Page 6 of Empire of Wrath and Ruin
His hand tightened on my throat, cutting off my words. "Their names," he repeated, driving into me harder. "I want to know who I'm erasing from your memory."
When I remained silent, his other hand came down hard on my backside, the sharp sting making me yelp. "Their names," he demanded again.
"Why?" I managed to ask.
"So I can find them. Kill them. Make them suffer for touching what was mine.”
“No,” I forced out. “I won’t name them, Taveth.”
He growled, the sound vibrating through his chest against my back. "Then I'll make you forget them entirely."
His pace increased, each thrust harder and deeper than the last. My arms gave out, and I collapsed onto my forearms, my face pressed into the furs as he took me with a primal intensity that stole my breath.
"You're mine," he growled, punctuating each word with a brutal thrust. "Say it."
I fought against the words, against the surrender they represented. But with each powerful stroke, my resistance crumbled. The pleasure was too intense, the connection between us too powerful to deny.
"I'm yours," I whispered, the admission torn from me like a confession.
He rewarded me with a particularly deep thrust that made me cry out. "Louder."
"I'm yours!" I shouted, past caring about pride or dignity.
His pace increased, becoming almost punishing in its intensity. The hand at my throat moved to my hair, yanking my head back until my spine arched painfully. I was completely at his mercy, pinned between his body and the furs, taking everything he gave me.
"No one else will ever touch you," he vowed, his voice ragged with exertion and possession. "No one else will ever have you like this. I will break you."
I couldn't speak, couldn't think beyond the sensations overwhelming me. The pleasure built to an impossible peak, hovering just out of reach. I needed more, needed something I couldn't name.
Taveth reached around, his fingers finding my clit with unerring precision. The dual stimulation was too much, and I shattered around him, my entire body convulsing as pleasuretore through me like wildfire. I screamed his name, the sound echoing off the stone walls as my inner muscles clenched around him.
He growled in response, his rhythm faltering as my climax triggered his own. With a final, brutal thrust, he buried himself deep inside me, his body shuddering against mine as he found his release. He pulled me back against him, hand tightening around my throat and sank his teeth into the juncture of my neck and shoulder.
"No," I gasped, realizing what he'd done. "You can't—" But it was too late.
The pain was exquisite—sharp and burning as his teeth broke my skin. The claiming mark. I screamed, not in agony but in something far more terrifying—completion. The bond between us snapped into place with the finality of a lock clicking shut, a chain binding us together that felt both like imprisonment and liberation.
A rush of foreign emotions flooded my mind—his possessiveness, his triumph, his dark satisfaction at having claimed me. The line between us blurred, and for a moment, I couldn't tell where I ended, and he began.
"No!" I cried out, too late to stop what had already happened. I felt it immediately—the bond solidifying, strengthening, becoming permanent. My blood burned in my veins, every nerve ending alight with sensation. It was as if I could suddenly feel him in my mind, a presence both alien and familiar.
"What have you done?" I whispered, tears stinging my eyes.
He licked the wound, his tongue soothing the sting even as his arms tightened around me possessively. I could feel his satisfaction pulsing through our newly forged connection.
"Claimed what was always mine," he murmured against my skin, his voice rough with spent passion. "The bond is complete.Nothing can break it now. You were made for me, Little Flame. Now you will always be mine."
3
The dream came to me like smoke drifting through darkness, tangible yet elusive, carrying scents and sensations that felt more real than the bedroll beneath my sleeping body.
I was in a cave, firelight dancing across stone walls carved with symbols I couldn't quite read. The air was thick with the scent of sex, and I felt myself stiffen in response. Someone moaned beneath me, and I looked down.
Livia.
She was there, naked and beautiful in the flickering light, her dark hair spilling across furs that were softer than anything the Empire had ever produced. But something was wrong with the scene, something that made the edges of the dream feel unstable, like looking at a reflection in disturbed water.
I was holding her, my hands mapping the familiar curves of her body, but the perspective was wrong somehow. The angle was different, the sensations not quite matching what I remembered of our times together. And there was something else—a coldness that seemed to emanate from my own skin, a darkness that moved independently of the firelight.
