— Elaeya —

I woke up slowly as a wonderful feeling was enveloping me, but my eyes popped open suddenly as a surge of energy went from my neck, right down my spine, and ended between my legs. My body arched instinctively pressing against his, and I moaned uncontrollably.

I blinked a few times, confused over what had just happened.

Kaden was giving me slow delicate kisses on my neck. It felt sensitive and I unconsciously put my fingers up there.

“Sorry, I woke you,” he said. He did not sound sorry at all.

“What have you done?” I asked perplexed.

“I might have bit you a little,” he admitted.

I turned sharply around.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I didn’t mark you.”

“Marked?” I asked.

“You know what marking means, right?”

I shook my head.

His eyes widened a little.

“Do you know about forging a mate bond?”

I shook my head again.

He looked taken aback.

“It is something I should know doesn’t it?” I said.

“Usually people know before they meet their mates,” he admitted.

I shifted my body so that I laid on my back, to better look at him.

“What is forging a mate’s bond and how does it work?”

He put his head on his hand, his elbow against the mattress.

“Forging the bond means solidifying it. Ehm, like making it stronger.”

I nodded.

“It’s done in three steps, marking, mating, and claiming. There is no specific order and they can be done all at once or over a span of time.”

He scratched at his shin.

“Not all breeds of werewolves go about it the same way, and even within a breed, there are a few variants over different cultures in the world. For example, not every wolf marks the same spots, but the most common ones are on the neck. It’s the sensitive spots here and here,” he said putting his finger on the corner of my neck on either side.

I touched. “It’s not sensitive.”

He smiled. “Not to your own touch. Humans don’t have anything particularly sensitive there. It comes from your wolf nature.

Natural wolves have this habit while mating to have the male bite the female’s neck to make her more docile. It’s not so much a human thing, but the wolf part of our nature does respond to a lot of natural wolf behaviours. So your neck can get really sensitive to being bitten.”

“All werewolves?” I asked.

“Females,” he corrected me.

“And a mark is made there?”

“A bite deep enough to penetrate the skin, then you cut your tongue on your canine and lick the wound to insert the blood in. It’s like a tattoo but with blood instead of ink.”

“Isn’t it painful?”

“When the fangs pierce through, yes, but when the blood gets in, it’s pretty much the opposite. Which is why a lot of people tend to do this during sex, or at the very least in private.”

“Just the females are marked?”

“No, and it depends. There are some packs who marks just she-wolves, it was more common a few centuries back though, and I heard of some packs in the north of Canada, Alaska, and Mongolia where it’s the female only who marks. But nowadays it’s pretty common to mark each other. Around here, the left is the usual spot,” he said touching the spot on my left side.

“But it’s only pleasurable to female?”

“The biting, without going too deep, usually works only on females, but marking is different. And once the mark is there, it becomes a lot more sensitive. But not as much for males,” he admitted. “On the other hand, forging a bond allows to feel, to some extent, what the other feels, so it kinda compensates.”

“So that is marking.”

He nodded.

“Then?”

“Mating. Which is pretty straight-forward really.”

“So intimacy between us would automatically change the nature of our bond?”

“Yes.”

“Is there something in particular that triggers it?”

“There are a few different schools of thought on the matter. Some say it has to include penetration, yet some lesbian couples can do it without it. So no one knows exactly if there is a single part of the act that does it, or if it’s a more global thing.”

I nodded.

“Claiming is fairly straight-forward too. The mates claim each other with a few words and that’s that.”

“Like an oath?”

“Pretty much.”

“Blood, sex, and oaths?”

He nodded.

“That sounds really like a magical ritual,” I said.

“Sex is used in magic?”

“There is a whole area of magic called sex magic.”

“And why was I not informed of this?” he half-joked thoughtfully.

I smiled. “A lot of things are highly magical. Emotions, and especially high concentration of emotions are magical. It is how crowds of people who share something can lead to magical phenomenons like the Miracle of Fátima. Intimacy is something that requires a great level of vulnerability, and it goes beyond that when emotions are involved. Whenever someone touches another, it leaves a mark, a kiss, a hug, and the stronger the emotions behind this the deeper the connection, so making love between two lovers goes so deep that there is an actual exchange. Pieces of one another’s soul rip and connect to the other’s. I wouldn’t be surprised that the level of intimacy and emotions affect the level of the forging of that bond, when it comes to mating. Any magic that involves souls is among the most potent. Combined with a blood exchange ritual and oaths. I believe this should make for a relatively strong and difficult to break attachment. Even without the bond to support it as a foundation.”

He nodded. “It’s possible to build a bond artificially, but it doesn’t hold the road without forging it. It’s not considered as strong as one made between natural mates.”

“Can the forged bond be broken?”

“It’s possible, but ridiculously hard to do, and it doesn’t always work. It’s easier to break it up before forging it.”

He moved his fingers up and down the line of my neck.

“You want to mark me?”

His eyes snapped to mine.

“I can’t say the thought hasn’t crossed my mind.”

I looked back in his eyes, looking for an answer that did not come.

“I’m not sure I am ready to forge the bond,” I finally said.

He nodded. “Marks are a bit like territorial markings. A way to say to others someone’s taken.”

“Like wedding rings?”

“I guess. A lot of people see claiming like a marriage.”

He kept moving his finger delicately on my skin, I had to make a conscious effort not to close my eyes and indulge in a frisson.

“There is a more temporary version of marking that people do when dating.”

“How?” I asked.

“I could show you,” he said looking into my eyes.

I was not sure there was much reasoning in that answer, but I nodded.

He put his arm around my waist and swung me back on my side, my back pressed to his front. He moved my hair away from my neck and planted a few kisses on my skin.

He alternated between lips and tongue, but when his teeth grazed my hide, my legs tighten subconsciously. He kept his rhythm, and every time his teeth tighten a little more, I pressed myself harder against him instinctively. But the last time he bit me he pressed his lips against my skin, sucking on it. I moaned.

One of his hands snaked on my lower belly, waiting for me to push him away, but I clawed at his arms, my breathing hectic, and his fingers crept between my legs. The fabric between our skin could have been inexistent as I felt every movement in technicolour. His other hands found my breast and I could feel his erection behind my back.

I moved in uncontrollable cadence that he followed.

His teeth tighten and I exploded.

It took me a few seconds to be able to see my surroundings again and Kaden had resumed to gently kissing my neck, the skin sensitive, my legs vices around his hand.

When I looked at him, my breathing barely under-control, he had a pleased smile plastered on his face. I touched the mark. The skin felt a little raw, but it had not been pierced.

I raised my head to go and check in a mirror, but he held me down.

He grabbed his phone and showed me the biggest and darkest hickey I had ever seen.

“A hickey?” I asked somewhat bemused.

“It’ll disappear in a few days, a week tops. We’ll have to do this again before then.” He wiggled his eyebrows. I couldn’t stop myself, I laughed.

“Does it mean I have to give you one now?”

He swung me in his arm, putting me atop him.

“Be my guest,” he told me, smiling.

“I have never done this.”

“I can guide you.”

Emboldened, I pressed my lips on his neck in a similar fashion he did mine. He did guide me. The effect it had on him was a little anticlimactic. He had warned me it did not affect men as it did women, but a part of me wanted to see him lose control just like I did. For which, I realized, moving my hips was far more efficient than anything I did to his neck.

His hands snapped to my hips and soon controlled my movements as he pleased himself.

It did not take long for him to find his release.

When I raised my head to look at my handy work, I was rather disappointed.

“I do not think it will last more than a day.” The mark had barely any colour to it.

He smiled at me, put his arm around me, and swung us around so my back was against the mattress, himself above me.

“We can do this more often,” he said. “Practice makes perfect.”

That had me grinning.

We kissed, deeply.

His phone alarm beeped and his right hand dug around looking for it while not breaking the kiss.

“Fuck!” he said springing up, looking at the time on his cellphone.

“Are you late for something?” I asked taken aback by the sudden change in mood.

“Video conference in the office,” he said.

He took one quick sniff at his shirt and declared, “Shower, I can’t go to the office smelling of lust.”

He ran to his room and took a quick shower and dressed before I even had the time to get inside a shower myself.

He came back into my room and gave me a peck.

“Later,” he said.

“What about breakfast?” I asked after him.

“No time, I’ll get a bigger lunch,” he said going down the stairs.

“That is not healthy,” I said after him, by my door.

“I’ll survive,” I heard from the floor below before he closed the front door.