly silent.
When I was within his reach, he lifted his hand to me, palm out.
My hand slipped into his and I smiled softly when he reeled me in. Before he could make the first move, my hands slid around his thick chest to his upper back. Arms wrapping around him tight in a loving embrace, I nuzzled his chest, snuggling close to him.
“Missed you.” My voice came out muffled against his thick chest and all that hair. When he breathed a little deeper, chest rumbling, a pleased noise, I wiggled in until there wasn’t an inch of space between us. Pressing the side of my face over his heart, my eyebrows shot up at the crazy staccato echoing in my ear.
“Hey?” Pulling back to peer up at him, my hand automatically went to his face to brush his cheek comfortingly, cupping it. “What’s wrong?”
“Do you accept me?” he called softly, his voice so low the grunted words were almost unintelligible. He was partially hidden in shadow, as if he didn’t wish me to see his expression.
“Of course.” Pressing my nose to his, I pecked a kiss to his oddly shaped mouth. “Without question.”
His hands were at my back, holding me loosely as if he’d expected me to back off and wanted to allow me the option. I wasn’t going anywhere.
“What’s gotten into you?” My fingers rubbed the scruff on his chin, along his jawline. I loved his heavy pelt, the softness hidden beneath. His jaw was working, flexing. When I would have brushed a wayward forelock from his face he flinched.
Surprised, I would have pulled back if his grip didn’t turn bruising. “You’re not- You’re not having second thoughts about us, are you?” My chest squeezed painfully at the thought.
Adelric grunted, jerking, a series of strange grunts leaving him. His jaw clenched, teeth gnashing, his body starting to thrash in the water as I slowly backed a way.
No clue what was wrong, I could only stand there and watch, waiting, unless I didn’t mind possibly getting gored by a horn as his head began to jerk from side to side.
“Don’t. Don’t. S-s-s-stay there. Don’t... go.”
“Adelric,” I whispered, my hands gripping my hair as I stood there helplessly, “you’re scaring me.” My eyes strayed towards the ladies’ quarters. “Should I go and fetch someone? Do you... do you need help?”
“NO!” he burst out, tossing his head back with a muffled groan. Then lower, “No.”
“I can’t just stand here and- I don’t-” I went towards him anyway. “What’s happening to you?!”
Lurching forward, my worries over gaining a few extra holes a mere finger’s span from coming to light, he bent over, sucking in sharp breaths. His hands went to his face, clenching over his eyes.
When the worst seemed to have passed I drew closer. My hand touched his shoulder, moving in slow, soothing circles. “Whatever it is, I’ll help you.”
His hand left his face, thick fingers covering mine. “Anything?”
Without hesitation, “Anything.”
Those fingers curled around mine and he brought my hand to his lips. I was shaking slightly, more confused than worried in this moment. I just wanted him to be okay.
A rough tongue brushed my palm, then my wrist, in a Tauran’s sloppy kiss, his nose following to nuzzle along. He ventured higher, up my forearm, exploring the bend of my elbow, shifting his body towards me slowly as those teasing licks turned to tempting nips and soft kisses.
When he reached my neck, his hand going to my waist to hold me to him tight, I was already lost, easily melting into him, tilting my head to give him better access. As those kisses grew more and more determined, my willingness to put the conversation about what that was all about aside grew, if only fractionally.
“You will tell me what you’re on about, husband-mine,” I muttered, relishing his groan at that word.
“Moment,” he half mumbled distractedly, admiring the column of my throat with his thick lips.
He was hard, bobbing eagerly between us. I was tempted to wrap my fingers around it and show him just how much I enjoyed being one with him, as well.
Heat. Always full of so much heat, these beast men were. I feared I might one day catch a flame and turn to cinders.
“Hold on,” I murmured, when a hand went to my breast, tweaking my nipple.
My mate released me, eyes dark, hooded, shadowed beneath those thick lashes as he watched. His head dipped low, nostrils flexing as he made impatient grunting, chuffing noises.
Taking his hands in mine, I pressed them to his sides. “Stay,” I half-joked, watching him watching me as my hands raked down his thighs.
Dipping lower, until the water was just past my upper lip, my hands slid forward. One hand cupped the large sac dangling freely between his thighs, the other encircling his girth, slowly sliding down until the skin covering his shaft fell back.
Before he knew what was happening, I ducked below the water, bringing the curved tip of his cockhead to my lips, brushing the tip, to take him into my mouth. My beast mate jerked, his hands slapping the water, plunging beneath as if to lunge for me. Despite the water rushing my ears I heard his bark of surprise. My tongue slid along his shaft, mouth working. I wanted to know just how much of my wily, woolly Minotaur I could handle.
His hands made purchase on my shoulders, but I was already working him, pausing long enough to pop up for a breath or two to dive back down and resume. Thick legs trembling, fingers kneaded my shoulders, his hips started to move, experimental at first, then a little harder, and harder, until my hand was holding his shaft to keep me from being gagged on mammoth Minotaur dick, my mouth working to bring him to completion.
Precum tipped my tongue and I knew he was close. Popping back up, waiting longer than I normally would, I sucked in a deep breath. When I would have dove back down he gripped the back of my hair, bending his wide frame over me to hook his arm around my back, and then he was hauling me towards the edge of the water.
“Ah, little one,” he growled out anxiously, his thick nose burying against my nape to suck at the sensitive flesh. “It’s been too long. So long.” Dragging me along with him, he made his way to the closest edge of the pool.
“Little one?” I sputtered, spitting water everywhere, my hair plastered around my head like wayward squid tentacles. “Oberon?”
A happy noise. “Miss me, vacha?”
“But... you- Adelric-”
Pressing my back towards the sandy edge of the bank bordering the temple’s odd, indoor forest, he didn’t bother slowing. A hand slid to my ass, cupping it to slide to my thigh, where in my bemused, muddled state he hooked my leg around Adelric’s—well, his, temporarily—hip.
Impatiently, he wedged his cockhead against my cunny, pausing there to stare down at me. Eyes as black as night met mine and he smiled.
My sex clenche
d reflexively, and I’m going to claim this if it ever comes about again, occurred purely in reflex, the shaft slowly tunneling inside me shallowly jerking like an eager puppy at its warm welcome.
“This is-”
“Really happening.” Pausing to pull back, the hand in my hair forcing my face closer to his bringing us nose to nose.
“Adelric’s your vessel, then? He can- We’re- you-”
Black eyes narrowed slightly and he paused. “He said you might do this.”
“Do what?” I found myself blinking up at him stupidly because, honestly, I could hardly believe this was really happening.
“Refuse any other but him. He said you might struggle accepting me in another vessel, offering to allow his body for use.”
“Ah...” How to answer that one? He wasn’t necessarily wrong. I’d have been thinking about my mate the entire time, worried about him. “Can he...” Leaning in close, I whispered urgently, “Can he see us, uh, you know.”
He lifted his head then, snout twitching, and snorted out a laugh. It went on, growing louder and louder, until the fae king’s laugh was loud and boisterous, bordering on mocking.
Brow drawing low, I scowled up at him huffily. My arms drew over my chest protectively, shielding my breasts from his eyes. “You can stop now, you know. It’s not that funny,” I muttered.
Shaking his head, eyes shifting to a shimmer of gold, he sighed, the sound long and loud. “Alright. Alright. I concede.”
“Concede to what?” I was more confused now than ever, watching avidly as black eyes flushed to glowing gold.
Eyeing the Minotaur before me, I leaned in, pinching a thick bit of skin right over the spot a human male would’ve had a nipple.
“Ow!” a voice much more attuned to my Adelric yowled. His hand shot up, disengaging from his lightened hold on my hair. “What was that for, demon pixie?!” he fairly howled.
My smile was sweet, blindingly bright. Throwing my arms around him, I kissed the spot between his lip and snout soundly. “Ferdinand! You’re back!”
Shaking his head at my antics, he chuckled. Gripping my chin, he brought our mouths together in the sweetest, most delicious of bull man to lady wife kisses. “Do you trust me, vacha?”
“You know I do.”
“Good.” Unhooking my arms from his neck, he set me a small ways away from him. “Turn around,” he instructed. No, the male flat out ordered, the bossy brute.
Eyeing him as I did as told, until I was studying him inquisitively from over my shoulder, I shivered as his hand lifted, fingers tickling up my shoulder, over my arm, taking my hand and placing it along the bank’s edge. Doing the same with the other one, leaving him looming behind me, he leaned in, murmuring in that husky, about to fuck me hard voice, “I know how much you like games, vacha.” A kiss to my earlobe, a nibble that had me tingling in all the right places. “Will you play along with me?”
A small nod from me and he made a pleased noise in his throat.
“Close your eyes.”
Lids slowly sliding shut, fingers wiggling with impatience, I waited.
His hands slid away, landing on my hips. Tilting my ass, he situated himself behind me, lodging the head of his shaft inside my channel.
“It’ll be just like if I was here,” he promised, his hips sliding forward, sending him tunneling inside me hard enough to rattle my teeth.
When he did it again and I cried out, wiggling on his shaft when he paused, he chuckled.
“Adelric, I-”
“Who has you, vacha?”
“You do,” I gasped out, right as he slipped forward, pressing my breasts into the sandy dirt, and thrust once, twice, three times, and fell against me, groaning into my hair.
“And I always will, won’t I?” His hand slid lower, lifting my thigh, my knee kissing the open air as he pinned my leg to the floor. He slid in harder then, and harder, the angle ever-changing until he found a spot that had me keening, squirming to get closer, then sliding back as far away as possible.
“Yessss. Y-y-yes! Yes!” I was practically screaming as I went over. Then I heard it.
“It’ll be okay. Love you, vacha,” he ground out between pistoning pumps of his hips, to then still, jerking in place, and groan my name.
Limp as a noodle, sated, I slumped, my cheek pressing into the gritty sand beneath my hands. My mate hefted me up then, carrying me over to the fur I’d discarded on the smooth, marble-like, glittery floor.
Dropping us down, he set me gently to my knees, taking care to press my back to his front. Wide hands spanned my breasts, cupping one in each hand possessively, plucking at my nipples, kneading, playing. Thick hips bracketed mine, encouraging me to lift up and accommodate him. I did without thought, actively seeking the thick length slipping between my trembling thighs, my hand clasping him to guide him inside me.
He slid in with a groan, grinding into my ass, hefting me up higher so as to plow deeper, working me on his cock. Taking a cue from him, I began to move, my hand slipping to the bud at my sex to work my clit.
Pumping, but not ramming, working his hips, swiveling them in a way that gave him away, hinted at a lot more patience than my mate was known for.
Not my mate.
I didn’t stop.
As if sensing the shift, one hand slid from my breast to my belly, a thick arm banding around my hips, and he was working harder, until he was furiously pistoning in and out of my pussy.
Wet sounds, skin slapping vigorously, grunts and moans, groans, panting breaths as we barreled towards completion, filled the room.
My hand worked faster, harder, until I flicked the throbbing nub between my legs, crying out when pain was met with an immediate wave of pleasure.
“My k-k-king,” I stuttered out, as if to warn him.
Delighting in being openly acknowledged, he moaned my name into my neck.
Pressing harder and harder against me until I fell forward, he took us to the ground, his cock thickening, the longer he managed to stave off his release. I came then, which just seemed to make his cock thicken more, as if it flattered the being borrowing my mate’s body temporarily.
Rising up over me, leaving me ass up, impaled deep with raging bull cock, pumping into me steadily as I lay panting on the floor, his hand slipped to my back, petting my sweaty spine, while the thumb of his other hand ran along the lips of my pussy, which were stretching over his length, straining to accept his ever thickening girth, to gather my fluids.
Something pressed along my back passage, making me jump and squeak, clenching up tight in response.
His petting hand lingered while his thumb stopped its advance but waited.
Was this a fucking test, I wondered. A sign I trusted him or not. Squeezing my eyes shut tight, forcing myself to relax, I took a deep breath and let him do as he pleased, come what may.
The hand at my back slid to my ass, patting a fleshy cheek comfortingly. The thick thumb pressing lifted and I relaxed further.
“Do you accept me, Chosen?” Oberon murmured, his voice distorted through Adelric’s body.
“Yes.”
“All of me?” His thumb slid back to my anus but I didn’t tense up or buck. I didn’t dare move. The straining erection pressing along my insides thickened to the point I wondered just how stretched out my mate’s cock was going to be when all of this ended.
“Y-yes.”
Bending over me, turning my face to meet his, he kissed my eyelids, then my nose, my lips. It was then, as his tongue slipped across my mouth, I wasn’t kissing him through Adelric.
Gasping, I went to open my eyes but found I couldn’t.
“S’alright,” he murmured, wide, calloused hands, human hands, brushing along my skin, spanning my thick frame.
Something tickled my nose, tempting me to sneeze, and his mouth was back on mine. One hand holding his balance, the other sliding over mine, moving mine out of the way so he could have a turn, he began moving again.
He was huge, sliding in dee
p until it pinched, to pull back and work his way back in all over again. Wiggling beneath his ministrations, I found myself seeking him out, pressing back against the bared chest heaving above me.
My hand went to the wrist holding his weight and, gripping it, I ground back against him.
“Riadne,” he muttered my name on a choppy breath, limbs starting to tremble as he strained. Giving up trying to be gentle, he reared back, fucking me hard enough to send the blanket slipping, taking me with it, until we were sliding forward with each climax chasing thrust.
Calling my name out again, he sounded shocked, that thick shaft of his jerking, his hips losing their rhythm altogether as he began to come.
“Come with me, sweet Chosen,” he murmured softly, singing the words so sweetly my chest ached. As if willing it made it so, my body did as he bade. The world began to spin as he took me over with him, until I thought I saw stars.
“Look at me, little one,” that heart-stoppingly seductive voice murmured. Shifting, he pressed a kiss to my lids. “Open your eyes, vacha.”
That was the last thing I recalled, right before the blinding light took me.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Vacha.”
“Hmm?”
“Vacha, wake up. Come on, pestilence. Open your eyes for me.”
Frowning, recognizing Adelric’s worried tone, popping to, my eyes snapped open.
Naked, curled up in our bed, my mate’s warmth surrounding me, I was more than a little confused.
Warm, golden eyes glowed down at me, his hand, in my hair, sifting through the strands idly.
Turning, I tunneled into his warmth, making him chuckle. My toes wiggled, working their way between the dip in his knees when they touched, the perfect spot to warm them up, as if he was made for me.
Thoughts began to flow, like my brain needed a moment to catch up to my body, a flood of emotions, memories, moments, rushing back with such force I felt bombarded. Remembering all that had transpired, I glanced up at my male worriedly. “You are yourself, ah, again?”
A slow nod and a short grunt. “You are alright?” he asked carefully, his fingers pausing, head tilting, amber fighting gold swirling in those magnetic eyes..
By the Horns Page 47