Chapter 13

Chapter 13

The Claim

The Beast Warrior

 

I was the beast, and the beast was me.

No more holding back.

No more waiting.

No more centuries of searching every face and finding nothing.

Our mate was here.

Trapped against the stone.

Wet.

Trembling.

Hot with heat.

And we were going to claim her.

Finally.

My body finished the shift with a crack of bone and a roll of muscle. My shoulders broadened. My spine lengthened. My face pushed forward into a snout, and fangs filled my mouth. Black claws curved from the tips of my fingers, long enough to open a throat.

I flexed them against her hip.

She gasped. “H-hold up.”

“No. No. Little witch. No hold up.”

“Yoichi.”

“Not Yoichi.”

“What the fuck?”

“All the fucks.”

My tails tightened around her. Two on her wrists. Two on her ankles. One cinched around her waist, holding her pinned to the onsen's edge. The others coiled along her thighs, her ribs, her breasts, keeping her open, keeping her still.

Nowhere to go.

Mine.

“B-beast warrior?”

“Yes.”

“Give Yoichi control.”

“After.”

Fear rose from her body, yet lust did too. She was scared to take my cock, but she wanted it anyway.

A dark growl left me.

She shivered some more. “I d-don’t think it will fit.”

“We will make it fit.”

The water churned around my thighs. Steam rose off my fur in thick white clouds.

Her brown skin was slick and shining under the moon. The curve of her back shimmered. Her round, perfect ass pressed toward me. The back of her neck, where her gland pulsed, was now swollen and ready to be claimed by my fangs.

Her scent hit me hard.

Sweet.

Wild.

Ripe.

Heat at its peak.

Yoichi tried to get control within my chest. I shoved him away. The female and kitsune forms tried too, but it was my turn.

A growl rolled up from deep in my chest, so deep the water rippled.

She trembled. “Beast. . .I’m scared.”

And I loved her fear, especially the way it rose off her skin. I drank it in. My cock throbbed. My claws twitched. Every instinct I'd been born with screamed the same thing.

Take her. Fuck her. Bite her. Make her scream. Make her bleed. She is ours to do with as we please.

And I wanted to.

God, I wanted to give her pain.

And pleasure.

And everything in between until she couldn't tell one from the other.

I lowered my snout to the curve of her shoulder and breathed her in.

"Beast?" she whispered.

"Yes, little witch." My voice poured into her mind, deeper than she'd ever heard it. Rough. Ancient. "We are all here."

"Holy shit."

I chuckled, and the sound came out as a rumble. I liked when my mate cursed. I liked when she moaned too. She would serve us well.

Then I opened my jaws and let my tongue slide free.

Long.

Hot.

Rough.

I dragged it up her spine, from the small of her back to the nape of her neck, slow enough that she felt every inch of it.

“Oh fuck!” she cried out. “I-I shouldn’t like this, but. . .”

Her back arched.

Her fingers clawed at the stone.

I licked her again. Over her shoulder blade. Along the side of her throat. Down to the swell of her breast, where one of my tails had her nipple wrapped tight.

“OH!” She moaned, shook, and pushed her ass back against me. She was still afraid, but she craved me too.

"I like how you shiver.”

"D-Do you?”

“Yes.”

“And. . .” Her voice cracked. "I only like pleasure."

Howling, I reached down with one clawed hand and gripped her hip. My claws dimpled her skin. A drop of blood bloomed on her brown skin, and I licked it away.

She whimpered. “Fuck.”

My cock rose between us, thick and heavy, the sigils along its dark length blazing gold beneath the water. Bigger than my male form. Bigger than any form she had taken.

Any other woman would've been torn apart.

But she was no other woman.

She was my mate.

And for hours, her heat had been preparing her. Shaping her. Her body had been changing from the inside out, her pussy softening and stretching and remaking itself, readying for every form I could take.

For the man.

For the woman.

For the kitsune.

For the beast.

And tonight, at the very peak of her heat, she was finally ready for all of me.

I could smell it on her. Taste it in the air. I pressed the glowing head of my cock against her entrance.

She sucked in a breath. “Oh, fuck. This is really about to happen.”

“Yes.” I wanted to slam into her. Ram her against the stone. Rip her open and fill her until she screamed my name to the mountains.

My whole body shook with it.

But I held.

No. She is ours. We protect what is ours.

I pushed in.

One inch.

She screamed.

Then moaned.

Then pushed back, taking another inch with a sob that sounded nothing like pain.

I grunted, so low, so guttural. The sound tore out of my chest.

So tight. So hot. So perfect.

I shoved another huge inch. Her pussy stretched around me. The sigils on my cock glowed brighter, lighting that space up between us.

She shook.

I stared down at the water, fascinated by the glowing sigils.

She cried out again. "Oh God. Oh God."

"Take it, little witch. Take all of us."

And she did.

Inch by inch.

Breath by breath.

Moan by moan.

Until my massive cock was buried in her to the hilt, and her whole body quaked around me.

I stayed there.

Panting.

Growling.

Shaking with restraint.

Then I started to move. Relaxed at first. Next, long, deep strokes that dragged every glowing inch of me out of her and slid it back in.

“I could hurt this pussy, but not tonight.”

“Y-yes. Not tonight.” She moaned in pleasure.

The water rocked with us. Sloshed over the edge. Splashed across the stone and the cedar deck.

Her moans got louder.

My grunts got rougher.

I couldn't hold the pace. She felt too good, and I had not felt this in centuries. I had long stopped coming out for lovers. Instead, I let the others have their fun, but for our mate. . .I would appear a lot more.

My hips snapped forward harder.

Faster.

Water exploded around us, waves crashing over the rim of the onsen, lanterns flickering as the spray hit them.

She screamed into the night. “OH MY GOD!!!”

I growled back.

My claws raked down her sides, not deep, just enough to leave pink lines on her brown skin. My tongue lashed across her shoulder. My tails squeezed her tighter, holding her exactly where I needed her as I pounded my huge cock into her again and again.

And again.

"Yes!" she sobbed. "Yes, yes, yes!"

"Mine."

"Yours!"

"Say it again."

"Yours! I'm yours!"

I roared.

And then the gland at the back of her neck began to change.

The small bump of flesh swelled.

Rose.

Pulsed.

And began to glow. Soft white at first, then brighter. It was a tiny, shining moon against her brown skin. It throbbed in time with her heartbeat. In time with mine.

Calling me.

My fangs ached.

I gave in completely.

Unable to hold myself back anymore, I lowered my snout to her neck, opened my jaws wide, and bit. My fangs sank into the glowing gland.

She screamed.

Power exploded between us.

Light burst from the bite. White and gold. It rushed down her spine, through her limbs, out her fingertips, and lit up the water around us like the moon had fallen into the onsen.

I tasted her blood.

Her magic.

Her soul.

And I felt it.

The bond snapping further into place.

Mine.

Her heartbeat was now inside my chest. Her breaths inside my lungs. Her joy, her fear, her want all flooding into me at once.

And mine flooding into her.

The man.

The kitsune.

The beast.

And Dauphine.

All of us, rising up at once to claim her.

She screamed, “AHHH!”

Surely, it was too much, but she would be used to all of us soon.

And on my arms, the black hands of the curse shuddered. Every one of them. Then, they went still.

And through the bond, I felt it. Deep in her blood, an old darkness stirred. Older than her. Older than her mother and her mother's mother. The curse her ancestor had laid down, coiled in her veins like a snake that had slept for generations.

It woke.

And it began to rise.

Black smoke seeped from her skin. From her shoulders. Her spine. The glowing mark on her neck. It curled up through the steam in thin, ugly threads, and the air turned bitter with the smell of burnt candle wax and old grave dirt.

She gasped. "W-what's happening?"

The black threads of the cursed heart left her chest and twisted above us, knotting together into a shape. A woman's face. Hard-eyed. Furious. Glaring down at us like she still had the right.

I bared my fangs at her.

"She is mine now. Go."

The face cracked. One line. Then another. Then a hundred, spiderwebbing across the smoke like ice on a frozen pond.

And then the whole thing shattered.

Fragments of black scattered into the night, smaller and smaller, until the steam swallowed them and the moon shone clean again.

Gone.

Gabby went still in my arms.

Then the bond flooded with her. Shock first. Then disbelief. Then a grief so deep it nearly brought me to my knees in the water. Grief for every woman in her line who had loved and lost.

Every aunt.

Every grandmother.

Every one of them who'd died alone.

And under all of it, rising like the tide. . .

Relief.

She didn't make a sound. Her shoulders barely moved. But I knew. I could feel her tears in my own chest before I ever smelled the salt.

"It's gone," she whispered. "Yoichi. . .beast. . .it's really gone. Like. . .the heart is there, but it’s just a tattoo now."

"Yes, little witch." I lowered my snout and turned her face toward me. Tears streamed down her brown cheeks, shining in the lantern light. I let my tongue slide free and licked them away. One cheek. Then the other.

She laughed through a sob. "That's so gross."

"You like it."

"I do." She pressed her cheek to my snout. "Thank you."

"You did that. Not me."

And she wept harder, and I kept licking every tear away until there were none left. Then, through the bond, her grief burned away.

What rose in its place was hotter.

Hungrier.

Free.

Her heat surged back stronger than before, and she rocked her hips against me.

"Mate," we all whispered inside her head. "Ours. Forever."

Her pussy clenched around me so hard I roared.

And my beastly knot swelled and thickened at the base of my cock, pushing against her entrance and locking us in.

She moaned.

Shook.

Yet pushed back.

And with one last thrust, my cock locked inside her.

She came screaming. Her whole body convulsed around me, clenching, milking, pulling me deeper, and I followed her over the edge with a howl that echoed off the mountains.

I filled her.

Rippling lust-coated wave after wave.

Pumping into her while the knot held us locked together, the sigils pulsing within her, the bite on her neck glowing, her body shaking in my tails.

It went on and on.

And on.

Until there was nothing left but heavy breathing and the slosh of water settling around us.

And the lanterns blinking off and on.

The bamboo spout poured.

The moon watched.

I lowered my snout and licked the bite on her neck.

Ours forever.

The wound sealed beneath my tongue, leaving a glowing mark that pulsed softly on her brown skin.

My mark.

She went limp in my tails.

I eased the tails loose, one by one, and gathered her against my chest, still knotted inside her, still holding her close.

She let out a long, shaky breath. "Holy. . .fuck."

I rumbled with satisfaction. "Are you hurt, little witch?"

“A little.”

“Good.”

"That’s not good.”

“No?”

“No. Crazy beast.” She laughed weakly. "But at least the sex was good. Weird too. But good. And well. . .I can barely feel my legs, and I doubt I will be able to walk for several days."

"Then I will carry you."

"For how long?"

"Forever."

“Aww.” She melted against me. “What a fucking night.”

“Mine.” I rested my snout on top of her head and breathed her in.

My mate. My witch. My forever.

The beast closed his eyes.

The kitsune purred.

Dauphine smiled.

The man—Yoichi—began to emerge.

And for the first time in centuries, every part of me was finally at peace.