Page 9 of Blaze

“That’s what we’re doing, silly.”

I blink in surprise. “You can understand me?”

She nods. “I’m not sure if it’s a Chosen thing or just a me thing. I could understand a chimera when he was in his beast form too. It must be a gift for languages.”

Or just an understanding of beastly tongues, which means I’ll have to watch myself around her. I pump into her softly at first, then with more vigor, driving the lapse from her mind as my power pours over her. I feel it knitting together her tissues, imbuing a little bit ofmeinto her. This is what Axion wants. If not to addict her to my cock, then to attach her to one of us by magic. If she wanders too far away from me over the next few days, the power will ebb, leaving her wounded and blind all over again.

Blaze’s back bows not long after, her walls clenching around me with enough strength that my vision flashes white. Before I know what I’m doing, my teeth find her shoulder, sinking in deep until the sweetness of her blood washes across my tongue. It draws a scream from her, even as her walls clamp down in another, more powerful orgasm. I piston into her, cock swelling with the force of my desire.

Mine, a feral voice snarls in the back of my head, even as I spill inside her.

When my vision clears, I find her slumped and sated on the floor, eyes still closed, a half-smile on her face, basking in the afterglow. It isn’t until I try to withdraw from her that the hazy contentment of after-rutting fades, sending cool fear sluicing down my spine instead. I can’t pull free of her. A knot has formed between our bodies.Theknot. Gods, it shouldn’t be possible. I marked her in the heat of the moment, yes, but she isn’t evenmy species.She doesn’t have the pheromones that would entice this response, making it impossible for my seed to slide out of her. I can’t have claimed a human as mymate.She’s not capable of bearing my young.

But there it is, binding us together, and it won’t go down until my body is satisfied my seed will find her womb. Worse, now that I’ve knotted with her, I can’t use my pheromones on other females at Lycaon’s behest. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Blaze winds her arms around my neck lazily and pulls me close, whispering into my ear. To my surprise, when she fiddles with the manacle around my neck, it comes loose, clattering to the floor beside us. It doesn’t seem to faze her, but it stuns me. How is that possible? How is any of this possible?

“Stay with me, please.”

I nod. I don’t have any other choice in the matter.

It takes ten minutes for the knot to loosen long enough to allow me to ease out of her. By that point, Blaze’s breathing has evened and become shallow with sleep, exhausted by the rutting I gave her and the effort her body is putting into healing. I slink into the shadows, off to report my success to Axion, one thought pounding a furious tattoo into my skull.

What the fuck have I just done?

CHAPTER FIVE

BLAZE

Ran’s weight is conspicuously absent when I wake.

I dozed off directly after we had sex, too exhausted by the orgasms and the surge of magic buffeting me to keep my eyes open for long. Who knew sex could be this exhausting? I’ve been with men before, but none were particularly impressive, climbing on top of me without so much as a word or a kiss, thrusting themselves into me, huffing and puffing until they were done a few minutes later.

I usually left sore and unhappy, wondering why in the name of Avernus everyone lauded sex as the ultimate pleasure. Now I understand. I’ve never hit that zenith before, never knew what it was like to almost come free of my body and touch the other side. There’s a reason some scholars call it ‘the little death’, because I swear Ran took me all the way to the edge, only to breathe new life into me. I feel alive, refreshed, and most importantly, whole.

I sit up, testing my limbs experimentally. I’m a little stiff, but otherwise no worse for wear. And, I realize with a start that I can see. Not well, mind you. But I can see well enough to tell that I am still in a cave, enough to take stock of myself. I’m a little embarrassed to realize that I fell asleep nude, curled on the cave floor, with only the tattered remains of my clothing propping my head up. It’s not a wonder I’m sore if I’ve been sleeping on stone for any length of time. The cuts and bruises on my legs are mending, thin pink lines where gashes had been less than an hour before. The bruises have faded from vibrant purple to the green-yellow that signals they’re almost healed. The scrapes from the tight tunnel are gone entirely, with only a faint flush of pink under the surface to signal there was anything there at all.

The only mark left on my body is a vivid mark on my shoulder that hasn’t healed like the rest. I can make out the impression of every one of Ran’s teeth in the mark. Stranger still are the colors I can see pinwheeling out from the wound in odd, almost tribal markings. They appear to shine gold in the low light. Magic? A seal of some kind? I can’t tell.

The cave doesn’t seem as dark as it should be. Instead of pitch blackness, I see my surroundings in shades of navy and purple, and I’m able to make out the outline of stalagmites and depressions in the ground with more ease than mere human eyes should be able to decipher. Stranger still, there are colors swirling through the rock that I have no name for, but can nonetheless see. I’m not sure if Ran’s magic has done more than its job, or if my magic has joined with his to accomplish this miracle. This is far more than my blurry recollections of sight. It’s new. Strange. Possibly even wrong.

“What did you do to me, Ran?” I ask, more to myself than to him. Not that he’s here, that I can tell. There’s the faint scent of him hanging in the air, but nothing more. The fire has died down to embers. I try his name anyway, hoping he snuck away to relieve himself or to hunt for our supper. “Ran? Are you there?”

The only sound I hear is the echo of my voice bouncing back at me from the walls. He’s not here. Judging by how cold I am, he hasn’t been here for a while. My heart sinks, just a little. I can’t knowfor surethat he took what he wanted from me and left, the way that so many other men have done, but I can’t help the pang of betrayal that follows the thought. He could have gone hunting or maybe he’s guiding the guards away from our hiding place. He could have gone exploring and gotten lost or maybe he’s injured.

Or maybe he took what he wanted from you and left,my mind offers bitterly.At least he made you climax and gave you back your sight while he did it. It’s more than you can say for any of the others. Maybe he figures you’re even now.

Maybe he’s right about that, but it still stings my pride. The first man I feel any attraction for may have used me and left just like all the others, like a common strumpet. I push to my feet, stretching my muscles before drawing myself up to my full height, as if to preserve my dignity. Hard to do when I’m about to go strutting around a cave without a stitch of clothing, but it is what it is. I’ll either find Ran in the tunnels or I’ll find an exit. Either way, I’m getting away from this place.

The plan makes me feel a little better, but I check my surroundings anyway, just in case Ran scratched out a message for me on the stone, telling me which way he went or where to go. The chamber is smooth stone, small and heartlessly bare. No missives from my erstwhile hiking partner. Not even a cave drawing to signal someone has been here before us. I’ve been abandoned in a rounded room with nothing but my clothes and a dying fire for company. I almost wonder if I simply imagined Ran—well, if not for the scent of our coupling that still hangs in the air. It’s hard to mistake the scent of sex for anything else.

“Well, it’s his loss,” I say to myself, wishing I believed my own words. “Time to get going now, Blaze.”

The exit is tucked into one corner of the chamber, and it’s on an incline, so it takes some doing to scale it, even refreshed as I am. I’ve been running for days on terrain like this, and my muscles burn at the mere memory. When I finally climb out, my hands are stinging and I’m breathless, but no worse for wear. There really is something to be said for sex with a sexual healer, it seems. There’s light up ahead, emanating from one of three tunnels that branches off the cavern I’ve just left. The warm, flickering color gives me hope that I’ve misjudged Ran, and that he’s waiting for me in another cavern, but as I come closer, I realize that’s not the case. The unmistakable scent of sulfur greets me, stopping me in my tracks.

I’m rooted to the spot as a new, horrifying possibility presents itself. What if Ran hasn’t left me of his own will? What if he, like me, saw the light and didn’t realize what it meant until it was too late? What if he’s in the belly of a hellhound now? I can’t stand the thought. If something has killed him, I’m going to kill it. But a tunnel isn’t exactly the best place for a battle. Fire, the hellhound’s and mine, will eat up what little air is in the space, suffocating us both as surely as if someone had stuffed a pillow over our mouths and noses. Going forward into the creature’s terrain doesn’t seem like a good idea, either. If I backpedal and sprint furiously in the other direction, it will hear me and give chase. No easy way to win.

Then it speaks and the surprise of its voice sends a quiver of nervous fear rocking from the crown of my head down to my toes. Don’t get me wrong, I know in theory they can talk, but I’ve never heard one do it before now. The only hellhounds I’ve encountered were the duplicates that Agatha forced a Sweetland doctor to whip up with magic. That magic transformed people into hounds that were less resilient than the ones we’ve been encountering for years. They’re all but gone now after Tinker and the Lost Boys helped distribute the antidote. It just leaves the original hounds for us to face, which is trouble enough.

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