Eldritch, p.44
Eldritch, page 44
“I will,” I whispered.
His lips slanted over mine, and at the first prod against my entrance, my breath hitched against his mouth. “I’ll go slow, A’miszhla,” he whispered across my lips.
“A’miszhla,” I echoed, my accent nowhere near as smooth as his. “What does it mean?”
“It’s Primyrian. It means my love.” The words slipped between us, a promise sealed by his kiss, and my stomach fluttered at the endearment.
I gripped his shoulders, his tense muscles too big for my palms. Heart hammering, I mentally braced myself for agony, but he pushed into me slowly. So maddeningly slowly, I could hardly stand the anticipation. A sharp sting announced his entry, and I sank my teeth into the iron curve of his shoulder, breathing my way through the intrusion. He inched further, and in spite of the pain, my body welcomed him with a slick, wet glide.
His body shuddered around me, taut and flexed, as if he were restraining an army that longed to ravage me. “Gods be damned,” he rasped. “I don’t know if I can do this. I want you too much.”
“My heart is racing right now,” I whispered, kissing his cheek. “But I trust you.”
The tension in his muscles slackened just enough that they no longer twitched against my palms. His hips rolled forward with a razor-thin control. Hot, stuttering breaths fell across my throat where he kept his face buried in my neck, and strong fingers locked with mine, pinning my arm to the floor as he inched deeper.
The ceiling blurred into a mental image of the two of us—strong arms bracing a body that could easily crush me and powerful thighs flexing over mine in measured thrusts. His careful restraint and focus.
Warmth vibrated across my walls when the curved edges of his piercing breached my entrance.
Back bowed, mouth agape, I let out a grunt. My thighs shook as the piercing quivered up inside of me, tugging at an ache I couldn’t describe. A ravenous, hungry beast that clawed at my stomach. I raised my hips, desperate for something I couldn’t name.
“Are you alright?” His deep, rich voice in my ear sent a bubbling heat to my core.
“What’s…happening?”
“The enchantment. It’s designed to give you pleasure.” He squeezed my hand, inching in a small bit more.
I wrapped my legs around his back, desperate to ground myself against something, as tiny, prickling jolts tingled in my thighs. A long, droning moan unfurled in my throat, like that of a wild animal whose fight had withered.
Teeth found my neck. His muscles tensed in my grasp.
“The sounds you make.” Voice low and husky, he surged forward, stoking the flames for more. “It stirs something violent inside of me, moon witch.”
“You won’t hurt me.”
“I won’t.” The words broke from him like a promise he clung to—a desperate vow of control.
Tiny thrusts inched him deeper and deeper. The second bar breached, and I dug my fingers into his back as his flesh swelled inside of me, stretching me. Each delicious thrust dragged those metal prongs across my tight walls, the vibration surging, amplified by the second.
“I won’t go any further,” he said, his voice setting me at ease as he held himself still inside of me. “Are you okay with this?”
“Yes,” I breathed. “It’s two piercings?”
“Barely. I’ve suffered cruel torment, but nothing more vicious than imagining the day you take all of them at once.”
“How many…piercings are there?”
“Ten. The enchantment intensifies with each one.”
“Oh, god.” I couldn’t fathom the day when, or even if, I would accommodate all ten. It didn’t seem physically possible. Every cell in my body had clenched the moment he’d introduced the second, the pressure so intense I wondered if it would split me down the middle.
“I’m okay with this,” I assured him.
Despite the uncertainty sketched on his face, he nodded, and once again, his hips rolled into me. He kept his face turned from mine, but I could see the veins popping out of his neck, the sweat beading across his skin. Like the gentle ebb and flow of a violent sea, he rocked into me only so far as that sacred boundary—the restraint of a vast ocean against a fragile keel. The world around me slowed in one long heartbeat. I pressed my gloved hand to his chest, watching the strange root-like veins pulse and flicker, the heat crawling up my arm and settling in my chest.
Zevander tipped his head back, the cords of tension bursting across his throat.
Desperate to feel that restraint burning inside of me, I lifted my head, ran my tongue across his veins,
A tortured groan vibrated in his neck, across my tongue, his body rigid and shaking.
I understand now.
The joining of bodies. Nothing between us but shallow breaths and the restless beat of our hearts. And the love. So much love, it brought tears to my eyes. The world could’ve burned and kingdoms fallen to ruins, but somehow this felt eternal and everlasting. A fusion of souls that transcended all else.
A clang of metal shattered my musings.
I turned to see the blade lying beside my head. Blood trickled down Zevander’s wrist, his arm trembling as he turned his palm up to reveal a deep gash across the surface.
I snapped my attention back to him, and my eyes must’ve reflected the distress pounding through me, the way he lowered his head, as if he couldn’t bear to look at me.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“You couldn’t …” It was in that moment I realized how silly a notion it’d been, to imagine that I was capable of distracting him from decades of abuse and torment. How ridiculous to think that a man who’d suffered unfathomable pain could be healed in one intimate moment.
I loathed my ignorance. My naivete.
Brows tight, he pulled out of me on a wet glide and pushed himself away, as if to leave, but I swiped out for his arm.
“I told you. If it’s pain you require, I’ll give it to you.”
“No.”
“Yes, Zevander. And you will look at me. You will look at me, and you will know that it’s me. Us.”
“I can’t do this to you again.”
“You will.” I reached down, gripping his hard length with my clawed hand. It swelled in my grasp, eager and engorged with fresh blood. “I will give you what you need.” I lifted myself from the floor, urging him onto his back. My legs hardly straddled his massive body as I settled myself over his thighs, still gripping him.
Lips parted, he watched me with an anxious tension swirling in his eyes.
I hadn’t a clue what I was doing. What I imagined someone so inexperienced could give him. It didn’t matter, though. Neither of us held advantage over the other.
I scooted my way up his body, and when my bare sex dragged over the piercings, each smooth, steel bead caressing my sensitive flesh, he arched upward and let out a masculine sound of satisfaction that stirred something anew inside of me. Curious, I lowered myself over the underside of his cock and circled my hips. The low vibration scattered over the ball of nerves deep inside of me that had me jerking forward with a grunt. He hadn’t even penetrated me, and that delicious vibration sang across my tender flesh.
A pulsing at my knuckles yanked my focus to the veins on the glove that throbbed as before. I pressed my hand against his heart, digging my nails into his chest, and Zevander surged upward, his back bowed as a sound of pleasure and pain bellowed out of him.
Panic spiraled through me, and I drew my hand back, but he reached out. “No,” he rasped, placing it back in the same spot. “Please.”
Closing my eyes, I dug my fingers into him again and dragged my hips up and down his pierced length, painting my arousal across his skin.
“Fucking hell!” He shuddered, and his palms gripped my backside, pressing me against those wicked little prongs that reached out for my flesh with every stroke.
I mindlessly dug my nails into him as that agonizing hunger coiled low in my stomach, needing to be filled. The vibration sank into me, shaking my thighs as he circled his hips beneath me.
My stomach clenched, muscles tight.
A mewling cry leaked out of me, my arousal spilling across the steel with each drag of his erection. “Zevander, oh, gods.” The heat and pressure swelled inside of me like a boiling kettle, pulling and tugging at some invisible string that wound through my core. Fingers bruised my hips, where they gripped me so tight, I thought he might crush my bones. But there was no pain. Only a dull and numbing ache as the pleasure inside of me expanded, pressing against my muscles. The vibration surged, and I raked my fingers down his chest, my muscles locked so tightly they might’ve snapped any moment.
Light exploded at the back of my eyes, and a tingling warmth dispersed across my limbs, through my stomach and chest. I cried out, breasts jutting outward as I arched my back, letting it ripple through me like a tidal wave.
Fingers dug into my hips and he cursed, a ragged and raw sound tearing out of him like a violent storm breaking through the calm of a cloud.
I felt the warm burst of his release painting my flesh, and looked down between us, watching it smear across our bodies as I circled my hips against him. The physical, messy proof of his pleasure. Pleasure that I’d given him. Shuttering my eyes, I recalled those last moments over again, smiling at the echo of his curse, the seconds before he’d surrendered himself.
I opened my eyes to see him staring back at me, a look of awe carved into his expression.
“You are fucking divine,” he rasped, dragging me to his lips for a kiss.
Starved of breath, I pushed up to break our fused lips, and the sight that met my eyes stole my breath all over again.
Five jagged gashes across his chest sent a gurgling dread to the pit of my stomach. Blood trickled from the wounds I’d inflicted, and I raised my hand, examining the traces of it smeared across the metal fingertips.
“Don’t.” Zevander gripped my wrist, breaking me of the cold shock that chewed at my ribs. “I wanted this. I wanted every second of it.”
“But I …” I couldn’t bring myself to say aloud what I’d done to him. How I’d gouged him with such brutality and hadn’t even noticed through my euphoria. Tears formed in my eyes, the shame of what I’d done clawing at my heart as I wriggled to get loose, but he tightened his hold and yanked me forward until my breasts pressed against those vicious wounds.
“This is what I need. You asked. I’m telling you. I need this. I need to watch you drowning in the pleasure that I give you.”
“While I mutilate you? Is that not what she did to you? Is that not how you suffered?”
“You’re wrong. This is the first time I’ve ever felt something more than the pain. I saw the flush of your face,” he said, brushing his knuckles over my cheek. “The parting of your lips for breath.” His thumb caressed my bottom lip. “I’ve never watched something so beautiful in my life. Like the sun breaking over the horizon. It was ecstasy.”
“I put scars on your body, Zevander. Scars I’ll have to look upon and be reminded of the pain I caused you.”
“I’ll never look upon them as a painful memory. Those wounds mark the first time my heart beat for something more. The first time I gave willingly.”
Tears slipped down my cheeks, and he thumbed them away.
“Don’t punish yourself, Lunamiszka. This was the most exquisite moment of my life.”
I couldn’t begin to imagine how, or why, but it was not my place to judge him for it. He could’ve lied to ease my conscience, but the contentment on his face spoke otherwise. The usually deep lines of tension in his brow had softened a little, and I ran my non-gloved thumb across it to confirm for myself.
“I could never live with myself, if I harmed you.”
“Now you know my pain. The only thing I fear in this world.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead, his palm gripping the back of my head. “I torment myself with the notion of setting you free sometimes. Sparing you of this cruel lust for pain. And there are moments when I imagine I have the strength to follow through. But I can’t. I could burn every village and person in it, and it would be as effortless as blowing out a candle. But I do not possess the power to let you go.”
“Promise me you’ll give up that silly notion.”
His palm gently gripped the column of my throat. “Promise you’ll never try to escape me.” He pressed a kiss to my lips.
“Even if I wanted to, and I don’t, it’s too late for me now. Your hooks are firmly rooted inside of me.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “And, by god, if you turn that into something sexual, I’ll scream.”
Zevander chuckled and kissed me again. “I’ll refrain. This time. Just know my hooks are ready and willing to drag you out of those pious thoughts anytime.”
“I think we should get your wounds cleaned.” As if sensing the unease blooming inside of me again, he cupped my face.
“My obsession knows no bounds, moon witch. I’d tear apart the heavens and sacrifice my own soul for you.”
I gave a reluctant smile, unable to peel my gaze from those vicious gashes. “I would never ask you to sacrifice your soul for me.”
“You don’t have to ask. It was yours the moment fate seared your name into it.” He pressed my palm against his ruined skin, and I winced at the depth of his wounds. “This flesh is temporary, but what you’ve awakened in me is eternal.”
Ilay with my back against Zevander’s chest, the warmth of the bath soothing my aching muscles as he dragged his palm over my arm. It must’ve been twilight outside, but the darkness of the room with the drapes drawn made it feel so much later. From the floor beside the tub, he lifted one of the bottles of liquor he’d swiped from the pantry and tipped back a long swill.
As he lowered it back to the floor, I grabbed his arm and flicked my fingers for a sip.
“It isn’t morumberry wine.”
“Not everything I consume needs to be sweet.”
“This would knock you on your ass, if you weren’t already lying down.” He handed me the bottle, and I tipped it back for a small sip.
The pungent, earthy liquor burned as it slid down my throat, and I grimaced, shaking my head. “What is it?”
“A shit version of whiskey.”
I tipped it back again for a longer swill, gulping past the burn in my sinuses.
“Easy there, wet tongue,” Zevander said, and I lowered the bottle, coughing as the liquor seared my mouth.
My coughing turned to a laugh as I handed the bottle back to him. “What is a wet tongue?”
“What we called the stumbling drunks in The Hovel. Used to carry around a bottle all the time. Never let their mouths get dry.” One more sip, and he held the bottle as he rested his elbow against the tub. His other hand drew warm water up onto my breasts. “Wouldn’t want them to get too cold.”
Smiling, I gently scraped my metallic nails over his thigh beneath the water’s surface, and his leg twitched. “The last time we lay together, you disappeared.”
“I followed an intruder,” he said, entwining his fingers in my ungloved hand.
“Who?”
“Theron.”
I snapped my head to the side. “Here? In the temple? I thought you killed him.”
“He healed. It’s his blood magic.”
“So, what did you do with him this time?” I pitched upright, the room wobbling with the movement and his arms braced around me, urging me back against him.
“I locked him in the vault below.”
“Is it secure enough to hold him? I’m not sure I feel entirely comfortable sleeping in the same vicinity as an assassin…aside from you, of course.”
“It’s secure.” He sighed, wrapping me tighter. “In the event we don’t find the vein, or vivicantem, I wanted a possibility.”
Aleysia. He’d mentioned the plan before, and I’d chosen to ignore it.
“You told me bonds were eternal.”
“They are,” he said, pressing his lips to the top of my head before raising the bottle for another drink.
“So, why would I wish to bind my sister to a man who seeks to kill us?”
“Mating bonds are very painful, if broken. His loyalties would be to Aleysia, if they were bonded. He’d never hurt her by killing you, because her pain would be his pain.” He stroked his knuckles over my shoulder and kissed me there. “I know you have your reservations, but I dare say Theron would consider it.”
“Why?” I asked, frowning.
“He attempted to make peace with me.”
“You don’t trust him, though.”
“I never have.”
I blew out a breath, trying to imagine myself in Aleysia’s position. This wouldn’t be a simple betrothal, after all. “When, and if, it comes to that, Aleysia will choose for herself.”
“And in doing so, she will choose for you, as well.”
“She has Father now,” I argued back. “She isn’t alone.”
“And you would leave her, along with the father you’ve just reunited with, and return to Aethyria without them?”
“If I knew they were both safe, yes. That’s all I’ve wanted since the beginning.”
“What if safety doesn’t exist here for them? If all of Mortasia has become monsters?”
For me, the choice would be obvious. I’d always been more inclined to choose survival over anything else. Aleysia, on the other hand, tended to let her emotions guide her more often than not. “Then, we’ll revisit your devious plan.” I tugged the bottle of liquor from his hand and tipped back another long swill, frowning as the burn shot to my nose. “But let’s not think about that quite yet. Let’s find the vein—we will find it. My father has been there. He’s traveled to the Lyverian mountains. He can help us.” I handed the bottle back to him and after another sip, he set it back onto the floor beside the tub.
Warmth prickled in my cheeks, my limbs heavy, but my head felt light. I’d been intoxicated before to know the liquor was working its way through my blood, but faster than Grandfather’s wine.
