He still needed them, and he still had them, but now they were different.
Asteria was his home.
Theirs was the side he served, an army of two.
And his duty was one that filled him with more pride and satisfaction than anything he had known before.
The duty of being her mate.
“I know what I am to you now… what you are to me,” he whispered huskily and raised one hand, brushed the gold-to-crimson stripe down the side of her onyx hair behind her ear. She trembled as he stroked her black horn, shuddering in his arms, and a little moan escaped her. “You’re my fated one, Asteria… the only one I will love forever.”
Her eyes flicked open, bright in the low light, shining with the feelings that flowed through him, the love that he knew was endless and would stand the test of time.
He lowered his hand to the mark still visible on her shoulder, one he had placed on her that night when he had finally surrendered to his desire, and fingered it. She looked there, her fine dark eyebrows pinching together.
“I know the taste of you,” he murmured and his teeth ached, his stomach turning as a strange sensation went through him. He swallowed against it, breathed deep and slow to settle himself again.
Her wide eyes met his. “You took my blood?”
He nodded, recalling it now, and just the thought of blood had his teeth aching again, as if they wanted to plunge back into her flesh and devour her.
She blinked. “You triggered the bonding process.”
“I know that now… and I know what you said… but what I feel for you, Asteria… what I want with you… it has nothing to do with fate or a bond. It has only to do with my heart.” He lowered his hand to her chest and stroked his fingers across it.
Her face softened and she caught his hand, held it against her. “Our hearts.”
Rey stared down at their joined hands, a growing sense of urgency rising within him, a need that compelled him, drove him to claim the female in his arms. “I want to be your mate, Asteria… I want you to be mine. You are mine.”
“Yours,” she whispered, pulled herself up and kissed him gently. “And you are mine.”
He groaned, torn between deepening the kiss and making a fool of himself by asking her for particulars about sealing the bond.
She took the decision out of his hands by breaking away from his lips and looking around them. Her eyes grew heated as she saw they were alone, tucked away from the world, together again and safe once more. He chuckled as she tore at his chest piece, ripping the metal plates away, and then pushed out of his arms and dropped to her feet. He didn’t fight her as she stripped him, stood still and watched her, enjoying the way her eyes began to burn black and gold as she revealed his body.
When he was naked, she made fast work of her own clothes, and then she was back in his arms, her fingers tangled in his blond hair and her legs around his waist, her heat scalding him.
He groaned and turned with her, pinned her to the cave wall as he kissed her and clutched her bare backside, savoured the feel of her body against his. She mewled and kissed him harder, tugged his hair and nipped at his lower lip. The metallic tang of blood hit his tongue and he growled at her as his teeth ached again, had to brace his hands against the wall as pain tore through him.
“Rey,” Asteria whispered, her soft voice coaxing him into looking at her. He opened his eyes and fixed them on her face, using the sight of her to push the pain from his mind. She smiled and stroked his cheeks, her dark eyebrows furrowing. “It’s just your fangs. Don’t fight them.”
He gave a stiff nod but the pain arced upwards and his cheekbones felt as if they were fracturing and his damned eyes were following them. He growled through his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut, and bit out a foul curse.
Asteria palmed his cheeks, raised his head and then she was kissing him again, tearing his focus away from his teeth entirely, destroying his ability to think about anything other than the way her body was rubbing against his, her slick core gliding up and down his cock as she kissed him.
He groaned and then shuddered as her tongue swept along his teeth.
Down the length of a fang.
His cock throbbed, jerking between them, and his knees trembled.
“Fuck,” he bit out and clawed the wall, breathed hard as he struggled to come down from the sudden high of having his new fangs licked.
She moaned and wriggled against him, hips moving up and down, stroking him towards a climax. He snarled at her, warning her to stop, and she stilled in his arms.
For a second.
A grunt escaped him as she began rubbing again, driving him mad with hunger and need, pushing him right to the edge of control. His mate needed him. He could feel it in her, feel it running through him, an urge that commanded him to satisfy her.
Was this what she had been talking about back at the fae town when she had tried to push him away and say his feelings for her were born of nothing more than a bond?
He wanted to laugh at that. Foolish demoness. This compulsion to please her was strong, but he was right and it stemmed from his heart, not from a biological connection to her.
He wanted to feel his beautiful mate breaking apart in his arms and feel her bliss washing through her.
He grabbed her backside with his right hand and his hard length with the other, and she stilled as he pressed inside her, slowly filling her. When she mewled and clawed at his shoulders, he thrust home, driving to the hilt with one fierce plunge. She cried out and tensed in his arms, her mouth wide and face screwed up. He felt the pleasure rolling through her, the bliss he experienced too, and growled as he clutched her hips and began driving into her.
Her claws dug into his shoulders as she bounced in his arms, each powerful thrust that buried him deep in her sending her up the black wall. She moaned hotly, face screwing up as she tipped her head back, and he felt her release mounting, felt her soaring towards it, knew she needed more. His new instincts as her fated one told him everything she needed, and he gave in to them as he kissed down her throat, pinned her between his hard body and the black wall of the cave, and drove into her. Her legs tightened around him, breasts bouncing against his chest, hot on his skin as she clung to him.
“Rey,” she murmured, kissed his shoulder and writhed against him, a desperate little noise escaping her.
He growled and nipped at her throat, and kissed it.
Blood coated his lips.
Touched his tongue.
Fire blazed down his throat and spread through his body, and he grunted and growled as he drove deeper into her, lost in the sudden thirst that came over him, a hunger that was so strong it felt unquenchable.
Asteria moaned in his arms, rocked harder against him, frantic little jerks of her hips that swirled him inside her every time he plunged back into her core, filling her. Connecting them.
Connecting.
Pain exploded along the nerves in his left shoulder and up his neck just as that hit him, and a red veil dropped over him, a hunger like none he had ever experienced before.
One that consumed him.
Just as Asteria did.
Her fangs stung in his throat, her moans filling his ears like sweet music as she drank from him, and he thrust wildly, his actions beyond his control.
He snarled and eyed her throat, licked his lips and ached for her.
For a connection to her.
She was his home. His love. His everything.
His mate.
His lips peeled back off his fangs, his love for her mingling with the love he could feel flowing from her and into him as she drank from him, igniting the connection. Their bond. His eyes zeroed in on her neck, on the pulse hammering hard just an inch above where the smooth unmarked column met her shoulder.
She was his and all would know it.
He struck hard, held her close as she convulsed and cried out, her fangs tearing from his throat, her body trembling around his as their releases collided and ming
led, and her blood flowed into his mouth. Into his body.
Joining their hearts.
Sealing their forever with an eternal kiss.
The End
Read on for a preview of the next story in the highly addictive Eternal Mates paranormal romance series, Haunted by the King of Death
Haunted by the King of Death
Isla was in trouble. She had been in the midst of a battle between the elf kingdom and a dragon shifter’s army when her curved blades had fallen from her hands and she had collapsed. It had only been for a moment, but it had left her cold.
She was fading again.
Part of her had known this day would come, and she had thought she would accept it, but now that it was here, she wanted to fight it. She had grown used to having flesh and blood, substance like her dearest sister.
Her hands shook as she raced up the white stone steps from the town at the base of the spire of rock upon which her sister’s castle stood, her eyes fixed on the towering fortress above her that glittered like snow in the waning light from the elf kingdom. Her long white hair bounced against her back as she lengthened her strides, taking two steps at a time now as she pushed herself to go faster. The demon soldiers of the First Realm moved aside for her as she rushed from her meeting in the garrison, driven to seek Melia.
Afraid.
She needed her sister, needed to speak with someone about what had happened to her. If anyone had an answer to her problem, it was Melia. She had been foolish to keep quiet about what had happened to her in the battle, had been stupid to believe it would be a one-time occurrence and that she would be fine. She should have spoken to her after the battle, but she had been too afraid to tell her sister, was still too afraid of what Melia might say. She needed to cling to hope, needed it with a ferocity that astounded her.
Never before had she realised just how much she had grown to love her life, had grown to love everything about it. Except perhaps one thing—the reason she had sought the mage and subjected herself to the spell that had given her a solid form.
She reached the plateau where the castle stood and hurried across the courtyard, passing the beautiful white fountain that was the centre of so many happy memories of better days, long peaceful ones where she had passed all the hours with Melia, walking with her while she rocked her son to get him to settle.
The demons guarding the curved courtyard stood to attention, rising from the stone benches that surrounded the fountain and bowing their heads as they pressed their hands to the chest of their black uniform jackets. She nodded at each of them and slowed her pace, trying to collect herself as she approached the grand arched entrance of the white castle.
A few of the large demon males lifted their heads, their blue gazes inquisitive as they followed her. She knew she wasn’t acting normally. When she passed through the courtyard, she often spoke with the guards, seeing how they were and inquiring about the families of those who had one, and carefully avoiding mentioning mates around the males who wore thick torcs. The heavy twisted bands of pale gold and black, closed tightly around their necks, signalled they were widowers and had lost their mate.
Just as Melia had lost hers, the First King, Valador, in a battle close to a century ago.
A battle she had witnessed, a death she had seen, and shortly afterwards had forsaken her life as a true phantom, turning her back on her incorporeal form and the power it gave to her, in order to become flesh and blood.
In the name of revenge.
She had stepped into her corporeal life for that purpose, but she had come to love touching things, and the sensation of wind in her white hair or sun warming her bones through her blue leather clothes, and she didn’t want to return to an empty existence so desperate for the feel of another beneath her hands, pressing against her body, that she would lure them to their doom.
Isla entered the arched hallway of the castle, her pace quickening again as the feel of eyes on her faded. Her steps made no sound as she flowed along the corridor, her blue eyes fixed on the arched white double doors at the other end of it, beyond the hallways and staircases that branched off from it.
She pushed one of the doors open as she reached them and scanned the enormous grand room on the other side. The spiky white throne on the dais at the far end of the aisle and the white stone pews that formed two columns down the length of the middle of the square room were empty.
Where was Melia?
As acting king of the First Realm of the demons, Melia was normally in the grand hall during the day hours, receiving many from the kingdom and hearing what they had come to say. Of course, there were slow days, when few showed up to discuss anything from their neighbours and other demon realms, to new crops from the mortal world they wanted to attempt to grow in their fields of black earth.
Perhaps this was a slow day.
Isla had been preoccupied with her current problem and her business advising on the movements of the legions around the realm to pay attention to her sister’s schedule today.
She backed out of the room, closing the door behind her, and turned back along the corridor, heading for the closest white stone staircase that would take her up into the castle to where those of higher ranks had their quarters.
She was close to the top of the staircase on the first floor when a male stepped into her path, the impressive breadth of his bare chest blocking her view of the corridor beyond him and thick legs like tree trunks encased in rich blue leather stopping her from passing him.
Isla looked up into pale blue eyes ringed with cerulean, set in a rough but handsome enough face. Pale golden horns curled from behind his pointed ears, showcased by the way he had drawn his long blond hair back into a thong at the nape of his neck. His firm mouth flattened and then the right corner twitched into a half-smile.
“Always in a rush, Isla. Do you never slow down?” His deep baritone was warm with his teasing, a familiar and playful note that she had always enjoyed hearing.
He had been her first real friend in this world, a male who had become like a brother to her, as close as Melia and just as beloved by Isla.
“Frey,” she said, a little out of breath which didn’t help. His smile became a smirk, as if he had heard it and had won their round of teasing. “Do you know where Melia is?”
He nodded. “With Tarwyn in his chambers. I have just been there, but now I must leave.”
“Leave?” Isla frowned and he sighed, the sound speaking of the weariness she could see in his blue eyes now she was looking for it. “You must rest.”
He shook his head. “I am afraid I cannot. The borders with the Fourth Realm are being tested and I must lead my men there.”
As commander of their legions, she could understand why he had to go, but as prince he had a duty in the castle too, one he often neglected in favour of the possibility of a battle. There hadn’t been a fight in the First Realm for centuries, not since they had signed a peace treaty and aligned themselves with the Second Realm and the elf kingdom.
Frey was old enough to remember the time before that treaty though, and she knew from speaking with him during long quiet nights at the castle that he longed for war. He had missed out on his chance at it, unable to attend the battle in the elf kingdom because of his duties as prince, forced to remain in the castle with Tarwyn to protect him.
Tarwyn was but a child, a toddler despite being near to a century old now. It would be another five centuries at least before he could rule under his mother’s and uncle’s supervision.
Isla couldn’t openly wish Frey war, but she did so silently as she stepped up into the corridor, tiptoed and pressed a kiss to his whiskered cheek.
“Try to find some rest.” She settled back onto her feet and clasped his thickly hewn right shoulder. “You look awful.”
He chuckled and waved her away, and she paused to watch him heading down the stairs.
With his back to her, he reminded her of Valador. Noble, kind and gentle Valador. Frey had the same qualities
as his older brother, but it was balanced by a thirst for war, a hunger for violence that many demons possessed. Valador had always been happiest away from the battlefield.
Frey was happiest on it.
When he disappeared from view, she headed along the corridor, passing the white wooden door to her room and then the one just up the hallway that belonged to Frey, and then banked left at the junction. She stopped at a room on the right and knocked softly.
After a few seconds, the door opened to reveal Melia’s smiling face. Her blue eyes seemed brighter today, but they were troubled, as they always were after Frey’s visits.
Sometimes, Isla thought that he stayed away from the castle as much as he could not because he wanted to avoid his duties as a prince but because he wanted to avoid paining Melia with his presence. They both knew that Melia saw echoes of her lost love in Frey.
Just as her sister saw echoes of Valador in her son.
Isla’s gaze sought Tarwyn and found him sitting on a brown fur near the fireplace to the left of the room, his focus locked on the wooden animals in front of him. His dishevelled sandy hair fell across his brow in unruly curls and his tongue poked from between his lips as he concentrated, pale blue eyes fixed with determination on the toys. Isla had brought them to Hell for him as a present from one of her trips to the mortal realm, hoping they would be educational for him.
A moment with Frey had prompted it when he had called a bear a donkey when she had been showing him photographs of the time she had spent in the region of Canada and had then called a deer a bear. Of course, he had known a wolf when he had seen one. No surprise since werewolves made the free realm in Hell their home. She had expected the demon to know a bear though. He must have fought in at least one battle involving shifters of their kind.
So she had purchased the wooden zoo animals when she had seen them in a store.
To this day, part of her still wondered if she had done it to educate Frey too, intending for him to play with them with Tarwyn and learn the difference between a bear and a damned deer and donkey.
Awakened by a Demoness Page 14