Page 103 of Renegade Kingdom
“Yours,” I agreed, and the word felt like a vow.
I needed to touch her. The compulsion was primal, deeper than thought, driven by the wolf and the bond and something even older than both. I stripped her shirt over her head and pulled her close, skin to skin, and the shock of contact made us both gasp. The shadow magic flowed across her body, tracing the contours of her waist and hips, and where it passed, goosebumps rose on her skin.
“That feels...” She shivered. “It’s like cool water. Like being touched by something alive.”
“I can pull it back.”
“Don’t you dare.”
Her mouth found mine again and the kiss was deeper this time, hungrier. I lifted her and she wrapped her legs around my waist, and the pressure of her body against mine made the wolf snarl with need. I carried her to the low stone platform at the edge of the room, some kind of bed that the Fifth Court had provided, and laid her down.
She looked up at me with those eyes. The ones that had seen me at my worst, possessed and broken and doing terrible things, and had loved me anyway. The light in her veins was brighter now, pulsing faster, and the bond between us was a living thing, pulling and singing, demanding more.
I stripped the rest of her clothes off slowly. Not because I was patient but because I wanted to see her. Really see her, with my own eyes, through my own will, without the nightmare’s voice twisting everything beautiful into something ugly.
She was beautiful. I’d known that before, known it even through the fog, but knowing it and seeing it were different things entirely.
“You’re staring,” she whispered.
“I’m allowed to stare.” I ran my hand down her side and watched the shadow magic follow my fingers, leaving dark trailson her skin that faded slowly. “I missed so much. Let me have this.”
Her expression softened. Then her hand hooked into the waistband of my trousers and pulled me down over her. “You can have everything. But I need you closer.”
I shucked the rest of my clothes and settled between her thighs, and the heat of her against me made my vision blur. She was already wet, and when I rolled my hips against her, she moaned in a way that made the wolf lose its mind.
“Tell me what you want,” I said. My voice was rougher than I’d ever heard it. Low and dark, the shadow magic giving it a resonance that wasn’t entirely human.
“You,” she said. “Inside me. Now.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. I pushed into her slowly. Inch by inch, feeling every moment of her stretching around me, her body welcoming mine. Her back arched and her nails dug into my shoulders. The sound she made was somewhere between a gasp and a cry that I swallowed with a kiss until I was finally fully sheathed inside her.
The bond ignited.
Not the gentle brightening of before. This was a flare, white-hot, the thread between us thickening into something that could bear the weight of everything we were. I could feel her. Not just her body, not just her warmth. Her. The fierce protective love that burned at the centre of her like a sun, tangled up with fear and hope in equal measure. And I knew she could feel me. The desperate, aching gratitude of a man who had been given back his life and was finally, finally allowed to use it.
“Oh,” she breathed. Her eyes were wide, shining. “Damon, I can feel you. All of you.”
“I know.” I was barely holding myself together. “I can feel you too.”
I started to move. Slow at first, long strokes that made her whimper and clutch at my back. The shadow magic was everywhere, spilling from my skin, wrapping around both of us like a living blanket. Where it met Alyssa’s light, the two magics danced. Intertwining, separating, finding each other again. The chamber responded to it. The veins in the walls pulsed brighter with each thrust, shadow and light chasing each other through the stone.
“Faster,” she gasped. “Please.”
I gave her what she wanted. My hips snapped forward and she cried out, her legs tightening around my waist. I buried my face in her neck and breathed her in, tasting her skin, feeling her pulse hammer against my lips. The wolf was surging forward, not trying to take over but pressing against my consciousness, adding its intensity to mine. Everything felt heightened. Every nerve on fire. Every sensation magnified by the bond and the newness of experiencing pleasure without a parasite feeding on it.
“You feel incredible,” I told her, and meant it with every part of me. “You feel like freedom.”
She pulled my head up and kissed me, hard, messy, all teeth and tongue and the desperation of two people who had waited too long for this. Her hips met mine thrust for thrust and I could feel her tightening around me, could feel through the bond that she was close.
“Don’t hold back,” she said against my mouth. “I want all of you. The wolf, the shadows, everything. Don’t hold anything back.”
I let go.
The shadow magic surged. It poured from me in waves, wrapping around Alyssa, sinking into her skin where it met the light and merged. The wolf howled in my chest, not in pain but in triumph, and I felt canines lengthen in my mouth. The instinctwas overwhelming, ancient, the same drive that had created the bond marks on her neck from the others. The need to claim. To be claimed.
“Alyssa.” Her name came out as a growl. “I need to... the bite. I need...”
“Yes,” she said immediately. No hesitation. “Yes, do it.”
