Rage

Chapter 4

Chapter Four

S creams fill the manor like a symphony, punctuated by sobs and scattered begging. I prowl down long hallways and narrow passageways, luxuriating in the sound of terror as I hunt for Declan. More than once, I have found him in the Lord of the hall’s bed-chamber, spread across fine linens in a deep sleep. The screams do not bother him, nor does the blood being spilled in part by his hand.

Bait , he called me, as though he were not a part of the trap.

I catch his scent in a richly decorated hall. The carpets are woven in deep maroons and gold, shot through with indigo. Gilt frames line the walls, displaying vibrant oil paintings of Stilton and his ancestors, and crimson silk drapes the length of the ceiling.

All the wealth on the display turns my stomach.

On the road to this hall, we passed through blight-starved villages and fallow fields bordered by plague pits. Stilton was a pox on this land and his people. They will be better off under the leadership of whichever brother or sister I leave as the deputy of this hall. My siblings will work the fields at night while the villages recover. They will divert the streams, build mills, and ingest new life into Stilton’s holding while the wastling lord is neither mourned nor remembered.

But that is work for nightfall. Now, there is a hunter to be dealt with.

“Declan.” I sing his name as I turn a corner, trailing my knife along the walls. Sparks fly behind the scrape of my blade, shushing when I cut through a tapestry and across a painting. His scent fills my nose. Salt and sweat, the heat of his muscled body mixing with the earthy smell of horse he can never quite scrub out. At the end of the hall, I close my eyes and inhale, filling my head with Declan Margrave.

Left.

My body moves on instinct, easing into a silent prowl: one door, two, three. I halt at the fourth, smiling when I see Declan has taken no pains to protect himself from me. The lock has been mangled, the knob dangling from bent screws. He forced his way in, stealing this chamber for himself with all the arrogance I expect from him.

I slip into the room, silent as midnight, and the scent of Declan envelops me. My steps falter, hunger itching my fangs. Though I fed from Lady Stilton, turning her drained me. I need to feed again, and the longer I deny myself, the harder it will be to maintain control.

Not that control has ever been a concern where Declan Margrave is concerned. He is weak, and I am not. He may play at being the hunter. He may delight in putting me in my cage and torturing me for the entertainment of wastling lords, but when it is just us, either alone in a room or tangled in the wood, Declan keenly understands which of us is in control.

He lies sprawled across the bed, muscled chest rising and falling in a deep sleep. The candles on the bedside table are nearly burned down, and their meager flames send gold dancing in the strands of his dark brown hair. The sheet is twisted low around his waist, tight against his groin, and heat blooms in my belly as I rake my eyes over him. Hunger and need warring within me.

And then I see it—the holywood stake.

Declan’s favorite toy rests on the pillow beside his head, placed within easy reach as an invitation. Golden firelight licks along the silvered tip, liquid and smooth as if freshly oiled. I trail my eyes over the bedside table, noting the bottles and neatly folded squares of linen. Desire puddles warm and hot between my thighs.

I smile, flexing my hand as I decide how to play this. He has been wicked, my Declan, and he must be punished.

My fangs descend as I kneel on the edge of the bed. He does not move when my weight dips the mattress. If anything, his breaths deepen as I lower my face to his hip, jaw relaxing as hunger drives me. This close, his scent is intoxicating. My mind reels, and I allow myself one lapse of control, flicking my tongue out to taste him before I feed.

I lick across a vein, and his pulse throbs in response, tempting me to scrape my fangs across his taut skin. Goosebumps rise as I trace the divot of muscle and bone, and Declan hums in his sleep. The deep, rich sound stokes the fire building inside of me—the need to feed and to punish. To take my pleasure from Declan’s body as easily as he doled out pain to mine.

Ours is a dance, a twisting of limbs and minds. When I am caged, I have no choice but to follow him through the steps, but when the bait has been taken …

Then I take the lead, and my pet is all too willing to dance to my tune.

“You’ve been bad, Declan,” I murmur, my fangs lengthening. Sweet venom pools on my tongue, coating my lips. I swallow it down before pressing my mouth to his hips, sucking to draw a vein to the surface.

He writhes in his sleep, hips rising and falling. A hand comes down on my head, and I smile despite myself. It is better when he wakes for this. Better he when is reminded of what I am so that he and I both know he enters this willingly.

I am a terror. His monster and his master. I would see the hunger and fright in his eyes before I sink my fangs into his hip and slake my thirst.

“Rhona.” He groans my name, swallowing the vowels in the low, rumbly way I cannot resist. Fingers burrow into my hair, upsetting the crown my sister braided. “Please, Rhona.”

“You are awake.”

“Hard to sleep knowing you’re in that cage.” He rolls his hips, and the swell of his erection butts against my temple. His fingers knot in my hair, and he tugs as if he could guide my mouth to his groin.

“I doubt that stopped you throughout the week.” I scrape my fangs across his lower abdomen, relishing each goosebumps and the thickening scent of his arousal. At the second roll of his hips, I know what game he wants to play. “Did you forget, pet, that I own you?”

I score his skin with a fang, banding an arm across his abdomen to keep Declan where he lies. I need to feed, but I am not the weak vampire I was in that cage. Declan hisses, muscles dancing at the pain I have dealt him. His fingers twitch, but his hold remains, so I do it again and again. Cutting and puncturing his skin until the dusting of hair between his navel and groin is dotted and streaked with fat, wine-red pearls of blood.

His scent overwhelms me, driving into my mind and muddling my thoughts. The heat in my belly simmers, hunger clawing at my stomach. More venom drips from my fangs, pooling sickly sweet on my tongue.

“Never,” Declan pants. A sheen of sweat makes his skin glow in the candlelight. Each dip, swell, and jut of his body, from the taut muscles in his stomach to the roll of his pectorals, begs for my teeth and tongue. “I’m yours, Rhona. Use me.”

I glance up at him, drinking in the strain on his face. His eyes are shut tight, his jaw clenched. Though his fingers pinch my scalp, he lies ready for me, cock jutting like a mast beneath the sheets, his body my willing plaything.

“Tell me what you want, Declan.” I lower my voice, speaking with an authority that makes his cock bob. A flick of my tongue catches three ruby beads, and his rich taste floods my senses. I snarl, biting my tongue to keep from sinking my fangs into his copper-rich skin.

“Whatever you’ll give me.” Damp spreads along the tight stretch of linen over his head, and Declan shivers. “Whatever you ask.”

“Good,” I purr and give in, lathing his abdomen with the flat of my tongue. He sighs, cock straining against the street. I draw closer and closer, only to skirt away, relishing his frustrated whimper. I know what he wants, but to bite him and draw from his cock would pleasure Declan too greatly. He must suffer first for how he treated me in that cage. He must be reminded that I am the master, despite how he lays stretched across the bed and weak beneath me.

“On your stomach,” I rasp as I pull away, sliding my hand over the wounds I have gifted him. The hunger in my belly rails against me, my need to be filled and to feast, fighting against my inborn desire to hear him cry for mercy. Blood smears across his belly, and I pop a finger into my mouth, resting on my knees as I lick and suck. Declan’s eyes fly open, dark with desire and trained on the sweep of my tongue and hollowing of my cheeks. His chest rises and falls, and he hesitates long enough that I raise an eyebrow.

It is the only threat he needs. A subtle reminder of who his master is.

Grabbing a pillow, he rolls onto his front and stuffs it under his lower abdomen to give his aching cock room. Not that it will do him any good. I have plans for that cock. It is not the sad, soft nub Lord Stilton threatened me with. No, like the rest of Declan, his cock is a thing of beauty. Thick and red with gathered blood. The vein throbbing along its length is juicy as a worm in spring, and my fangs itch with desire at the thought of hot, rich blood pumping from his cock as Declan pumps into my mouth.

Later.

When he has earned it.

For now, I stretch over his body, reaching for the stake. The warmth of his back radiates against my breasts and belly. I bury my face in the crook of his neck, inhaling deeply before pressing my fangs to the artery. His pulse pounds against my teeth, ramped all the higher by terror and desire. Of me, for me, as it should be.

He does not glance back as I take hold of the stake, instead reaching up to grasp the rails in the headboard.

“Good boy,” I murmur into his throat. Declan thrusts his hips back, pressing his rear into my belly. “But you’ll not escape your punishment that easily.”

“No, Rhona.”

I trail the silver tip of the stake down the length of his arm, circling the crook of his elbow. Muscles in Declan’s arms strain as he fights against the tickling sensation. He buries his face in the mattress, taking long breaths as I draw light circles along his biceps, armpit, and down the long stretch of his side.

“You stabbed me,” I whisper in his ear and jab the tip into his side. Declan grunts, knuckles blanching as his grip tightens. When I remove the stake, red blemishes his tanned skin, the beginnings of a bruise. The blood rushing to the surface of his skin makes my nose itch, like a sneeze I cannot release. “You made me look weak in front of Lord Stilton and his hall.”

I jab him again, harder this time. His body seizes beneath me, and the pained whimpers that push from his throat are music to my ears. The tip of the stake is crimson when I pull it away. Blood rushes from the wound, pulsing with every one of Declan’s sweet pants, and I can no longer deny myself.

I latch onto his side, digging my nails into the curve of his rear as I suck and tongue the wound. My head spins, my pulse pounding as his blood fills me and strengthens me. The heat of it stokes the fire in my belly, setting off a low, delicious throb in my core. Need overwhelms me, and that is all the warning I need. I snag my lip with my fangs, letting my blood mingle with his. Trace amounts of venom enter his bloodstream, and Declan’s body eases, his pained pants softening to light wheezes as pleasure rises.

It is not enough to bring him to ecstasy. Only enough to ease the pain and slow the bleeding so that I may keep working.

“I am not weak, Declan.” My voice is raw and guttural, the monster in me closer to the surface than before. I rest on my thighs and take in the meal stretched before me. Blood stains the linens at Declan’s side, his sweatslick skin glistening in the candlelight. Muscles twitch and flex as he breathes through pain edged in pleasure, his mind already dropping into the space where I know he is mine and mine alone. “You are weak. A toy. A pet.”

I trace my nails over his rear and hip, curving around to his front to hitch him onto his knees, just enough for me to lightly grasp his cock. He jerks against me as I do, a strangled sound bit off by a clenching of his teeth.

“My pet.” I stroke to the tip, licking my lips as precum dampens my fingers. “Good, needy pet.”

I twist my wrist, and he groans. “Rhona.”

“Did I say speak?”

His hands adjust against the bedframe, and Declan rubs his face into the mattress, shaking his head. I am about to lean forward and give him the pleasure of my bite when he thrusts into my hand, seeking the pressure and friction I have denied him.

Anger sparks. I tear my hand away, using all of my vampiric strength to crash it against his backside. Declan growls, more in shock than pain, and glares over his shoulder at me.

“You speak when I say you may speak.” I smack him again, my strike drawing blood to the surface. “You are my pet to do with as I please.”

“Yes, Rhona.”

He closes his eyes when I strike again, brows hitching and lips parting.

“You owe everything to me, pet.” And again. This time, he bites his lower lip, nostrils flaring as he takes the punishment I deal. “Everything you are, the life you lead. You breathe because I allow it, understand?”

Declan does not reply. A shudder racks his shoulders, and he presses his face against the mattress. I hesitate, watching each tremor and counting every breath.

“Dawn?” I ask.

The rails creak as he tightens his grip.

“Declan.” I press a hand between his shoulder blades. “Dawn?”

“Moonrise,” he blurts, voice muffled. “Gods, Rhona, moonrise. Please, don’t stop.”

A smile overtakes my face. I stroke my hand down his spine, and Declan rolls into my touch, every inch of his glorious body responsive and mine. I bend over his back, scraping his ear with my teeth. Venom sweetens my breath, and I bite the space beneath his ear. Declan’s cry of pleasure is music to my ears. A whine tempered with desire that has my cunt clenching.

“Tell me,” I ask before puncturing his throat a second time. More of my venom enters his bloodstream, and Declan relaxes beneath me. “Tell me, pet, why do I own you?”

“Because you killed them.” His tongue is thick and drunken, words slurring from my bite and the pleasure riddling his body. “You killed them all.”

“Why?” I lap at his neck, mind reeling from the richness of his blood. I will never tire of this. All that muscle, all that strength on display for the lords and ladies we hunt, and he is weak for me. Pliant and subservient, taking the punishment I dole and begging for more. “Speak, Declan.”

“They beat us and starved us,” he says. “They sold the girls for a night of entertainment and pitted the boys against each other in the ring.” I kiss my way down his body, rewarding him with every true word he speaks. For grounding me in what we do, hall and after hall. For reminding me why I let him live.

I have forgotten the taste of wine and berries and cakes. If I am not careful, I will forget this.

“They beat us when we lost.” He shudders as I drag my fangs across his lower back. “Beat us and tossed us into the cold.”

“And then?” I pinch his cheek with a fang, cupping his rear.

“You found me.”

“I did.” Spreading his cheeks, I breathe against his hole. “Good pet.”

Declan wriggles, knowing better than to speak when he has earned a reward. I draw venom and saliva onto my tongue before dragging my fangs down sensitive flesh. His cheeks tense at the pain, no more than a splinter, and then I sweep the meager wounds with my tongue. Declan’s moan vibrates through his body, as deep and guttural as his voice the day he asked me to kill them all.

“Every lord,” he had rasped. “Every lady. Every wretched piece of filth that treats us like vermin.”

And I did. I was new, then. More monster than mistress, and my hunger knew no bounds. I glutted myself on his keepers, drinking until my stomach threatened to burst, and the rest I drained while Declan opened the cells and recruited my brothers and sisters. Hall to hall we went, setting traps and cutting out the rot of humanity. One by one, the children I rescued grew into men and women. One by one, they asked to become my night siblings. To help me cleanse these lands of the festering blemish of humanity.

All but Declan.

“You like me weak,” he had said with a cocky grin, and I could not argue. Knowledge may be the first major failing of weak men, but this is not always a curse.

I love him like this, drunk off my venom and liquid beneath my hands. Whimpering and panting. My plaything and lover when the rest have become my kin.

The thought lengthens my fangs, and they pierce the tender flesh beside his hole. Declan curses, legs shooting straight as I leave them inserted and suck. My name leaves his lips like a prayer, the heat of his body rising as I draw blood to his nethers. I swear, it is richer when I drink from him like this. Sweeter and more intoxicating when drawn from a place that gives him as much pleasure as it does me.

Moisture pools in my leggings, the leather teasing my clit as I rock my hips, seeking more friction, the same as Declan. He presses against my mouth, and his scent drowns out my thoughts. There is a hint of lavender and rose. A hint of the lye from a wealthy woman’s soap, but the rest is all him. Musk and sweat, the earthiness of his leathers. It has me grasping his cheeks and spreading them wide, pooling venom and saliva on my tongue before I thrust into his hole.

He gasps above me, a restrained cry of pleasure that ribbons into my ears. But soon, his body is lax, and the muscles are all but drawing my tongue deeper. I thrust and roll, massaging his cheeks before I pull away and replace my tongue with a finger. Declan’s groan as I insert a digit is pure, mind-bending bliss. I turn my wrist and crook my finger, earning another sweet cry.

“Dawn?” I ask.

He takes a moment to answer, so I crook my finger again.

“Moonrise!” he shouts, back arching so he can look at me. “Moonrise, fuck the Gods, Rhona, please.”

“Good pet.” I crook again, savoring his moan. “You speak when I say speak.” He nods, and I accept his answer, reaching again for the holywood stake. “You come when I say come.”

The handle fits my palm perfectly, and the leather is worn to the curve of my fingers. Declan’s eyes widen in anticipation, and I remove my finger from his hole to twist the blood-coated silver tip. It pops off with ease, revealing the ridged, blunt end.

He exhales, eyes dark and liquid, and presses his rear toward me. Without a word between us, he releases the headboard and grabs a bottle from the bedside table, easily flicking the cork free with his thumb and handing it to me.

“Good pet,” I murmur and coat the stake in oil. Some spills onto my hand, and I use it to stroke and pet my plaything, circling his hole and inserting my finger.

Adjusting my stance, I grasp his cheek and spread him wide, pressing the blunted edge against his hole. Declan grunts, hand flying for the headboard as I insert the ridged head.

“Speak.”

“Moonrise.” He presses back, telling me with his body and his words how badly he wants this, how he wants me to dominate him. To remind him he is weak. That I am his mistress. I who spared him and cared for him, who heals him with my blood and pleasures him with my tongue, venom, and cunt.

I am his monster, and he is weak for me.

I fuck him slowly with the stake, watching every twitch and tremor in his face. The roll and flex of muscle in his back and arms. Low light from the dying candles gilds his skin. Tight, pleasured whines escape his plush lips, and a flush rides high on his cheeks. His eyes are feverish as he watches me with one cheek pressed against the mattress.

He is beautiful like this.

All too soon, it overwhelms me. His beauty in this moment and the power I wield over him. What we have achieved in this hall and the halls before it. What is yet to come. Declan and I will cleanse this land, creating a new world under the rule of my night siblings.

All too soon, I crave his touch and the stretch of his cock. With a twist of my wrist, the handle of the stake clicks free. I cast it aside, using all my strength to flip Declan onto his back. The move rams the stake deeper within him. He cries out as I draw him upright, pressing his mouth to my throat as I tear the laces of my corset and shred the front of my shirt.

He knows what I want, how I want it. His mouth latches onto my breast, tongue flicking my tightened nipple, and I remove my leathers to straddle him. His cock presses between us, the thick base teasing my clit. I roll my hips, tensing my thighs in search of the friction I crave.

Declan again needs no instruction. Ours is a dance, and while I lead, he is well-trained in the steps. He knows how to please me and ensure I come to him morning after morning for the pleasure none of my night siblings can offer.

A warm body and stroking hands. Fleshy lips and thrumming blood and a cock that can make me see the Gods.

He grasps my hips, lifting me with ease and settling me on his cock. Pleasure shoots through my body at the press of his thick head, stretching me in such a delicious way I cannot help but throw my head back and moan. Easing me down, Declan returns to my breast, sucking each nipple as his fingers grasp my hips hard enough I would bruise if I could. Only when I am seated does Declan ease his grip. He slides a hand between us, thumb brushing my clit. Sparks fly up my spine, throwing my body into a rigor mortis only more of his touch can relax.

“Use me,” he growls against my breastbone. His demand ignites something within me—a rage brought on by his insubordination and disobedience.

I snarl and grasp his biceps, nails cutting into his skin. Blood wells, and the scent of it drives me forward. My fangs slide into his throat like a hot knife through butter, and I slam down against him. Molten heat floods my belly and Declan curses. His hand finds its way into my hair, grabbing hold as I rise and slam down again, taking pleasure from his body. Hot blood in my mouth, a thick cock in my cunt. I ride him cruelly, sparks bursting in my eyes every time I crash against him.

The movement jostles the stake in his rear, driving it harder against a place that makes him grunt and groan. His arms tremble, his firm legs quaking beneath me. His thumb circles my clit, and the movement drowns me in bliss. Tension builds as I ride him, drawn together by the sweep of his thumb and the pulse of his blood, filling my mouth and my belly as my venom sends him careening to the ceiling.

I pull my fangs out of him to moan his name, the only warning Declan gets before my cunt clenches around his cock, and euphoria strikes like lightning in my veins.

My back shoots straight, head falling back as I release a ragged cry he interprets as permission.

“Rhona.” The groan of my name rumbles against my chest, and his cock seems to thicken and twitch before he spills inside of me. His seed mingles with blood from the wounds I have inflicted, filling the room with more of Declan’s scent. I am feral, half-mad in the throes of orgasm, clawing at his back and rocking my hips in search of more even as he is spent.

Declan falls back, rolling onto his side and slipping out of me. Before I can fight or move or fully process his absence, he pushes me onto my back and hauls my cunt to his face. His tongue thrusts inside of me, writhing and flicking, licking me clean as I wind tighter and tighter, only to fall apart a second time.

Wave after wave of pleasure overtakes me, and when I come back to myself, I am panting against the sheets. Distantly, I hear the clunk of the stake being tossed aside, and then Declan is there, wrapping his arms around my body and gathering me close.

How long we lie there, lost in the shared bliss of release, I do not know. When I turn my head, the candles are puddles of wax, and the room is lit only by the dim glow of day behind the drapes.

Declan’s breathing is deep, his eyes closed and face soft in a way that reminds me of the youth I spared from the cold. As if he hears my thoughts, his arms tighten around me, and he nuzzles the crook of my neck.

“What next?”

“Lord Stilton still lives,” I answer, pressing back against him. Declan makes a sound I interpret as surprise. “His blood was too poisoned to risk. He will be the feast for any new siblings we turn.”

“Good.” He twists, drawing a blanket from the floor to cover us both. “And the lady?”

“She has been prepared for the next hall.”

“How long do we wait this time?”

“Two weeks.” A yawn overtakes me, and I relax into Declan’s arms. Sleep comes on quickly, thickening my tongue as my body falls into death. “Perhaps three, you’ll need time to?—”

“Recruit men and let the fear and rumors spread.” Declan kisses my temple as he bands an arm across my chest, pressing me tight against him. “I know.”

He knows.

Of course he does.

“Sleep, Rhona, my love.”

A soft smile plays on my lips, and in my last conscious thoughts before sleep takes me, I dwell on the failings of weak men.

THE END

(for now)

If you enjoyed this story, check out my enemies-to-lovers witchy urban fantasy romance series Witch of the Demesne , about a formerly wicked witch defending her hometown from multi-level marketing huns, and the hot Scottish witch sent to investigate her.