Chapter 46 #2
He pinched the peaks between his fingers, a lightning bolt of pain shooting through my chest—that was the light I needed. Not a comforting glow, but violent, crackling destruction.
Another hook unsnapped, and the leather stretched wider, my mark dangerously close to being revealed. Panic rose as I squirmed against his hold.
He paused. “You want to stop?”
I leaned my chest against the tree and pressed my hips back. “I want to start.”
“Always so impatient,” he murmured. His hands skated down my arms and closed around my bound wrists, using them to pull me against him. His length slid between my thighs, coating himself in my wetness. “This is what you want?”
I nodded again.
“Tell me, Diem. I want to hear your voice.”
“Yes,” I moaned. “Fuck me, Luther.”
He slammed into me, and pleasure exploded through every nerve. The bond purred as the feeling of my mate inside me filled me with unrivaled bliss. I felt peaceful and safe and verging on happy.
And I fought against it with everything I had.
“Harder,” I insisted again.
His pounding picked up speed, though it only increased the feelings of serenity I was racing to avoid.
Over the bond, I could feel Luther’s matching pleasure and the way his ever-present worry for me momentarily began to ebb.
In moments like this, it was so easy to empty my head of every haunting thought and rewrite it with only this, only us, only now.
And then my mind flashed back to the Sophosian corpses, and guilt buried me in a field of their ashes.
“Harder,” I growled.
Luther clamped one hand on my shoulder and wrapped my braid around the other, tugging on both to bring me under his control.
I encouraged him with rasping moans, but I still wanted more.
I crushed myself against the tree, letting every powerful thrust of his hips grind my face into the trunk, then writhed until my breasts spilled fully free.
The sensitive skin scraped over the coarse bark and turned an angry, irritated red.
I’d never shied from the boundary between pleasure and pain. My body responded in the most carnal of ways to the exhilaration of dancing too close to danger.
This was . . . something else. I wasn’t holding my hand to the flame to see how long I could stand it—I was dousing myself in kerosene and lighting a match.
Luther leaned in to kiss my neck, a tender reminder that there was more than lust at the heart of this, and I turned my face away. As my head dropped forward, his grip on my hair pulled tight. The prickle that coated my scalp did little to sate my malevolent hunger.
He jerked my hips back and bent me forward until he drove deeper and hit that perfect spot. Over the bond, his ecstasy surged, carrying me with it, and I frantically swam the other way. I stabbed my teeth into my lip to drown out the pleasure as heat built low on my spine.
His hips slapped hard against me. “Is this what you want?” he asked, voice gruff with desire.
“Harder,” I said, legs trembling. “Make it rough.” I pressed my face into the bark until my vision spotted. “Make it hurt.”
“You want me to hurt you?”
“Yes. Yes.”
Luther stilled.
“Is that what you want,” he said, his timbre dark and dangerously low, “or are you punishing yourself and using me to do it?”
Shame rolled through me. I felt seen in the worst kind of way. My gaze dropped. My cheeks burned.
Luther slid out of me, and the emptiness he left behind was world-consuming.
“Diem.”
“Release my hands,” I whispered.
His magic sparked against my skin, and the leather strap split and fell away.
“Diem,” he said again, more gently.
One arm clutched to my chest to cover my mark as I straightened my clothes, avoiding his eyes. “I think I need to take a walk.”
He tucked himself back into his pants. “I’m coming with you.”
I backed away. “No—I just need a minute to clear my head.” I turned to run, then paused, cringing at what I knew I had to do next.
I slowly walked back to Luther and stretched up on my toes for a kiss—soft and loving, nothing like the explosive self-destruction of moments ago—and slid the other hand to his waist.
He set his forehead on mine and pressed a palm low on my back to hold me against him. “Let’s go to my room in the palace. No one will bother us. We can talk, sleep . . . or fuck, if that’s truly what you need.”
My heart yearned to agree. His bedroom was the place where I’d awoken all those months ago, on the day my life and my heart set down a path from which neither would ever return.
Even after all that had changed, I was still walking through the flames, and he was still trying to save me from their burn.
My fingers closed around thrumming metal. “I’m sorry,” I breathed.
Then I turned, and I ran.
To my relief, Luther didn’t try to chase me. The forest wrapped its verdant arms around me, and after a few minutes of running, I was finally alone.
I sank against a tree, wishing I could melt into its bark and become one with the steady land. My soul was tumbling into a destructive spiral I couldn’t seem to stop. I wasn’t just cracking under the pressure, I was letting it grind me into a glittering dust, cup me in its hands, and blow me away.
My emotions sharpened to rage. Why was I punishing myself? I’d been tearing myself apart to save this world. I’d given people more second chances than they deserved, spared every life I could, no matter how rotten. What had it won me but the world’s condemnation?
If there was one thing the mortals and Descended could agree on, it was the ruthless Queen they wanted me to be. They may have wanted my sword to point in each other’s directions, but they were entirely united on how swiftly, and without mercy, my blade should swing.
The Diem they really wanted was the woman I’d become for one moment in Fortos, when I’d ordered the High General to slit his own throat. Not because it was the right thing to do, or because I had no other choice, but because I hated him, and he deserved it. Because vengeance felt good.
In that moment, I was my father’s daughter. Not the father who raised me, but the one whose blood ran in my veins. Tonight, I understood him better than I ever had.
I shoved the Meros compass that I’d stolen from Luther into my pocket and set my hand against the soil. The Forging magic stirred—I could feel Ophiucae’s presence in it, something dark and powerful that didn’t belong.
Spying on him had only ever ended in disaster for me before, but I was nothing if not persistent. I closed my eyes and let the Forging magic carry me over the sea.
He was standing in front of a fire, but it didn’t look like a campfire. Long, jagged pieces of metal pierced through the flames, and the sounds of shouting and shattering glass could be heard in the distance. On one side of his silhouette, the distinct shape of Sorrow’s Edge hung from his hand.
“Hello, daughter,” he said without turning to face me.
“Where are you?” I demanded.
“Can’t you sense it through the magic? Don’t tell me that’s yet another lesson I need to teach you.”
I looked around. The vision was hazy and ill-defined. A fog of dark shapes wove through scattered bursts of flickering orange-yellow flames. There were no trees in sight.
Ophiucae began to walk, and I was involuntarily drawn along behind him.
The tip of the sword dragged at his side, scraping loudly against the ground—paved ground.
Smooth and flat. Not open land, nor anything like the cobblestones of Lumnos or the dusty gravel of the Ring Road.
In fact, I’d only seen ground like this once before . . .
“Sophos,” I gasped. Suddenly, the fires around him seemed far more horrific. “You’re destroying the city.”
“I promised the mortals they could, before you got in our way. Seemed only fair to bring them back. It’s very important for a leader to keep their word.”
“But the labs . . . the archives. All that history and knowledge—”
“Does it matter now? There’s no one left to use it.”
“What about the mortals who live there?”
“They were given a chance to join us.”
“And the ones who said no?”
“I left it to Vance to decide their fates.”
My heart crumbled. I’d held on to a scrap of hope that some in the realm had survived, but this was absolute destruction of life and land alike.
I’d had my share of objections to Sophos City, but it had been a beacon of possibility.
The mortals and Descended who lived here had done so peacefully, as neighbors and friends.
Working together, they had accomplished incredible things.
It had been a glimpse of what a better Emarion could be.
To see it demolished by the same people I was fighting to save . . .
My soul retreated even further into the cold abyss.
“Quite violent, these mortals. I underestimated them all those years ago.” He swung Sorrow’s Edge upright and set the blade against his shoulder. “A mistake I won’t make again.”
“What are you planning?” I demanded. “Why haven’t you been at any of the battles?”
He let out a low chuckle. “You’ll see.”
He stopped walking and looked up. The vision grew to reveal a familiar building looming large—the Sophos library where Luther and I spent time alone. Though the building beside it was engulfed in fire, the library had remained miraculously untouched.
“You’re quite fond of this place, are you not?”
I hesitated. If I admitted the truth, he might destroy it to punish me for rising against him. If I lied, he might set it ablaze for my deceit.
“It belongs to the mortals,” I said. “It was taken from them. They deserve to have it back.”
“Are you sure? Before I intervened, these mortals were trying to burn it down.” He let out another dark laugh at my surprised silence.
“You know, being a Crown is like being a parent. Sometimes, you must let the little ones make their own mistakes. Much as it hurts you to see, you must give them the chance to learn from consequences. And if you come to realize they still cannot be trusted . . . if you truly care for them, you must save them from themselves.”