Page 24 of Monsters After Dark

In answer, his wings flapped, gusting the wind and pushing his scent in her face.

“Fly away, then. Not walk,” Binda said.

The invisible rope of her former friendly wind pulled her legs apart wide enough for him to step between.

She should be more alarmed and less interested, but her heart was racing from the wrong motivations. His actions thrilled her. What was wrong with her? This was not a good or kind man. His colors were those of death. That bottle was a prison, meant to shame and punish. He had to be dangerous. To remind herself, and warn him, she said, “My soul is my own. I know who I am. Where I’ve been, where I’ve come from, and I damn-well know where I am going. You have no power over me that I do not give, Valkore De Nuit.”

Despite her declaration, she couldn’t close her legs against the invisible force.

He smiled at her predicament.

Willpower was a tricky thing, indeed.

The wind pulled her down, dragging her over the ground just enough to lay her on her back, keeping her arms pinned and legs wide, presenting her as an offering to the ugly-gorgeous man. He pounced, the intimidating male landing over her and caging her in his masculine. Magic and sexual tension twisted in the space between their bodies, lashing Binda’s skin.

“What is your name?” he asked, still only touching Binda with his tail.

“You can call me Queen.”

The noise in his throat sounded like a chuckle. “I can? Queen. What are you? Human? Other? More?”

“Me. I’m me.” He was too close, hovering over her like he was. Under a heavy brow, his emerald eyes glowed with hunger.

Snapping his wings open, he covered them both with twilight beneath his broad raptor’s canopy. Binda saw a shimmer in the innermost feathers that matched his eyes, a hint of contrasting color tucked in the endless, unrelenting velvet and stone black. Her fingers twitched, wanting to touch. Wanting.

No. No. No. That wouldn’t do.

Want and need were sneaky, vicious little imps lurking in corners behind emotions, corrupting rational thinking. Willpower could be as changeable as the wind now holding her. If her will changed, his power over her changed. Magic could not touch her as long as she rejected it. Nothing harmed her without her permission.

The threat of his closeness tempted instead of repelled. He wasn’t human, but he was alive. Wildly, vitally alive. Years of emptiness bricked up the time between Binda and any kindness or attention from another person. Desire and loneliness rattled together inside her heart, wanting out, begging to be cracked open and spilled free. They wanted out of the prison where she had bottled them up and hidden them away.

Kore devoured her responses, holding Binda at the center of his attention. Whatever motivations he hid in his head, right now, he wanted to mate her and ease his hard, unsatisfied cock with her body. With her. From the first moment, his desire had slipped under Binda’s defenses and self-preservation, seducing her.

“What is your command for me, Queen? What service can I give to you for freeing me? You seem a wise and careful thing. You know how this works then, yes? I cannot leave you until I reward you.”

“What reward?” she asked.

“I am bound and must offer service. I want to. You have done me a good deed. Let me serve you, Queen. And now you have my name. You can do with me as you please. Whatever you want. What could that be?” Soothing her with soft touches, his tail climbed her calf.

Kore said the word service like a pre-attack vow. He might have said: How would you like me to hunt you, my Queen? How would you like me to take your breath away and fuck you? How would you like me to own you, forever?

Powerful and inhuman, Kore was no one’s slave. He maintained the boldness and passion of a warrior. Binda was just a farmer who should tremble with fear, cower, and cry. For sure, a bit of reasonable anxiety would help her find the will to fight herself.

She just needed a little. Was that too much to expect? Just enough honest caution to knock some sense of reality into her. But to fear, she had to have something worth losing, and Binda couldn’t think of a single damn thing more awful that not letting this man touch her. Everywhere. It would only be her third time having sex. This time, it could be good. Enhanced with the compelling drug of his unworldly magic, it had better be good.

“You offered pleasure. Then for the next hour, I want all the pleasure, everything I’ve never had. Give me pleasure for the next hour that the sun crosses the sky and no longer. Not a second longer. After an hour you will stop, Valkore De Nuit, and no longer have permission, neither you nor your magic, to touch any part of me.”

His eyes widened and glittered. He said nothing about the latent binding in her sentences—pretended not to hear that part. Instead, he grumbled a response that felt like a promise in her ear, “An hour is not long enough.”

“An hour,” she insisted, choking out a gasp as his head dipped closer to her and his tail rose higher. He didn’t hesitate. Lowering himself, he kissed her right between her breasts at the same his tail discovered the junction of her thighs.

He purred at what he found, a complimenting sound that made Binda feel beautiful.

His tail discovered wet, willing woman, so swollen from the sight and smell of him that the petals of Binda’s vulva parted, and her hardened clit peaked through, already begging for his touch.

“I see you now,” he said against her skin. Licking her. “Queen. Poor lonely Queen. No suitor to honor you. Let me, a starved old warrior, lap at your cup. Let me honor you.”

Brushing his muzzle back and forth, he swept his mouth against her skin, bringing him closer to her painfully untended nipples. His tail petted back and forth against her slit, rubbing her pleasure spot, but giving no pressure. Its tapered end fit just so. It felt too good. Much too good. Want built. He became the focus of all her energy. She couldn’t help herself.

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