Page 74 of Our Sins in Silver (Coven of Sin 3)

Mark of a Priest

Ihadwaitedforwhat felt like an eternity for the brand-like kiss of Sterling’s mating mark. Now that the time had come, I barely felt the pain.

His fangs dipping into my flesh were somehow cool and comforting, even as my skin caught aflame. It’s like this was how it was supposed to be all along. While my flesh writhed and puckered around his intrusion, a strange sort of peace settled into my bones. Even my monster’s endless restlessness ceased for a beat as we both stilled in the arms of our mate.

Savoring. Floating. Relishing the moment.

Sterling’s lips sucked at my blood-slick throat, and when he groaned at my flavor soaking his tongue, a shock of warmth sunk straight to the other place he penetrated. The deepest, winding pleasure bound us tightly together. The sensation was heightened by the fact that something was missing. Something that was never supposed to have been there in the first place. Like a stain. Or an evil, soul-eating parasite.

Thomas Knight’s mating bond with the priest was severed.

Our every fiber was made aware of his absence, from the way our muscles unclenched to the lack of weight on our minds and our chests, making this moment completely ours.

With Sterling’s cock buried inside me, and his mating claim taking form on my throat, I wanted to savor the victory.

To preserve my energy, he didn’t take as much of my blood as I knew he wanted to. After a few seconds, he withdrew his fangs from the fresh wound and drew back.

“I can see your face without touching it, Ruby. I can envision you taking me. The pink of your cheeks. The way your lips purse and your brow screws up when I plunge into you. Christ. You’re so beautiful.” My priest’s pretty words were made savage by the ruby-red liquid of my lifeforce trickling from his lips in thick tendrils.

“Dear God. You’re mine. Daughter of Satan himself. All mine.” When he leaned back, I noticed his eyes had gone from pale-red to a dark shade of crimson, one I’d never seen on him before. His slender fingers quaked as they skimmed over the mark he’d made as if he had to feel it to believe it.

Turned on by the way his cock jerked inside me as he traced his claim, I arched my spine off the floor, my hips nudging into him and begging for more.

He muttered something on a fragmented moan—Latin again.

Damn. Why was that so hot? Probably because the beastly and gravelly growl coming from him, paired with the ancient language known only by intellectuals, was perfectly Sterling. Monster and scholar, predator and romantic.

When he came back down, he pressed his bare chest flush to mine and licked at his mark. At first, I thought it was to speed up the bite’s healing process, but goosebumps flared over my whole body when another growl—this one more monstrous—curled up from his throat.

Then, while he was still inside me,he bit me again.

Some of the guys—mainly Vin—had threatened to cover me in more than one mating mark. I thought it had been a sexy flex, nothing more, really.

I didn’t think it was possible for a mate to make more than one permanent mating mark. But by the searing pain burning the center of my throat, inches from the first mark, it was possible. It was fucking possible.

Sterling had marked me twice.Twice.

The guys had told me that throats—to vampires—were intimate because they signified life for them. It was their food source, and placing claim over a mate’s throat was basically the most erotic place you could. From my understanding, it was like having your lover’s name tattooed on your neck.

And Sterling now claimed more than half of my throat.

The guys were going to flip—Eros and Corry in a way that would make them want to add additional scars of their own on my body. But Vincent? I doubted his reaction was going to be anything close to positive. This had the potential to spur a rivalry between the brothers...or a wicked game to see who could mark their queen the most.

Fuck. That thought shouldn’t have been such a turn-on. But of course, with me and my little twisted mind, it was.

I wrapped my legs around Sterling’s waist and bore down on his cock, asking for more of him.

“Such a good mate,” he gritted with a thunderous resonance that bore traces of his monster. His hips picked up the pace, slamming into me with such ferocity that all I could do was cling to him for dear life. His taut muscles rippled and rolled beneath my fingers as they bit into the valley between his shoulder blades, and his ass muscles flexed beneath my heels, where they dug in for purchase.

Before, I was of the mind that few things felt as good as my broken priest’s altruistic brand of lovemaking. I was wrong.Sowrong. This was better.

The ravenous vampire licked my racing pulse, and his tongue lapped up the tears that he knocked loose from my eyes with each savage piston of his hips.

My soaking walls clamped down around him as I began to come. My skull knocked against the leg of his piano, and he instinctively cupped my head, saving me from a bruise all while making plenty of his own between the crux of my thighs.

I bit down hard on my lip and spilled even more of my blood as he pounded mercilessly into the cradle of my thighs.

He didn’t slow down.

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