Ishouldn’tbesurprised.Iknow what Wregen is, what Svend lets him do.
Still, my stomach twists when I see my fucking mate drag his fingers across his victim’s open wound, painting the blood as if it’s a portrait. His satisfaction permeates the air, and maggots crawl through my gut as I watch him take pleasure in an unwilling elf’s pain. It hurts even more that he’s doing this on the heels of his playfulness in the water. It felt like something changed—like he’s changing—but I’m a fool for thinking it possible. He’s the same depraved monster he’s always been.
“He doesn’t want this. You said you’d leave him alone if I traveled with you,” I remind the asshole, my voice as flat as my emotions. He’s wrung every bit of feeling out of me except disgust.
“No, my skjaldmær, I didn’t,” he responds in a haughty tone that sends a spark of anger to replace the malaise that spilled through me a moment ago. “You tried to get that concession but got distracted by your need to speak with your dragon. I made you no promises.”
I’m confused for a second, my mind replaying our encounter in the cave. I’d found Svend after Wregen accosted me in the lake, and I wandered into the cavern trying to escape my self-loathing. Wregen appeared, angry to find Svend and me speaking, and then I felt Panta’s presence. I forgot everything in my zeal to speak with her.
I forgot all about Svend and his need to be protected.
Fuck me. Wregen has left Svend alone, but not because we agreed. He simply hadn’t bothered to go back to his barbaric penchants until now.
“You’re such a bastard,” I mutter, as frustrated with myself as I am angry with him. “You know this matters to me, that I want you to leave him alone. Do this for me, then.”
Wregen quirks one of his eyebrows, that fucking smirk emerging again. In this moment, I want nothing more than to slice it off his face, slowly. Still playing with his dick, he struts forward until he stands a foot away. And then he pulls his bloody, cum-specked hand from his pants and runs a knuckle across my cheek.
I don’t flinch, much as I want to. I won’t back down from him, ever.
“Go away,” he mutters. He’s holding my glare but Svend and I both know who he’s talking to.
Svend’s gulp is the only sound in the cavern as Wregen and I stare at each other. I hear a rustle as he gathers his clothes and disappears into the nearest tunnel. A mumbled “Thank you” trails behind him.
“You refuse to accept your fate,” Wregen mutters, dark eyes smoldering. “I will say this one last time, and never again,” he tells me. His thumb tugs at my bottom lip, and he tries to shove it into my mouth, but I clench my teeth and snarl, drawing a low chuckle from him.
“You’re mated to an amoral male who delights in his own cruelty,” he declares, rubbing the mix of body fluids across my cheek and painting my lips with it. “Make no mistake, my skjaldmær. What you saw—that’s who I am, and what I will do as long as I live. This bond between us draws me to you. I will claim you … and soon … but I will never be the male you say you want.”
“You’re delusional,” I spit out, flecks of my disdain landing on his lips, as his tongue flickers out to catch them. “I won’t give in to this bond. I won’t … I can’t … accept a mate like you.”
“You know how much I love a challenge,” Wregen snarls as the hand that had been gently stroking my cheek snaps to my throat and the other drops to cup my pussy.
My body flares in response to his possessive touch, shivers from the skin his hand caressed billowing out, like an avalanche expanding as it rolls down the mountain. But no part of me feels cold. Not with his fingers moving over me, finding the spots he somehow knows instinctively, as if he’s played with my body a million times. Right now, standing in this bright cavern, Yggdrasill’s root so close I can feel its magic, I’m burning alive. And I desperately want to open my legs wider and take more than his fingers this time.
Reality spills over me like a wave, and I flinch away. He doesn’t let go, though. His fist tightens around my neck, while his other hand finds its place, plundering me again.
“I don’t want to do this,” I rasp, clenching my fists to keep them from digging into his hair. “We have a deal,” I add as a shudder exposes how easily he can take control of my body. “You have to take me to my dragon before anything else.”
“Then stop me,” he murmurs, squeezing my throat as his other hand lets go of my pussy then digs inside my pants, sliding his fingers through the wet mess he finds there.
We groan at the same time. The knowledge that he loves finding me dripping for him sends as much pleasure pulsing through me as his fingers do.
“I knew you’d be sopping and ready for my cock,” he grunts as one finger enters me a bit. “You like pretending you’re a bad girl, but your body wants to please me. It wants you to be my good girl.” He slides that finger in further, his thumb finding my clit to tease me with a touch of the pressure I need.
“I am not yours, asshole,” I snarl, furious with both of us.
“Your body tells me the truth, even if you’re a naughty liar,” he responds as that finger goes in a little further and stops. “You want this as much as me. You’d like nothing more than to be stripped bare and fucked until you can’t walk.” He pauses, pushing the teeniest bit more and curving into that spot that makes me see stars.
“Do it,” I mumble, craving him as desperately as he thinks, fully disgusted by the need burning through me. “If you wantyour fingers inside me so badly, stop teasing. Finish what you started and then go the fuck away and leave me alone.”
He smirks and starts to pull out oh … so … slowly, his gaze holding mine the entire time. Dragging his bottom lip between his teeth, he bites down enough to draw blood, then yanks his hand back, wipes the drop from his mouth, and presses his wet digits against my lips.
“Open for me, my skjaldmær,” he rumbles, adding a hint of pressure as he urges me to let him in. “Taste us, together as the fates intend.”
It’s all I can do to stop myself from doing exactly as he demands, sucking every bit of our combined fluids from his fingers and licking them clean. The bond is a living, writhing monster inside me, rejoicing at his hands on us, how it feels when part of him joins with me, bringing us closer even as I fight against it.
I want to be the unyielding bitch I am in every other part of my life. I need to push him away. My resistance to this bond is a malleable, weak thing. My insides were screaming for his taste, needing something—anything—from our mate.
But I can’t give in. Flinging my arms up, I break his hold on my neck, stepping away before he can capture me again.
