Eldritch, p.33
Eldritch, page 33
Panic wound through me. It was too much.
You’re hurting him! Stop!
“Zevander, please,” I whispered.
He ground his teeth, circling his hips beneath me, and let out a pained sound in his throat. Water splashed with the fervent shaking of his muscles, his face contorted in anguish.
“Zevander, look at me.”
He kept his eyes closed, and I couldn’t stand to imagine who, or what, flickered through his thoughts right then.
“Open your eyes,” I demanded. “Open them and look at me.”
Keeping on with the torment, he screwed his eyes tighter, lost in his own silent agony, and released a guttural grunt. The trembles wracking his body vibrated through me, an echo of his pain moving through me like whispers from a grave.
“Look at me.”
“I can’t.”
“Please look at me.” Still, he refused to open his eyes, and with my hand still wrapped around him, I leaned closer and gripped the back of his head, pressing my forehead to his. “I’m here with you. Not the one who hurt you. Me.”
His body jerked and contracted. A sharp stream of white, warm fluid shot up from the water between us with such force, it breached the surface.
A deep rumble vibrated in his chest, a primal sound that shook my nerves, weighted equally by pleasure and misery. His body twitched and convulsed, each violent spasm sending a powerful swell of liquid shooting upward, his muscles rippling beneath my palm as I clutched his shoulder.
I finally released him, looking down to see the water had darkened even more than before, where it had filled with fresh blood. A sob clamored in my chest, begging to cut loose, but I held it back, shaking as I watched his blood absorb into the white cotton shift I wore. The evidence of what I’d done to him, clinging to me. A shaky breath escaped me, the urge to cry rising to my throat.
His brows came together in an expression of utter relief, until he tipped his head forward, opening his eyes on me.
I only imagined the look on my face must’ve been a cross between horror and confusion, the way he lowered his gaze and pushed my hand away. “Forgive me,” he said, coldly. As he pushed up to exit the bath, a bolt of rage tore through me.
“No.” I took hold of his arm and gave a hard yank, which did little to move him. “You will not…let me hurt you, and then proceed to push me away.”
Shame burned in his eyes, and he rubbed a hand down his face. “I should not have asked you to do that. Gods damn my soul, what have I done?”
My mind spun in chaos, as my head tried to reconcile what had just happened between us. It hadn’t been beautiful, or loving— nor gentle, or kind. A cruel darkness had slithered between us and eroded whatever I’d dared to imagine of intimacy between him and me. Not that I had imagined much, having come from a place where women were treated as nothing more than property. Or pets.
And yet, in spite of my discomfort, he’d done exactly as I’d asked.
He’d shown me exactly what lived inside of him. What coursed through his veins like poison. What tormented him so profoundly, only the edge of a blade could bring him comfort.
It didn’t matter that I felt like a monster, no better than the abuser who’d hurt him long ago. He’d shown me the truth burrowed deeply in his bones.
Who was I to judge him for it?
“You didn’t ask. I offered.”
“I manipulated you. Took advantage of your innocence.”
“Enough, Zevander!” That he insisted on shouldering it all himself, insisted on guarding my virtue even then, grated on my already reeling nerves. “I am a grown woman. I make my own decisions. You didn’t force my hand, I willingly put it there. And I will not allow you to carry this guilt like an iron anvil chained around your neck. But now I need something in return.” I cursed the tears burning in my eyes when the emotions inside of me screamed like a hot kettle.
“Of course.” He surged forward, urging my body back against the edge of the tub, and his lips found the curve of my neck, while his hand slipped up the clinging hem of my sopping wet shift, between my thighs.
I jerked backward and gripped his arm before he could reach the flesh he sought. “Not this. This is not what I need from you.”
He wore a look of confusion as he sat back on his heels, his massive, wounded body an impenetrable wall of suffering. “What is it, then? What do you want? Tell me, and I will give it to you.”
It was clear to me that he didn’t associate affection, or intimacy, with what we’d done. For him, it was nothing more than an exchange of services. Favors. Pain for pleasure.
I lifted my gaze to his, pushed up onto my knees, and pressed against his abdomen, urging him back down into the water. Once he settled himself again, I crawled onto his lap, avoiding his new cuts, and wrapped my arms around him, burying my face in his neck. “This. This is what I want. This is all I ask in exchange. I want you to know that what I did to you was not out of malice, or hate.”
For a moment, he sat frozen, muscles locked and rigid, scarcely breathing. Then strong arms enveloped my body, and I felt him shudder around me. Weeping? He made no sound to confirm.
Tears sprang to my eyes at the realization that he must’ve grown accustomed to weeping silently, alone. Or worse: That he’d been given little opportunity to acknowledge the trauma he’d suffered, forced to reciprocate for his abuser. The thought of such a thing brought more tears to my eyes, and I held him tighter.
“If pain is what you crave, then I will give it to you,” I whispered.
“Your first experiences should be beautiful and gentle, Maevyth. Not this.”
“And what of yours?” I pushed up from him, looking him in the eyes. “Was yours beautiful and gentle?”
The way his brows tightened stirred a violent anger in my ribs. I wanted to tear through the past and throttle the wretched soul who’d stolen that from him.
The fury burned in my chest with a vengeance, and through tears, I clenched my teeth. “You didn’t force it upon me. You didn’t take from me without asking. But it is not my nature to hurt those I care about. So I need to be comforted, too. I need assurance that you don’t perceive me as your abuser.”
“Fucking hell, I’m sorry. I won’t ask you again, I swear it.”
“Do you feel the same relief without the pain?”
A grim expression crawled over his face. “No.”
“But back at Elowen’s…when you and I…You seemed very contented that night.”
He turned slightly away, and the shame from before resurfaced in his expression. “I summoned the flame. In my hands. I finished because I summoned the flame, and the metal…”
“The piercings…you burned yourself. So, it will always be this way?”
“Even if I were willing to try without the pain. So long as the piercings remain, I’ll never know true pleasure without it. I’ll always crave it.”
“You can’t remove them?”
“No. They’re enchanted.”
“You can experience relief this way, though. And you do glean pleasure from it, in spite of the pain.”
“Yes, but I won’t ask you—”
“You haven’t asked me once. Not once. In fact, you did a damn good job of hiding it. But you don’t have to hide anymore. I am offering to do it again, on one condition.” Hooking my finger beneath his chin, I guided his eyes back to mine. “I need you to assure me that I haven’t destroyed you by doing this. That you can feel something more than the ecstasy of pain, knowing that it’s me and not the one who hurt you. That you let me show you what love and caring feels like, to balance these dark thoughts you carry.”
At first, he stared off toward the water, gaze vacant and unblinking, his breaths slow and measured. A muscle in his jaw twitched, a betrayal of the silent battle behind his eyes. The misty shield in them threatened to break, but he clenched his teeth, swallowing it back, and lifted his gaze to mine.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” I asked, cupping his cheek. When he shook his head, I threaded my fingers in his hair and kissed his forehead. “Tell me.”
“I’ve walked this world for so long, searching for you.” His brow tightened. “Centuries have gnawed at me, hollowing me to the bone. I didn’t know how starved I was, or what I craved, until I found you.” Both hands gripping my bottom, he pulled me closer and crushed his lips to mine. “I will never be worthy of your light, the purity of your heart, but I’m too selfish to spare you from this darkness I carry. Godsblood, I would follow you to the edge of existence and into the black void.”
I rested my hand against his cheek, my body stretched across his naked chest. “You are worthy.”
His brows lowered, muscles stiff and tense as he looked away. “And yet, I bear the marks of a slave.”
“You bear the marks of a warrior unbroken by the kind of pain that would’ve destroyed lesser men.” A jagged ridge across his throat carved the violent path of a blade as it slipped beneath my tracing fingertip. “Every one of these scars is precious to me. More precious than coin or crown.”
Fingers curled around the curve of my neck, he ran his thumb across my bottom lip, eyes focused there. “You’re a fate I never dared to dream, moon witch. The stars I was never meant to grasp. But seeing how this gluttonous world devours the unclaimed, I’m calling you mine.” He dragged me into a kiss that burned across my mouth and deep inside my chest.
Cold air rushed across my skin, as he lifted me out of the tub, letting the water spill across the stony floor while he carried me across the room. The blaze of the fireplace sapped the cold, and he stood me on my feet where the hearth had warmed the stones below them. With both hands, he lifted the shift over my head and tossed it away.
Completely naked, I covered my breasts, but his massive body urged me back onto the blankets that lay crumpled on the floor. Soft velvet brushed across my skin when I lay back, letting him cage me beneath his muscled form, his arms outstretched on either side of me. A brush across my thigh had me looking down between us. His stiff flesh lay against my thigh and bore the deep crescents of my nails where I’d clutched him. The agony of what I’d done to him was quickly smothered by the tendrils of worry coiling around my spine, as I took in his size, and my stomach churned to a tight knot, imagining him pushing it inside of me.
He hooked his finger beneath my chin, guiding my eyes to his. “You’ve nothing to worry about, Lunamiszka. I don’t think either of us is ready for what it’ll feel like inside of you.”
Relieved, I swallowed a gulp and nodded.
He lowered himself to my side, pulling my body in close, my back to his chest, and I watched the fire flicker as we lay naked and bared to one another. Vulnerable. Yet, I’d never felt so safe and contented in my life. Despite his erection pressing against my backside, there was no intent on his part, yet even so, my head spun with anxious thoughts.
“Does it make you nervous?” he asked, as if he’d read my mind.
“I worry that I won’t be able to accommodate.” I couldn’t imagine the pain, given the size of him.
His dark chuckle rumbled against my back. “Don’t think about it now. And know that, when the time comes, and you’re ready, I will not hurt you.”
“Will you feel pleasure that way?”
“I cannot begin to fathom what I’ll feel with you. It’s an elusive sensation that I suspect will take me by surprise.”
“Something new for both of us, then.”
“Yes.” His lips pressed against my shoulder. “I very much look forward to it,” he said, his words a promise.
We breathed in sync, like a single lung, while the heat of the fire sipped the errant drops of water still clinging to my skin. The flickering light danced over the angel faces that’d been carved into the stone beneath the mantel, and my thoughts drifted. “Do you believe in angels?”
“I’m certain you’re the closest I’ll ever come to knowing they exist.”
“No one has ever told me that I was anything more than evil and cursed. They’d have called you blasphemous for likening me to an angel. Strange to imagine that they’re gone now. Every one of them, it seems.”
“I feel no pity for those soulless cunts. May they roam this world mindless and starving. Nothing but a vessel for the plague.”
“That may have very well come to pass. And yet, their words still haunt me.”
“If only the gods had granted me your vengeance, I would’ve silenced those voices.”
“I wish I’d known you back then. I’m certain I’d have suffered far less grief with you as my guardian angel. The guards would’ve certainly thought twice before brandishing their whips.”
His arms tightened around me, muscles a wire of tension. “Were they standing before me now, I’d watch their flesh burn from their bones.” He reached out and drew part of the flame to his palm, holding it there in front of me. “No one would be spared of my wrath.”
I slid my hand along the length of his arm and let my fingers drift across the flame, smiling at the hum of energy that tingled beneath my skin.
He turned his palm over and dragged the fire up my arm, sending a warm vibration down to my bones.
Lost to the sensation, I shuttered my eyes and tipped forward, letting him run his warm palm over my back.
He drew a line of exhilarating heat over the curves and dips of my body, and when he reached the fleshy cheeks of my backside, I let out a quiet moan. “I don’t know a soul, besides myself and a very select few mages, who can touch the flame without disintegrating.”
I smiled. “What is the strange tingling?”
“Sablefyre energy. It gives off a powerful vibration. Do you like it?”
“Yes.”
He slid his hand over my hip, to the apex of my thighs, and I gripped his wrist before his fingers could go further.
“Zevander, we shouldn’t.”
“And yet, you’re not pushing my hand away.”
I sucked my lip into my mouth, his palm flat across my pelvic bone, that vibrating heat spreading deep inside me.
“Say the word, and I will not touch you tonight. But, gods, Maevyth, I want to touch you so badly, I’m burning in agony.”
Telling him I didn’t crave his touch would’ve been a lie. “She’ll hear us.”
“Is that all that concerns you?”
“Yes.”
“You’re certain?”
At my nod, his other hand came up from under me, and he slid his palm over my mouth, his body urging me forward until I almost lay on my stomach, my face half-hidden in crumpled velvet. His knee nudged the back of my thigh, spreading my legs wider apart, and when he reached down between them, my breath hitched. The warm buzz struck my sensitive flesh with such intensity, I jerked forward on contact.
Slow and controlled, he ran his finger up and down my wet seam, stoking my arousal.
I curled my fingers into the blanket, and with a long, droning moan, smothered by his palm, I writhed against him. Waves of unbearable pleasure and heat pulsed through my body, every muscle contracting. He slipped his finger inside of me and rested his forehead against my back.
“Seven hells, Lunamiszka. The sounds you’re making stir a violent need inside of me.” He dragged his tongue up the length of my spine and kissed my shoulder, the steel of his piercings hot against the back of my thigh, as if the flame inside him also stirred.
That intoxicating tremor moved through me, so deeply, it shook my bones. Desperate and delirious, I circled my hips, as he plunged his finger in and out of me, each glide wetter than the last. I could feel it dripping down my thighs, the maddening ache he’d aroused inside of me too much. Far too much. Panting through my nose, I buried my face even more, squirming and grunting, my body growing more rigid by the second. My breasts, far more sensitive than before, brushed over the soft fabric beneath me, only heightening the torment. Heat spiraled through me. Building. Tensing. Climbing. I’d felt that sensation with him before, knew what awaited me.
My eyes rolled back, drool dampening my mouth and cheek, trapped behind his hand.
“Do you feel that? The burning need that you can’t quite pinpoint? The pressure and heat rising in your muscles?” He spoke through clenched teeth, as if the sensation angered him. “I feel it every time I look at you. This maddening need consumes me.” Another finger joined the first, and I let out a whimper as the vibration intensified, the flame hotter than before. “The fire longs to be inside of you as much as I do.” His voice curled in my ear like a wicked, black smoke and settled as a warm flutter deep in my chest.
A soft and breathless sound of pure rapture shuddered out of me, and those greedy fingers plundered for more, faster. My thighs shook, the delicious tremors stoking more arousal, slickening his fingers that slipped in and out of me with ease. Each smooth glide brought me closer to the invisible pinnacle, the edge I clawed toward. Grasping and pulling, sinking my teeth into the fingers that captured every grunt and moan. My stomach coiled, toes curled.
He harnessed my pleasure as masterfully as he wielded a sword.
Back tense and arched against him, I surrendered myself to it. To him.
Lightning flared behind my eyes, and I released a blissful cry, my screams muffled behind his palm, every muscle rigid. I writhed and squirmed as he drew out the last bits of my release, my thighs trembling from the aftermath.
Delicious euphoria surged through me, and I lay half-drunk, my bones soft and useless.
He removed his hand from my wet mouth, and my body jostled as he made his way down the length of me. Palms to my thighs, he spread me wider, and I craned my neck to see his broad shoulders wedged between them, as he angled his big body forward.
“What are you—”
One long, wet drag of his tongue sent me screaming, face-down, into the blankets. His lips latched onto my swollen and sensitive flesh while he sucked on it, and he moaned, as if he’d found rapture in the task. Just as my body began to tense with need again, he stopped and lay beside me once more. “I couldn’t let one drop of that sweetness go to waste,” he said, wrapping his arms around me again.
