Stilling, I lift my head, noting the room smells like blood and fear, and it sends a shiver through me. I need more.
“Draya,” comes a warning.
I spin and watch the last man race towards me. My eyes catch on Dume’s chain and I grab it, jumping to meet the guard and wrap it around his neck. His weapon drops to the floor with an audible thud as he starts to choke, his hands grabbing at the metal, trying to pull it away. His eyes bulge, his veins prominent now and his face starts to turn red. His mouth opens in a silent scream and suddenly, I need to feed with such ferocity that a snarl escapes me before I seal my lips to his.
I let his now skeletal corpse drop to the floor, then I meet Dume’s eyes in the dark which are red and locked on mine. Raising my black nails to my mouth, I lick the blood trickling down my hands, staining them. “Tastes like fear,” I purr.
Nos and I experimented with blood. I learned that night I could feed from it. His was so powerful it bowed my spine, but this is lesser and tastes like a cheap imitation. I growl in frustration, needing more, needing power. My body aches, every cell screaming for it.
I set my eyes on the minotaur and he huffs out smoke as I prowl closer. “I’m hungry, bull,” I tell him, and this time he doesn’t back away. “I need to feed, that wasn’t enough. They weakened me, I need it.” I stop before him. “Dume,” I purr, “I need you.”
Before he can protest, though I don’t think he would from his sharp inhale, I strike.
I throw myself towards him with that same blurring speed, but my monster must be able to see me because he catches me. Wrapping my legs around his waist, I inch up his body until I can bind my arms around his neck and stare into those red eyes.
“Draya,” he rumbles, but I don’t think he means to warn me away.
“I need to feed, Dume. I need your blood, I need your power. I ache for it,” I whisper, as I lick his nose ring again.
Something in the minotaur snaps, I can feel it, how close to the surface his true animal side is. Compared with Nos and Griffin, who can almost act human, this monster seems to be struggling to even string sentences together. He’s primal, raw, and has my pussy wet.
He turns and slams me into the cell wall, his strength showing as he holds me there with one hand. “Mate,” he snarls, without a single sign of his human side. No, this isn’t Dume. This is the minotaur.
Mate?
Could it be?
My need clouds my mind again, pushing away rational thought, and I let out a whimper, my neck arching to try and reach him. “Need?” he growls.
I nod.
“Mate need?” he repeats, smashing me back into the wall, the force of it making me gasp even as I bow up into his touch, wanting more.
“Yesss, my bull, mate needs,” I purr, rubbing my body against his, the fur surprisingly soft, like a feather caressing my skin. It only heightens my desire and I cry out, arching for him again like a cat.
Smoke curls from his nose as his red eyes watch me, then he tilts his head, and with one big paw drags my head to his exposed neck. “Feed.”
“With pleasure.”
I lay a gentle kiss on his fur before I feel my teeth sharpen, very much like my nails. I dig them into his skin, but they aren’t sharp enough to pierce his fur. Grumbling, I gnaw his neck like a dog and he grunts, but not in pain. Snarling now, so close to what I need but so far away, I rip and tear, trying to get to it but it’s no use.
I cry out and he pulls me away, looking at my face. “Blood?” he rumbles.
“Or power,” I correct, licking my lips, tasting the guard’s blood still lingering there.
He tilts his head like I’ve seen animals do and his face shifts for a moment. I watch, entranced, as the lower half of his face turns human. The golden nose ring is still in place, and his eyes are still red, but he has a human nose and lips and cheeks. His horns curl from his head, but where there was once fur, there is now hair.
He looks like he’s caught partway between a shift. How is that possible? I don’t have time to question it, though, because his animal is done talking. He might look human now, but he very much is not.
He seals his lips to mine, obviously seeing what I did to the guards, and I groan. He tastes like fire and metal. I suck like I usually do to feed and his power curls into me like the smoke from his nose. It shoots straight to my heart, making it skip a beat before settling into my belly and smouldering. The more I pull, the stronger the fire grows, almost burning me alive. I want more.
It makes me sloppy, the kiss raw as I accidentally cut his tongue with my teeth. He roars and pushes closer as I lap at the seeping blood, and another shot of power shoots through me. It’s stronger, more unfiltered, and heads straight to my clit where a throbbing begins, matching the thump of his heart.
We are locked together, my mouth fused to his as I feed and I know, with a hundred percent certainty no matter how much I take, I could never drain him.
It’s a freeing thought, not having to worry about pulling away, pulling back before I kill someone. Whatever that other side of me is, the one that kept me alive and pulled me back from death, revels in it. Smashing closer and taking as much as I can, I feel it flow through me, filling me to the brim until, with a cry, I explode.
The orgasm rips through me, called by his power and blood, and I feel like I leave my body with the force of it. When I come back down, I’m panting, and my head is curled into his furry neck as I cuddle closer.
“Thank you,” I whisper, and he rumbles again.
“Anything for my mate.”
I grin, I can’t help it. I should have seen it before, worked it out, but I blame being held prisoner for the distraction. There is a thread, a pull, a call, whatever you want to call it, between us, like the ones I have with Nos and Griffin, each so different but very much the same.
I am his.
He is mine.
My eyes start to shut again, the power overload and orgasm making me tired. I’m still healing, recharging from the fight with the guards and everything that’s happened. I let out a yawn and my minotaur turns, putting his back to the wall and sliding down until he sits with his legs outstretched.
He almost purrs as I settle in his lap. I’m tiny in comparison to him. Like a little doll. He wraps his arms around me, his fur keeping me warm as I rest my head against his beating hearts—he has two?—and close my eyes, my lips still coated with his blood and the guards’ bodies still in our cell.
It’s the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had.
The only thing I see when we enter the fallen’s house is the picture of my little monster. Everything else is unchanged, but that picture draws me until I am stroking her face.
“I’m coming, Little Monster, then we will kill them all.”
The dragon barges in, pushing me out of the way, and I shake my head and step back, allowing him to see. He freezes at the image, staring at Dawn’s perfect face. For once I see something other than pride and disdain written across his features. I see hope and pain. No matter what we think of each other, we are all brought together by fate or love.
Destined to share our lives together, our paths entwined because of her. Our mate.
“We have to find a way to work together or we are all doomed. Not for us, but for her. She needs us, she doesn’t always realise it. She will never ask for help, she is too strong, too wild, but she needs us. To ground her, to keep the pain at bay. To help figure out who she is and what she is capable of. If we can’t do that you might as well walk away from her now.”