Evil Twin

But they would keep Echo safe.

The first beast reached him. Poisonous jaws. Slashing claws. His blade sang and a head flew. Barely time to meet the next. Bane was fast but so were they, a nightmare of speed and stink. He cleaved through a chest and the beast fell into two twists of thrashing limbs. The next. Claws scraping against armor—so close to the throat don’t think of it—and he sliced through its neck but one got past him, one got past him and was Echo safe? He couldn’t turn to look. The next came and ducked his blade, jaws dripping with pig. It howled as he hacked through a leg, and it scrabbled across the ground as he killed the sixth and then he stabbed through its head but one had gotten past him.

Blood beating a killing rage through his chest, Bane sprinted up the hill, searching for the beast. The warriors had formed a line. A shield of claws and fangs and blades. Had she reached them?

No beast in sight.

No Echo.

“General!” Jorin called out—then fell back at Bane’s approach, his face whitening. “It’s dead there.”

A splatter of hacked flesh in the grass.

“My wife?” His voice was a bestial growl.

“She’s—”

Behind the shield of warriors. He charged through.

And there she was. Safe. Beautiful. Glorious. Staring at him with relieved tears glistening in her eyes.

“Bane,” she breathed. She raced toward him.

He dropped the bloodied sword to the ground. Tore open the laces of his leathers.

She skidded, slowed. Her eyes widened.

“Need you,” he rasped. “Burning.”

“Oh,” she said quietly.

Footsteps approached behind him. Jorin. “Bane, my friend, the venom has taken you beyond anything you’ve—”

“Begone!”

The warrior’s uncertain gaze shifted past him.

“All is well, Jorin,” Echo reassured him. “Just keep watch for any more.”

“Will protect you.”

“I know you will. Because that’s what is deep down inside you. The very best of men.” Her beautiful eyes filled with tears again. “Now come lift me up, my king.”

“Court you. Make you love.”

His wife laughed quietly and smiled through her tears as she shook her head and said, “You cannot do that.”

Agony ripped free. Roaring, he leapt for her—lifting her, carrying her, running. She clung to him, blistering his chest with every breath he filled with her scent.

He would carry her until she loved him and he would hold her until she trusted him but he needed more more more.

“Can’t lose you,” he growled as a beast, a hungry beast, finding a stone table to begin his feast. A flat rock, waist high—he set her down and she rolled onto her belly. He caught her hips, her ass round and luscious as he dropped to his knees. Silk breeches shredded beneath his claws.

She laughed wildly. “Bane!”

Her cunt already dripped with her honey. Her moan was deep and low, then rising as he slicked his tongue through her folds and into her tight sheath. Her clit pulsed and throbbed under his mouth. He sucked and licked, growling with satisfaction as her cries of pleasure joined the scraping of her fingernails against the stone, as she clawed and came, rubbing that delicious slick heat all over his face.

He rose over her, where she lay with her cheek pressed against the stone. Her lush mouth curved as he fitted the head of his cock to her quivering entrance, her back arching and her ass lifting.

Wanting more.

Filling himself with her scent—hot cunt, sweet lavender, fresh sweat—he bent over and nuzzled her ear. “Make you love me.”

“Fool,” she whispered. “It’s impossible to make me.”

Roaring against the agony, he shoved deep and began to fuck and fuck and fuck. Only here was there no pain. In the sound of her cries for more, in the greedy roll of her hips. Her snug cunt gripped his shaft, squeezing away the terror of almost losing her, he couldn’t lose her, she was his and he needed her.

He needed her.

Fire raged down his cock, emptying the burning in his veins…easing the agony. Beneath him, Echo shook and gasped, her cunt clamping down on his pulsating shaft. He shuddered violently as her inner walls wrung from him the last drops of seed.

Heart still thundering, Bane braced himself over her, chest heaving. His sweat dripped onto her back. His softening erection slipped out of her sheath.

Her soft moan ripped the red haze from his brain.

The agony that ripped through his chest wasn’t the venom. It was his heart, tearing apart.

It’s impossible to make me.

His scream was barely caged by gritted teeth.

What had he done? What had he done?

He’d demanded her love. He’d tried to force her heart.

And lost her, after all.

Impossible to love him.

“Bane?”

Her concerned voice was agony. Her caring touch was agony.

He jerked away from the gentle fingers on his face. “Go!”

Her expression froze.

His eyes closed to shut out that look in her eyes.

Pain.

He’d hurt her. With his need, he’d hurt her.