Page 8 of Despair

“Bond,”he repeated, voice firm as he touched his hand to his own chest right underneath his heart. “Mate.”

The mating bond.

I’d always thought it was a metaphoric bond—a feeling. A promise.

But the thing in my chest—that was physical. There was somethingtherethat hadn’t been there before. Like a hook, or a… a rope.

A bond.

I stared mutely at his hand fisted against his chest in the exact spot where I could feel it behind my own ribs.

Our mating bond.

“Why?” I croaked, fighting back tears I didn’t fully understand. It was as if up until then I’d thought there was some sort of escape clause—some possibility that what had happened to me wasn’t permanent. As if him claiming me while we were both drugged out of our minds would mean we weren’t truly mated. Not in the real sense. Not… not forlife.

But the physicality of it—of suddenly understanding that the thing I’d felt in my chest since waking up after our first mating was his bond. His claim on my body. On mylife… The finality of it came crashing in over me until I felt like I was drowning, the only thing keeping me above water the strength of his hand against my windpipe forcing me to feel every breath wheezing in and out of my lungs.

“Youchosethis?Why?”

“Mine,”he repeated, as if that was all the explanation needed.

“No!”I snarled, the panic inside of me melting into rage. I clawed at his hand, gritting my teeth with the effort of freeing myself. “I’m not something you own! I don’t want amate!Let go of me!”

Fury so intense it overshadowed my own blazed in his eyes as he got to his feet in the blink of an eye, taking me with him by my throat. But before the sharp pull on my neck became painful, he threw me down on the mattress on my back.

“Mine,”he ground out as he stood above me, muscles bulging in response to the fury in his eyes.

And that was when I saw it.

The mass of flesh between his thighs was hardening rapidly, expanding into an angry, flushed pole.

All my anger withered at the sight, pure terror overtaking me instead. My poor sex clenched at the sight, pangs of agony resounding deep in my abused abdomen.

“No…”

He fell on top of me, immobilizing my frantic attempts at crawling backward and away as he pinned my body to the mattress with his huge bulk.

“No, please!” I beat at his shoulders to get him off me, but I might as well have been smacking a rock for all the reaction I got. Ignoring me as if I had no more strength than a newborn kitten, 351 forced my thighs apart and seated his hips between them, letting that brutal cock head kiss my still swollen opening.

“Submit,”he growled, the anger in his eyes even more prominent in his gravelly voice.“Now!”

“I will, I will!” I gasped, forcing myself to stop fighting. “Just please, don’t. I beg you, please—it hurts so much!”

He frowned at me, eyes still narrowed. “Hurts?”

“Y-you’re too big,” I whispered, the first tingles of relief that he wasn’t forcing his way in yet calming my frantic heart just a smidge.

“Fits,” he growled, rocking his hips so the broad pole trapped between us slid up between my lower lips, rubbing over my clit.

The wet sound it made made me realize I was slickening up for him again, as if my body didn’t care that another rutting like yesterday’s would likely leave me with a permanent limp.

I grimaced. “You hurt me. I’m sore, and I don’t want it again. Please.”

351 growled, but didn’t advance, which gave me enough time to think of another defense for my poor, swollen nethers.

“We can’t keep having sex—my birth control will be out of my system soon. I-If you take me again, I might become pregnant.”

The first glimmer of true hesitance showed on his face. “Pregnant?”

---