HeroRising (26 page)

“Oh, right,” she groaned and pulled at the ends of her hair.
“I know this is a stupid question but… Do you want to run? I know.” She held up
her hands when he raised a surprised brow. “Stupid. But I thought I’d ask. What
are your options, really?”

“At this point I have only one. I turn myself in. I will no
longer break the law or interfere with its process. The risk to you and the
others is too great.” He sat on the bed beside her. “At least when I am gone,
we’ll have our bond to keep us together. I find great comfort in that.”

She hugged him around the waist and kissed his chest. “How
long do you think you’ll be gone for? Seriously, what can they charge you
with?”

“I do not know. DeWinter claimed my punishment would be
minimal, but even an hour away from you is too long. Whatever the courts see
fit to give me, I will abide by.”

“And I’ll stand by you.”

“Thank you, Ari.” He rolled her onto her back then trailed
kisses down her neck and sternum. “No more talk about the Claymore or jail. Now
is for you and me.”

She drove her fingers into his hair. “So, how does one bond?
Is it like a wedding or a spell or something?”

“I will speak the Sacred Vows while we engage in the most
intense sexual experience we’ve ever had,” he explained between nipping kisses
to the underside of her beast.

She arched into his touch. “More intense than we’ve been
having?”

He let his smile be his answer.

“Oh shit. I may not survive.” She shivered, but the wicked
gleam in her eye let him know she eagerly anticipated what was to come.

He buried his nose into the cushion of her cleavage and drew
in the enticing scent of coconut and hibiscus soap and Ari’s own unique
fragrance. For the rest of his life, the smell would always remind him of home
and her loving embrace.

With his hands, he worshipped her. With his lips, he left praises
of gratefulness to be granted the opportunity to love her. Her soft sighs and
stilted groans caressed him as surely as her hands on his back as she raked her
nails across his flesh. She had such sensitive nipples and they puckered so
prettily when he took them between his teeth.

The baser, male part of him wanted to plunder her quivering
body, claim what was his now before she regained her senses and realized he
wasn’t good enough, but the lover in him wanted to steep in the slow boil of
her desire. Stoke the flame within her until her world consisted of nothing but
him and the pleasure he provided.

“Lie back, love,” he said as he settled between her thighs.
“I’ll take care of everything.”

The slick petals of her sex easily parted beneath his
thumbs, revealing the ripe, pink berry of her clitoris to his hungry gaze. His
mouth watered as he lowered his head and touched the tip of his tongue to the
swollen bud. Alternating between licks and nibbles, he worked his bride into a
frenzy, reveling in the sheen of perspiration that made her skin glow like
alabaster and the mewling cries that rolled down his back in a liquid satin
wave. He pressed two fingers into her sheath and the tight tunnel rippled in
welcome, bathing his hand in her sweet cream.

Ari stretched her arms over her head, abandoning her body to
his will and he took her offering with great delight.

How magnificent was the female body? How soft and pliant she
became under his lips and hands. He explored the satin lining of her sheath,
memorizing the different textures. Right before her cervix he felt the tiny
impression of rings against his fingertips and he rubbed the area in small
strokes. Ari gasped with a jerk of her hips. He did it again, then again, and
smiled as she melted into the mattress. Her fingers dug into his hair, holding
him in place as she writhed against his face.

“Don’t stop. Please, Lord, don’t stop,” she panted with her
eyes squenched tightly shit. “If you stop, I swear to God I will kill you.”

“We can’t have that.” He chuckled and went back to worrying
her clit and stroking her walls.

An electric current ran from her body to his mouth and down
his torso to wrap around his balls and squeeze in a deliciously painful grip.
Against his stomach his cock leaked, ready to spill onto the sheets with the
slightest brush, but he diligently ignored the incessant throbbing and
concentrated on Ari and the power that radiated from her core.

She stared blankly up at the ceiling, moaning broken words
and grunts that grew louder as the pressure grew within them both. His eyes
crossed as she pulled his hair, but the pain was worth the overwhelming tide of
her impending orgasm as it sucked them into the vortex. So close. She was so.
Damn. Close.

Then she hit the wall. With a guttural cry her thighs tightened
around his head. Sweet water flooded his mouth and her belly rippled with
spasms he felt in his gut. The wave rolled on and on and his balls churned,
desperate to come. At this rate he wasn’t going to last long enough to thrust
inside her, let alone bind them as one.

He rose to his feet, hooking her knees over his arms and
gripped her by the hips. Lining his dripping cock up to her sheath, he lunged
and pulled her onto his shaft.

“Ah, Gods,” he gritted from between clenched teeth.

Without the barrier of latex between them, her pussy was
scorching hot against his dick. And wet, by the Gods, he had never felt
anything as sublime as her drenched cunt sucking away all his rational
thoughts. Whatever deity had conjured the Sacred Vows was either a supreme
prankster or a fucking genius. A man would have to be incredibly motivated to
bond with his mate in order to remember the vows and not spill his seed at the
first touch. As it was, he could barely remember to breathe, let alone all the
parts of a ritual he had only heard spoken of and never seen in practice.

Focus, Bale. Focus.

Ari’s bouncing breasts drew his gaze. Oh, how he did love
the way the soft mounds shook with his every thrust. Ah. Breasts. Right. He
reached up and cupped a palm full of flesh. Although she lacked the second
heart his race carried, her solitary organ beat hard enough to feel the
vibration against his hands.

“Ari, love. Look at me,” he grated.

Her head lolled against the mattress and she struggled to
lift her eyelids. He twisted his hips, sending his cock deep into her core. The
action made her eyes widen in surprise as she screamed his name.

“Ariel.” He wet his lips and searched his brain for the
words to bind them together for eternity. “Ariel,
en la
nire de demos, Y tesktsen a mi band brigde.
”

At his words, Ari gasped and reached out, scoring his
forearms with her nails as she struggled to hang on. “Bale. God. What’s
happening?”

He groaned and fought to ignore the pressure in his balls.
“Ariel, I claim you as my bonded mate. In my hands I hold your life and your
love. Two precious gifts I ask you to entrust in my care. Ah, fuck.”

Sweat dripped into his eyes and his lungs burned as her
pussy milked his cock. “Fuck, Ari, stop coming around my dick.”

“Don’t stop. God, don’t stop.” She writhed in his grasp,
completely oblivious to his plight. “I feel you. Bale, I feel you.”

Damn it. He wasn’t going to make it. “In return.” Fuck. “I
promise. To be all things. You need.”

Sparkly white lights appeared in his vision as he felt her
heart beat right out of her chest and into his palm. Her cries became his
cries. His fire, hers. With each plunge of his cock, he felt the answering
thrust spear up into his belly. The ripple of her sheath against his length
drew the first spurts of cum he felt splashing the mouth of her womb.

One more sentence.
Jesu
, just one more sentence.

“Say you accept me. Say you accept my gift. Bond as one for
eternity.”

“Bale,” she screamed. “Bale!”

“Say it! Do you accept me?”

“Yes. God, yes. Bale.”

White lightning tore him in two as his cock erupted over and
over again. From the center of his soul he felt the cleansing burn of their
union scour the darkness of his past and radiate out to encompass their
shuddering forms. The bite of her nails into his back and her teeth into his
chest where she sobbed against him was a welcome pain, for the all-consuming
depth of her love for him eased the ache.

She was inside him now. A living, breathing entity, hovering
at the edge of his consciousness, forever in his care. Just as he lived inside
Ari and experienced the wonder and awe at their joining with shared intensity.

All his warrior finesse was shot to hell and he collapsed on
top of Ari in a graceless heap, pressing their pelvises together to burrow as
deep inside her as possible. With their union he experienced the crush of his
body as the weight stole her breath.

“Sorry,” he mumbled and slid to the side.

“That’s nifk,” she slurred and weakly patted his chest while
her legs remained locked around his waist in an alligator death-roll hug. “We
died. Didn’t we?”

His throat burned when he chuckled. “Ya.”

“Knew it.”

Even with exhaustion tugging at his consciousness, he sensed
Ari’s thirst and discomfort. The need to tend to his bonded mate swept him away
from the abyss of sleep and was the only thing that blasted him from the bed.

“Where do you think you’re going?” She clutched him tighter.

“You have needs.”

“Yeah. I need you to hold me.”

He dropped a kiss onto her forehead. “Water. I’m getting us
water.”

“Oh, all right.” She buried her face against the mattress.
“Hurry,” came the muffled order.

“Of course. Whoa.” His knees buckled as he attempted to
stand and he fell back onto the bed. “Let’s try this again.”

“That was awesome.” Ari laughed with her face still buried
in the bedding.

“Do not laugh too hard. I’d hate to accidently spill a full
glass of cold water on you.”

“You would too. I can feel your certainty. That’s so weird.
How I can feel you inside me? All around me, actually.”

Weird? No. Miracle? Yes.

He used his super speed to make it a quick trip to the sink
and back and handed Ari the glass of water. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.” She reached out blindly and struggled to sit up
enough to take a healthy swallow of cool liquid. She glanced up in his
direction with a smile then promptly spewed the water all over like a geyser.
“Holy shit,” she gasped.

He froze in stunned silence for several seconds with water
dripping off the end of his nose before reaching for the sheet to use as a
towel as Ari climbed to her knees in horror.

“I am so sorry, Bale.” Her sorrow was overcome with laughter
as she tried to help him dry off. “I, uh—” Her sentence broke off into another
fit of laughter that she attempted to stop with her hands clapped over her
mouth. Over her fingers her dark eyes danced with merriment.

Dark eyes? Wait a minute. He looked again. Sure enough, gone
were the dazzling sapphire gems of her irises and instead the color was a deep
brown, almost black. Like his.

Like his.

Which meant…

He jumped to his feet and raced to the dresser, skidding to
a stop in front of the mirror.

“
Jesu
,” he exclaimed and tugged at the burnished red
lock of his bangs then swiped a hand over the red hair covering his chest and
eyed the trail all the way down to his cock before muttering, “The carpet
matches the drapes.”

“Come on.” Ari scrambled off the bed, wiping the tears of
laughter from her eyes. “It’s not that bad.” She caught her first glimpse of
her new eye color and her brows shot up as she leaned closer to the mirror.
“Wow. Okay, this will definitely take some getting used to.”

The man who looked back at him from the mirror was
completely unrecognizable. Gone was the permanent frown and the visible strain
on his face and instead was a man who had been granted the gifts of love and
hope. A new look for a new beginning. A happy beginning.

“Having second thoughts?” Ari asked at his side.

“You know I’m not. Quite the opposite in fact.”

He drew her into his arms and clasped her to his chest. In
the mirror, their reflection displayed the perfection of their mating, with his
red hair blending seamlessly with her fiery strands as he rested his cheek
against her head. A peace unlike any he’d ever known stole over him as his bond
with Ari created a buffer against the volatile emotions of the human race. Her
emotional strength stole inside him, lifting him into the heavens where
contentment was within his grasp.

Never again did he have to second-guess his place in Ari’s
heart for her love surrounded him in its warmth, ebbing and flowing with his
love for her in a symbiotic wave so intermeshed there was no line of
demarcation. They were truly joined in the most intimate of ways. Even if they
were to become separated, they’d never be alone in the world. The connection
was pure magic and he was damn lucky to be blessed with such a miracle.

But perhaps his fortune was too grand. What did he do to be
granted such a gift when there were others far more deserving than he?

“Bale, you’ve grown so sad.” Ari lifted her head and
frowned. “Why are you crying?”

“I do not cry.”

“Sweetie.” She wiped her thumb against his cheek and showed
him the wet skin.

He glanced in the mirror and was stunned to see tears
streaming from his eyes.

“You were thinking of her, weren’t you? Natalia.”

“I robbed her.” He sucked in a stuttered breath. “I was a
selfish bastard and robbed her of her happiness.”

“You were young and insecure and did the best with the
knowledge you had. You didn’t know what was going to happen.”

“I should have known. I should have been stronger.”

She laid her hands on either side of his face. “Bale.
Through all my short years of living, the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that
hindsight is a malicious bitch. Should’ve, would’ve, could’ves will put you in
the grave, and I’ve had my fair share of them to know. I’ve heard you say over
and over again how you weren’t strong enough. Well you know what? She wasn’t
strong enough either. If she wanted more of you, she should have demanded more,
and you can bet your sweet ass that I’m going to demand everything from you.”