Chapter 9
Gemma
I ’d lied.
I was not my own.
Not right then.
I was his .
He controlled me.
He controlled everything .
I wanted to sob at the wrongness and the rightness of this unfathomable, taunting, drugging pleasure.
When I’d first felt the sharp prick of his fangs, I’d felt resigned. This was what I’d agreed to, was it not? This was the price for my family’s freedom. And I would pay it. A thousand times over.
Yet I’d also felt determined. Because I’d realized right then that Azur might be able to feed from me, he might be able to make me fear him, he might be able to keep me locked away for the rest of my natural life, but I was in control of my own thoughts.
It was my mind in which I would live. He could do whatever he pleased with my body and not even get close to touching me.
Azur wanted to break me?
He could try his hardest, but I refused to let him.
Only, at his first dizzying suck, I felt my body tingle and warm. Heat radiated out from his bite, the pinching prick of it already faded in my memory, giving way to something far, far more worrisome.
I panicked when the pleasure began to crest, sudden and alarming, making me gasp. I clawed at the strong, tight arm that was bracketed against my breasts, scratching and tugging, but I didn’t know if it was to keep him near or to warn him.
I could feel his warm tongue lapping at the bite. I could feel the sucking pull of his fangs, drawing my blood into his mouth. His wings were holding me in place, my body rendered powerless. Between my legs, I began to throb, flaring to life as my knees trembled.
A moan escaped my throat, unwanted but inevitable. I swore I could feel that mouth on every inch of my body, on my suddenly heavy breasts and tight, straining nipples, to my inner wrists, behind my knees, in the creases of my thighs. And there . Right there. His bite seemed to connect directly to my clit, to the aching bud that fluttered and pulsed with every long, deep draw.
What is happening? I thought wildly, straining against him. I was aware of him in a way I hadn’t been before. The tease of his hair as it trailed over my shoulder. The hard press of his chest and ridges and valleys of carefully sculpted strength. His ragged breath and the sudden rocking of his body against mine. That was when I felt it…
The unmistakable massive length of his cock. Hard and fully erect.
My eyes widened. When he groaned against me, taking my blood deep, I went to my tiptoes, trying to keep his mouth on me, my head lolling, going dizzy.
I’m going to come, I thought desperately.
I needed to!
Biting my lip, I moaned, feeling a familiar flutter between my legs. I didn’t care anymore. My thoughts and needs hinged on his fangs in my neck. Nothing else mattered.
So, so close!
Then Azur froze.
I felt every muscle in his body stiffen and tighten until he became a column of stone at my back.
Then before I could part my lips in protest, he was tearing away from me.
I nearly cried out in frustration in my dazed state. My neck felt empty where his fangs should have been imbedded deep. I was shaking with my need to orgasm and suddenly so angry with him for denying me that once-in-a-lifetime kind of pleasure. Because I knew, undoubtedly, that was what it would’ve been.
Then I remembered myself.
When I did, I gasped.
When the reality of our situation crashed onto me like a pile of bricks, I felt deeply, deeply ashamed. Mortified. Disgusted.
My knees gave out from underneath me, and I tumbled to the soft rug that covered the stone floor, sitting splayed. I stared up at Azur in shock and disbelief, even as arousal still coursed through my body, even as my blood sang from his bite. Pressing the pads of my fingers hard into the twin wounds near my jugular, I focused on evening my breaths.
Never in a million years had I expected this from a Kylorr’s feeding, I thought quietly.
I almost laughed. Maybe it was their best kept secret. Maybe it was intentionally done.
Azur’s shoulders were heaving as he stared down at me. His eyes were glowing red. Like rubies in the darkness, illuminated like a blaze. And…had he grown ? He filled more of the room, which seemed to have shrunk three sizes.
I watched as a tiny drop of my blood, red like his eyes, rolled off one of his ivory fangs. He caught it with the pad of his thumb, sucking it cleanly off as I sat, shivering, waiting.
The tension in the room was thick. So thick I could barely breathe. Like heavy heat during summer in the Collis.
I expected panic to rear its head after the embarrassment.
Strangely enough, I began to feel calm .
Maybe it’s from the blood loss, I thought. He’d fed from me hard .
Swallowing, I lowered my hand from the bite mark and pushed up to my knees. Azur watched me, tracking my every movement. The longer he stared, the harder and colder his face became.
But something was changed.
Azur was looking at me.
Really looking at me.
I felt the weight of his observing gaze like it was the clasp of his unyielding grip.
Something’s wrong, I realized, my instincts telling me so.
When I finally found my strength to stand, I stood before him, meeting his gaze head on.
Quietly, I told him, “You got what you wanted. You can leave now.”
His nostrils flared at my bold command. His wings—which were frighteningly strong, as I remembered the tightening hold of them—twitched. The tops of his wings were capped with a single set of sharp, curved talons. They could gut me where I stood if his gauntlets didn’t first.
If I thought it was a risk daring to give him an order after what had just happened, it was one I knowingly took. He needed to leave. I needed to wash him from my body. I needed to sleep away this entire day, this entire week.
In the morning, I would begin a new life. One I wasn’t certain of, but one I was determined to have a hand in shaping.
Krynn wasn’t anything like how I had expected. My own ignorance had played a hand in that, but I wouldn’t make the same mistake again. I needed to be rested. I needed to be alert. I needed to be ready .
And if my Kylorr husband’s bite promised dark, seductive, unwanted, dizzying pleasure?
Next time, I would be better prepared to receive it.
This was my life now. Whether I wanted it or not.
Turning from him, showing him my back, I made for the washroom I knew was off the sitting room.
There was a whisper of movement behind me, and then he was there. Spinning me to face him and pushing me up against the wall next to the hallway door, bracketing his hands on either side of my head. My heart pounded fiercely, but I leveled him a long look, the back of my skull pressing into the textured gray stone wall behind me. The bite on my neck gave a throb.
“You don’t get to dismiss me, wife ,” Azur growled down to me. His eyes were still glowing.
“You’re in my rooms, are you not?” I answered in an even tone that made his fangs press against his bottom lip.
“Do you forget who I am?” he hissed, crouching low into my space until we were eye level and all I could see was him. His wings blocked out everything behind him. “And you still dare speak to me like this?”
“How could I forget who you are?” I snapped back, clenching my fists into the silk of my dress. “You’re the male who bought me! The male who’s made it clear to me that I am an object to him, a plaything, a damn meal . I am nothing to you but a neck you can stick your fangs into and torment whenever you wish.”
“Torment?” he asked, eyes narrowing dangerously. His purring tone was at odds with the hardened glint in his gaze as he asked, “Is that what torment looks like for you? As if you weren’t moaning with my fucking fangs in your pretty neck! Which, by the way, is only one of the many places I will feast on you, little bride.”
Fury rose. Shame made my cheeks heat, but it had nothing on the sudden rage.
“Fuck you,” I whispered. I began to shake. I pushed at his chest. “ Fuck you! ”
I never lost it. I was the calm sister. The rational one. The one who didn’t let emotions take over. The one who Piper had called a cold bitch with a stick up her ass. That was me.
Circumstance had made me that way. Even before my mother’s death.
Nothing about me felt calm. I wanted to claw Azur’s damn eyes out. I wanted to pummel his chest with my fists until they were bruised and raw.
I pushed at his chest again, and though he growled in warning—a low, deep, rumbling sound that made the hair on my arms stand on end—he didn’t budge. So I did it again, throwing my weight into him. Slapping at the hardened wall of his chest with my palms before I curled them into fists.
My throat was tight. My eyes began to sting. I was making small noises I’d never heard before, like a snarling, sad little beast.
I’m going to cry, I realized, and the thought made me even angrier. Because now he would see me cry, and I loathed to show him another weakness, another vulnerability after what had just happened between us.
“ Stop, ” he snapped when I banged on his chest harder. He tried to snag my wrists, to keep me still, but I fought against him. There was this hellish thing inside me, a beastly thing that wanted to break free. I wanted to hurt him. I was desperate to.
But it wasn’t truly him I wanted to hurt, was it?
It was everything else that had led me to him. My deep-rooted anger that had festered for years and years and years was beginning to surface.
I had no idea how to handle it.
I had no one to turn to.
I was completely and utterly… alone .
That realization made the first sob tear from my throat. The blur in my vision made my fists finally slow from their frenzied whip, and Azur caught them up, holding them strong. I fought against him half-heartedly as my grief and a bizarre sense of loss finally caught up with me.
I cried until my throat ached, trying to hide my face from Azur.
“Gemma,” came my name, spoken in a tone that was so unlike his cutting hiss.
My name alone gave me enough strength to break away from his hold. I stumbled away, toward the chair I’d dragged into the corner, turning my back on him. Wrapping my arms around my body, I felt the bite on my neck give a twinge, a constant reminder I couldn’t erase.
“Go away,” I whispered.
“Gemma—”
“I’ll beg if I have to,” I informed him, my voice shaking, trying to hold back another sob. “ Please , just go away!”
Silent tears tracked down my cheeks as I stared at the shadows flickering against the stone walls. I could see his shadow there too, long but wide.
So, so alone, I thought. What I wouldn’t have given for my sisters right now. For Fran. For a familiar face, even my father’s. Because the heart was a fickle thing and I couldn’t simply erase the love I had for him.
I felt my face crumple. My shoulders shook as the deep sobs clawed up my throat.
Finally, though not soon enough for my liking, I heard Azur retreat. His heavy footsteps boomed across the floor, sounding quick and angry.
When the door closed behind him, I cried even harder.
At least he was gone.
Truly alone now, I thought.