Chapter 9 #2
His movements weren’t careful or gentle, not like she deserved. Not with everything she had faced. She took it all from him, even when tears glimmered at the tips of her lashes and her hot walls clenched around his cock as he drove inside her, she took it sweetly, quietly. Pliant as a doll.
When they both had finished, she cupped his cheek and brought his face down to hers, pressing her warm lips to his and murmuring, "I forgive you. I love you."
"I don’t deserve you, Ves." The name slipped off Cyrus’s tongue, making her sweat-slick cheeks grow a deeper shade of pink.
"Ves," he repeated, sated and drowsy from his fresh feed.
"Ves, I love you forever. I’ll keep you safe.
" He said each word between kisses. "Forever.
" Those teasing brushes of his lips had traveled down her jaw, her neck, until he lavished kisses on each bit of her skin, tasting the sweetness of her arousal, taking a first from her that she had never experienced as he licked over her heat and twisted his tongue on her small bundle of nerves…
But their forever had not lasted long.
Vesperin had forgiven Cyrus once. Could she forgive him again?
He was a monster, consumed by his baser instincts. At one time, she had loved him, grown with him. Used him to deal with her trauma and let him show her there was more to sex than taking, than pain.
With her soft brown hair and delicate brown eyes, it was love at first sight. Then, their hands had brushed, and he had known:
She was all he would ever want.
If only he had been able to have her for longer than a few years.
It had been everything—she had been everything. Until his father had found out and forced him to watch as he killed her. Cyrus didn’t think he would ever be able to forget the sight of her hot blood slipping from the wound in her chest as she lay on the floor, eyes glassy.
He hadn’t forgotten in three hundred years, but now, she was back. And damn it all if he would let his father ruin this.
Never again.
Cyrus would take the opportunity away from him. After all, his father couldn’t hurt her if they were both far away from Sibeth.
The strobe lights flashed. Glass bottles shattered. But to Rin, it was all a dull, distant thump—her focus fixed on the Rogue she had hunted to a club in one of the wealthier districts.
The incubi and succubi were draped in jewels, their barely-there clothing flashing soft breasts and skin dusted with glitter.
The bass of the music thumped like her heartbeat—for once, not erratic or stuttering, but sure as she slid across the smooth bar counter, her boots knocking a stray shot glass, sending it scattering to the mirrored floors.
She fell to the ground, a hand braced before her, her white hair hanging in her face.
Sweat glistened on her temples, but her grey eyes were so alive in the reflection underneath her.
This club was crafted of mirrors, a prism of lights reflected, and bodies moving; it was easy to get out of sorts here.
A roar drowned out the music as the Rogue’s rock-like body slammed into a mirrored wall, cracks spiderwebbing outward.
She smiled and rose, chest heaving.
It seemed the monster thought it had an easy escape, tricked by the mirrors.
She could use this to her advantage.
"Everybody out of the way!" she called, sending the already scampering revelers deeper into the corners of the room where they cowered. Even with their Stella, they didn’t want to interfere with a Hunter.
Rin raised her Echogun, her aim steady. The Rogue turned to her, its pointed head lowering as smoky tendrils of its breath curled from its large nostrils. A foot scratched against the ground, its claws ticking over the glass.
Her finger hovered over the trigger.
The monster leapt.
In midair, it swept past the overturned chairs and broken bits of glass.
But it wasn’t headed for her. Its aim was for the group of incubi and succubi huddling near the far wall.
Rin locked eyes with a succubus, watching as the female raised a hand and sent a wave of controlled, crackling fire in front of the Rogue, her Stella allowing her to create a perfect shield.
Thwarted, the Rogue hissed, not willing to go closer to the flames.
Rin jumped into action, boots thumping over the mirrored ground, cracking under her steps from the force of them as she raised her Echogun, notched her finger on the trigger, and fired right into the monster’s back, the small, vulnerable spot where its head met its neck.
Blood sprayed as the Rogue trilled an echoing warble, teetering to the side, before it fell to the ground in a heap.
Rin’s breath ratcheted out of her as she walked closer, nudging her boot against the beast.
"You can call off your Stella now. It’s dead," Rin proclaimed, voice steady even though her hands shook.
She knelt, waving her watch before the monster to track the kill.
On Earth, the kill tracker would alert a clean-up crew to the location, but since she was on another planet, that responsibility fell to her shoulders.
Peachy.
Hesitant footsteps made her head turn.
The Fireborn succubus who had used her Stella to save the other partygoers approached, her red hair tickling her generous hips. "Do you need a little help?" Though scared, the female’s voice was sultry.
Rin inclined her head, holstering her gun in the harness wrapped around her waist. "If you don’t mind. Can you burn it?"
A wide grin stretched the succubus’s lips. "Gladly." Fire sparked along her fingertips as flames danced in the air, tendrils of sparks sizzling as it reached the dead Rogue. In a snap of her fingers, the monster burned into ash.
The mission was over.
So why did Rin feel so hollow?
Blood was drying on the side of her face from a thin cut on her upper cheekbone, where glass had rained down from the mirror ceiling. It stung in reminder as she walked swiftly down the dark halls of the hotel. When she saw her room, her throat tightened.
She sure as fuck hoped the incubus had gotten the message and left. She wasn’t interested in ever seeing him again, even though the space between her thighs was still wet and sensitive from what they had done.
She came to a stop at a different door, fist raised as she pounded on it.
Thumps sounded from the other side. She kept knocking.
The door opened with a loud curse. "What the fuck is it?
" Plin stilled when he saw her on the other side of the door, dressed in her Hunter uniform with her hair in tangles and blood on her cheek.
"Oh. What do you want?" He wore no shirt, and his pants were low-slung, revealing a gross strip of hair under his navel.
"We’re leaving early. The mission is done. The Rogue has been eliminated." She spoke in near-monotone, trying to ignore the pressing emptiness inside her.
Plin scrubbed a hand over his face. In the dim light, the lines on his forehead looked starker.
He shot a look over his shoulder, mumbling a quiet, "Give me a minute," before stepping out in the hall. "Look, kid, I know you’re going through some shit right now, but fuck, I don’t know—I’m not a father. Just… maybe you need to relax."
She had tried that. It didn’t work.
Something in her stare must have looked so broken, even though she tried to hide it away.
Plin sighed. "We’ll leave in the morning."
She nodded, turning to leave. And go where, she wasn’t sure. She was scared to return to her hotel room. Every twinge in her hips was a memory of what she had done in there, and she wasn’t sure she could face that room again.
"Vesperin," Plin called. She turned to look at him, seeing a flash of a real man—worn down by life—instead of a pilot. "If you need anything…"
"Thank you," she said quietly. With that, Rin walked to the elevator, letting it carry her down to the city street—not sleeping, never did it sleep.
And neither did she, these days.
Cyrus’s limbs tingled with numbness.
He pressed a hand to his mouth to stifle a yawn. Fuck, if he’d known fleeing a planet would be so exhausting, he would have slept a bit longer.
But the incubus had had work to do before stowing away on the Fleet ship that was now rumbling to life.
The cargo hold was cramped, metal crates and luggage stuffed on either side of him. A hard-edged suitcase dug uncomfortably into his hip. He barely felt it. His body thrummed from his recent feed—more filling than anything he had had in centuries.
He still smelled Vesperin on his skin.
It would be a long journey. But worth it.
His measly bag contained only the essentials.
He had left the hotel room and made straight for the palace, sneaking in through the servants’ quarters and hurriedly stuffing some clothes and coin in his bag.
And a few other things—he had a Soulbond to impress.
Voices murmured faintly from the cockpit above, footsteps thudding across the metal overhead. A soft, feminine voice carried to him, too low for him to make out the words, but he knew that voice.
Engines roared to life, heat bleeding into the cargo hold until sweat prickled at his nape. He shifted, restless.
It was worth it. God damn it all, she was worth it.
Cyrus was Earth-bound.
Everything was too quiet.
The kitchen countertop of Rin’s dorm was littered with half-empty bottles of water, a notebook opened to a page with a scrawled grocery list, and a few packages of chips with little smiley faces on the brightly colored bags.
Feeling too small in the cozy clothes she had changed into after her long, scorching shower—where she had scrubbed her skin red, the space between her thighs twinging—she hugged herself, hollow and raw.
She had done it.
Rin had chased a ghost, yet the ghost still fled from her.
Her suitcase was thrown into her room. She hadn’t bothered unpacking before ripping her clothes off and jumping in the shower. She had to scrub off the memory of what she had done on Sibeth.