Everlasting

Chapter 32 (Final)

Griffin

My heart pounded so hard, it sounded loud to my ears. My fingers trembled. I thought it was just relief at first. Relief that Wulfric loved me.

I choose you.

Did he have any idea just how much those words meant to me? There was no doubting his sincerity. Wulfric had been painfully honest with me from the start. I always knew where I ranked in his priorities... or, I thought I did until today. When had it changed? How had I not seen it happening?

I choose you.

The words bounced around my head, pulling my thoughts back to them again and again. My stomach started cramping, and the trembling in my fingers intensified and spread through the rest of my body. Not again!

I choose you.

I clung to the words now as my stomach heaved and I tried to quell the nausea.

I didn't realize I had curled in on myself until I felt Wulfric pull me against him. "What is it? What's happening?" he asked urgently. I felt him digging in my pocket and grabbed his hand with preternatural strength to stop him from using my phone to call my parents as he had done the last time I'd felt so sick.

"It's okay," I managed to say even as my throat pooled with saliva. I needed to get out of here. I refused to throw up in my car.

"No, it isn't! Something is clearly wrong," Wulfric argued.

I knew my brow was getting sweaty and that he could feel the trembling running through my body. "It's the bond," I admitted. A particularly bad stomach cramp hit and I whimpered. "After intimacy, incomplete bonds make us sick."

No need to get into all the details of how I'd kept the sickness at bay this long. I wasn't holding back from completing the bond for the sake of my mate anymore, so I had no way to stave off the symptoms.

But we weren't exactly in a good position to seal our bond here. And I didn't want to do it like this, feeling forced by my instincts.

The cramping intensified enough to drive that thought from my mind. I tried to breathe through the pain, but my breathing came out in labored gasps. Wulf started shifting, and the motion sent my head spinning. I groaned in protest, but he was relentless. I couldn't overpower him in this condition, and moments later, I didn't want to.

Wulfric had maneuvered us so that my lips were against the base of his neck, right where I always paid careful attention during sex. Right where my mark belonged.

There was no thought involved. Almost the instant my lips brushed the soft skin of his neck, my teeth were embedded in it. Wulf cried out and seized up under me. I couldn't let go, though. I had to fight through the strong instinct to clamp down harder, to push my teeth in deeper. It took all my willpower to hold myself still as my world shifted.

The bond didn't require sex to fully set. We traditionally used intimacy both as bonding ritual. The act caused a release of oxytocin, a bonding hormone, and serotonin, which promotes happiness. It could help offset any pain from the bite. And, you know, sex made it more fun. But it wasn't required.

All that was required was intent. And after everything I'd heard and all we'd been through together, how could I do anything other than bind him to me?

I choose you.

Well, I chose him, too.

The trembling in my body gradually slowed. The nausea receded, and I was left feeling warm and pliant. The bond between myself and Wulf was more tangible than before, and when I mentally prodded at it, Wulfric shuddered.