Page 298 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

By flaying me alive from the inside out.

My jaw finally unlocks and my head drops forward against her collarbone, my whole body shuddering so hard my teeth chatter. I'm still knotted inside her, still locked, still pulsing, but all the ecstasy coming inside her brought me is buried under the avalanche of everything the bond just ripped loose.

"Val," she whispers, her fingers in my hair. "Hey. I'm right here."

I can't speak.

My hands are shaking so badly I can't hold her. They keep slipping on her wet skin, finding her waist and losing it, grabbing at her ribs and sliding off.

Fucking useless.

I press my palms flat against her back and hold them there through sheer willpower, my fingers spread wide, and I feel her ribs expanding and contracting beneath my hands.

"Breathe with me," she says.

I try.

It comes out ragged and fucking stupid, more of a rasping snarl.

"Again."

I match her next inhale. My lungs burn. The exhale shudders out of me and my shoulders sag. It's a wonder I'm still able to sit up straight.

"Good." Her lips press against my temple and everything else ceases to matter. "That's good."

The bond is still wide open. I feel her inside it, warm and steady and absurdly calm. I'm waiting, barely able to breathe, for her to process what she must have felt when I marked her.

To realize I'm not like the others.

To realize she can't save me.

Her fingers run through my wet hair, her ribs vibrating beneath my palms, and I'm starting to fear she won't realize that at all.

Because she's… purring.

The vibration rumbles through her soft chest into my own ribcage where we're pressed together, and it's…

Fuck.

FUCK.

My eyes are burning and it isn't the fucking pepper spray anymore.

I bury my face harder into her collarbone.

"I've got you," she murmurs. "I'm not going anywhere."

A sound tears out of my throat. It's nothing I even knew I was capable of. It's just…

Pain.

I didn't fucking know I could even feel pain anymore and I hate it, and all I can do is snarl at it, and tear at it with everything I have. But it's inside me now, and there's fuck all I can do to freeze it out when I'm bonded to the sunniest, brightest creature that ever lived.

Her arms tighten around my neck, her chin resting on top of my head, her purr steady and beckoning me over that fucking threshold again.

Slowly, the snarling in my chest dies down.

Something sits in the void that wasn't there before.