And the world tilts.
Her back arches and she writhes on my cock so violently the bedpost cracks. She drinks until her belly swells. Until a cry tears from her throat born of half pleasure, half agony as my bloodfloods her system, crimson gold igniting beneath her skin, the sigils flickering like a dying constellation.
The Shackle-Soulscreams, high and thin and furious, a sound only I can hear inside her skull and mine.
Good.
Let it scream.
My blood is too old. Too vicious. Too cursed and too blessed in equal measure. It cannot drink me without choking.
When she finally tears her mouth from my wrist, gasping, I pull her into my arms and I piston her on and off my cock until she’s a rag doll, shaking, trembling so hard I think she might splinter.
And when a near-celestial shriek rips from her throat, it emerges with the sticky blood-tinged smoke of a being that was never meant to possess what was mine.
“Lucien. My Lucien. What did you do?” she whispers, her lips stained dark with my blood, barely moving as she slumps against me.
“What I vowed always to do. I gave you my strength,” I murmur against her temple. “My anchor. My curse. My power. Everything it wanted to taste, I gave in excess. It cannot glut itself on me without drowning.”
Her fingers curl into my throat, knots my hair as a look of splendor whispers, then steeps then spreads over her face. “Oh… ohgods. Oh Lucien, it worked! I can’t…I can’t feel it.”
“Let’s make sure,” I insist. Pull her closer, pumping my hips with renewed determination.
I meet her gaze, and I let the truth show…feral and hungry and sacred.
“How?”
“Let me fuck you some more. More touch. More taste. More blood. More emotion. Everything it craves… fed through us, not through fear.”
Her breath hitches. “Lucien.”
“It’s the best tool we have.” I lift my wrist, but the punctures have already healed.
So I go one better. Use one clawed nail at the juncture between my neck and shoulder.
For a heartbeat, she goes utterly still. And then she lifts her face, presses her forehead to mine, her voice breaking. “Oh, my love.”
“Drink now. Don’t stop.”
The words ignite the air.
She sinks her mouth to my throat, and the moment her lips close over the wound, I thrust into her. Harder. Deeper. A renewed claiming stroke that pulls a cry from both of us, muffled against my skin.
Her fingers clutch my shoulders, nails dragging fire down my back as she swallows, each pull of her mouth tightening the coil of heat between us until the room seems to sway with it.
I move again, slow, deliberate, grinding her down along my thick veined length as her mouth works at my neck, her breath hot and shaking against my skin.
Her body shivers around me, every tremor feeding into the bond, every trembling exhale thickening the magic between us. I hold her there, hips pinned to mine, letting her take both my blood and the rhythm of my body.
“Good,” I groan against her ear, dragging my hand down her spine. “Take what you need, little one. Take all of me.”
When she comes this time, it’s with a full-body shudder but no scream, a gentle wave breaking on a calm shore.
I kiss her, deeply and completely, until her breath steadies.
Her hands cling to me, nails dragging heat along my back, each tremor of her body syncing with mine, each broken sound she gives becoming another thread in the bond re-knitting itselfbetween us, stitching us back into the shape we should never have lost.
One more thrust is all it takes, slow, deep and shuddering, and the agonized pleasure hits me like a blade through the ribs.
