Page 20 of The Brute and the Blade

Take, that scent commands, a sirens song of basest hunger, most urgent instinct. Claim. Conquer. Rut and ravage and fill her until she can hold no more...

With a snarl that borders on a roar, I surge up beneath her, my hands wrenching her tight to my body as I grind myself against the scalding heat of her center. The thick ridge of my cock notches against her clothed slit, parting her folds, pressing into the slick promise of her body, and she keens high and wild, her nails raking my shoulders, her strong thighs clamping down on my pistoning hips.

"Please," she gasps out, a fractured, desperate prayer. "Please, Grok...I can't...I need...I need you in me, around me. I need to feel you, all of you...claiming me, filling me...making me forever yours..."

Her broken words shred the last of my restraint, the last tattered veil of control. With a growl that rattles the very stones of the hearth, I reach between our fevered, writhing bodies, my claws making short, savage work of her underclothes.

The fabric gives with a scream of rendering silk and lace, baring her to my touch, my gaze...my possession. I barely have the presence of mind to fumble open my own laces, to free the straining, engorged length of my cock to the steamy air, the avid eyes of the crowd.

And then I'm gripping her, positioning her, the swollen head of my shaft nestling into the hot, wet clasp of her sex. I can feel her quivering, pulsing against me, every muscle and sinew wound tight in sweet, excruciating anticipation.

"Do it," she breathes into my ear, her voice a husky purr, a dark, honeyed command. "Take me. Claim me, my warlord...once and for all."

"Lily," I groan, her name both a plea and a damnation...and then I'm pulling her down, hilting myself into her scorching, silken depths in a single, relentless thrust.

She throws back her head with a wavering cry as I fill her, impale her, every thick, pulsing inch of me driving deep into the clutch of her core. Her body bucks and jerks, instinct warring with the sudden, shocking invasion...but then her hips are rolling, undulating, taking me even deeper, welcoming me home.

"Yes," I hiss through gritted teeth, the pleasure so intense it borders on pain. "Fuck, Lily...you feel...you are...gods, everything..."

The words dissolve into a strangled groan as she begins to move, setting a rhythm atop me that is both maddening and exquisite. Each rise and fall of her hips sheathes me in the liquid silk of her sex, every down stroke grinding her plush, swollen bud into the base of my shaft, wringing whimpers and gasps from her kiss-reddened lips.

Lost in her—in us—I grip her waist with bruising force, guiding her, commanding her...showing my clan with every fierce, driving thrust, every lewd, wet slap of flesh, just who she belongs to. Just what she is to me.

"My mate," I rasp out, the words garbled and guttural, torn from some deep, primal place inside me. "My duchess of depravity, my goddess of sin...the queen of every last beat of my black, battle-broken heart..."

Lily mewls in answer, her nails scouring my back, my shoulders, my arms...every part of me she can reach as she rides me with wild, wanton abandon. Her pace quickens, sharpens, the roll of her hips growing frantic and erratic as she chases her pleasure, grinds herself down on the throbbing, iron-hard length of my cock like she means to fuse us, molt us together into one writhing, ecstatic creature.

Around us, the hall has descended into a maelstrom of howls and snarls, grunts and groans...a rising tide of savage, voyeuristic hunger, barely leashed. I can feel their eyes on us, avid and hot and heavy, drinking down the depraved spectacle of their warlord rutting his mate—his human mat—atop the very seat of his power.

It should shame me, should enrage me to have our most intimate, vulnerable moments dissected, despoiled by the greedy gazes of the horde. But in this moment, drunk on pleasure and passion and the fierce thrill of possession, I feel only a dark, visceral satisfaction.

Let them see, I think savagely, my hands clutching Lily's pumping hips, my fangs bared in a feral grin. Let them bear witness, let them learn, once and for all, who holds the leash of their warlord's desire, his devotion. Let them watch me spill myself in the hot, grasping depths of my female, and know...there will never be another. Never any but her, for me.

Mine , my soul snarls as I surge up to meet Lily's downward strokes, as I rut into her like a beast, like the monster I am in my marrow. My mate, my queen...my everything.

"Grok," she gasps out, her voice hitching on a sob as her movements grow jerky, spasmodic. "I'm...gods, I'm so close. Please, I need...I need you to..."

"I know," I pant, my claws flexing on her hips, my own release barreling down on me like a storm surge, a tidal wave of pleasure and pressure. "I've got you, little human. I'm here. I'm...fuck, Lily... now."

With a broken cry, she shatters around me, her cunt bearing down on my cock like a fist as she comes. Her climax rips through her with the force of a hurricane, bowing her spine and tensing every straining muscle as she pulses and ripples, gushes and throbs.

The feel of it—the tight, rhythmic squeeze of her sex, milking me, branding me–detonates my own release like a grenade in my core. With a roar that shakes the very rafters, I bury myself balls-deep in her quivering channel and let go, erupting in great, shuddering spurts that paint her womb, fill her to overflowing with my heat, my seed...my claim.

It goes on and on, the two of us locked together in an endless feedback loop of ecstasy and completion, giving and receiving, possessing and being possessed. Distantly, dimly, I'm aware of the baying of the crowd, the stamp and cheer and howl of their bloodlust, their base approbation...but it's a shadow, an afterthought.

All that matters, all that exists...is her. My Lily. My heart, my home...my mate.

As the last aftershocks fade, as the world slowly reshapes itself around us, she collapses against my sweat-slick chest, trembling and gasping, utterly wrung out. I gather her close with hands that shake, cradling her, cherishing her...marveling at the miracle of her, the impossibility of this moment.

“You are mine,” I rasp into the damp tangle of her hair, my voice raw and ragged, stripped down to its barest essence. “You are my mate, Lily Thornwood, and I cherish you with everything I am, everything I will ever be. You are my queen, my conqueror...the keeper of my soul."

She lifts her head from my shoulder, her eyes flickering with an uncertain mix of tenderness and trepidation. "And you are my king," she whispers back, her voice trembling slightly. "My shield, my shelter...but can I truly be your home, Grok? Can a human ever really belong in the world of ogres, of monsters?"

I swallow hard against the sudden ache in my throat, the burn of fear in my gut. This woman, this brave, beautiful, impossible woman...she's everything. My world, my future, the very beat and breath of me.

But can I ask her to give up her own world, her own people, to stand at the side of a beast? Can I demand that sacrifice, knowing the toll it might take on her gentle, valiant heart?

Slowly, gingerly, I shift her in my arms, easing my softening cock from the sweet clasp of her sex. We both wince at the loss, the abrupt severance of our intimate connection, and I ache to soothe her, to promise her forever...

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