This was anything but fun! Thronos could feel a knot of semen trapped right beneath the crown, and he couldn’t release it.

 

His body knew exactly who he was claiming, knew it was to spill seed for her womb. The pressure of it made his erection throb like a hammered thumb—worse than it ever had before because he had semen welling for her.

 

Her hot channel clutched him so tightly, seeming to demand it. He wanted to savor his first time, to savor her, but he could hardly think past that damned violent throbbing.

 

He gazed down to where their bodies joined. Mistake. Through the slit in the sheet, he could see her rosy flesh gloving his engorged length.

 

When he saw his mate was wetting the material with her arousal, his shaft jerked within her, as if panting for her. “About to lose my mind!” She’d told him that if he was ever inside her, there would be no doubt; he would be broken down at a molecular level, altered irretrievably.

 

She’d gravely understated.

 

Their crackling electricity now scorched him, as if lightning bolts detonated between them. The feeling of connection overpowered him, awed him. Physically, his body was wracked—he labored to ease the pressure and claim his pleasure—but he also needed to give his fated mate his seed, to leave something of himself inside her.

 

He gazed down at her face; her eyes were luminous, speaking to him in a language he didn’t yet understand. “Release me, Melanthe!” His voice was strangled, the pain unbearable.

 

Even as it felt so damned good.

 

In answer, she leaned up to kiss his neck. With her ethereal, blue sorcery coiling all around them, she licked his pulse point, the same way she’d taken gold dust from him. It drove him just as crazy. When she started sucking on his neck, he wondered if she sought to unhinge him.

 

“I’ll release you,” she murmured against his skin, “once you release me.”

 

Comprehension hit his lust-addled brain. He had to bring her to orgasm before she’d let him come.

 

He ran his arms behind her back, scooping her up, arching her breasts to him. His mouth grazed one nipple, then the other. He took them with his tongue, then his lips, rocking between her legs as he sucked.

 

Against one plump breast, he yelled, “Release me!” Rocking, suckling, rocking her. Losing my mind.

 

“Thronos, I can’t hold back any longer . . .”

 

“Hold back?” This was all deliberate?

 

“I’m close!”

 

“Tell me what you need . . . to get you there.”

 

“Your kiss—take my lips!”

 

Their heads shot forward, teeth clicking before he slanted his mouth over hers. Their tongues tangled, flicking licks. They traded breaths, her moans and his groans. She was thrashing against him as wildly as he plunged into her.

 

Just as he reached a crisis point—when he couldn’t think past pressure, and wetness, and heat—she broke away to whisper at his ear, “When you feel me coming around you . . . give me your seed.” Sorcery swirled with her command.

 

Between gnashed teeth, he hissed, “Gods almighty.”

 

“And you might want to cover my mouth, because you’re about to make me scream.” She held his gaze. “Thronos, now!”

 

He used his palm to muffle her abandoned scream. Her back bowed beneath him, her little body surprising him with its strength.

 

His own body stilled, stunned when her sheath clenched him like a fist. To milk him of the seed he could finally provide? With that first contraction around him, his shaft gave an answering pulse, primed to ejaculate. His seal about to break.

 

His wings snapped wide as he began pounding between her legs with all his might.

 

Like an animal. Like a demon.

 

Then . . .

 

In a scalding rush, semen erupted. His hot essence for his mate alone.

 

Before his bellow shook the night, he sank his fangs into her neck, roaring against her skin.

 

   

 

Just before he’d latched onto her neck, Thronos’s starry eyes had turned black as night.

 

Then had come his fangs, claiming her flesh. When Lanthe had felt him marking her—as a demon would—sorcery exploded from her like a bomb blast.

 

Her orgasm ramped up all over again, until she was screaming into his palm, thrashing beneath him as he fucked like a piston. His cock forced its way even deeper inside her as he pumped his sizzling come into her.

 

As jet after jet of his seed filled her, his muscles tightened all around her, his claws digging into her skin, his wings shuddering.

 

Brutal, beautiful demon.

 

He thrust till he’d emptied himself dry, till she’d grown lax and dazed beneath him. . . .

 

He removed his hand from her mouth and collapsed atop her, releasing his bite with clear reluctance. As he licked his mark with his pointed tongue, he loosed a long groan of utter satisfaction.

 

Then he seemed to wake up. He rose on his arms above her. “Did I hurt you?”

 

“Hmm. Your bite might have hurt, but I was too busy coming to feel it.” She nipped at his chest. “You were tender for as long as you could be.”

 

He relaxed, lowering himself to his elbows. “More evidence that I’m a demon, then? Lanthe, nothing could’ve kept me from marking you as mine.” He brushed her hair from her forehead. “But no other Vrekener males do it.”

 

“That you know of. My skin will be healed by morning. Who’s to know what we’ve done?”

 

He still looked uncertain, so she said, “Maybe Pandemonia liberated the demon in you, but I don’t care. Whatever you are—it doesn’t matter to me. What just happened was mind-blowing and shattering and perfect. I wouldn’t change an instant of it.”

 

The corners of his lips curled with pride. Such a guy.

 

“I felt you coming.” He didn’t bother trying to keep the amazement out of his voice.

 

With a grin, she clenched her sheath around him; his eyes went wide.

 

“I felt you, too.” She supposed she should be worried about him spilling inside her, but she was still high from their sex. She was addicted to this male. Not just physically, but . . . emotionally.

 

His honesty had affected her, coaxing her to lower all her guards. Tonight she’d learned that, for her, trust was the strongest aphrodisiac.

 

His eyes gleamed with excitement. “I always thought my seed would, I don’t know, flow from me. I had no idea the pressure would be so intense. When it releases, it’s almost . . . violent—but in the best way.”

 

Already his shaft stirred for more. She grinned, realizing her Vrekener was only getting warmed up for the night. “So, was I worth the wait? I talked a big game.”

 

“You’d every right to, sorceress. Just as you said”—he dipped a kiss to her lips—“you broke me down at a molecular level.”