Page 98 of Damian & Jun: Episodes 5-8
Damian was his. Damian was safe. And yet…the fear and thrill of being chased, the fear of being run down from behind, shot through him again. He plunged onward. Up to the top of the hill.
The trail turned left into a raised area, the ground flatter, the trail twisting back and forth between clusters of trees. They were taller here, old. Some of them were two or three times the radius of a man. Their branches arched overhead higher and thicker, the canopy layered many times over.
Damian’s running steps echoed behind him.
So much fear. Clean fear. Thrill. Joy. Hot on the inside, cold on the outside, and alive. So utterly alive, feet flying over a path that had turned entirely to mulch and pine needles, wind-burn on his face.
The moonlight was almost gone, just a vague glow, but still he could see. His eyes had fully adjusted. The ground was solid.
Solid but corded with roots.
His foot caught. He stumbled and righted himself, but it was enough. Just enough.
Damian caught him from behind. Jun screamed. He lashed out, jamming back with his elbows. Damian had him around the waist. He picked him up from the ground, moving him toward a tree. Jun kicked. Damian spun him around.
Jun slammed his lips against Damian’s. Cold skin, then warm breath. Tongue. Frigid nose. Warm caress. He forgot to fight, startled by the sensation.
A tree hit his back, large and broad.
He threw his arms around Damian’s neck. “You caught me.”
Damian pressed his thigh between Jun’s legs, forcing him up on his toes, pressing him into the bark. “You made me work for it.”
Jun laughed, short and quick, through fast breaths. He nuzzled Damian’s throat and bit, rolled his hips against Damian’s groin.
Damian threaded his fingers under Jun’s hat, tangling them in his hair, and turned his head to the side. He nuzzled the arch of Jun’s neck and sank blunt teeth into him, sucking hard enough to leave a mark. “Mine.”
Mine. Just one fucking word, and he wanted to melt. To cry, to scream. He clawed at Damian, pulling him in farther, if that was even possible.
Damian bit his way up Jun’s neck to his ear, sucking and licking at the lobe and up the curve. He kissed across his jaw, sucking and nipping his way to Jun’s lips. His hands made their way inside Damian’s coat, gripping and clawing at his shirts. Jun writhed and whimpered.
“Mine,” Damian breathed. And carefully bit Jun’s lower lip.
Jun groaned into the sting. Raw yet careful. Powerful but tempered. His eyes closed. His body went heavy in Damian’s grasp.
Damian drew back.
Jun blinked back his vision. He felt drunk. Blood pumped through his body with a steady quick thump-thump of recent exertion, yet he was as relaxed as if he were about to sleep. “Tell me this won’t end.”
Damian dragged in a breath, lips parted. He looked like he was about to say something sane or rational.
Neither had a place here.
Jun dug his nails into Damian’s back beneath his coat. “Don’t be good, DaSu. Be the wolf. Bite me, bleed me, have me. Promise me you can be the monster.
“Jun.” Damian breathed out his name like a prayer and curse.
Jun growled. “Promise me.” He lifted himself up, pressing back on the tree, and wrapped his thighs around Damian’s waist. Damian grabbed Jun’s ass, holding him in place. “Promise me,” Jun ordered, dragging nails over Damian’s shirts and into his skin. “Promise me the wolf.”
Damian pulled back, getting his arms better under Jun, and surged against him, slamming him into the tree once more, ripping the hat from his head and bending his neck to show the unmarked side. He bit hard, sucked, and dragged his teeth up the tendons to his jaw. “Do you love the wolf?”
Jun trembled, clutching at Damian through the assault. He tried to turn his face away. Damian grabbed him by his hair and forced his face forward, licked across the front of his throat, and bit along his jaw to his chin. “Why do you love the wolf, Jun?”
“A wolf will stay. A wolf will understand.”
So simple. So real. Such utter stark truth under dark trees and wildland silence. He was always going to associate winter with clarity.
“I will stay.” Damian pressed his lips to Jun’s collarbone.
