Page 55 of To Break a Demon Curse

The thought of it aroused me, the evidence of it slicking between my thighs as I ran, finally ready for him to make good on his promise.

I understood that the point of this was to make mates work for the bond. Clearly the gods didn’t believe we had struggled enough already. How long was the hunt supposed to last? Carnon and Cerridwen had made it seem like it was over in a single night, but I supposed the night was still young. The moon was just bobbing over the treetops; plenty of time left to set a trap.

I careened into a small clearing, and paused, examining my options. I decided that this would have to do, and I took a minute to sketch a pentagram in the mud. I didn’t have my elements with me, so I willed my intention into the spell and hoped it would work like the secret binding spell I had used on Cerridwen and Brigid. Maybe having demon magic allowed me to use intention like they did.

I heard a twig snap again and bent over, pretending I was too tired to keep running. A long scaly tail shot out, wrapping around my waist and coiling firmly. I yelped as Carnon in his beast form slithered into the clearing.

“That’s cheating,” I breathed, reminding myself that this was just Carnon, despite the tail and claws and wholly green eyes of the massive serpent.

He grinned, his fangs more pronounced in this form as he coiled around me, replacing his tail with his powerful arms. He shifted, glittering green smoke revealing a demon male once again, and one who was completely naked. He kissed me fiercely, pressing his hard length against me in a silent demand, and I knew if I didn’t act swiftly, he would claim me and this would end almost as soon as it started.

“Wait,” I cried, trying to sound panicked. Carnon stilled, pulling away from me though it clearly pained him.

“Elara,” he rasped, his arms straining to hold himself back from me. “What—”

My whispered incantation was complete before he finished speaking, and he roared as a flash of white bound him in place.

“Now who’s cheating?” he growled, shifting back into a snake beast and struggling against the magical binding I had cast.

I grinned, giving him a wink as I ran, plunging back into the undergrowth and through the forest. That would grant me maybe five additional minutes. I could have let this be over, but something primal and wild in me reveled at the chase. Maybe I truly was half-demon, the desire to be claimed was just as strong as Carnon’s desire to do the claiming.

My five minutes were almost up when a mighty roar rent the air. I knew that roar. Carnon would be coming for me, and I knew my little trick had provoked him into even more savage ferocity. I ached for him, running fast not to escape, but to find the perfect place for him to take me.

Another clearing broke my path, this one damp and mossy and lit by moonlight, as if the Goddess herself was saying, “Here, Elara. This is the place.”

I bit my lip, trying to decide what to do. I didn’t want to be taken like an innocent doe, standing unprotected in the clearing. I would be a wolf, and he’d need teeth and claws to claim me.

I climbed, wincing as the bark of the tree dug into my hands and feet, probably earning me more than a few splinters. I made it to the first branch just as Carnon broke through the clearing, his form changing again from beast to demon.

“Come out, Red,” Carnon purred, stalking the perimeter of the clearing. There was an almost serpentine hiss to his words, his voice gravelly and deep and feral as if he were still holding back. “I can smell your desire. Let me sate it.”

I waited, cloaked in night’s shadow against the trunk of the tree until he was standing below me.

I pounced, leaping from the tree branch just as he turned, knocking him to the ground with a grunt. We rolled across the mossy clearing until he stopped our movement, landing on top of me and pinning me to the damp ground.

“That was unnecessary,” he growled, bending his head to rip open my shirt with his teeth. I gasped as he took a peaked nipple into his mouth, sucking and teasing almost painfully as I clawed my nails down his bare back.

The moon rose until it was shining between the trees of the clearing, lighting his naked form in tones of gray and blue as he produced his claws and ripped at my trousers. Despite the sharp talons and the fierceness of his desire, he was careful not to scratch me as he shredded the garment, baring me to the moonlight.

He wasn’t gentle, and he wasn’t patient, and it was everything I wanted. He gripped my backside with one clawed hand and wrapped his arm around my back, pulling me flush to him. I made a show of wriggling to escape, mostly because I knew it would excite him. He growled again, nipping at my breast with his teeth and making me cry out. With a single hard thrust he sheathed himself within me, groaning as I clamped around him, already wet and ready.

“I claim you, Elara,” he grunted, thrusting with each word and making sparks of warmth and pleasure travel up my spine. The necklace warmed, thumping against my heart in time with each thrust of his hips. “Now and forever, you are mine.” He punctuated the last word with a particularly hard thrust and I cried out, pleasure edged with pain as I arched my back against the moss.

“And I claim you, Carnon,” I replied, wrapping my legs tightly around him as he moved, biting his lip until I tasted just a drop of blood. He hissed, pulling back and looking at me with something akin to shock mixed with awe. And need. “Now and forever, you are mine,” I finished, the words almost cut off by a brutal kiss, more teeth and tongue than lips.

There was no softness in this claiming, only need borne from weeks of restraint and patience and waiting. Each thrust was hard and insistent, until I felt myself spiraling against him, so close to that edge. I burned for him, and I wanted every inch of him to be a part of me until there was no way to disentangle us from each other. The lies and half truths were forgotten as raw, relentless need pulsed through me to make this male mine and become his as wholly as was possible.

“Carnon,” I gasped, clutching him as he continued to move in me, his pace unrelenting as I came, letting my cry fill the night air.

The sound seemed to loosen something in him and he slowed, his pace becoming more deliberate and less punishing, the kisses softer and deeper. I moaned against him, pleasure pulsing through me in gentle waves, rather than the crescendo from before.

“I love you,” he rasped between kisses, words seeming to be almost beyond him. “I need you around me like this forever, Elara.”

“Forever,” I agreed, the word coming between moans and gasps as I finally confessed what I was certain I’d been feeling, but lying about for too long. “I love you.”

He came then, his release an aching, clutching shudder against me as he crushed me to him, almost too tightly. I cried out with him, feeling a strange sense of wholeness as that bright ball in my chest warmed and expanded, until I felt it all the way through the tips of my fingers and toes.

“Gods, Red,” Carnon said finally, voice sounding weak and a little hoarse with the exhaustion of the claiming. “Look at you.”

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