cheek. His touch is so opposite to how he just fucked me.
“Well, I didn’t expect that,” he remarks, and I swallow, my throat dry.
“Me neither,” I reply, my voice hoarse. I feel a bit weak from the blood loss and my thighs are shaking still, but it was worth it. “We are mates,” I mutter, as much for me as him.
“I felt it, I felt you click into place. That part of me that had always been missing, like when air comes back into the room or when you feed and it just feels right. Your edges match mine perfectly, sealing me, rebuilding me to make me whole again. I have been waiting all my life for this, for you. My heart once belonged to another. It’s damaged and used, but it’s yours, as is my soul. They always belonged to you.”
“And it will always be theirs as well. Your daughter and wife. I will never replace them. It’s not a competition, you can still love them and me. I’ll share that space with them, I want to see them in your memories, see how they made you into the man I met here.”
“Dawn.” His eyes mist and he sighs, resting his head against mine. “That was a lifetime ago. Sometimes I feel like it happened to someone else, but thank you.”
His eyes go to the blood, which is dripping slowly from my neck, and he winces. “Sorry, let me heal that.”
I stop him with a hand on his face. “Wait, will it scar?”
“It will if I don’t heal it,” he answers, confused.
“Then leave it, I’ll wear it proudly.”
I feel his cock jerk inside me, making us both groan as he gets hard again. Digging my feet into his ass, I start to rock against him and he meets my movements with shallow, slow thrusts. Our eyes remain locked in shared pain and need.
Both of us have suffered, both of us have died and were reborn into something else…
Both of us found each other in the dark.
“I will always find you,” he whispers.
The fucking turns into something else, something softer. Emerging from all that need, anger, and blood lust is something beautiful and strong.
Us.
With nothing else to do, we sit and talk. He wraps me in his arms and tells me stories of all the places he’s seen and people he’s met over the years. He builds me kingdoms and palaces from words, winding the tales around me until I feel like I’m there.
Each one of my mates offers me something different, a strength, a weakness, a chance to be better. To build and grow. And each time I’m in their arms, it feels perfect, special. It doesn’t feel the same or get old, it always feels right. And if Griffin or Nos or Dume or Aska walked in right now, I would be just as excited to see them.
I know this won’t be uneventful forever, there will be jealousy and fights, but we can handle it. We can handle anything together. In a way, being locked up down here with nothing but my thoughts to occupy me has given me a chance to really look inside myself.
With no ex to hunt, I’ve stopped for a time, taking a break, and it makes me realise just how much I’ve grown to care for all of them—even Jair, whom I just met. They all have a piece of me. It’s a dark and damaged piece, but it’s me. I know we have enemies on all sides and life will never be easy. We are going to have to fight each and every day, but when the aftermath comes in such a sexy, depraved package like my mates, can I really complain?
Besides, wasn’t that what I was doing as a human? Only back then I had no one to fight by my side, to watch my back, to care if I lived or died.
Now I have five creatures who care. Who will always be there, who will never hurt me—unless I want them to—who will never abandon me, or deem me not good enough.
It’s mating, it’s forever, and I’m beginning to see just how amazing that is. The rage I once felt melts to something softer, brighter almost, with shades of grey thrown in.
Being good isn’t the best thing a person can be, and it depends on whom you surround yourself with. If you live in the light, but you live alone, is living and loving in the dark really such a