Page 65 of Shadowed

He thrusts up. Hard. My spine scrapes stone and a grunt tears out of me. His cock curls and hits the deep place and my mouth opens on a moan that the shadow at my throat chokes to a whimper.

"There?" His forehead against mine. Eyes black. Wings spreading behind him, the vast span filling the room.

"There—don't stop—right —"

He slams up. The wet sound fills the room—my slick, his pre-release, the obscene squelch of his cock driving into me—and the shadow at my throat pulses.

I come. Fast. Too fast. My cunt clamping around him and the scream strangled by the shadow collar and my body shaking and he does not slow down.

His hips piston. The prehensile tip grinding my front wall while the base stretches me open with every stroke. I'm still coming when the second one stacks.

My nails dig into his shoulders. The shadow tendrils find my nipples—circle, tighten, pull—and I jerk against him and sob and his mouth catches the sob and swallows it.

"More." His voice against my lips. Not asking. "Give me more."

His wings close. Total dark. Nothing but sensation—his cock driving up, the shadow at my throat, the tendrils on my nipples twisting in time with his thrusts, the wet desperate sounds of my body taking him.

I come again. Silent. The shadow collar tight enough that no sound escapes. Just my body convulsing in the dark, and his groan vibrating through my chest.

He carries me to the bed.

Not gently. Drops me. Follows. His weight on me and his cock still inside me and the prehensile tip never stopping its grinding rotation against the spot. His mouth at my nipple—teeth, tongue, sucking hard—while his shadows spread my thighs wider.

"You picked my lock." His teeth scrape my nipple. His cock slams deep. "You stood in my corridor and took apart my ward with your bare hands."

"Yes —"

"Do you know what that does to me?"

His cock curls. Presses. Holds. The pressure on the deep place so intense my back arches off the bed and a guttural sound rips from my chest.

"It makes me want to give you every lock I have." His hips grind. Slow. Relentless. "Every ward. Every door in this court. Pick them all, Lilith. Take everything apart."

The knot rolls in.

I know it now. My body knows it—the shadow-dense swell from the base, the rolling wave of pressure—and my muscles pull it deeper instead of fighting. The lock engages. The fullness is absolute. I moan—long, broken, wrecked—and his mouth is at my throat, teeth on the mark, and the bond flares.

His cock shifts inside the knot. Lazy. Prehensile. Finding spots and pressing them. Each press drags a gasp out of me. Each gasp clenches my cunt. Each clench shifts the knot.

"Yours." Not falling out of my mouth this time. Stated. Eyes open.

The two-wave release. Cool magic first—flooding cold through the bond, through the knot, the court's dark power rushing through me. Then hot. His seed. Heavy, thick, pouring into me while the knot seals everything in. My eyes roll. I come on the knot sobbing against his throat.

The marks spread. Down my arms. Across my ribs. Dark patterns settling into warm skin like ink into water.

I hold his horns and press my forehead against his and the heat banks to a low ember and the knot holds and I stay.

Not because biology demands it. Because I picked the lock.

27

CALIGO

She picked my lock.

The thought repeats while my cock is inside her—a loop I can't break, a tumbler that keeps clicking. She picked my lock. She crouched in the corridor with her Chubb rakes and worked my ward and opened my door the way she opens everything: with both hands, deliberately, knowing what would give.

My cock curls inside her. She gasps—sharp, bitten off—and her cunt tightens around me and the clench runs straight up my spine and the court responds. Eighty-four percent. Two points in minutes.