Page 26 of Scorched
The knot doesn't easefor a long time.
He's still inside me. Still hard, still hot, still locked. The fire magic through the ridges has dropped from a roar to a low steady pulse—not less intense, just sustained, a constant heat that presses into my inner walls without pause. I can't get comfortable. Every time I shift, the knot shifts with me. Every time I breathe, the ridges press. There's no rest position. There's no angle that's neutral. He's inside every part of me and I'm aware of it with every nerve.
He leans forward. His chest against my back. His mouth against my ear.
"I'm going to pick you up," he says.
"Don't you?—"
He picks me up.
One arm under my thighs, one around my waist. He lifts me off the floor like I weigh nothing. The knot is still inside me. Still locked. The motion of being lifted shifts the angle. Every ridge presses differently. I scream, my hands grabbing his forearms, my nails digging in. He adjusts his grip and settles me against his chest—my back against his front, my thighs spread open over his forearms, his cock still buried inside me, the knot holding us locked together.
He stands. The change in position drives me down onto him by gravity. Every ridge. The knot. The swollen head pressing deep. A sound tears out of me—long, broken, shaking out in pieces—and my head drops back against his shoulder.
He walks out of the forge.
The corridor is lit by fire-thread. Gold light pulsing in the walls, responding to the king in rut with his omega impaled on his cock. The stone floor is warm under his bare feet. The air is thick with the caldera's heat. He walks—steady, unhurried, his stride long and each step jolting the knot inside me—and I'm spread open in his arms with his cock locked inside me and every step is a small thrust and every small thrust presses fire magic through the ridges into my cunt and I'm coming.
Not an orgasm with a peak and an end. A rolling thing. A wave that starts with one step and doesn't finish before the next step starts another. I'm coming in his arms as he carries me through the corridor of the Ember Court with his knot inside me and I'm moaning and I can't stop moaning.
The fire-thread blazes gold and servants flatten against the walls and they can see—they can see my thighs spread open, the slick running down his wrists, the brand burning red at the base of my throat—they can see everything and he doesn't care and I'm past caring.
He passes two of his guard. They don't look. They press their backs to the wall and stare at the floor and the fire in thewall sconces flares as we pass and I'm making sounds I'll never be able to unhear and the king of the Ember Court carries me through his mountain like a prize.
"I hate you," I say again. It comes out as a moan. My hands grip his forearms. My hips roll in his grip, grinding down onto his cock with each step. "I hate—I?—"
"I know," he says. His voice is raw.
His chambers. The door opens. He carries me through. The room is dark—a bed, enormous, dark wood, sheets that smell like him, like iron and fire. He lowers me onto it. The knot is still inside me. He lays me on my side and curves around me from behind, his arm over my waist, his cock still locked in me, the knot reshaping against the new angle.
I lie on his bed in the dark. I'm being held by the male I was sent to kill. His brand is burning at my throat. His knot is inside me. His fire magic is pulsing through every ridge into my cunt in a slow, relentless rhythm that makes my hips twitch every few seconds, small hitching movements I can't stop.
I wait.
The knot begins to soften.
It takes a long time—I've lost track of how long. An hour. Two. The fire magic eases first, the pulses slowing, the heat dropping from blinding to bearable. Then the knot itself, the dense molten pressure inside me, begins to shrink. Gradually. Not all at once. He's still hot inside me the entire time. I don't go cold between his release and his withdrawal. The heat just changes—from consuming to holding.
He's breathing against the back of my neck. His arm is heavy over my waist. I don't know if he's awake.
The knot eases enough that I can move. Not much. An inch. The ridges still drag against my inner walls when I shift and thesensation is still sharp enough to make my breath catch. But I can move.
I move.
I slam my elbow into his ribs.
He grunts—a sound of genuine surprise, the first time I've surprised him since the forge—and his arm loosens for one second. I wrench forward. His cock slides out of me and the emptiness hits like a blow, sudden and total, the absence of him after hours of fullness so disorienting that my vision swims. Heat and slick pour from me onto the sheets, fire-bright, running down my thighs.
I roll off the bed. My legs don't hold me. I hit the stone floor on my hands and knees—the same position, the same pose, and the fury that rushes through me at the echo of it is enough to get me to my feet.
I'm naked. I'm covered in his cum and my slick and sweat. The brand at my throat pulses with his fire magic. I have no weapons. My legs are shaking so badly I can barely stand. My cunt is swollen, wrecked, throbbing with a combination of soreness and need that makes me want to scream.
I swing at him anyway.
He catches my wrist. Sitting up in bed, the sheets pooled at his waist, his cock still half-hard, the ridges still faintly glowing. He catches my wrist the way he always does—precise, unhurried, absolute. I swing with the other hand. He catches that one too.
"Let go."
