Chapter 37 37. Chapter
Elijah
Her words — “I’m yours” — didn’t just echo in my ears. They detonated in my blood.
This surrender, this unconditional capitulation from the Hunter who had defied me with every breath until now, was the purest aphrodisiac imaginable. Her body lay beneath mine, her red hair spread across the white pillow like a crown of fire, her green eyes veiled with desire yet still open, tracking every movement I made.
I didn’t rush.
Now that I knew she wouldn’t flee, I moved into a new level of torment. My hand, which had until now merely teased her entrance, grew more deliberate. The heat and wetness that greeted me were intoxicating, her body begging with every involuntary tremor for more.
I began to play with her fingers.
At first I only traced slow circles over her most sensitive spot, savoring the way her hips jerked on their own, the way her thighs opened wider to make room for me. Aurora’s head fell back, her throat exposed — that beautiful pale curve where her pulse throbbed wildly. The moans that had been muffled before now grew sharper, louder, unrestrained.
“Elijah…”
She spoke my name as if she were praying. Or cursing.
“Not yet,” I growled, sliding one finger slowly downward toward her entrance. “You don’t get everything yet. First, I prepare you.”
The intoxication of dominance was overwhelming. Feeling the powerful, battle-hardened body beneath me tremble under my touch, her muscles tightening and releasing in helpless waves. Slowly — agonizingly slowly — I pressed a finger inside her.
She was tight.
Unnaturally, impossibly tight.
Her heat closed around me, gripping as if it never wanted to let go.
Aurora gasped sharply, her nails digging into my shoulder.
“Relax,” I whispered into her ear as I kissed her neck. “Let me in.”
I began to move carefully, stretching her, preparing her body for what was coming. Blind with desire, I stopped thinking and focused only on her physical reactions. I slid a second finger in beside the first, increasing the pressure, intensifying the mix of pleasure and strain.
And then I felt it.
As I tried to go deeper, my fingertips met resistance.
A thin, unmistakable barrier, taut beneath the pressure.
I froze.
My movement halted mid-breath. My vampire senses — dulled moments ago by blood-scent and lust — snapped into brutal clarity, locked onto that single physical truth.
Untouched.
The realization hit me like ice water thrown onto a raging fire.
I lifted my head abruptly and looked at Aurora. Her expression twisted for a moment, perhaps from the discomfort, perhaps from my sudden stillness.
I withdrew my hand slowly, disbelieving.
Aurora blinked. The haze of desire began to lift from her eyes as she sensed the shift in me.
“What… what’s wrong?” she asked hoarsely, uncertainty — even shame — creeping into her voice.
I stared at her.
At her naked body.
At the muscles honed by combat.
At the scars etched into her skin.
At the defiant woman who now looked confused beneath me.
“You…” My voice was low, the shock unmistakable. “You’re a virgin.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a fact my fingers had confirmed.
Aurora turned her head away. Her red hair spilled forward, hiding her face, but I saw the flush deepen along her neck and chest — not just from desire, but from embarrassment. Her body tensed, her legs instinctively trying to close, though I still held my place between them.
“That’s… impossible,” I continued, disbelief still vibrating through me. “You’re a Hunter. In your twenties. You live in a world where death is daily, where pleasure is taken while it can be. How is it possible that no one — that no one has ever touched you?”
Her blood being pure was one thing.
But her body being untouched — from a woman who wore leather straps and blades, who fought men as an equal — contradicted everything I knew about Hunters.
For a moment, she said nothing.
The silence pressed heavy in the room.
Then slowly, she turned her head back toward me. There was no defiance in her green eyes now. Only deep, aching honesty.
“Because no one wanted to,” she said quietly.
The simplicity of the words struck like a blow.
My brow furrowed. “That’s absurd. Look at you. Your body… the fire in you… any man would have wanted you.”
“Not in the Clan,” she shook her head, a bitter smile touching her lips. “In the Clan, power is attraction. Elemental magic. Pure bloodlines that can summon fire or ice. I was… defective. An elementless weak link. An outcast.”
Her voice hardened as she continued.
“The men in the Clan collect trophies, Elijah. Powerful witches. Talented warriors. Women who can give them strong offspring. A woman without power, who compensates with physical training alone… they avoid her. As if weakness were contagious. They looked at me like a servant. Or a burden. No one wanted to taint their bloodline with me.”
Her confession cut into me like a blade.
I thought I understood humiliation, betrayal by the High Council — but this was different. A lifetime of quiet exclusion. Being deemed worthless by her own kind, while to mine she was the most intoxicating substance imaginable.
The irony was cruel.
My shock slowly shifted into something darker.
More possessive.
The Clan’s blindness became my gain.
They discarded her because they couldn’t see her value.
But I was here.
And I knew her blood was purer than any of theirs.
And her body…
Her body would be mine.
Only mine.
I took her chin in my hand and forced her to look at me.
“They were blind,” I growled, vampire possession mixing with something new — respect. “They thought you were worthless. They were wrong. You’re the rarest treasure, Aurora.”
My thumb brushed her lower lip.
“An outcast Hunter…” I whispered, my gaze dropping to where her untouched innocence still waited. “That means every touch you feel now is the first. That the pain and pleasure I give you will be the only ones you know. That I get to write on this clean page.”
Aurora trembled under the weight of my words. The shame her Clan had carved into her began to fade beneath my intense, hungry attention.
“Then do it,” she whispered, her voice steadier now. “Erase the outcast. Do what they never dared.”
It was both challenge and plea.
There were no barriers left.
Her virginity was no longer an obstacle, but a gate — one that only I could break.
And I knew that once I did, our bond would become final. Irrevocable.
I leaned down, my mouth brushing her ear.
“It will hurt,” I promised — not as mercy, but as truth. “But after that… you will never belong to anyone else. Only to me.”
My hips shifted, and the tip of my hardness brushed her entrance, poised to take what the world had denied her — and what I now claimed as my own.