Catch, Curse, Release (Immortal Warriors #1) ✅ Completed

Chapter Sixteen: Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fire

***A/N: Attention Readers, this chapter contains sexually explicit content and situations. Please bypass this chapter if you are not at all comfortable with either. Thank you. ***

Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fire

Eric caught her before she’d even made it into the dining hall. Grabbing Lori, he turned her around so she was facing him. Pulling her in close, Eric’s nose nuzzled Lori's hair as he breathed her in, filling his very lungs with everything she was.

"Let me go!” she fought against his hold, but she might as well have tried to pick up the Brooklyn Bridge.

“Ah, Lori…do you not realize what you do to me, lass? Everythin’ inside me wants to take you now, here, everywhere…”She felt his lips move across her hair as he skimmed her tresses against his face, “Why do you fight me? You are mine.”

His words thrilled something deep inside her, but she couldn’t face her own desires. It was too much. Finding her voice, Lori managed a fierce whisper, “Wrong. I belong to myself…no one else.”

Eric pulled her in tighter, forcing her to remain still as every inch of his body pressed up against hers and still it wasn’t close enough. He leaned his head down and when he spoke, his breath moved across the side of her face, teasing her lips and sending an erotic chill down the entire length of her body, “Nay, my lady. You are mine. My soul-mate. Canna you feel it? I knew it the moment you walked into my hall…you belong to me and no other.”  

Lori tried pulling away, but it was so futile as to be laughable. He was so much stronger than she was – so powerful that it terrified her as much as it excited everything inside her. At that moment she knew exactly the kind of threat someone like Eric McKenna posed to her. He didn’t have to ask for anything. Who could stop him should he decide to take what he wanted? He was ruler here and she was nobody; a much weaker nobody.

“I’m not your property. Unhand me!” she demanded.

“No,” the word was absolute, uncompromising. For the first time, Eric felt his immortal honor dessert him. He flexed his hips against Lori’s trapped body, his arousal large and thick as it grazed the sheer nightrail that covered her belly.

“Please. Don’t,” Lori pleaded. She never begged, her pride was too unyielding to allow it, but there was no alternative at this point. It would be up to Eric to let her go; she wasn’t so blind and stubborn to understand this stark truth. 

Eric felt his whole body tense to the point of pain at her pleas. The warring inside him was soul-wrenching – one half of his soul fought to possess the woman in his arms at all costs, but his other half fought against it, the need to protect her from any pain and bodily harm equally great.

He could feel the moral and spiritual contradiction tearing his warrior’s soul in half and tried desperately to regain some form of control. He pulled his body back just a hairsbreadth from hers. Even as it took all his considerable strength to do so, his fingers gripped her arms tighter, unable to relinquish their iron hold. Lori cried out in pain. He’d never intentionally hurt a woman in his life, but now he was on the verge of destroying the very fragile human female that was his mate.

Taking a ragged breath, Eric was able to pull himself a little further away as he spoke to her, “You must feel it,” he insisted harshly. As he spoke he was unable to stop himself from giving her a gentle shake, “We are destined to be one…a soul match created by the gods themselves.”