I lay a gentle kiss on his fur before I feel my teeth sharpen, very much like my nails. I dig them into his skin, but they aren’t sharp enough to pierce his fur. Grumbling, I gnaw his neck like a dog and he grunts, but not in pain. Snarling now, so close to what I need but so far away, I rip and tear, trying to get to it but it’s no use.
I cry out and he pulls me away, looking at my face. “Blood?” he rumbles.
“Or power,” I correct, licking my lips, tasting the guard’s blood still lingering there.
He tilts his head like I’ve seen animals do and his face shifts for a moment. I watch, entranced, as the lower half of his face turns human. The golden nose ring is still in place, and his eyes are still red, but he has a human nose and lips and cheeks. His horns curl from his head, but where there was once fur, there is now hair.
He looks like he’s caught partway between a shift. How is that possible? I don’t have time to question it, though, because his animal is done talking. He might look human now, but he very much is not.
He seals his lips to mine, obviously seeing what I did to the guards, and I groan. He tastes like fire and metal. I suck like I usually do to feed and his power curls into me like the smoke from his nose. It shoots straight to my heart, making it skip a beat before settling into my belly and smouldering. The more I pull, the stronger the fire grows, almost burning me alive. I want more.
It makes me sloppy, the kiss raw as I accidentally cut his tongue with my teeth. He roars and pushes closer as I lap at the seeping blood, and another shot of power shoots through me. It’s stronger, more unfiltered, and heads straight to my clit where a throbbing begins, matching the thump of his heart.
We are locked together, my mouth fused to his as I feed and I know, with a hundred percent certainty no matter how much I take, I could never drain him.
It’s a freeing thought, not having to worry about pulling away, pulling back before I kill someone. Whatever that other side of me is, the one that kept me alive and pulled me back from death, revels in it. Smashing closer and taking as much as I can, I feel it flow through me, filling me to the brim until, with a cry, I explode.
The orgasm rips through me, called by his power and blood, and I feel like I leave my body with the force of it. When I come back down, I’m panting, and my head is curled into his furry neck as I cuddle closer.
“Thank you,” I whisper, and he rumbles again.
“Anything for my mate.”
I grin, I can’t help it. I should have seen it before, worked it out, but I blame being held prisoner for the distraction. There is a thread, a pull, a call, whatever you want to call it, between us, like the ones I have with Nos and Griffin, each so different but very much the same.
I am his.
He is mine.
My eyes start to shut again, the power overload and orgasm making me tired. I’m still healing, recharging from the fight with the guards and everything that’s happened. I let out a yawn and my minotaur turns, putting his back to the wall and sliding down until he sits with his legs outstretched.
He almost purrs as I settle in his lap. I’m tiny in comparison to him. Like a little doll. He wraps his arms around me, his fur keeping me warm as I rest my head against his beating hearts—he has two?—and close my eyes, my lips still coated with his blood and the guards’ bodies still in our cell.
It’s the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had.
The only thing I see when we enter the fallen’s house is the picture of my little monster. Everything else is unchanged, but that picture draws me until I am stroking her face.
“I’m coming, Little Monster, then we will kill them all.”
The dragon barges in, pushing me out of the way, and I shake my head and step back, allowing him to see. He freezes at the image, staring at Dawn’s perfect face. For once I see something other than pride and disdain