Fractured (Deep In Your Veins 5)

I pulled back and thrust hard, shoving my cock as deep inside her as it could go; groaning as her body pulsed and contracted around me. Her mouth fell open, but she didn’t make a sound. “Good girl.” I hammered in and out of her, brutal. Relentless. Giving no reprieve. Taking everything. “Made for me.” She was. No one would ever make me think differently. I craved her, needed her; I knew I always would.

Tilting her hips a little, I thrust harder. She inhaled sharply. I shook my head. “Not a sound.” Eyes blazing with frustration, she tightened her muscles around me. If that was supposed to be some kind of punishment, it didn’t work. “Do that again.” She did.

Growling against her mouth, I gave her lower lip a sharp nip, sipping at the few drops of blood that seeped to the surface. “Did you know that I get hard every time I look at that knot on your finger? It says you’re mine, you belong to me. You always did, Imani. Always did.” I gripped her hip with one hand, slamming her down on my cock each time I thrust upwards. “Let me hear you.”

A loud moan tore out of her throat. “I’m gonna come.”

“I know. I can feel you getting tighter and hotter.” Her dazed eyes flicked to my throat. “You thirsty, baby? Give me what I want, and then you can feed from me.” I slid a hand between us and found her clit with my thumb. “Say it. Baby, say it.”

“I love you,” she breathed.

“Good girl. Take what you need.” Groaning as her teeth sank down hard, I thrust deeper and faster. Her body clamped around my cock, contracting and milking me and taking me over the edge. I exploded with a growled, “Love you, baby.”

Shaking and panting against my mouth, she smiled. “I like feeling you come through our bond.”

“Same here.” I kissed her hard, deep, taking her taste inside me. Since Binding a month ago, I’d become more possessive and protective than before—something neither of us would have thought possible. Surprisingly, it didn’t wear on her and she didn’t give me shit over it. In fact, she mostly just smiled about it. She got me, and she let me be. Until I pushed too hard, of course, which was really only fair. “What does the bond feel like? I’ve felt you run your psychic fingers over it.”

“It hums with some kind of energy. Feels light and crisp, but also very strong.” Her hands lightly pressed to my face. “Let me just say that you never have to worry I’ll ever pluck on it like a banjo string. I’d never use our bond to hurt you.”

“I know. Just like I know you’d never sever it.”

(Imani)

I smiled. Deep down, I’d worried that he wasn’t fully secure in our mating for the reason that I was able to cut the bond. After all, his past had left him believing that people didn’t stick around for long. I was concerned that worries would always lurk deep inside him, even when it made no sense. “Never,” I confirmed.

Our Binding ceremony had been a huge celebration during which his squad played pranks and my squad got so shit-faced there was another catfight. Sam joined the fight this time, to Jared’s utter dismay.

Dean, aka The Prick, had left The Hollow a few weeks before the ceremony, which Butch had decided to view as a Binding gift from Dean to us. It would have been nice if Butch’s exes had left with him, but my luck didn’t stretch that far. To be fair, though, Jen’s warning appeared to have made a difference, because it had been a while since his ex-one-nightstands had tried flirting with him.

In addition to the Binding, a lot had happened since the battle. Firstly, each and every member of The Order had been totally destroyed, including Marvin who Sam and Jared executed via V-Tube as an example to our kind that leaking information was an extremely bad idea. Considering his death hadn’t been quick or easy, I was assuming the message was clearly received.

Lazarus, too, had suffered an agonising death. He hadn’t even gotten halfway through the transition before he’d started to weaken and age dramatically while going pretty much out of his mind. Not that I’d seen any of this for myself. But Butch had visited him several times and found a dark joy in watching him suffer the way I had suffered. In fact, my squad—including Keeley, who had recently joined—had also paid the bastard the occasional visit.

Annalise, who claimed she had no idea that her brother led The Order, was devastated by his death and also by the discovery that he was responsible for what happened to me. She had taken over from Lazarus as the leader of the nest and destroyed his lab. She’d also gotten the codes for The Order’s compound so that we could get inside the place without setting off any bombs. The place had long since been reduced to a pile of rubble.

It had been weird to hear that Marco had died in his efforts to save me from Lazarus. Butch, being seriously possessive, had worried that I’d be sad about my Sire’s death. On the contrary, I’d found some kind of closure in it, though I was confused by his self-sacrifice. I had to wonder if he’d gotten tired of this life and saw that as a way to go out with a bang—a way that might also redeem him for taking my human life.

Butch agreed but, in his opinion, nothing would make up for that, just as nothing would excuse what Lazarus had done. There had been a lot of casualties from the battle, and a ceremony had been held to commemorate the members of the legion who had all died doing what they loved. If it wasn’t for Paige, there would have been many more deaths.

Sam had wondered if dragon shifters might, given their general dislike of vampires, use the deaths of all the mercenaries as an excuse to start a war between the species. Andres had assured us, however, that there would be no retaliation. So far, there hadn’t been.

In fact, things were once again pretty quiet. But no one was complaining about it this time, not wanting to tempt fate. Our training sessions were the only action we got. During those sessions, my strength and speed had improved to the extent that they were very close to what they had been prior to the transition. My fangs had seemingly gone for good though, along with the amber tint to my irises.

Slipping out of me, Butch set me on my feet and tapped my ass. “If you’re still going to the movie night thing, you better hurry.”

“Why do you always call them movie night things?”

“Because they’re not really movie nights.” He turned off the spray, stepped out of the stall and grabbed us both a towel. “They’re just an excuse for all you girls to get together and get smashed with Fletcher and Norm.”