Page 31 of Bite Sized Bride
Our pace increases, driven by mutual need, by the desperate desire to merge completely, to become one being forged in firelight and shadow. When her second release takes her, her inner muscles clenching around me, my own control shatters.
Her pussy convulses around my cock, like a hand suctioning me and taking out my life giving essence. Words refuse to form on my throat, and I can only roar
My climax crashes over me like a tidal wave, washing away years of pain, of isolation, of believing I was nothing more than a monster. In this moment, buried deep inside her, feeling her heart beat against mine, I am reborn.
We collapse together, a tangle of limbs and racing hearts. I pull her against me, tucking her small form into the protective cage of my body. Outside, I can hear Fenris moving around, keeping watch. Tomorrow will bring new dangers, new challenges. The master's hunters draw closer with each passing hour.
But tonight, in this stolen moment of peace, I am not the Urog. I am not a weapon forged in darkness and pain.
I am Kael. I am her mate. And finally, I feel whole.
And as my release shudders through me, a wave of pure, unadulterated light in the darkness of my soul, I know that this moment of peace, this fragile, stolen sanctuary, is worth any battle, any pain, any hell that is to come.
I hold her in the aftermath, her warm, sleeping body a perfect fit against my own. The storm is coming. I can feel it in the air. I can smell it on the wind. Fenris is a lie, and the master’s hunters are not far behind.
But for tonight, in this small, broken-down cabin, the world is just her. And that is enough.
17
MIKANA
The morning air in the cabin is thick with unspoken things.
I woke up tangled in Kael’s arms, the warmth of his massive body a stark contrast to the cold knot of shame and a terrifying, thrilling new feeling in my stomach. The memory of the night before is a brand on my skin, a secret language that now exists only between us. He is different this morning. The childlike curiosity is still there in his amber eyes, but it is layered with something deeper, something fiercely possessive. He watches me, not as a curiosity, but as a territory he has claimed.
Fenris returns from his watch just after dawn, his smile as bright and as false as ever. He brings with him a string of fish from a nearby stream, and the scent of them cooking over the fire does little to dispel the tension.
“Good news,” he announces, his voice a little too loud in the small cabin. “I was scouting the ridges while you two were… resting. Found a path. An old one, barely there. Leads up into the foothills where the trees get weird. Twisted. And the moss glows at night. Sounds like the kind of ‘sick magic’ the old-timers used to talk about, doesn’t it?”
My heart gives a painful, hopeful lurch. A lead. A real one. After weeks of aimless running, we have a destination.
I look at Kael. He is sitting in his corner, a silent mountain of scarred flesh, his eyes fixed on Fenris. A low, almost inaudible growl vibrates in his chest. He does not trust this. He does not trusthim.
“We should go,” I say, my voice steady, ignoring the warning signs Kael is all but screaming at me. Hope is a more potent drug than any poison, and I am an addict. “Now.”
Fenris grins. “My thoughts exactly.”
The journey is arduous. The path Fenris found is treacherous, winding its way up into the rugged foothills of the Pref mountain range. The forest changes around us. The trees are no longer just old; they are unnatural. Their trunks are twisted into grotesque, spiral shapes, their branches reaching like the grasping arms of drowning men. The moss on the rocks does indeed glow with a faint, sickly green light, even in the dim daylight. The air grows thin and has a strange, metallic taste to it, like the air in Malakor’s sanctum.
It is a place of wrongness. It feels like the veil between worlds is thin here, stretched taut and ready to tear. It feels like we are walking into the heart of a wound.
Kael is a storm cloud of silent rage. He follows Fenris, but his every movement is tense, his amber eyes constantly scanning the twisted trees, the unnatural shadows. He walks so close behind me I can feel the heat radiating from his body, his presence a constant, suffocating shield. He does not like this place. He does not like our guide.
“We’re close,” Fenris calls back to us, his voice echoing strangely in the thin air. “The path opens into a clearing just ahead. I felt the power strongest there.”
He pushes through a final curtain of hanging, glowing moss and disappears from view.
Kael stops. He grabs my arm, his grip a band of iron.
“No,” he grunts, his voice a low, urgent rumble. He pulls me back, trying to position himself in front of me.
But it’s too late.
Fenris’s voice, full of a genuine, heartbreaking sorrow, drifts back to us. “I’m sorry,” he says. “He has my daughter.”
And then the world explodes.
Figures melt from the shadows of the twisted trees, surrounding the clearing ahead. Miou warriors, at least a dozen of them, their black armor absorbing the sickly green light, their curved swords drawn. They move with a silent, deadly grace, fanning out to block any hope of escape.
