Swamp Kings 2 (Bayou Bishops #20)

CHAPTER SIX

“Breathe,” Beth whispered as she watched for Bishop from the little shack window next to the bird house. She’d done as much prepping as she could. Lit the two lanterns, tidied the minimal rustic décor, checked the bedding was free of swamp terrors. Even started a tiny fire in the little cute pot belly stove.

Her body shook as she glued her eyes to the exact spot in the path where she’d first see him. It was literally cold outside which made it feel like a romantic getaway. She couldn’t keep from seeing it as a special honeymoon.

“Oh God, breathe,” she gasped as their conversation replayed in her head. He sounded different. His voice was… seemed deeper. She only wanted him to be okay. Nothing else mattered. If he acted different or looked different—she could get over that. None of the Kings seemed outwardly different that she could recall. Not even Ni tro, other than the sexual predator looks he gave Felix.

She surely wouldn’t mind that from Bishop or anything else sexual. Her appetite for it was off the charts with her pregnancy.

I can hear how wet your pussy is in your words.

What in the heck kind of gift was that? That’s what made her breathless and shaking. That change. It was making him bond, like it had a mind and power of its own. Would he want to talk before they… bonded? What would bonding look like? Would it be different? She’d never worried about him hurting her, but it was hard to forget what Nitro had done to poor Felix. Yes, he also healed her but dear God… Bishop would go nuts if he hurt her.

“Oh God!” she shot out, seeing him. Her phone rang and she jerked it up, seeing it was him. She answered, getting back to watching him.

“Where are you?” he demanded.

“I’m here. At the little shack next to the birdhouse. Where is your shirt?”

“My body is still adjusting to what the fuck the bite did.” He suddenly looked right at the window where she watched, the hard look on his beautiful face freezing her. “I see you. I need to talk to you before I touch you, you need to know what’s going on with me.”

“Okay,” she forced out between breaths, staring at his body with a mix of primal lust and wonder and craving. “God,” she gasped.

“What’s wrong?”

She strained to see him till he disappeared on the final walk that led to the shack. “Nothing, I… your body is different.”

“Everything is different.”

His anger and fear stabbed sharply at every nerve.

“I’m here,” he announced, hanging up.

She did too, standing and staring at the door, frozen. Terrified, but not of him. Of everything happening. What it meant, what it would do, what it already did.

Her breath got stuck in her chest when the door opened and he entered, his dark stare hotter and harder than she’d ever seen it. His eyes slowly lowered over her as he locked the door, his lips parting, bringing her cry of shock. “Your… teeth!”

“Don’t come near me,” he ordered when she took her first panicked step toward him. “Just wait,” he said, his body heaving, like the idea alone was impossible .

“You’re sweating.” Her mouth went completely dry as he opened his jeans and shoved them down, getting naked.

“I’m burning up,” he growled. “I need to fuck you, or I’ll die, you’ll die, that’s what it’s fucking telling me.”

She felt her head barely nod as she tore her gaze from his cock and forced it to his face, encountering the bigger shock. Oh God. He had… fangs . Were they growing before her eyes?

“The bite didn’t just enhance my body—it rewired my brain, opened new neural pathways, connecting everything—light, sound, movement, emotions—I don’t just hear or see things—I feel their structure,” he gushed, the words shaking with the need pulsing in the air between them. “Words now carry energy, my body is faster, stronger, and self-repairing, but it’s also keyed into you, this…venom needs to bond to you. Your heartbeat, your presence, especially your blood, that’s the anchor that stabilizes this power, that’s what it’s telling me,” he finished, appearing drunk on all of it. “This bonding isn’t just survival—it’s aligning my strength with you, so it knows exactly what to protect and how. And if I don’t bond with you, it won’t be able to lock onto you and the baby, leaving you vulnerable and me out of my fucking mind.” His eyes moved over her. “It keeps saying it won’t hurt you, but the hunger in this power tells me that’s a fucking lie.” He gasped, his eyes rising to hers as he made his way closer. “What if it is lying?” He stopped just before her, his molten eyes devouring her face so very slowly. “I also know without a doubt, that I would kill anything that tried to stop me from having you right now.”

****

Bishop finally located the source of his terror. It wasn’t about losing control, it was how much control he had. His instincts and muscle memory was packed with an ancient accuracy. The problem was the mad animal stretching its massive limbs inside him. It was tethered with the only knowledge it cared about—what she could take, what she couldn’t, exactly when to bite, where to bite, how long to bite, all for one purpose; to ensure he was able to slake every drop of this lust driving him insane. This bonding was everything. Its sole reason for being in existence. All else was secondary. The result, the product, the offspring. It was raw power. Embedding itself into her blood and bones and mind, just like him. The question of what it would do to her and their child was flicked away as utterly irrelevant.

“It’s time,” he whispered, his hand shaking along her face, his new gifts filling his fingers with a three-dimensional breakdown of that silk. His eyes locked on hers, hungry to learn so much more. The hunger in the gray depths brought a shudder to his ragged breaths. “So fucking beautiful,” he whispered, his mouth covering hers with a gentleness that shocked him. His confusion cleared when he understood. He defined this power. His hunger, his desires, his will. Her hot gasp brought his tongue like a spear into her mouth, telling him it wasn’t just his hunger—but hers.

He held her face, exploring her mouth with his lips and tongue, groaning from the rapturous revelations.

Her hunger crushed the gentle pace, turning his hands and body into tools of servitude. They moved over her, feeling, pressing then possessing with a dominance that brought her cries of rapture. He lifted her leg and pressed her ass into him, the power of their lusts clashing together, fusing into a single code of language understood and spoken only with their bodies. Their minds watched in awe as they moved to this symphony. He watched as she removed her dress and lay herself on the bed, opening herself to him. He began at her feet, hovering as he made his way over her body, every suckle on her silk feeding the power in him. It jerked violently when she grabbed his head and forced his mouth right on her pussy.

“Oh God,” she cried, moving herself under his unleashed appetite. “Oh yes,” she confessed when he pinned her legs down with his iron hunger. “Oh Bishop,” she shot out, fingers pulling in his hair, the very reins of his control. “Oh my God, I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming!”

He stormed her sweet pussy, sealing the declaration with ragged groans and perfect suction, her rising cries the manual to her body’s every secret. He consumed them with every part of himself, feeling it bond to his being. Oh fuck, this was part of the bond. He was becoming one while understanding exactly how that was possible. He wanted to fucking weep at the revelation, the power, the awe. And the realization that it was his. She was his. He was hers. And nothing—nobody—could change it or take his divine gift from them.

She hadn’t shuddered her last before again commanding him, pulling his wet mouth right to hers for a lusty kiss, as if he’d only teased her. He groaned as he grabbed her jaw, her little act fuel for that power in him. He forced her mouth open wide with his, grunting with her tight grip on his cock and the sudden heat of her pussy against the head.

“Fuck me.” The hot order burned his mouth, her nails piercing the skin at his hips. She jerked him to the bottom of her, blasting his name while panting and bucking her sweet hips. Again, she yanked his mouth to hers and kissed him, her thick moans gas on the building fire. “I need it so hard, baby.”

It was the password for this power in him, turning it fully on. He grabbed her arms and moved them above her head, lifting enough to stare at her. He needed to watch her face with all his new gifts while giving her what was in him, now coming faster.

She screamed with his first thrust, the sound pulsing through his canines as she bowed against him, the full column of her neck bared and begging.

The desperate squirm of her body spoke directly to the animal he’d felt earlier. It answered back, giving her two hard thrusts, then grinding his body into hers. “Look at me while I own every part of you.”

“Bishop,” she cried, her drunk gaze burning him as he fucked her with long, precise strokes. “I want it.”

Her desperate beg came with her gaze on his mouth, bringing a vicious throb to his canines. “You want that?” he shuddered, his cock getting enraged with lust.

“I need it,” she moaned, the craving in her words burning through his blood. “Please... do it.”

The power became hot lava as it shoved into his bones and blood like a perfect glove. Calculations moved through his body, turning him into a tool of precision for this execution. Their execution.

He’d sensed earlier after his bite that it was just the beginning of the change. This was part two. With every thrust, it peeled back another layer of both of them. His ears burned with her screams of ecstasy as he watched her beneath him, searching for the sign, the marker, even while he had no idea what it was.

A deep pulse radiated through Bishop’s bones, as if the power inside him had been waiting for this moment all along. Each shove to her depth wasn’t just pleasure—it was process and purpose, an unraveling of her mortal limits. Her heartbeat became a drum in his mind, louder and more erratic with every stroke, a timer counting down to the threshold .

The realization slammed into him—he wasn’t bonding, he was breaking her.

He growled through the spike of terror, his canines throbbing painfully as the urge to bite rose. His pace quickened, her cries half agony, half ecstasy sending shockwaves of energy through him, feeding the monstrous hunger. He brought both of them to a razor-thin line, and when her pulse staggered, Bishop buried his fangs in her neck with a surgical precision, shooting his venom into her bloodstream.

Beth gasped, her body convulsing with the flood of energy that bonded them. It wrote his essence into her cells, fortifying her with the same strength and instincts that now defined him. He kept his fangs buried, feeling the push of power, each pulse of her heart rippling through his chest. Her convulsions shifted from frantic tremors into something deeper, absorbing his power as it knit its way into every fiber of her being.

Her breath hitched sharply, bringing a thunderous panic that he’d killed her. He pressed himself harder against her body, focusing on the steady pulse beneath his fangs. She wasn’t dying. She wasn't fucking dying.

The mad hunger inside him slowly ebbed from his muscles, forcing him to collapse next to her, his own heart beating with something new and powerful. He felt… fucking indestructible.

He exhaled a groan then fear lifted his head, his pulse a ricochet in his head at what he might find. Her half-lidded gaze locked right onto his, clear and steady for many seconds. “Let me go,” she whispered.

His guts twisted with dread as he immediately released her arms. She grabbed his face tightly and pulled his mouth to hers. The hunger in her kiss stole the breath from his chest. She wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t hurt. She was so fucking alive.

He pulled up, needing to see what he felt in her kiss. This strange awakening filled her gaze to the brim as she stared back, as if seeing him for the first time.

Her hand traced the contours of his face, her touch humming in his skin, as though their mixed essence was acknowledging him, greeting him.

His entire body pulsed in response, muscles tightening beneath her gentle curiosity.

“You feel it?” she whispered, her voice thick with wonder.

Bishop nodded, his jaw tight as the enormity of what they'd done settled over him. She wasn’t just his wife anymore—she was the perfect fusion of strength and vulnerability. And the child nestled safely between them was the very heartbeat of their bond.

Beth’s eyes slowly filled with tears, her gaze never leaving his as she glided her hand along his neck and shoulder. “I can feel you in me,” she murmured. Her hand drifted lower, and Bishop shuddered as the bond crackled between them, raw and electric.

The animal inside him stretched with satisfaction. The hunger had found its purpose. Now tethered and unshakable. By her.

“You won’t lose me,” she whispered, her voice calm and certain, reading the shadows in his mind. “We’re stronger together.”

He groaned, pulling her against his body and pressing their chests together so their heartbeats collided.

This was their new beginning. He wanted to believe that no one could touch them. Ever. He wanted to say the words out loud, but his mind refused, blocking the path from brain to tongue.

He wanted to understand why while never wanting to fucking know. But he had to know. He had to prepare. He had to prevent. He had to protect.

Another hunger stirred inside him. Lethal. Cruel. Ready to punish without mercy any who’d dare try to touch them in any way.

Bishop extracted himself from Beth’s body, hearing the approaching boat.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered.

“Somebody’s coming.” He found his clothes and threw her dress toward her, sensing trouble of some kind. “Dress.”

His phone rang and he looked. Fetch. “Bishop here,” he answered.

“We need you. The demons are attempting to break Celeste’s mind and hi-jack her backlash power. We cannot let that happen.”

“You’re here?”

“I am.”

“I’ll meet you at the dock in two minutes.”

Bishop hung up and hurried to Beth, grabbing the back of her head and pulling her mouth to his. “I have to go. The demons are trying to take over Celeste.”

“Oh God,” she whispered, kissing him back.

“You’ll stay here with your sister. I’ll call you the second I can and let you know what’s going on. If you have any symptoms that worry you, call Lesion immediately, then me.”

“Okay,” she nodded, following him out the door .

He paused on the pier and kissed her one more time, groaning. “I love you so fucking much. I hate leaving when I want to repeat what we just did fifty more times.”

“It’ll be okay,” she whispered. “I’ll text you, go,” she urged, kissing him one more time.

He hurried down the pier, his mind instantly turning to the problem he was headed to and whether or not he’d even be able to help. His head was a mess and all his new gifts had him dizzy. Part of him said he needed to sleep for a solid twelve hours to recover while another part of him whispered other things. Things that said otherwise if he just kept digging and seeking. He realized it was his usual way of confronting problems. His motto had always been the connection between the will and the way. Where one was, the other could be found. He fed his will into the dynamic and waited for the way to present itself. Hopefully his gift would triple the turnaround time on that.