#Lucien is my daddy | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

separatist-apologist · 2 years

Text

Wonderland

Haven't you heard what becomes of curious minds?

Summary: In a kingdom where a Maiden is forced to be sacrificed to appease the monster in the woods, Elain Archeron is chosen out of spite by her spurned suitor, Graysen. Trapped in a tower with her beast, Elain must unravel if she can truly trust the monster promising not to hurt. She doesn't know he's freed every maiden he's ever been sent...but her? Her, he intends to keep.

Read More: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | AO3

12k words

WARNING: MONSTER/ Breeding kink/blood.

Blood.

Lucien lifted his snout, inhaling the scent against the soft rumbling of rain and thunder around him. He and Elain were back in the tower for tonight and likely tomorrow, given the constant stream of early Autumn rain. Lucien wouldn’t fly her out in the wet even if it set him behind. He’d caught the scent of more humans when they returned the day before. Males, further out than before but likely watching. He hadn’t seen them and had, upon tucking Elain into bed that night, gone looking to see if they were camping out.

It seemed they’d come back the day he took her to the meadow, set up camp for the day, and left as night approached. They’d return when the rain stopped, too. Lucien was considering just packing her up entirely and leaving her in the unfinished house. It had a roof, it had doors, it was shelter enough. He could work faster if he didn’t have to make these constant trips.

Stretching his body, Lucien peered into the night, eyes scanning for the threat. The scent dulled the further from the tower he went, drawing his attention back inside. Elain was curled in bed, arms wrapped around a pillow, her hair splayed softly over her pretty face. Her cheeks were deliciously flushed, her breasts—hidden beneath another terrible shift—-rising and falling with a slow, steady rhythm. He stepped carefully into the tower, inhaling again. There it was. The coppery tang of blood was coming from her. The realization was enough to send him into a panic. Lucien shifted as he went to her, ripping the blankets back to look for the source of her injury.

Blood stained her inner thighs, pooling just beneath her. Lucien’s heart sank. Not an injury, then, but just the monthly bleeding all females experienced. It was an absurd thing to mourn considering he had done nothing but touch and taste, and yet the sight of her courses filled him with an aching sort of sadness. How many would he see? She wanted children but did she want his?

Lucien brushed his fingers over her legs, drawing her from sleep. Elain blinked sleepily at him, her smile fading when she saw his fingers coated in her blood and his serious, somber face. She scrambled back, pulling at the sheet with her usual embarrassment.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, all but running out of bed for whatever she needed to stop the bleeding.

“I thought you were injured,” he admitted, swallowing his feelings. She’d asked for slow. It was unfair to put his own desires on her shoulders. “You are not.”

“No,” she agreed, pulling apart strips of cloth. “You ah…go wash your hands, Lucien.” He did with regret, eyeing her as she washed herself up. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she murmured, still reeking of blood. It was setting off his instinct to fight, to hide her away while he slaughtered everything around him. Lucien would have preferred the scent of her undiluted arousal to the blood. The urge to strip her naked and check her body for injuries was overwhelming, even when Elain went back to bed. She tried to coax him into laying beside her like he did in the meadow but Lucien slept too deeply when she was curled beside him. He didn’t want to risk the males finding them or realizing he had a two-legged form. He was better off with his nose in the wind, besides. It offered a reprieve from the scent of her courses while the rain lulled him back into an uneasy sleep. His dreams were punctuated by human males torturing his mate, coating her in that same sticky red and when Lucien woke he was restless and uncomfortable. Elain was already awake, cross-legged in the chair, a book in her lap and half an apple in her hand. The rain had let up for the moment though the ominous gray clouds overhead promised a temporary reprieve only. Lucien wanted to move her.

“Let’s go to the meadow,” he said, startling her. “Bring whatever you want, I’ll come back for the rest.”

Elain looked around. “Are we not coming back?”

“You’re not,” he agreed, his heart thumping in his chest. “I will bring your things and when it is empty again, I will destroy this place.”

She looked around with a strange sort of yearning but on this, Lucien would not budge. Autumn was upon them—there was too much that needed to be done and not enough time. The males were still coming around. It was only a matter of time before they realized he had not done as they wanted, that she was his female. He knew they’d rip Elain apart just as they’d done his mother and he’d be alone again. Perhaps he’d become bitter and hateful like his father, killing the humans to punish them for what he’d lost.

Whatever feelings she had attached to this tower would fade in time, he told himself. Her safety, her life—that was what mattered.

“Pack what you want,” Lucien urged, watching as she rose slowly, looking around helplessly. “Just for the next few days while it rains.”

“Where will we sleep?”

“The blankets for the meadow are in the cottage,” he reminded her, wondering if he might put a latch on the door for the inside, as well at the outside. He felt feral, the coppery tang of blood making him wilder, almost angry. Why wasn’t she taking this seriously? She’d been the one who had been frightened and yet she was also the one standing there watching him as if he were mad.

“Please.”

It was the magic word. Elain began moving, reaching for the dresses she wanted, folding quickly and neatly on the bed. Lucien added more blankets since Autumn had brought with it colder nights and the cottage wasn’t ready for a fire just yet. Elain took a few books, one of which was written in a language he’d nearly forgotten. Lucien snatched it from her hand, flipping open the pages. Where had she gotten this? Lucien had never seen it in his life.

The inside pages were written in the common tongue and, to his amazement, was a history of his people. “Where did this come from?” he asked, noting her little pressed flower bookmark.

“It was among the stack of books,” she replied with a shrug. Lucien was so precise about the books he took, wanting them to appeal to her. He would have remembered this. It wasn’t from human hands—inhaling the spine drew up notes of bergamot and pine and the distinct smell of magic. Clutching the book, Lucien went to the balcony. He’d assumed for his entire life he was the last of his kind, the only one in existence. Someone was watching them. Someone like him, someone who had left Elain a gift without her knowing it. Without him scenting their presence. Fury outweighed his curiosity. Males, regardless of their species, could not be trusted. Not around his female, who was still too trusting, too soft, too vulnerable. Even if this male had left the book as a token of friendship, all Lucien could imagine was what he might have done. How he might have stolen her away and Lucien would never have known.

By the time they reached the meadow, the rain had begun in earnest again. Elain was trembling with cold, soaked to the bone. Blue lipped and pale faced, Lucien could do nothing but set her gently at the hearth before carefully shifting so he didn’t disturb her carefully wrapped things. He was still thinking about the book, about the males, about how many threats existed and how he was starting to fear no amount of planning could keep her safe.

“Take off your clothes,” Lucien ordered, grateful when Elain immediately presented her back so he could undo the laces. She’d begun cutting some of the dresses to remove the laces, taking the pearls he’d found and fashioning little buttons in the front so she could dress herself. Lucien dreaded the day he was no longer asked to help, when he wouldn’t have such free reign to run his fingers up and down her spine.

Leaving the blankets in the living room had been the best idea Lucien had. Elain, utterly and beautifully naked, didn’t protest when he all but shoved her shaking body beneath the soft warmth nor did she mind when he pressed himself behind her, calling his own magic up to warm his skin and heat the blankets around them.

He needed to finish his cabinets if he was ever going to get a stove and sink in. He should have left her once her shivering stopped and her body relaxed. The problem was him, hand gliding over her stomach, reaching for her breast while Elain arched into his touch, tilting her head so he could run his nose over the delicate column of her neck.

“You shouldn’t,” she murmured when his hands dipped lower. He could still scent the blood mingled with her arousal.

“Why?” he asked gruffly, pressing a feather soft kiss against her shoulder, gliding his fingers over her thighs which were regrettably clamped tightly shut. He knew, before she ever twisted onto her back to look up at him, that she was going to tell him the biggest piece of human male nonsense he’d ever heard. Every time Elain got in her head or embarrassment won over instinct, it was the males doing.

“It’s not clean,” she said earnestly, as if he just didn’t understand. He hated when she spoke to him like that. He didn’t understand, not because he was stupid, but because the made-up rules were absurd at best and controlling at worst. Had his own people been alive, Elain would have realized the problem was not him and his lack of understanding but her males and the absolute authority they wielded.

“It’s blood,” Lucien replied, nipping at her earlobe. “And I like blood.”

She wrinkled her nose. “But it comes from my…”

“Cunt,” he supplied, because Elain absolutely refused to use those terms. “Which I also like.”

Elain sighed, though from pleasure or annoyance, Lucien could not say. He tried to touch her again, well aware if he put his mouth on her she’d likely kick him in the face. Elain grabbed his wrist. “I’m serious. You shouldn’t touch me like that. Not now.”

“Because it’s unclean,” he repeated. His doubt snagged her attention.

“Yes. It’s coming from my body—”

“That’s where blood should be,” Lucien agreed.

“It’s not done—”

“It is a wonder your kind manages to reproduce at all,” Lucien commented, working hard to keep his irritation from his voice. “With all the rules. If my mate is unclean then so am I.”

Her world was one of unequals but to Lucien, mates were an even match. Lucien let his hand punctuate his words, sliding through her slick cunt before she could explain in her patient, maddening way while males were actually better than females. Even the thought of the words made him angry, deflated his cock and made him want to track Graysen back down. Perhaps she’d allow Lucien to rip the male apart piece by piece as a mating gift.

“Lucien,” she breathed, eyes fluttering shut. She was still gripping his wrist though no longer pulling. Just touching. She was so repressed it took practically nothing to get her off. Lucien studied her, fingers stroking over her clit. Bringing his mouth to her cheek, he spoke so she could feel his words.

“This is right,” he whispered, a bolt of lust surging through him when she whimpered. “What could be more pure than the feel of your cunt clamped around my fingers?” He slid one into her body, exhaling at the feel of her. He had no experience with this outside of the theoretical. He couldn’t trust humans to scratch this itch, terrified they’d spread the rumor he was more than just a beast. There were none of his own females, either. Lucien had the education his father had given him and books which were almost written from the female perspective. Elain was tight, the walls of her body pressed silky soft and burning hot against his one finger. He could feel the phantom kiss against his cock.

Elain rolled her hips into his hand, letting him reach for her face with his other so he could tilt her face and kiss her. If Elain was somehow impure, was somehow tainted by this natural process then so was he. He didn’t want to be anything other than what she was, would have let her drag him to the bottom most pit of hell if only to keep them together.

He wanted to fuck her with his cock instead of his hand. Telling himself this was necessary to prepare her in an effort to settle himself down, Lucien worked in a second finger while Elain writhed against him. She was so fucking wet, smelled of arousal and blood and jaszmine and honey and fuck fuck fuck Lucien had to bury his face in her neck to keep himself from falling apart. It was like the Gods knew what combination of things would drive him the most wild and poured them all in equal measure into Elain.

“Lucien,” she keened, the walls of her cunt rolling as sweetly as her hips. She was going to come and Lucien knew she’d make a mess. He had to kiss her, grinding his hips into the blanket until it wasn’t enough. Elain went off around him, her strangled screams sweet against his tongue. Lucien rode her through it just long enough to see her boneless and pliant. Long enough for her to turn her head and watch him pull the bloodied hand from beneath the blanket and wrap it around his own cock. Her eyes went wide, lips parted while he pumped himself, coating himself until his own pleasure—which took him no time at all—came in a near violent spurt of release. Elain merely watched, her eyes lusty and dark before she sighed softly.

“Come on, Lucien,” she whispered, pressing a soft kiss to his mouth. “Let’s get cleaned up.”

~*~

It was becoming apparent with each passing day that Lucien was not a man. Not the way she conceptualized one, at any rate. It was more than his lack of clothes or the rough way he went about things. Lucien had a two-legged form that, in some ways, gave him the appearance of being human. Even the gold could have been inked—there were men who did that, though they didn’t look half as luminous as he did.

If he was anything, he was an animal. An animal that spoke and thought and laughed but one that could smell blood on the wind and was attracted to the smell. The same that could hear a predator approaching from miles away and who moved through the world thinking of how to keep himself safe.

How to keep her safe. He was nearly finished with the cottage and had given Elain license to begin painting. She gave him a list of colors and Lucien merely returned with what she asked for. He was working on the bathing chamber, hauling up a tub and a sink without help. She heard him occasionally snarl and swear at whatever bothered him. Their home. The place she’d live with the monster that, by all rights, should have killed her.

Said monster came strolling down the steps, dirt smudged over his handsome cheek. Monster or man, monster or man? What did it matter? Man or mate? She didn’t want the man if she couldn’t have her mate. Lucien halted in the living room, drinking in the butter yellow walls. “This is nice,” he said as though it surprised him.

“Come see the kitchen,” she said, grateful to set her brush down for a moment and show him the work on the bottom level. Elain had been working overtime, sweeping and cleaning and dusting the mess Lucien had left behind. He noticed it, too, suddenly hyper aware of his stolen boots on her immaculate floor and his filthy hands touching the railing. She suppressed a smile, absurdly grateful for him. Housework for humans belonged to women and she’d gladly taken that on, certain he would expect it. Perhaps not, though.

Perhaps this was more of a partnership than a more traditional marriage. Certainly, when Lucien drank in the green cabinets against the cream colored walls, his eyes lit up with pleasure. “You made it seem…bigger…somehow,” he murmured, standing among the tile. He was massive, his muscular frame sucking up nearly all the available space. Elain darted around him, grateful he was still shirtless, though he’d put on some leather vambraces to protect his arms. Still Lucien, with half his hair braided off his face and the flowers she’d woven in the day before a little crumpled but still pretty.

“Don’t touch it,” she warned when his hand reached for one of the doors. “It’s not all the way dry.”

He nodded, withdrawing. “Tomorrow you will do the upstairs so I can bring up a bed,” he informed her. “I don’t want my mate on the floor.”

He said so every night, even the nights when it was dry enough to be outside. Elain rolled her eyes. “I like being on the floor. You’re turning me into a heathen.”

That amused him. “Are you speaking of my Lady Elain? My sweet, pure—”

“Okay, alright,” she interrupted, poking him in the stomach. “That’s enough of that.”

It wasn’t the reminder of what he’d done with her blood. That had been exciting in a way she wasn’t ready to fully think about. My Lady Elain. The words thrilled her, so casually possessive, his expression both amused and hungry all at once. If he’d been a human man—Elain stopped herself. He wasn’t a human man. Besides, Lucien courted far nicer than any man ever could have. She had jewelry and flowers and the little countryside life she’d always privately wanted. Without having to ask at all.

“Are you going to sleep in the bed with me?” Elain asked too shyly, unsure how to communicate that she’d like to be far more intimate than they already were. He’d smeared her monthly blood over his body while pleasuring himself and Elain hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it since. She wanted more of him…all of him. She certainly didn’t want him to sleep outdoors guarding her. Elain had never slept better in her life than she did on the nights Lucien held her against his body.

Lucien’s body shifted and too late, Elain remembered he could smell her arousal. Eyebrows raised, he asked, “I’ll sleep wherever you tell me to.”

“I want you to sleep with me,” she murmured. He nodded jerkily, hands fisted at his sides so she could dart back into the archway that separated the living room and the kitchen. She hoped to put a little table between the two spaces so they weren’t eating directly in front of the fireplace. The kitchen was hardly big enough.

“Do you have enough paint for upstairs?” he asked casually, following just behind. She wondered if he’d meant to build a nursery or if he’d merely used a different cottage layout and duplicated it entirely. Elain had no intention of mentioning this, just in case.

“I do.”

Lucien smiled. “Good. I will leave you to it then.”

And though Lucien swore he’d sleep where she told him to, Elain woke up alone. He was gone without word or warning, likely for whatever pieces he needed for the upstairs. He had left behind a few things in the kitchen—food, as always, and a few little flowers…and a strange leather bound book she’d never seen before. Elain flipped it open with fascination. It was more history. Not of humans but the Fae, of Lucien. She’d devoured the first book and its tales of glorious kings and queens, of mates with magic so potent they nearly destroyed the world. It was more fairytale than anything.

This, though…this was written as history by someone who had survived long enough to write it all down. Where had he found it? Elain hauled paint up the steps with one hand, the book in the other. It was her reward—every time she finished a wall she was allowed to devour a chapter. It was less focused on heroics…and more focused on the practical. On survival. As if whoever had written it knew they were scattered now and had lost knowledge they’d once had. There were warnings Lucien had clearly headed—don’t let the humans know we are anything but beast—and information from how to use magic without burning oneself out, how to track and hunt and hide…and, should whoever reading the book find one, how to accept a mating bond. Lucien had assumed it was just a given. Either she accepted or she didn’t. There was a ritual to it, some ancient magic according to the book. Elain nearly dripped paint on the pages to read, curiosity burning like hungry, angry fire.

Food and sex. Lucien, who seemed to enjoy both, had been the one feeding her to exclusion. It was as if muscle memory knew there was something to the act of offering a mate something to eat without realizing it had to be her feeding him. The book claimed they would sink into a frenzy of sex which, from the descriptions, did not sound so bad.

Elain might have stopped there, mildly embarrassed, her body coated in paint from her lack of attention, had it not been for an errant paragraph regarding human mates. An extra step, the book cautioned, was required. A binding of lives, one that would grant the human an unnaturally long life tied to their mate and one that would doom the Fae to death should they fail to keep their mate from harm. One simple thing, so long as the Fae was certain they wanted this bond. A bite sharp enough to draw blood, in the vein that led to the heart, just after the female offered the male that meal of acceptance but before the frenzy truly began. The book had a multitude of filthy suggestions on how to make it pleasurable with the underlying assumption, at least to Elain, that the bite would hurt. It certainly took some of the fun out of imagining Lucien in a truly feral state.

Elain stumbled down the steps well past noon to find Lucien outside, shirtless and sweaty and utterly stunning beneath the unseasonably warm autumn sun. He was hanging shutters, she realized. Lucien took one look at her, hammer in hand, before coming towards her, cupping her face and kissing her softly. “Have you eaten today?”

“That’s your first question?” she breathed, holding the book up between them. “Why didn’t you warn me about the mating bond?”

Lucien snatched up the book, his smile fading. “Where did you get this?”

“In the kitchen,” she replied, rising on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “I’m going to get in the water. Do you want to come with me?”

Lucien tore his eyes from the book with a wildness she only saw when he thought predators were lurking. He was very obviously torn. “Are you going to wear the awful shift?”

“Maybe you should take it off me,” Elain replied, shrieking when he dropped the book at his feet to chase after her. The hill leading into the meadow helped propel Elain forward before Lucien, by virtue of his long, powerful legs, caught her easily and slung her over his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Elain demanded breathlessly, palms braced against Lucien shifting muscles to touch the ribbon of gold that wound over him.

He dropped her gently to her feet, back facing his, so he could quickly undo her laces. “Undressing my mate,” he told her, his voice so at odds with his gentle hands. “So I can grope her under the guise of bathing.”

“There it is,” she murmured, utterly naked in the wide open just like Lucien had one say said she would. He was quicker with his own pants, half erect and utterly unabashed. Elain couldn’t pretend she didn’t like the way he looked at her, as if he were seeing her naked for the first time when it was, in fact, many, many times since that day in the bath. No matter how tired or gross or even bloody she was, Lucien was always watching with appreciation and lust and that undiluted desire that made her whole body light up with pleasure.

“After you,” Elain murmured, half wished he’d just…have at her the way he so obviously wanted to. Against the dirt and grass where anyone might see. Lucien hesitated for only a moment, as if he knew what she wanted but didn’t believe it. Instead, he waded into the water, warming it for her own body.

And Elain was helpless to do anything but follow.

Pulled by whatever invisible strings he held.

~*~

“Are you warm?” Lucien asked, looking at Elain tucked into bed. She was merely a nose and a pair of eyes when he finished with her and her eyes—beautiful, wide and dark—-were gazing at him with open exasperation.

“This is too much,” she chided, kicking them off her nearly bare body. Another shift he intended to peel her out of before she got too comfortable. “You are doing too much.” It was hardly anything he groused privately, pulling off two of the blankets while Elain wiggled her toes. He’d lit the fire in the bedroom for her, amused at her delight each time his hand caught fire. She reeked of arousal and tonight Lucien intended to have her exactly as he’d always wanted. The thought excited him to no end—Elain writhing beneath him, accepting his cock, his come and, he hoped privately, the first of many, many young. She wasn’t bleeding and though Lucien was certainly no expert on how humans reproduced, he didn’t think it was all that difficult. It seemed like babies were constantly being born to the females in the village nearby. Why not him and his mate, too?

Which was why everything needed to be just right. He’d read the book—she needed to feed him and Lucien assumed, judging by the little block of cheese she’d been holding in her hands all evening, she intended to. Even then, as he folded the blankets and set them on the chair he’d taken from the tower, Elain fiddled with the parchment wrapper nervously.

They had very little and yet Lucien was satisfied. He meant to chop wood for the upcoming winter and make do with their sparse furniture until spring returned. He hoped, given Elain had once been a very fine lady, it would not bother her so much at least for a time. She seemed happy enough, had even painted the nursery the dreamiest shade of lilac. Lucien couldn’t help but peek his head in every change he got. The room was empty and yet someday it might not be. He might open that door and find a little baby nestled in blankets, their soft face striped with gold the same as his.

“Are you coming to bed?”

“Take that off,” Lucien demanded, nearly tripping out of his own pants. Fuck him, he thought wryly, kicking them across the room. She’d trained him too well. He hardly ever shredded them anymore, had even begun adding clothes to his wardrobe. Half to please her and half because it was useful not to slice open his foot on a nail while he was working. Delight pooled in his belly when Elain lifted her shift and tossed it to the side without any of her usual fear or embarrassment. Perhaps he was training her well, too.

“Look at you,” he murmured, crawling up the bed to kiss her mouth. “My mate.”

Elain’s eyeroll did nothing to temper his lust. “Calm yourself.”

“I will not.”

“I have something for you, though,” she whispered, pushing that piece of cheese between them. It meant something more than just acceptable. Lucien knew how much Elain loved cheese, hoarding it so she didn’t have to share. If she was offering him this little piece, it meant something. Lucien panicked even as he took it from her, worried it might crumble to dust. He’d waited centuries for her, for this. She didn’t know what it meant to him to know he wasn’t alone anymore.

“Maybe we should wait,” he whispered. “Get you accustomed to—”

“No,” she interrupted firmly, eyes bright. “It will hurt the first time and I’d rather get all the hurting over at once.”

He didn’t like it. Loathing threatened to swallow him entirely, stealing some of his joy. His mate, her long hair unbound, body naked, as she prepared for pain instead of the pleasure he wanted to give her. Elain cupped his face, brushing her thumbs sweetly over his roughly stubbled cheeks. “It’s one hard night,” she murmured. “I want this. I want you.”

He all but shoved the food into his mouth, given to him by his mate. Elain watched, her head cocked as curls spilled down her front, all but hiding her breasts from view. “Do you feel different?” she asked. In truth, Lucien felt exactly the same. The realization filled him with relief. It meant he wouldn’t become a mindless animal fucking his mate regardless of her enjoyment. He shook his head, unable to deny her own disappointment. Elain wanted to feel something, proof of what he was saying. He knew she thought he’d just picked the first female he’d come across because he was lonely and touch starved.

“Maybe kissing will help,” she murmured, leaning forward to brush her lips against his mouth.

“Kissing always helps,” Lucien agreed though that wasn’t what he really wanted to say. I love you. Do you love me? He didn’t know the answer to that question and despite her offering him food, he couldn’t quite say if she’d done it out of enduring love or because she thought she ought to. Kissing helped, just as he said. It soothed his fears, if nothing else. He could scent her arousal in the air, was pleased when she reached for his bare shoulders to pull him to the bed with her. He would make it enjoyable, at least before he penetrated her with his teeth and cock. She wanted to get it all over with but Lucien wanted to savor her, at least a little. Nothing tasted better than Elain’s mouth, her skin, her cunt.

Elain squirmed, her legs falling open just like he’d once dreamed they might. Running her hands up and down his back, Lucien let himself luxuriate in the kiss, his tongue delving into her mouth to taste. She was so impossibly sweet, even with the lingering salt of her skin. Lucien groaned, ignoring his own twitching cock. He’d be buried within her before he knew it—he could wait a little longer.

Lucien slid his tongue down the familiar path down her neck, sucking against the hollow until she arched, fingers digging against his bicep. Mate, mate, mate. The wind was chanting the word against his back, prickling his skin until Lucien could feel beads of sweat begin to roll between the blades of his shoulders. He was too hot and so was she, her nipples peaked and hard and utterly blazing when he tugged them with his teeth. Something was unfurling in his chest, a creature of old. It was magic he’d never experienced, propelling him to complete the rite.

He had to taste her. His slow exploration stopped abruptly so he could settle between her legs, opening her wide. Her swollen cunt gleamed pink with her arousal, the wet heat practically dripping down her thighs. Elain writhed and he wondered if she was feeling it too, this magic that was suddenly riding him hard.

Claim her!

Lucien licked instead. He’d be damned if she didn’t come at least once. She would enjoy this moment before he went for her neck and pumped venom into her veins. Moisture flooded over his face, her fingers tangling in his hair to keep him in place. As if he could budge with her soft thighs clamped around his ears. Elain rolled her hips, all but riding his face as he licked her clit desperately, hungry to feel her come on his tongue. She hadn’t finished and already Lucien wanted more, wanted her to climb on his face, wanted to let him fuck her with his teeth and lips and fingers and—

Elain’s scream sent Lucien flying over her, lapping at her neck without even thinking about what he was doing. Elain was still breaking apart, still riding the peak of her climax. Now, it has to be now– his cock was twitching, rubbing over her slick heat, teasing out that orgasm. Lucien opened his mouth mindlessly, barely thinking about anything except for his pretty mate begging for him, needing his touch, his come. Lucien bit, blood pouring into his mouth as Elain jerked beneath him. Her hands scrambled for his chest, shoving but it was too late. He’d already begun to pour venom into her body. It wouldn’t have mattered if he could have stopped—and he couldn’t—something had begun to stretch between them, knotting around his ribs until the tightness was nearly unbearable.

He had the vague awareness of Elain saying his name over and over though it just barely registered. Roaring filled his ears, his body near taut with lust. Finish this, the beast in his body demanded.

“Lucien,” Elain pleaded, shoving softly beneath him. “Lucien, it’s too much—”

Lucien lined his cock up with her soaking entrance, ignoring her writhing, wiggling hips and pushed. Elain screamed against the intrusion, going limp beneath him when he seated himself fully in her body with one powerful stroke. Get all the hurting over at once.

Unable to offer anymore venom, and certain it was enough, Lucien withdrew his teeth while holding his cock utterly still in her body. She had her eyes squeezed shut tightly, tears leaking from the corners. He licked at the wound, slowly, over and over, as he tried to ignore the ache that begged him to move. She was so tight he imagined it had to hurt. Lucien was shifting through his fog, his fingers brushing her tears.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered against her skin, kissing her jaw. “Did I hurt you?”

“You didn’t mean to,” was her reply, eyes fluttering open. “You need to finish this.”

Lucien shifted, groaning softly at the friction, his mouth returning to her rapidly healing wound. “Do you feel it?” he asked softly, licking her skin over and over while he waited for permission to pump into her. “The bond?”

“I feel it,” she whispered with awe, stroking her fingers through his hair. “It’s a real thread.”

“My mate,” he said, returning to her mouth to kiss her slowly, reveling in the knowledge she could feel him, now. It wasn’t just him telling her she was his mate—it was her, too, realizing what he’d known from the first moment he saw her. “I am yours and you are mine.”

Elain lifted her hips beneath him, rolling slowly. She exhaled a breath. “I am yours and you are mine,” she repeated softly, the words spoken against his lips. Lucien pulled only a few inches out, swallowing her breathy gasp before pushing back in. He was dying, drowning in sweat and need, the taste of her blood and pussy burning in his mouth.

“More,” Elain whispered, nails digging into his back. “Give me more, Lucien.”

Lucien thrust, groaning with pleasure when she somehow tightened further, squeezing her pretty wet cunt painfully tight. He wanted more, too, wanted to fill her with come over and over and over until a child took root. There was magic in the air and Lucien, as he pumped, was certain they could manage it this night. It drove him until it was near mad with need, his sac tight against his body as he clenched his own ass to keep from shooting before her. Elain was close, writhing and clawing and biting.

She went off like thunder, screaming and begging and sobbing nonsense, her face pressed into his chest. Elain sank her teeth into his skin, drawing a little blood of her own. It was enough to pull him over the edge, her cunt sucking him deeper as if it, too, wanted to see what they could make happen tonight. Lucien lost control of his rhythm, driven to push deeper, to fill his mate until she was coated in his scent and filled with his young.

Lucien collapsed against her, keeping himself pushed to the hilt in an effort to prevent any come from spilling out. Elain panted, her face flushed and red, her neck blotchy from the bite. Lucien licked, likely not helpful though it soothed him a little. He used his hand to stroke her hair, reveling in the convulsions still rippling around his cock.

“We were right to do it this way,” she whispered, kissing his cheek. “Waiting would have made it worse.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he whispered gently, looking down at her beautiful face. “I lost myself.”

“I know,” she replied, capturing his lips with her own. “It’s okay. I’m not mad. It was over faster than I thought. And it’s done, now.”

Lucien nodded, biting his bottom lip.

I love you.

It’s done, now.

~*~

Elain woke to strong arms around her aching body, stroking the place where she’d been bitten the night before. Even though she knew she ought to rest, the moment consciousness seeped through her, Elain wanted the owner of that hand, those arms. She twisted, pressing a kiss to his warm, hardened pectoral where soft brown flesh met that ribbon of gold.

Lucien’s rumbling sigh and his cock—pressed against her stomach—told her he had been awake far longer than her. “Are you going to kiss me?” she asked when he didn’t move, russet eyes watching her carefully.

“I’m not sure if I’m allowed,” he murmured, sweeping his hand back over his neck. “Though I want to.”

“Why wouldn’t you be allowed?” she asked, rising up on her elbows to look at him. Lucien nodded towards the hallway.

“Go look in the mirror.”

“Do I look that bad?” she half-teased, her heart quickening at the softness in his eyes.

“You look…” he trailed off, mouth gaping as if words failed ihm. Lucien tucked his copper hair behind his ears, gesturing for her to go and see for herself. While Elain disentangled herself from his hold and the blankets he’d clearly reheaped atop her while she slept, Lucien flicked fingers lazily at the fireplace, allowing for blooming warmth to flood the room. For a moment she thought it was still night, eyes adjusting to the sudden light. Against the far window, Elain realized it was merely another gloomy, wet day. The sort that would, if nothing else, convince Lucien to stay in bed with her far longer than he ought.

Frenzy.

As Elain padded down the hall by herself, using her hand to guide her, she wondered if the throbbing between her legs wasn’t more magic. It wasn’t want. It was need. She almost abandoned his request entirely in favor of running back in and pouncing. She didn’t think he’d mind at all.

“I can’t see!” Elain called when she pulled open the bathing room chamber door, revealing only more dark gloom. Lucien had let her hand a ruffly little curtain over the window when she’d noted how easy it would be for anyone to look in and watch her bathe. Lucien had quietly huffed, his face dark with irritation but had installed that rod for her all the same.

She heard his feet on the wood, felt his radiating warmth before she ever felt his steady, broad hands ghost over her shoulders. Lucien ignited one hand carelessly, illuminating the room so she could peer into the rounded mirror over the sink basin. Elain gasped, fingers flying to her neck. Gold ribboned over her skin, wrapping up her neck from her clavicle to her jaw delicately, shimmering against the tan of her skin. Elain touched the ink just as she had once touched him, expecting to find hardened scales just as before. It was still just her skin, marked by the bond that tied them tightly together. Elain’s eyes shifted behind her, to Lucien who towered over her, his face so neutral, hands resting on her shoulders. He was ribboned head-to-toe in that orangish gold while hers was just around her neck. Easy enough to hide with a scarf, if she ever had to walk among the humans—it wasn’t on her face like it was his, at least. And yet…and yet she felt a strange mixture of pleasure and disappointment. Why wasn’t all of her marked like him? If he couldn’t hide, she didn’t want to, either. She’d been cast out, left for dead. Chained to a wall for sport, taunted by amused men who got gratification at the thoughts of Lucien’s potential cruelty. The chain wasn’t to keep her from escaping but to ensure Lucien could have done whatever horrible, depraved act they imagined with no resistance at all.

The ribboning gold was proof of his kindness, of his softness. His tender care, wrapped lovingly over her skin. A promise far lovelier than any plain wedding band ever would have been. Elain brushed her fingers over it one last time, moisture pooling in her eyes.

“Don’t cry,” Lucien said quickly, squeezing the tops of her shoulders. “Perhaps we can undo it—”

“NO!”

He startled at her tone, eyes going wide. “Don’t you dare touch it,” she added, turning to face him. Bare breasts brushed against his chest, drawing a shiver down her spine. “I love it.”

I love you, was what she meant to say. She didn’t know why she didn’t, even when his hand came to cup her face, his thumb sweeping over her cheek.

“It marks you as mine,” he murmured, his affection so plainly obvious. There was no danger to the words, no risk of rejection. Lucien wore his every emotion on his face, letting her read exactly what he thought.

“And what about you? What marks you?” she asked, eyes sweeping up his naked form. He was unchanged, every bit as lovely and masculine as he’d ever been. Lucien took her wrist, pressing her palm against the wild beat of his heart.

“This,” he whispered, eyes searching hers. Looking for proof she felt the same as him, Elain realized. “It has been waiting centuries for you.”

Elain opened her mouth to just tell him when Lucien, unaware of her internal battle, swept her up off her feet with shocking ease. “I was afraid you would be angry I marred your beauty.”

“You did no such thing,” Elain insisted hotly, trailing her fingers over the sparse hair on his chest. “I have never felt lovelier.”

Lucien’s swallow was audible. “I would not be hurt if you…I am sure you aren’t the first human who did not wish to be marked.”

Lucien set her back on the bed, kneeling at the edge of the mattress to look at her with wide, nervous eyes. Elain scooted, patting his side of the bed softly. “If we were courting,” she began, noting the way his expression immediately brightened, “And you decided you wanted to be with me for the rest of your life—”

“I have decided that,” Lucien interrupted quickly, sliding his powerful legs beneath the blanket.

“Right, of course. I just meant, if you were human.”

She ignored his exasperated sigh, the unspoken but I am not human that he might have said were he not hanging on her every word. He raised his brows, waiting for her to continue.

“Anyway,” she murmured, breathless by how he stared, by how close his mouth was to hers. “If ah…”

“If I were human—which I am not—and I wanted to spend eternity with you—which I do—I would…” he prompted, his voice dark and rich despite his amusement.

“Oh. You would give me a ring,” she finished lamely. “Usually a—”

“I have given you many rings,” he huffed, gesturing towards the closet where the things he’d brought her lay just out of sight behind a closed wooden door.

“Not just any ring,” Elain breathed. “A golden band.”

He sucked in a breath, fingers reaching for her neck. “That is the custom, then?”

“Yes,” she agreed. “Gold is precious and expensive. Men give it to their betrothed to mark their commitment. It is not something easily acquired, even for the wealthiest among them.”

Lucien blinked. “Oh. I wish I would have known it mattered. It does matter, doesn’t it?”

Elain nodded, biting her bottom lip. She twisted her hands in her lap nervously as Lucien plowed ahead, apparently determined to say what he needed to.

“I think I have been plain enough regarding my affection,” he began warily, watching her with that preternatural stillness that marked him as other. “I do not require a human courtship or marriage…not when we are bound by the bond of mates. But I do hope you consider the golden band that marks you to be similar to your ring—”

“I do,” she whispered, interrupting him softly. “I would have been happy if all of me had been marked, just as you are.”

Shallow, sharp breathing punctuated the silence between them. Not from her, but Lucien, whose hands gripped the blanket between them so tightly he’d begun to pull it off her still naked body. If she’d had his heightened senses, Elain was certain she would have heard his heart a near match for her own runaway, wild beat.

Reaching between them, Elain squeezed his hand softly. “I am glad we are mates,” she added, wishing he could somehow feel the true magnitude of her gratitude. He didn’t know the dread she’d felt that day in the garden, her fear that one day she’d be trapped in a marriage with a scheming lord. Love was what she’d wanted, so sharply Elain would have waited her entire life for it. “I’m in love with you.”

Relief crumpled over his expression. “You do?”

She nodded without any of the anxiety she might have felt had she said that to a human man. Lucien’s feelings were plain and had been so long enough that Elain could have told him from the moment he first touched her beneath that starry sky in the meadow, assured he would have responded in kind. He’d merely been waiting on her, waiting centuries, and then a mere month. Had she been braver, Elain might have demanded he tell her when he first knew when Lucien said, “I love you, as well. Surely you must know?”

“I do,” she agreed instead. He would tell her in time, when things were less tense, when they were more settled in this new life.

“I was uncertain…” his words trailed off, hand sliding to her face so his thumb could brush over her lips, parting them slightly. “You’re sure?”

“Positive,” Elain agreed. “I am glad to have been brought to you.”

Lucien blinked, his eyes suspiciously glassy. He merely nodded, lowering his face to hers. There would be time for all the things he wanted to say but now, his lips all but touching hers, she understood those words would have to wait.

“Good. Because I mean to have you again,” he whispered roughly. “And this time there will be no crying.”

She poked him roughly in the chest. “Don’t be mean.”

Lucien flipped her to her stomach before she could say another word, legs straddling her hips. “I think you like when I’m a little mean.”

And when his cock came to slide over her ass, Elain shivered in agreement.

Maybe she did.

If only a little.

~*~

Lucien had no disappointment regarding the frenzy or the two straight weeks he’d remained mostly in bed and mostly between Elain’s thighs. He’d occasionally forced himself out of the blankets so she could eat and bathe and stretch her aching limbs. He’d trotted after her, utterly besotted. A male in love was a strange thing. He was both pleased as punch to have her adoration and deeply unsettled that a creature as lovely and ethereal wanted him at all. The band of gold ribboning around her neck did little to help. Every time he saw it, Lucien was immediately bolted by lust and had to have her.

But autumn was beginning to give way to winter, and there were things he needed to finish before he could truly settle in. He was hopeful a babe was already seeding in her body and though Lucien knew very little regarding a pregnant female, he knew she’d need warmth and food, at the bare minimum.

Elain, too, needed to learn how to care for not just herself, but any possible young. Lucien had not forgotten his own childhood. He had his father, who was a skilled warrior and hunter, to protect him once his mother and brothers were gone. He’d taught Lucien everything worth knowing and Lucien needed to be certain that Elain would be cared for if anything ever happened to him.

It led them to the exact moment at the back of the cottage. Lucien was fully dressed—in more than just pants, but suspenders and a shirt, with boots and socks. The cold weather was unpleasant against his skin, especially on his bare feet and Lucien was willing to concede that clothes had some benefit now that he spent the majority of his time in his two-legged form. When he was a beast of scales and fire, the cold bothered him far less. Elain had tied her hair off her face in a pretty braid adorned with white and pink flowers—the same that were woven in his own half braid, courtesy of her loving fingers just that morning.

The clothing was also a peace offering for the blade in Elain’s hand. She wrinkled her nose at the dead deer carcass sitting on a wooden table. “You want me to skin this?” she asked, her face a putrid shade of green.

“Yes,” he agreed. “You should know how it's done.”

She ought to know how to track and hunt, too but Lucien was not ready to send his mate into the woods alone, unprotected as she searched for dinner. He would merely keep their stores overflowing with food until he could relax a little. Perhaps when he was certain the humans were no longer searching for the pair of them. He’d gone back to the tower twice, catching their scent not just around the woodland but inside it, too. He’d left things as they ought to be—the bed, the chair, the tub—after removing all traces of life with Elain. Even her pretty dried flowers she’d hung against the wall were destroyed in favor of cutting his arm and splattering blood against the blanket and floor. Let them think what they want. He’d seen how they’d scraped at the blood, as if they needed proof she had been harmed, had taken her shredded dress, unaware he had torn it from her as an act of love instead of violence.

Whatever they’d done with those things was none of his concern. Lucien meant to destroy the tower in the winter once the falling snow made the forest impassable. Let them know he would kill no more maidens for them. They would have to harm their females without his assistance. So long as they believed Elain dead and him gone, Lucien did not care what happened after.

“Is it not enough that I’ll be the one to cook it?” Elain’s trembling words and her wobbling bottom lip drew Lucien from his thoughts. Her eyes threatened to spill tears as she gazed down at the deer and too late, Lucien had forgotten how soft his mate was. He walked to her, prying the knife from her hands with a soft sigh.

“You should know,” he murmured, kissing the top of her forehead. She seemed warmer than usual, embarrassed or upset, perhaps. “In case anything happens to me.”

Elain’s tears overflowed then, her body shaking. “Why would something happen to you?”

Lucien merely held her against him. “Your humans do not particularly care for me.”

“We’re so far away from them,” she reminded him, pressing her chin into his chest. He wished he shared her optimism, that he didn’t know the single-minded brutality they were capable of.

They would search, would come looking eventually. Maybe not for decades, centuries even. But eventually the tale of the beast who ate maidens would ignite in someone's mind and they would set out looking for glory. Would eventually stumble into Lucien’s peaceful life with his mate and attempt to destroy them all.

It was tempting to preemptively destroy them before they could return the favor. “Will you watch me, at least?”

She didn’t want to. Elain’s face paled and how, he wondered, had he ended up with such a soft-hearted female? There was no bloodlust to her, nothing but kindness. He nearly sent her fleeing back to the house where he was certain she’d be waiting with flowers and kisses. It was tempting. Lucien shook his head, pulling his hair from his face with a leather strap around his wrist before he began gutting the animal. Elain pushed back a step, arms braced around her chest and too late for him to realize just how badly she did not want to help, she twisted to vomit in the dirt.

His hands were already sticky and warm with blood, leaving him standing helplessly covered in animal entrails while Elain heaved up breakfast, tears dripping down her nose. “Oh, sweetheart,” he murmured, feeling like the worst male in the entire world. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she gasped, holding her stomach as her body heaved again and again. “It’s just shocking, all that—” another heaving gasp punctuated her words. Elain gagged when the wind caught, blowing the scent of the beasts innards around them.

“Go inside,” he told her without anger. “I’ll finish.”

“I want to—” she threw up again, her body purging the lie from her system. “Okay. Maybe I’ll lay down for a little while.”

“A good plan,” he agreed, watching her stumble into the back of the cottage, her face sheet white and tinged soft green. He watched her go, the blue of her dress swishing about her legs just before she vanished. She was sweet, he decided. Perhaps it was a mistake to try and rob her of her softness. Lucien continued his work, warring with himself. He wanted to know she would be okay if anything ever happened to him. The gold banding around her neck would keep her from returning to the humans and his offspring were likely to inherit at least some of his magic. They would always be ostracized—othered. Without him, he wasn’t certain she could survive.

But robbing Elain of her softness felt cruel. The wind seemed to whisper a reminder that mates were equally matched. If he could survive, certainly she could, too. Lucien decided he would focus on defense, on protection. He would make the valley utterly hospitable to any human that ever stumbled in, would carve tunnels and stairs and other paths for Elain to escape through while he laid waste to any foes that thought to harm her.

And he would ensure he followed just behind. They could settle higher in the mountains, could go somewhere only wings would take them. The Illryian Steppes were a mere days fly from the valley. It was colder than Lucien preferred and utterly impassable on foot or by horse, even in the Summer. Elain would hate it, given her love of gardening and all things warm and bright and yet he knew she’d go if it came between life and death.

He decided to broach the idea later that night, one he’d bathed the stench of blood and guts from his body. Elain was tucked beneath the blankets of their bed, a book propped up on her knees. Her coloring was better and he noted she was eating without being prompted, which pleased him more than he’d ever admit.

“How are you feeling?” he asked her gently, sitting at the bottom of the bed to watch.

“I’m sorry I lost breakfast,” she replied quickly, her eyes earnest. “I’m sure I’ll get used to living so roughly.”

He shook his head. “Leave the gutting to me. I am too preoccupied with my own death to consider anything else. I have done you a disservice, I think.”

“How so?” she questioned, scooting forward in the little white night dress she’d sworn to stop wearing to bed.

“My own mother died when I was very young,” he reminded her. “And left me with only my father. His death—” Dare Lucien tell her the true manner as to Berons death? Love shone in her gaze and Lucien decided to wait. “His death was spared for later, given his own strength. Not that the humans didn’t try, but…” But Beron was far more powerful than Lucien suspected he was. He took a breath. “I worry one day it might be me who is brought down by their arrows and swords and you who is left alone.”

“Oh,” she murmured. “I don’t think—”

“I need to know you’re safe,” he interrupted quickly. “But I am going about it all wrong. I was thinking perhaps we would stay here for the time being, but I might scout us somewhere safer, if we ever needed it. Somewhere high in the mountains, where no one but I could get to.”

Elain digested that. “And if humans did come,” she began carefully, watching the way his body shifted beneath her gaze. “You would flee with me instead of fighting to the death?”

“Yes,” he agreed. “I would destroy their path so they couldn’t follow after you, but I would not stay and fight.”

Beron would have called it cowardice but Beron was dead and Lucien was not. Perhaps if Beron cared more for his mate and less for human blood, his mother wouldn’t have died the way she had. At least mother had a winged form, had tried to protect them as best she could.

“Okay,” she agreed softly. “I think that’s a fair enough compromise.”

It was an oath, then, in that moment. To ask her to give up everything and live among the clouds and snow, far from the grassy wonderland dotted with multi-colored life was like asking her to give up the very air she breathed and Lucien knew it. Perhaps, had his people survived and humans had remained part of their bloodline, Elain would have been a woodland nymph. He could imagine her, bathing in a stream with flowers in her hair. Lucien knew he would have chased after her, to the very ends of the earth if he’d had to, in order to sink himself into her sweetness.

To agree not to fight, to truly defend his mate was to go against his own instincts. He extended his hand all the same, taking her smaller one into his palm so he could press a kiss to her skin. Survival would depend on remaining together, on keeping each other safe. He would have to remember that she might not survive without him when the urge to satiate his bloodlust overtook him.

Lucien brushed the piece of cheese in her hand. “Eat.”

Elain rolled her eyes but took another bite all the same. “I was thinking in the spring I might try my hand at vegetables. I’m starting to tire of all the cheese and bread, if you can believe it.” He couldn’t.

~*~

Even the smell of the deer meat threatened Elain’s fragile stomach. Not that she’d dare tell Lucien that, who brought a new one every day to gut and skin before drying and preserving the excess. He spent his mornings chopping wood and his afternoons hunting and skinning and his nights between her legs. Elain did not know where his endless supply of stamina was coming from—she was constantly exhausted, just barely making it through the day. He’d brought her things for baking and Elain wasted her mornings making elaborate breads, often setting them with dried flowers and or whatever fruit or vegetables she had on hand. Lucien ventured less and less into the human villages as the weather turned colder, perhaps because it became harder to take what he needed without being spotted.

Once she began her vegetable garden, Elain hoped he might not have to go at all. Perhaps they could buy a few cows and goats for cheese and milk making and truly sustain themselves. A few sheep for wool and chicken for eggs…she knew little about the finer points of farming and yet assumed it could not be that hard. She’d wait for the spring so Lucien could fashion a barn, at least, and so they didn’t deprive someone of their source of sustenance during the colder months.

The smell of warm blood wafted through the kitchen window, prompting Elain to grip the edge of the sink and breathe through her nose. She was close to abandoning her dough entirely and retreating upstairs but Lucien would make a terrible fuss if he thought her sick again. She could do this, she reminded herself. If Lucien could reach his hands into the deer…Elain’s stomach flipped and too late, she vomited into the sink.

The door pushed open. “Are you well?” Lucien’s voice demanded, bringing the stench with him.

“Come no closer,” she begged, noting she’d accidentally gotten sick in her hair. “The smell, it—” she threw up again, punctuating her point.

“I didn’t realize it was still bothering you,” he murmured. “You can smell it from the kitchen?”

“The wind drags it in,” she explained, wiping her mouth and rinsing the sink. “I am learning to master it but some days are worse than others.”

“Go upstairs,” came his soft, authoritative voice. “I’ll wash my hands and warm a bath.”

Elain nodded, slipping past him while holding her breath. Lucien tracked her every movement, his handsome face rich with sympathy. She was a poor mate to him, she thought, if she couldn’t handle even a little blood. Lucien didn’t seem to mind, not when he returned smelling of nothing she could discern, all traces of animal scrubbed from his golden brown skin.

“I’ll move further from the house,” he told her when she rose from the bed, her fingers deftly sliding the pearl buttons from their clasps. Lucien’s eyes bounced from her face to her slowly barred body, hunger warring with concern.

“I would appreciate that,” she agreed. “Maybe we could find other things to eat beside deer?”

“I suspect any amount of killing would turn your stomach,” he said, following her into the bathing chamber. “My mate is soft-hearted.”

Elain stepped into the blessedly hot water with a sigh. “If you wanted a warrior—”

“I want you,” Lucien was quick to remind her, dropping to his knees to watch her in the tub. He rested an arm, clad in a white shirt rolled at the elbow, his face resting against the skin. His fingers skimmed the water, brushing over her knee. “Only you.”

“Well, you have me,” she murmured, reclining against the porcelain back, eyes closed as the heat enveloped her. “Soft heart and all.”

“Lucky me,” he sighed, his contentment as good as any kiss.

“I’m sure by next autumn I will be used to the sight and smell of blood,” she added, peeking open one eye to watch him. She was trying to shed the trappings of her old life, of the lady who had never seen how her food made it to her plate. “This has all been an adjustment.”

“You are fine,” Lucien assured her, dipping his hand beneath the water to rub her inner thigh. Insatiable beast, was what he was. She didn’t dare move though it was an effort not to fully part her legs, to let him have unfettered access to her body. “You wear my scent well, Elain.”

“I do?” she questioned, turning her head to smell her shoulder.

“Since the mating bond snapped between us, your scent has shifted,” he whispered, words rough as he hand traveled further up her leg. “As has mine. We have become one…if another male were to scent you, he would recognize you were mated…he would not take you as his own.”

“Your males,” she asked, certain a human man wouldn’t notice such a thing. Lucien nodded.

“Yes. Humans have such dulled instincts even if they did respect such things,” he murmured without his usual burning hatred, his fingers finally reaching between her legs for her already wanting core. “They’ll never be close enough to know your scent, regardless.” His addition made her heart tighten, if only a little. This was the life she’d chosen, she reminded herself. The life she wanted. Her people had sent her to die and yet…it was lonely to imagine she’d never see another one of them again.

Lucien rubbed against her clit just as Elain asked, “How can you be certain you’re the last?”

His hand stilled. “What?”

“What makes you think you are the last of your kind?” she asked breathlessly, wishing she hadn’t asked at all. Not until he’d finished touching her, anyway. Hidden in the water, Lucien couldn’t scent the arousal that would have sent him spiraling. He cocked his head, his ponytailed hair draped over his broad shoulder like a silken scarf.

“I would know,” he said finally, though there was uncertainty in his voice.

“Perhaps more of you are hiding than you realize,” Elain pressed, thinking of the two books that had been left that Lucien could not account for, with a scent he’d said smelled suspiciously like magic. “Dotted throughout the land, trying their best to blend.”

Lucien considered this while Elain remained still, despite the persistent throbbing between her legs.

“Perhaps,” he conceded. “And even if you’re right, I’m not sure I would want to find them.”

Territorial.

That’s what Lucien said the males of his kind were. Territorial and likely guarded. If they’d found mates, Lucien might risk being torn to shreds simply for venturing too close, just as she knew he’d do if anyone came too close to her. He went back to rubbing, her breath fanning against her ear. Elain knew what came next even when he plunged his arms into the fading warmth of the water and hauled her out, unconcerned with how she dripped water all over the tile, the wood, the warm blankets of the bed. All he cared about was spreading her legs as widely as he could, kneeling in the puddle of water she’d created before he buried his face against her body, tongue lapping where his hand had once been. She’d learned in the two and a half months they’d been together, that Lucien liked nothing more than to eat between her legs. She suspected he liked it more than his own gratification though she’d never ask.

“You taste…” he groaned, unable to finish his sentence as he pulled her closer. She wished, not for the first time, she had his senses so she knew what he was trying to say. She wanted to experience the world as he did, see through his eyes, smell through his nose. Taste as he did, to lick the salt of his skin and taste more than just the rudimentary masculine sweat she liked so much.

Pleasure frazzled around her, zapping like lightning through her veins. Elain drew him closer, her heels digging in his back. Lucien was all too happy to oblige, his tongue sliding into her body in mimicry of how his cock so often pleasured her, curling sweetly before traveling up the length of her body to swirl over the swollen bundle of nerves. “Lucien,” she whispered, her warning she was about to break apart. He growled, a reminder that he was more animal than anything despite the clothes he wore.

There was no need to be quiet, which was just as well. Elain’s back arched, pushing her closer to his face the moment his lips sucked around her clit, tongue rubbing exactly right. He held tight, had to be all but pried off her when she came back down, too sensitive to withstand his constant ministrations.

The glistening wet of his lips was obscene, made all the filthier when he brought them to her own mouth so she could taste her arousal. Elain had a moment as she eagerly opened her mouth, letting his tongue sweep against her own, that her former self would have been scandalized by such behavior. No gentleman would have acted this way.

And Lucien was no gentleman, certainly.

Which was how she preferred him. Utterly, and totally wild.

~*~

More vomiting. No matter how far Lucien worked from the house, he still caught that sour stench the moment he walked into the house. He wondered if it wasn’t the mere knowledge he was working on an animal carcass that bothered her…though today Lucien had done none of that work at all. Their larder was utterly full. Any more risked spoiling what already existed and given how Elain had returned to picking at her food like a bird, Lucien thought they’d survive the winter relatively easily.

He found her in bed, eyes glazed as she stared at the dying fire. Her skin was far too pale, her eyes all but sunken in her head. He inhaled, catching a whiff of sickness against a scent he didn’t recognize. It was one he’d smelled on her before, more often in the last few days. He knew very little of humans but did understand how prone to illness they were. She couldn’t die, not with her life bound to his—it would take flame or steel to do that—but she could waste to nothing before his very eyes.

Lucien went to her, pressing his hand to her forehead. Warm, his mind screamed with worry. Her skin burned the way his often did, as if she were consumed with flame. “You have a fever,” he told her. Elain started, her cracked, chapped lips parting with surprise. “I didn’t know you were here. I must have dozed.”

Her eyes had been wide open. Fear sluiced through Lucien, settling like hot lead in his stomach. “How do humans treat fever?”

Elain let him push her against the pillows, kicking at the blankets he tried to drape over her. “With rest,” she said quietly. “And perhaps a cool rag.”

He could do that. Lucien found strips of linen she’d cut for her cycle mingled among the washrags in the bathroom. He dipped a soft cloth into cold water, inhaling the air roughly when he returned. Was she bleeding? Lucien had lost track of the time and yet detected no blood. It was just as well—how unfair to be struck with blood when you could just barely keep your eyes open.

Lucien pressed the cloth to her head. “Anything else?”

Elain all but growled when he tried to put the blanket back over her body, kicking him, without meaning to, hard in the stomach. He took that show of strength, however painful it was, as a good sign. She wasn’t so low she couldn’t harm him.

“Water, I suppose,” Elain murmured, eyes hidden beneath the damp white cloth. “Fevers are sweat out.”

That fascinated him enough to collect a cup of water and set it on the bedside table just within reach. Not that she wanted it. Elain swatted at his hand when he tried to force a sip on her and swatted again when he laid beside her, intending to use the warmth of his body to draw out the fever via sweating.

“Don’t touch me,” she whispered, rolling to her side. “I need air.”

Lucien had never felt more helpless. Her cheeks were flushed and she radiated that scent of sickness, whatever it was. It wasn’t right, wasn’t her usual jasmine and honey or his sundrenched citrus. It was something almost powdery, floral and spicy and it disturbed him by how pleasant it was. Illness ought to smell foul, diseased and wrong. He wanted to run his nose over her body, wanted to commit it to memory.

“Would you like to go outside?” he asked, wincing at the sound of soft pattering against the window panes. He didn’t want to see his mate catch a chill and yet he’d take her out beneath the porch if it cooled her a little.

“I want to come out of my skin,” she whispered, twisting her neck to face him, even if she couldn’t see him. “I feel…”

Lucien stroked her cheek with his thumb. “Rest,” he bossed, hoping she couldn’t sense his fear. Elain sighed softly, twisting again so she faced him.

“Will you hold me?” she asked. Lucien hesitated. She’d just told him not to touch her and some part of her words felt like a trap. Her bottom lip wobbled as the scent of salt flooded through the air.

“Don’t cry!” Lucien all but begged, dragging her against his uncomfortably clothed chest. “I always want to hold you.” Elain sniffed. “Okay.”

Lucien stroked her hair, thinking of the right words to say that might settle her, that would soothe her into sleep. She was so much better at explaining things, her words so sweet, so elegant. It didn’t matter. By the time Lucien had decided on telling her he loved her, Elain was softly drooling against his chest, her hand curled in against his shirt, forcing him to sleep in the blasted shirt. He didn’t dare move her or cover her lest he draw her wrath. Lucien dozed, too, that soft, sweet scent burning in his nose.

He woke in the middle of the night to Elain disentangling herself from his grasp for the bathroom. She only needed to relieve herself instead of vomit though when she returned, she brought that scent with her stronger than before. Lucien propped himself up on his elbows sleepily. “Take off your dress,” he grumbled, kicking out of his pants. “I’m not sleeping in clothes and neither are you.”

She did as he asked, her eyes brighter than before. “I feel better,” she told him. She looked it—her cheeks were flushed, her skin glowing softly. “I’m hungry.” Lucien scrambled upwards, yanking off his shirt before practically running down the steps for something soft on her stomach, just in case. A little bread, a little milk, an apple he hastily chopped into pieces, and a banana he peeled without bothering to dispose of the peel in her little recycling bin.

She was naked and beneath blankets, chugging water like she’d never tasted anything half as good before. He might have relaxed had it not been for that lingering scent. Elain accepted the bowl of his wares, eating all of it without complaint, munching happily while he all but crouched over her, watching her every bite. Waiting for that scent to abate, chased away by her good health.

It only intensified, as if it fed off her. Her own sweet smell was all but chased away, driving Lucien insane. That scent called to him, begged him to shift into his beast-like form and guard her with his teeth and talons. Panic flooded over him even as she slipped down the mattress, lacing her hand through his. Lucien drew her knuckles against his lips, swallowing his fear. He’d take her to a human healer before he let her die, risking his own safety to ensure she survived.

“Lay down with me,” she murmured, her skin too-warm to the touch. No sweat, like she’d said. Just the sweet, radiating heat that he had to admit felt pleasant against his skin.

“Are you tired?” he asked, lips pressed to her forehead when he joined her in the bed. She was practically purring, curled against his body the way she was. Lucien was far too tempted to touch now that she was feeling better. Elain rubbed against him, draping her leg over his hip and Lucien groaned despite himself.

“Stop it,” he whispered, catching the devious look in her eye. “You are unwell. You need rest.”

“I need my mate,” she replied mischievously. Lucien looked up at the ceiling as his cock stirred to life.

“You need to rest,” he repeated, moving her hands off his body only for Elain to slide them right back down. “Insatiable beast.”

“I was dreaming of you,” she told him, wrapping her fingers around his eager, twitching cock. Lucien exhaled when she stroked, sliding from beside him so she could settle between his thighs. The sight was nothing short of spectacular. Lucien drank in her softly glowing skin, bathed all but gold beneath the firelight. Her long, unbound hair covered her bare breasts, the curled tips tickling against the soft curve of her stomach. She’d tucked her knees beneath her round ass, her hand wrapped around his achingly hard shaft, lips parted with the promise of licking.

“What were you dreaming of?” he panted, thighs falling apart to heighten his own pleasure.

“This,” she murmured. “You, spread out beneath me.”

“Such filthy words from my elegant mate,” he rasped. “What have you done with her?”

“I left her at the human village,” Elain murmured, tongue darting from between her red lips. Fuck, he thought to himself, watching as she dipped her head to his slit to taste the beaded moisture already pooling at the tip. She was so fucking beautiful. Lucien took a deep inhale of her, practically writhing despite her strange new scent, now mingled with her own hot arousal. He wanted her on his face, even when she wrapped her lips around him with that same clumsy yet sweet mouth. Lucien didn’t think Elain would ever wholly get used to pleasuring him this way, not as he had done. For humans, there was something obscene about taking your lover into your mouth and Elain, no matter how much she enjoyed his taste, always seemed to think better of his cock bruising the back of her throat right when it came time to actually swallow him.

He didn’t mind, content to feel the silky warmth of her tongue against the base of his shaft for as long as she was willing to have him. It was utterly indecent and still one of his favorite feelings in the world. There was no part of her that was not soft, no part he didn’t think he’d enjoy fucking, should she ask him to.

Her arousal spiked, perfuming the air and with regret, Lucien all but pried her off his cock. “I’m not done,” she grumbled, darting from his grasp when he tried to settle her atop him. “I don’t think I can stand to be penetrated,” she added, realizing what he wanted. “I’m sore.”

“Sore?” he questioned. In his lust filled haze, Lucien remembered belatedly she was still ill, still recovering.

“Sore,” she agreed with a fan of embarrassment. “My courses are coming and everything is sensitive.”

“Ah.” He ignored his disappointment. He swallowed his dashed hopes and allowed his cock to drive his thinking. “You mean to swallow me, then?”

“I’d like to,” she replied wickedly.

“Only if I can taste you while you do it,”

She hesitated long enough for him to catch her about her waist. Elain yelped but too late, Lucien had her straddling his face. He groaned the minute that scent hit him in the face. It was so much more potent here, sweet and heady to the point his eyes all but rolled into the back of his skull.

“Suck,” he rasped before he began devouring, the taste of her bright against his tongue. He just barely registered her pressing her naked body against his own, pushing her wet cunt further against his face so she could take him back into her mouth. It was decadent, his own pleasure pulsating through his body while his tongue lavished praise.

Elain ground her hips against him, coating him in that scent. He was losing himself, holding her tight against his face until it was all he could smell, all he could taste. He wanted to bathe in the wet leaking from her body, couldn’t help himself when he dipped his tongue into her opening. Elain moaned so loud he felt the reverberation in his bones. He was going to come before her, his hips practically canting off the bed, all but fucking her pretty, soft mouth.

Lucien was wild, feral with need. Instinct was riding him hard, demanding he satisfy her. It was the scent, he realized when he couldn’t hold himself back, pouring himself into the back of her throat. Elain swallowed all of it, moaning softly as he continued to feast.

“Lucien,” she whined, bracing her hands against his stomach. Lucien held her hips, letting her ride his face. “Lucien, I—” She came with a bright, hoarse scream and he couldn’t help his answering snarl. He needed to move, pulling her off him, so he could escape, his skin rippling with the urge to shed his mortal skin. He just barely made it outside, stumbling onto the lawn still punishingly hard. Scales erupted over his body, his bones snapping, teeth elongating. He could feel Elain just behind him, her scent trailing after her.

Awareness punctured his lungs, momentarily robbing him of breath. “Lucien?” she asked, standing in the threshold of the door. Lucien roared a warning over the valley, illuminating the inky, rainy night with punishing flame. Elain pressed a hand to his spiked tail, settling the frantic thrashing. Lucien whipped his head around, smoking pouring from his nostrils, to look at her. He could see it all so clearly now. Her body shimmered against the night, radiating colors of orange and gold. Still naked, Lucien dropped his head further, inhaling again. His senses were better like this, more refined. That sweet, soft scent that all but overpowered Elain glowed, too—a soft lilac in the night. He rubbed his snout against her stomach, his pride and pleasure unmatched. Elain’s fingers clasped, pressed against the taut flesh that gave no indication of what Lucien could see and smell.

His mate, his perfect, lovely, pregnant mate.

Lucien turned his head to the otherwise silent night, roaring his warning one last time.

It was no mere threat to any predators that might be lurking.

It was a promise of death.

#elucien #elucien fanfic #elucien fanfiction #elain x lucien #this chapter was necessary for how plotty the next one is #also dont forget the point of breeding #is to breed #i know im gonna have to remind someone in the comments but like #yall know what he's up to #my man wants to be a daddy #anyway this is still super fun and dragon lucien is nothing but a sweet (vicious) bean

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