He could feel her so well now that she was touching him. He could sense every emotion that flickered through her mind, and what he found there made him breathless.
Love, and so much there that he wanted to take her in his arms and hold her and tell her that yes, he loved her too, he would always love her. But more than that now, was the pulsing, insistent desire. She wanted him, she wanted to make him happy, wanted to be with him in every conceivable way. And again, now, he heard words floating through the ether and into his thoughts, like a whisper on the wind that he could barely make out.
You. You’re the one. My prince. You’re mine.
Thoughts turned into blank explosions of sensation as Julia took him into her mouth, her tongue pressing up at the underside of his shaft. She slid herself down, then up along his cock. He regretted not being able to see just then. He wanted to watch her take him inside of her mouth. He wanted to see her beautiful eyes, meet them with his. Then she swirled her tongue around the tip of his head and he leaned back into the pillow, groaning. Well, at least blindness enhanced his other sensations.
Her hands began to stroke his balls, softly at first, then cupping them. One hand gripped his shaft at the base. He bucked against the pressure, aching to have her take him again entirely, to feel her lips stroking the sensitive skin of his head. A shock of pain jolted through him from his rib, and he yelped softly. She pulled back and he moaned.
“Please,” he said.
“Hold still,” she said. “You’re going to mess up all of Jordan’s hard work.”
“That’s nothing,” Damien said. “He can always sew me back up again.”
“You are irredeemably naughty.”
Damien had a retort in his mind, but he somehow lost the words when Julia’s mouth returned to his c*ck with a light lick.
“Tell me what you want,” Julia said. “I don’t…I don’t quite know how to do this.”
“Could have fooled me,” Damien said. He sensed her anxiousness and reached down, caressing her hair. If she wanted him to guide her, he would do it gladly.
“Take me in your mouth,” he said. He guided her with his hand gently, arching his back slightly. Her tongue swirled over the tip of his head and when she sucked there, it sent thrills of delight through him.
“Harder,” he whispered. The pressure increased and he moaned.
“I wish you could feel what this does to me,” he said. “Oh, Julia—”
The twisting ache of his desire built and built until he was ready to burst. He felt her lust rising along with his, and the emotion echoed through his body, building with each reverberation until every nerve of his was vibrating with unreleased pressure.
“Wait,” he said. “I want to be inside of you.”
“Damien, I have a broken arm and you have a broken rib. Do you really think that’s a good idea?”
Damien grinned.
“You said you could be gentle.”
Julia laughed and threw her leg across him, easing her body down onto his. He held her waist with both hands, guiding himself toward her.
Her smell was delicious, her soft perfume mixing with the scent of her juices. He knew that she was wet with desire for him, and it made him glad to know that she wanted him as much as he wanted her. Groaning, he thrust himself upward into her hot slick center.
“Ohh!” she cried. He felt what she felt—the terrible hot longing, the sensation of being filled, of being completed. So that was what it was like for her.
She began to rock slowly, working his hard c*ck deeper and deeper into her core. The pressure inside of him rose and rose, and still he held back, biting his lip to keep himself from letting go. He wanted to be with her when she found her pleasure, wanted to experience the feeling along with her. He could sense it already, the clenching of her body around him, and it drove him wild.
Rocking with her, he thrust his h*ps slightly upward to meet her, and she moaned with each thrust. The pain in his rib did not matter, nothing else mattered but the seal between the two of them, this connection that made the rest of the world disappear. He slid one hand up her thigh and grabbed her hip tightly, guiding her in circles against his muscle, and tight unwindings of pleasure shot away from her, rolled over his body and met with his pleasure.
“Damien, I’m going to—I’m going to—”
“Yes,” Damien whispered, and thrust upwards again, hard, keeping the rhythm until he felt her pent-up tension explode outward, rolling over him in waves and waves of ecstasy.
“Ohhhh!” She tightened around him and cried out softly, her moan stifled with her hand.
With one more thrust he was there, and he groaned in pleasure as he shot his seed into her hot accepting core.
“Julia! Julia!”
The waves of her bliss continued to roll through his body, making him twitch with each shudder. The waves ebbed into ripples, and then into a calm peace, a desire quenched. Julia rolled off of him and lay her body down next to him on the bed. He turned his head and leaned to kiss her, her lips still hot with exertion.
“So, children?” he asked. She laughed in delight.
“We’ll see what happens,” she said, cuddling up with her injured arm resting softly on his chest.
He had more questions than answers about what would happen next, but he did not want to break the moment with words. There was plenty of time to figure out their future.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
*** Three months later...***
Julia walked through the forest at night with just a single candle to light her way. The trail of her white dress glided along the forest floor. The ceremony had been planned quickly, but Granny Dee had taken her aside at the start of it. She'd opened the trunk in her room and pulled out her dress from when she'd bonded with Charles.
"You don't need to wear the same one," Dee had said, uncharacteristically hesitant. "If you'd rather get another dress..."
"No!" Julia had cried. "I love it!"
She did. After a few alterations, the dress had fit her perfectly, and now as she stepped through the forest alone towards the gathering she looked down to admire it. Gossamer fabric clung to her curves and fluttered as she moved. The dress had faux sleeves that left her shoulders bare, and the silky white fabric bustled together at the small of her back and hung down to the trailing hem. It was a simple dress, but the beauty of it was in the simplicity, and as she walked in soft slippers across the trail towards the ceremony she thought that perhaps these were the dresses that angels wore. It was like wearing air.
The trail led through a dense forest, and although it was dark, Julia was careful not to let the skirt hem snag as she made her way through the brush. The trail opened up, and she knew that she was close. She could hear the low hum of chanting just ahead.
She paused just then, looking up at the sky. The stars shone brilliantly here, so far away from the city. She could make out Cassiopeia on the western horizon, the bright twinkles of light linked together indelibly by their closeness in the vast universe, at least from their perspective. A tingling sensation ran through her body. She was so small, just a tiny, insignificant part of the immense fabric of space, and her very insignificance gave her courage. She turned her attention back to the trail and smiled, taking a step forward toward the place where she would bond with Damien. Time was endless, but she would not make him wait.
As she neared the clearing, the chanting grew clearer. Low bass notes mingled with high melody, and she could make out the Lycarin words that Damien had taught her.
Elthier'a le tan riel ayale,
E kine amelia, te karian marale.
We come today to bond together,
A family grows, two hearts become one.
She stepped through the entryway and gasped at the sight. Each person held a candle above their white robes, the flames flickering softly and lighting their faces. The clearing opened out to a ridge line that dropped down into a steep canyon.
Julia and Damien had picked out the spot themselves, but Julia had only ever seen it in the daylight. At night, under the light of the full moon, the canyon seemed to stretch out forever in the distance. The soft blue light flooded the canyon, filling it with a calm, ethereal beauty. Stars twinkled overhead and the band of the galaxy stretched across the canyon like a rainbow of light in the sky. The warm flames of the candles lit the faces of all the guests there as they sang the last verse and the voices disappeared into silence.
Damien stood at the ridge line next to Granny Dee, the guests in two arcs around them both. He wore a suit, and Dee, like all of the other guests, was dressed in white robes. The effect was stunning. Dee had explained to her that for the bonding ceremony every person other than the two mates would be dressed alike, in white to represent the purity of the occasion and to show the tie between family members of the pack. Julia's heart swelled as she saw Jordan standing next to Kyle and Katherine, their faces bright with joy. This was the happiest moment of her life yet, and soon she would be bonded forever, joined to the pack as much as she was joined to Damien.
Julia walked through the center of the clearing towards the man who she would spend the rest of her days with. She knew that he could read her heart, and she sent all of her love towards him. He smiled.
Dee raised her hands, and the murmuring of the crowd ebbed into silence. Julia took her place in front of Dee, just across from Damien, and smiled nervously at her grandmother. Dee smiled back, lowered her hands, and spoke.
"We gather here in moonlight to mark the bonding of one heart to another," she said. "Let us hear first the story of bonding, as it has been told since the first day of the first year of the world.
"It is said every animal is born in the sky first. We travel here to earth to seek out our bodies, and live our days before returning to the sky. In the early world, before Time was broken into pieces, there was only one of each creature. We came to earth whole and lived our lives separately. But the gods saw that although there was peace, we were lonely creatures. They did not know how to solve this problem and Araken, god of living creatures, was sent to find a solution.
"But Araken was lazy, and did not love the creatures that had been given to his care. He came up with an idea to break apart the animals in the sky before they came to earth, to solve the problem by getting rid of the animal souls. He reared back to deliver the blow with his paw. But he did not realize his strength, and with that one blow he shattered all of the matter in the universe. Stars broke apart into chunks of rock and fire, and souls broke apart into hundreds of shards.
"Knowing what he had done, Araken hid from the Lord of the universe, Kar. Kar looked down and saw her creation smashed to pieces. She wept for the destruction that Araken had caused, and then she set to fixing it. At first she tried to gather the pieces of the stars and souls with her hands and weave them back together, but she soon realized that it would take her longer to mend than even creating the universe had taken. There must be another way.
"Gathering all of her energy, she sent out a pulse of thought that rippled through space from one end of the universe to the other and set all of the particles in the sky to vibrating. In them, the vibrations created a hunger."