Page 7 of Blood of Two Crowns

Large hands gripped me with brutal strength as he shifted me onto my back and straddled me, burying his face in my neck.“Oh praise fuck, Mareina.”

Emotion swelled in my chest, my hands sliding up the scarred plane of his back as he drew away slightly, concern pinching his brows. A tendril of dark golden hair hung over his perfectly arched brow.

“Are you ok?”

“Couldn’t be better.”

“What do you remember?”

My throat worked as memories flashed through my mind of Nakoa, seemingly blinded by his anger at my betrayal and his attempt to kill me. Of nearly killing my own soulbound. Stabbing Zurie. Of my father’s bother, Somnus, giving me the news about my father drinking from the River Oblivion and now having no memory of me. Of something happening to my mother because of Keres, my father’s sister. Though he hadn’t given me any details.

“Everything. And nothing I care to remember.”

The heat radiating from him felt hot enough to brand me. That burning embers scent of his further intensified and I swore I could faintly smell smoke.

My heart pounded as he leaned forward on one elbow, and his free hand possessively gripped my jaw. “You have no fucking idea how worried I was.”

My heart squeezed even as my arousal burned brighter, eliminating whatever restraint I had on my emotionsandmy body. Drawing my legs out from between his, I wrapped them around his narrow waist. Instantly my hips rose, slicking my entrance against his cock and turning my words breathless. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

He growled, body tensing as the hand on my jaw coasted over my neck before fisting a handful of my hair. Something dark flickered beyond the turquoise depths of his gaze, further confirming that staring back at me was someone or something I had only caught the briefest glimpses of before and had ignored. His voice was little more than an animalistic growl.“You belong to me, Mareina.”

My heart soared as his lips met mine in a bruising kiss. At the warm, almost cinnamon-y taste of him—oddly similar to my venom. My fingers carded through his hair and roved over his thickly muscled shoulders. My nails dug into him with the need to hold him closer. “I want you to mark me as yours,” I murmured against his lips.

He growled low, the heat of his body stoking higher alongside the intensifying prickle of his magic, making the hairs of my body stand on end. It felt like the way the shifting of someone’s form was described.

“My venom isn’t like yours. It will hurt, Mareina.”

“If it’s yours, I want it.”

Before I could dwell any further on it, Malekai gripped the bottom hem of the shirt I was wearing and tore it in half. The heat of his gaze, like a flame, licked up every inch of me. Of my bared breasts and?—

Akash almighty.

I sat up on my elbows to peer down at the inky, blood-red snake marking the space between my breasts and upper abdomen.It moved,slithering around one breast before curling around the other and re-settling itself between them. Watching me with sentient, intelligent eyes.All three of them.

“Arcanum.”

I didn’t know what exactly that was, but I couldn’t bring myself to care enough at the moment to ask. My sole focus, need, and desire were currently wrapped in the cage of my legs.Where he belonged.

Malekai’s hands engulfed my waist as his lips parted, and his fangs sank into the plush flesh of my left breast. A searing heatburnedmy veins, tearing a whimper from my throat. Blinding pain burst through me that sent my nails carving crescents into his flesh. The warmth of his blood blossomed at my fingertips, stoking my hunger.

His hands cupped my breasts, teasing my nipples as his venom continued to seep into my veins. A delicious, sharp curl of pleasure that I felt in my clit eased the pain of his bite and drew a soft moan from my lips. His throat worked on a single swallow before he pulled away and sank his fangs into my other breast. Gradually, the pain was replaced by a tingling heat. His cock began to steadily stroke over my clit, stealing keening noises from me. Malekai’s tongue laved at the wounds of the twin marks before diverting his ministrations to the tender peaks of my breasts.

I pushed away the sensation of guilt and anger rising in my chest. Guilt at how I knew this would wound Nakoa. Anger that he’d marked me against my will. Desperate to drown out the pain, my hips thrust in tandem against Malekai’s cock, already leaking his seed on my abdomen. His hands trembled as his grip returned to my waist, tightening to the point of bruising.

The sight of my blood on his mouth was nearly my undoing. I licked a stripe across his lower lip and stole it between my teeth. The action drew a rumbling growl from his throat. His hand slipped between my legs before he licked my arousal from his fingers.

“Have I always made you this wet,tessari mú?”

“Always.”

Malekai sat back on his heels, gripping me by my hips and lifted my pussy to his face. I let out a yelp of surprise, now basically upside down. He growled his satisfaction, inhaling my scent deeply once more before his tongue licked me from entrance to clit where he wrapped his lips around the aching bud andsucked.

“Look at this beautiful fucking pussy. So tight and pink and sopping wet for me.”

My hands gripped the solid muscle of his thighs as he proceeded to feast upon me like a starved beast clutching its prey to its hungry mouth. The wet, slick, sucking noises filling the room between my soft cries and Malekai’s growls were a sweet symphony.

He rewarded me by slipping two fingers into my entrance and curling them against that sensitive, shallow spot inside me. Malekai’s fingers pressed firmly against it—nearly to the point of pain—stroking in tandem with the ministrations of his mouth. The action was demanding and ruthless—bearing no concern for the noises it drew from me or the way it made my body tremble.

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