Chapter Twelve
Lenora
There are too many corridors.
Too many bends.
Every new one is a replica of the last. Every turn is like going in circles.
I stop.
The carpet beneath my feet squishes stagnant water between my toes. Around me, condensation drips in mute plops from the soggy ceiling over my head. The walls sweat, slick with mold.
I do wonder what would happen if I got lost. Would anyone find my body? I know Marcus would make certain of it. He would hire an army to find me. But would I be alive?
I let that thought go and resume my search. Somewhere behind me, the chapel with my boys tucked inside sits in darkness. So still and silent in their coffins. I stopped wondering if I can hear them now that it’s night. All the books say night is when the other side wakes.
They did not wake.
I pressed my ear to the smooth wood and waited, breath held tight in my chest.
Nothing.
But I don’t think about that now. Getting distracted will only get me more lost.
How many turns had we taken? I haven’t even seen that grisly painting of the melting man. Maybe I should turn back and…
A faint click of blades on glass.
Then again.
Rhythmic. A steady patter, the equivalent of someone drumming their fingers.
I follow the sound, moving with purpose. The walls look nothing like I remember but I ignore that. It’s not important when I find the arch. The stairs.
The angels.
Heart leaping, I jog down the steps. My light splashes in shallow puddles across the room, painting their down tilted faces with a faint gold. But unlike before, I’m too anxious to feel the trepidation. They could come to life and I would most likely accept it. It wouldn’t be the strangest thing.
I push the drapes aside and slip into the cavernous chamber hidden from the world. The grand cathedral, heavy with age and a surging hum I hadn’t noticed before. There’s a force weighing me down, a resistance trying to shove me back. Warning me to leave.
But I won’t. I have a purpose and I’m not leaving until I accomplish it.
It doesn’t lift, but I force my way through. It lessens the closer I draw to the altar. The sleek, black table at the center of the platform.
I hadn’t really noticed it earlier. I’d been too preoccupied by the swirling shadows. But I pause to take it in now.
It’s clean.
While the rest of the place is layered in grime and dust, the table gleams. Not shines but exists in its own state of light and darkness.
The now hundreds of candles collected across every available space stops at the top of the first step.
Yet the onyx slab of stone almost glows.
And like the mirror, it writhes with those tendrils.
Smoke trapped in a gorgeous, ornate dais.
Carefully carved symbols line the sides. They run in intricate loops and marks I don’t recognize but feel the draw. My fingers move of their own accord to trace a circle with six lines carved into the center of the table and extending in deep rivulets to the edges.
For draining?
What type of table requires draining?
My stomach pitches but I swallow it back and face the stairs and the mirror.
And the figure standing before the latter.
My breath catches. A startled scream I barely choke down as my mind scrambles to understand what it’s witnessing.
Beautiful and naked, he studies me from his perch. Muscular with long, toned limbs and a torso carved from stone. Hair the color of crow wings glints in the gentle candlelight, barely concealing the shocks of white at his temples.
The hand I’d clapped over my mouth drops to my rampant heart.
“Marcus?”
With the prowling grace of a large animal, he makes his descent.
Bare feet disturb the layers of age collecting across stone.
I watch, mesmerized by the fluid motions of every muscle and the erection at the center that makes me ache.
It juts proudly against the rigid lines of his abdomen, a delicious distraction because I suck in a breath when he’s suddenly right in front of me.
The unexpected invasion of my space startles my fingers loose around the light in my hand. The iron holder crashes with a resounding clatter to my feet. Candlesticks break free and roll over the edge of the platform. Flames sniffing out.
I barely notice when he’s so close. So warm. His heat washes down my body, burns through my nightie. I’m trembling and panting as I stare up into eyes the black void of the darkest night.
“Marcus—?”
His mouth finds mine in a melding of pure, sweet passion. It steals my breath and sanity with a single swoop. My head reels with a desire that only ever existed in fantasy.
“Tell me what you want, Lenora,” he whispers against my mouth, brushing the words over the nerves of my brain.
He hasn’t touched me and I’m already at the cusp. Has done nothing but tease the seam of my mouth with his tongue and I’m weeping rivers down my quivering thighs.
What I want is him.
Him inside me, buried so deep he becomes a part of my soul.
And I think I’m getting my wish when he kisses me harder and slips a hand beneath my slip.
“Tell me,” he coaxes with the first sweep of his fingers through my dripping folds.
How can I think when he’s circling that ridge? When he’s luring me so close…
You.
I want you.
But no. That isn’t it.
It is. So badly I’m sure I’ll combust, but that isn’t why I’m here.
“I want them all to die. I want them to suffer.” My nails claw into his broad shoulders. Anchor with the first delve of his fingers deep into my channel. My body bows, head falling back as the explosion of fire erupts deep inside. “Please!”
“And if I give it to you?”
A second finger fills me, and I cry out at the pressure. The unusual strain as my body opens in a way it never has before.
“Anything,” I wheeze.
His mouth finds my exposed throat and sucks. He leaves a trail down my hammering pulse to my collarbone. While his fingers move and slide. Pumping with unhurried strokes.
“This?” he urges, pushing in deep, too deep.
I wail with the flare of sweet pain. My fingers claw across his back, but not to stop him.
“Yes! Yes, please.”
But rather than comply, he withdraws. The loss of that burn has a fresh wave of desperation coiling through me, an urgency that feels intoxicating. It rushes through my skull, disorients my thoughts. There is nothing but this gnawing hunger only he can satiate.
“Easy, my little pet.” He sucks lightly on my bottom lip but stops when I push for more.
“I will give you everything you ask. I will lay your enemies at your feet.” The straps of my gown are pulled down my arms. The fabric is released in a white ripple down my body to pool at my feet.
“I will carve your name into their very souls while you watch.”
Thick, black tendrils rise off his flesh. They coil from the dark surface of his eyes, spill from his mouth. He is writhing and glinting with a fine mist of powder.
When his mouth dips to my chest, closes around a nipple, tiny blades nick my clavicle. Slice at my throat. Sharp stings that barely register but heighten my delirium to the point of madness.
Every nip, every suck, every time he draws blood and licks it clean, I fall deeper. Becoming barely more than a bundle of raw nerves detached from sanity as I’m lifted and placed on the table.
The stone is warm. Like it’s been baked under the sun. The contact with it against my back sends a shiver through me that has my thighs pressing together.
“Open,” he purrs.
And my knees immediately, without a shred of hesitation, fall apart. Beneath me, my arousal is a thick puddle I can feel smearing across the skin of my backside. It runs along the rivulets in the table and I feel my cheeks flush thinking that is what it’s for.
“Such a good pet.” Big hands curl into the sides of the table. Muscles bunch and flex with the pull of his weight over me to settle in the place between my thighs. “Such a sweet, helpless pet.”
Ribbons of unimaginable pleasure course through every nerve ending brushed by his tendrils. Every inch of space he nicks burns with the sweetest ecstasy. I’m writhing. Restless and in agony for him to just touch me. Anywhere. One graze of his fingers would send me over.
But he’s taking an eternity crawling up my body. Eons letting his mouth hover inches from flesh only to glide away, leaving me throbbing.
“Please!” I sob. “Please, touch me.”
Eyes the endless voids of night itself lift through heavy lashes and fix on my face. Sadistic pleasure curls the edges of his mouth.
“But your suffering feeds me. Your sweet agony…” He pauses over my open sex and inhales deeply. “It’s been centuries since I’ve had such an exquisite meal. I will savor your submission.”
A whimper escapes me and he chuckles but resumes his steady climb.
In place, hands braced on either side of my head, he pauses with his face inches over mine. His weight settles, crushing and aligning. Fitting in every place that matters. I lift my arms to circle his neck, and he blinks like I’ve taken him off guard.
“Is this okay?” I ask.
To my surprise, he bursts out laughing. Deep, echoing rumbles that crack off the walls and prickle beneath my skin. It’s the kind of sound dusted with sand and edged with steel. Not cruel. Nice, but the laugh of someone not accustomed to the process.
I suppose, being alone underground for as long as he has been, he hasn’t had much opportunity for humor.
But there is softness in his features when he dips his face and kisses me.
It’s with that same intoxicating rush that makes my head light and my entire body tremble with a heady need.
My very blood seems to burn in my veins, a current of such bliss that when his hips surge forward, my body gives zero resistance.
There is no pain. No discomfort. I’m so relieved to finally have him inside me, I cum.