Chapter Twenty-Three
After an endless stream of nightmares, I gave myself over to the serotonin of sweet, restful fantasies.
“Is this real?” I murmured sleepily.
“Everything about us is real,” he replied, voice low. “Yes, Love. We’re guests in the Phoenician realm. When I heard they were sending for you…” His sentence drifted into curses. “I did everything I could to keep you out of it, down to summoning that fucking angel just so you wouldn’t end up here.”
“I don’t care if we’re in Hell or the Norse pantheon or Timbuktu. We’re together.”
I released a small, satisfied noise as hands slipped over my hips and worked their way up my front. Fingers carved a path up my torso, between my breasts, and gently traced along my throat. I swallowed, and felt the fingers move with me as my throat bobbed. My sharp intake of air was met with another hand, this time creeping through my hair and balling into a fist at the back of my head.
“I’m never letting you go again.” He forced my head back, exposing my neck to the thumb and forefinger that compressed gently on the life-giving arteries running up and down my throat.
My lips parted against the dizzy explosion of endorphins. The gold and white stars on my inner lids danced pleasantly against the pitch-black of the night. I arched my back and felt him. He pressed himself into me, hugging me to every inch of him until I was tucked so tightly against him that I disappeared. I moaned into my freefall through euphoria.
I reached a hand backward for him. My fingers worked into the space between us, navigating behind my ass and down his hip where a thin piece of material separated me from the bliss of his cock. My fingertips grazed his length, and he released a low, deep sound, hugging me closer to him. The tuft of his breath on my cheek sent chills down my spine. His hand tightened around my neck.
“I’ve missed you so much,” I said, my words a mixture of tears, longing, and total surrender.
“There is no agony in this realm or the next like being separated from you, Love.”
With swift movements, he nudged me forward until I was on my stomach. He rolled with me, his entire weight crushing me, pushing me into the obsidian depths of his bed. I inhaled the scent of him on the sheets as he pressed down on me. He swept my hair to the side and ran his mouth along the exposed skin between my ear and my shoulder.
“You came for me,” he said against my flesh between kisses. “I would never have asked this of you.”
I basked in the glow of his praise for the briefest of moments. Then shock forced a question to the forefront as I pictured my friend clawing at the door to escape. “I didn’t come alone. We left Fauna behind.”
“She is safe. I’ve seen to it that she’ll wake up beside Azrames. He has asylum until the trial, as long as I remain here as his ambassador. But for now, let me focus on you.”
“Trial?” I choked on the word.
He shushed me, if only to savor moments of pleasure and peace before we were forced to return to reality.
My arms stretched out beneath the pillow in front of me until I made contact with the headboard. I arched in anticipation, spine curling, ass pressing against him until I could feel every generous inch that had hardened with want.
I tried to turn over to face him, but he slipped an arm along mine until our fingers intertwined. I squeezed my hand and he reciprocated, mouth still moving on my neck, free hand slipping between us and grazing the rapidly soaking space between my legs. His fingers worked gently, tantalizingly against the thin material that separated us. I wiggled my hips again if only to let him know that I was here, that I wanted him, that I wanted to fade into him until I struggled to separate where I ended and he began.
I almost cried out in protest when his hand left mine but understood it a second later.
He used both hands to shove the shift dress up over my hips and traced chilling kisses down my spine while I squirmed beneath him. His mouth worked over the dimples at my lower back, and then I felt his teeth on the edge of my panties before my head exploded in fire as his mouth moved against the thin fabric on my most sensitive place. My hips bucked off the bed to give him more access, desperate for him to slip the fabric to the side.
His fingers went to my hips to keep me from wriggling away. A sound between a gasp and a yelp escaped my lips when he tugged the fabric over my ass. I felt him sit up behind me long enough to shuffle the material down past my knees and slip it over my feet, tossed into the puddles of shadows. It gave me just enough time to look over my shoulder at the ice-white phantom crawling back to me.
He dragged his mouth from my knee up the back of my thigh. I blinked against the darkness of the windowless room, unable to distinguish up from down as black contrasted against black. I tried to turn over, but once again, he pinned me to the bed. I made a sound again as my movements were denied.
I sucked in a sharp breath as his tongue swept through the center of me. I bundled the sheets into my fist with one hand and gripped the sleek headboard with the other as my hips rolled against the sensation. His appreciative noise as he tasted me was music to my ears. Strong fingers gripped my cheeks as he forced me up for access to my clit. Between the saliva and my desire, the bed below us was already a pool of our love.
“I want you,” I said through clenched teeth.
“You have me,” came his reply. I felt the vibration of his words in my deepest parts. My hips rolled again, and he grabbed me with both hands, flipping me over in a motion so swift that my equilibrium didn’t have time to stabilize before his hands were beneath my knees, tilting me up as he devoured me. I reached for him, running my fingers through his silken strands, their diamond light the only color in the onyx darkness.
He carried me up, up, up as his mouth moved relentlessly on me, alternating between sucking and the swirling pressure of his tongue. He released one knee from my leg and it landed on his shoulder as his fingers searched for my breast, massaging it until they claimed my nipple with acute, pinching need. I cried out as he twisted, but he knew me well enough to know I liked the pain. I felt his smile as his mouth and fingers moved in time with one another.
He knew my body better than I did.
Touching myself, using the vibrator in my bedside table, and watching saved clips from particularly spicy scenes usually ended with me giving up before I came. I struggled to let down my mental wall long enough to enjoy time and space when I was alone. I was easily distracted by things I needed to do, thoughts from the day, stresses, wishes, wants, needs. It all evaporated when I was with Caliban. He took control, and I could let go. I could feel the licks, the kisses, the suctions, the fingers, the vibrations, the bites. I left my head and entered my body, fully present. I wasn’t my thoughts, my actions, my past. I wasn’t my hang-ups or insecurities or memories. I was only flesh and blood and bundles of nerves, all his to command.
My body rolled again, and he released the grasp on my breast, dragging his palm slowly down the front of me as his fingers worked their way toward the throbbing need between my legs. He brought his fingers to my entrance and chuckled as I bucked against them, trying to push them in. I was so close. I knew that it would take the barest of pressures to push me over the edge.
He didn’t bother easing me in. Two fingers slipped inside me like a chilled knife through melting butter, slicing into the center of me. I clenched around him as he pressed into the innermost part of me. I gasped for air against the pressure within me. I knew the sheets were a lake. I knew I ran down his hand and his arm like a fountain. I could feel the raw scrape of my throat before I heard myself, unable to stop the cry of pleasure.
He carried me to the top of the ladder, one rung, then another, then another.
I heaved breath after breath as his tongue and fingers worked against me. My hands balled tighter in his hair. My legs tensed, muscles flexing, toes curling as I approached climax. I gulped for air, closing in on the final rung, holding my breath as my abs tensed, my body stayed locked, and my world froze. He took me to the top of the ladder and threw me over the safety of its ledge.
I cried out as my body buckled. I reacted to every rung as I descended, body flexing in convulsions as I pulsed through the orgasm. He was relentless as he carried me back down the ladder, mouth continuing as I gushed into him. He didn’t slow his movements until my body relaxed while I gasped for air. I flexed again as he slipped his fingers out of me, kissing up my stomach, my belly button, my sternum. He slipped what remained of my shift over my head and I had no fight left in me to resist him, though I wouldn’t have wanted to even if I’d had the energy. My body kicked again with involuntary pleasure as he swept his hands over my body and cupped my face. He kissed me gently and I tasted myself on his tongue.
“I love you,” I said.
“I’ve always loved you,” came his reply.
***
Dark walls. Gold accents. Lemongrass. Rose water. The dim light from an indiscernible source. A heavy arm. Moss, gin, mist. Steady breathing.
I moved shifted slightly and shivered as I pressed against the man behind me. He’d always run several degrees cooler than the world around us. Given the stuffy heat and windowless room, his refreshing chill was like water in the desert. I looked down to see I’d fallen asleep with my fingers interlaced with his. It took me a moment to truly accept that all of it had been real. The muscles in my softest parts clenched. A dull ache raked through me as I rolled toward him.
I nearly lost my breath at the sight of him.
Every time he was more beautiful, more unbelievable than the last. He stirred slightly as I adjusted my position. His eyes fluttered open to reveal the brilliant crystals beneath sleepy, hooded lids. His lips tugged up at the corners the moment he caught sight of me, and he tucked me in closer, pressing a kiss to the space between my brows.
“I am so, so grateful you’re here,” he said, “but gods above and below, I wish you hadn’t come.”
My face pinched between pain and confusion. I stayed quiet against the morning haze, allowing sleepiness to cover me like a blanket. “They sent a messenger to invite me to their banquet. I was expected.”
He said, “A spider would gladly invite a fly to its web if it thought the prey might respond. I’m angry with myself for letting you worry. In hundreds of lifetimes, I never would have imagined you being trapped here, surrounded by our enemies. I wouldn’t have let you put yourself in danger, but I—”
“Then we are in trouble?” My stomach twisted. I felt like a fool for being the face of positivity all the while Fauna had been calling a spade a spade. Just as quickly as the knots in my gut formed, they unraveled. I decided I didn’t care if I was here among friends or if I’d marched directly to my own demise. I reminded him, “I came for you in the mortal realm, too.”
His laugh was scarcely more than an exhale. “And it was the best moment of my life.”
I tucked my head against his chest as I asked, “So why didn’t you think I’d find you now?”
“I’ve dedicated lifetime after lifetime to finding you,” he murmured.
“Maybe it’s my turn.”
He slipped his hand behind my head, holding me to him as he said, “I’ve spent my existence doing questionable things. The most reckless has been loving you, in all your forms. I’d still cut Astarte down where she stood once I knew she had a claim to you, but maybe I would have tied you to the bed first if I knew you were going to march with a chaos Norde into the Phoenician realm after me.”
I giggled lightly. “Fauna and I—”
He shushed me. Lips brushing against my ears, he said, “Don’t say anything you wouldn’t want the walls to hear.”
My breath snagged.
We wouldn’t be able to talk. Not about plans. Not about anything that mattered.
I pulled my face away long enough to look up into his eyes so he could see the worry that knit itself between my brows.
“Can you tell me about the trial?”
His face fell. “I’m a Prince, and our hosts aren’t looking to make an enemy of Hell. But they will demand justice for what happened to Astarte.”
I pictured an ornate dagger engraved with etimas di mori in Caliban’s hand as he opened Astarte’s throat. I bit down on my lip to keep myself from saying anything incriminating when I remembered Poppy’s words. The clinic’s security camera footage had been scrubbed. They had no concrete evidence of Caliban’s involvement, but two of their citizens were dead, and the one who remained knew angels and demons were involved.
“How did it end?” I asked. “How did Anath subdue you and—”
He gave me a warning look. It wasn’t safe to speak. Not when the walls had ears.
“Azrames will stand trial,” I said, careful not to say anything that wasn’t public knowledge. “Why? What crime are they pinning on him?”
“It’s complicated,” Caliban rubbed his chin while he considered his response. “Hell and the Phoenicians are allies, primarily because we share an enemy. Azrames—a civilian with no royal title or godhood to speak of—was present while an enemy soldier succeeded in murdering a major goddess.”
“And?” I practically laughed at the so-called crime. This was so much better than I’d feared. They weren’t charging him with Jessabelle’s execution, or accusing him of Astarte’s murder. He was simply…there.
“And”—Caliban’s expression was pained—“the law demands that a civilian intercede on behalf of their betters. His crime is living, as he would have been expected to die fighting for an allied goddess rather than walk away without a scratch while a major deity in their pantheon was killed by an angel.”
I stared at him wordlessly. We both knew that wasn’t what had happened. Caliban had been wielding the god-killer when he had taken the dagger to Astarte’s throat. Az had sunk the pointed, bludgeoning end of his meteor hammer into Jessabelle’s skull. Silas had only been in Bellfield because I’d called on him for help at Caliban’s behest. He’d rescued me from certain death.
“What about Silas?” My question barely escaped from behind my clenched teeth.
Caliban’s eyes softened. “The angel saved you, Love. More times in this cycle than I care to count.”
“I can count,” I said tersely. “Three. Three times.”
He laughed and folded me into him once more. “You say three as if it isn’t a magic number.”
Perhaps the demons couldn’t intercede on behalf of an angel, but I had a few Nordes up my sleeve.
“And Fenrir—”
His fingers tensed against me with near-bruising strength. I almost yelped as he pulled himself away from me to search my face. His strength and intensity reminded me, if only for a moment, that he was no mortal. His eyes scanned me for information, willing me into silence as he discerned all he could from my bewildered expression. I shut my mouth tightly against the power of names as I let my brows tilt up in both worry and apology. I hadn’t even considered the power in the Norse god’s name.
Voice tight, he asked, “You brought your…?”
“Dog,” I supplied, voice rife with anxiety. “I had no one to watch him, and Fauna said it would be okay to bring my dog. When we were met at the gates, the guard said I couldn’t have a pet in our room. I’m not sure where they’re keeping him.”
He dipped his chin in understanding, but his eyes remained tight with stress. It took a while for his face to relax before he said, “It makes sense that you wouldn’t be able to find anyone to watch your dog on short notice. I understand how important he is to you. We’ll get you reunited with your pet as soon as possible.”
“Thank you,” I said, still tense. I kicked myself for the thoughtless slip of tongue. I justified to myself that I’d spent years speaking to Caliban freely, considering him little more than an extension of my madness. It was a steep learning curve.
His thumbs moved against the muscles in my back, melting the knots that had risen to meet my stress. “I’ll take care of everything,” he said. It was the same message he’d repeated again and again, perhaps until I believed it.
I made an appreciative sound at the movement of his fingers, but couldn’t stay silent. “You have no idea how far I’m willing to go for you.”
His hands stilled for the barest of seconds as he soaked in the weight of my words. I felt him absorb their meaning before he resumed the motion. He was the Prince of Hell, but I was its bride. Perhaps Caliban, in his infinite grace, cunning, and wisdom, could keep the realms together, but I was born to tear them apart.