Chapter 27 #2
Part of me is scared to know; the other part cares about nothing else but the answer. “Why?”
He tucks a loose lock of hair behind my ear and brushes his lips against mine. “Because I would slaughter an army of demons to keep from losing another person I would take a blade for. You want to know why I’m standing here? This doesn’t feel like a prison when I’m with you.”
This time, when tears spring to my eyes, I relish them because for the first time I know what it means to cry from something other than sadness or the beast that pounds against the walls.
I splay my hand over his chest. “Truth or dare, Lynx.”
“Dare.”
“Kiss me, and don’t ever stop.”
There’s no hesitation. The moment the last word falls from my lips, he takes my mouth with his, consuming me like I’m an essence that’ll bring him back to life. Any gentleness doesn’t last more than a handful of seconds. This is soul-consuming.
Lynx grips the back of my neck and angles my head to deepen the kiss, pushing his tongue into my mouth. Desire burns down my spine and coils my stomach tight enough to have me pushing my body against his in search of friction.
Hardness presses against me, and I roll against him, wishing more than anything that there weren’t any layers separating us.
He curses against me as a ragged moan builds at the back of my throat. All the hurt is gone. Every fucked-up memory, every horror to come, all of it leaves my mind. There’s only me and Lynx and the desperate exchange of our tongues.
“Say it again,” he rasps, fisting my hair then leaving a blazing trail of kisses down my jaw, stopping at the soft flesh beneath my ear. “Tell me you want me.”
I claw at his back to try and get him closer, even though there isn’t any space separating us. “I need you,” I choke when he sucks my tender skin into his mouth, then scrapes his teeth over the sensitive area.
A large hand gropes my ass, reaching down to my thighs, grabbing at me like I might disappear if he doesn’t hold on to me. He rips his shirt off and walks us backward—I don’t know where, or for how long. I can’t think. Hitting the wall is answer enough.
Whether it’s his doing or mine, I’m not sure, but my leg is suddenly wrapped around his waist. The warmth of his bare chest alone makes me moan.
In one fell swoop, my top is on the floor, and the cold air bites my heated skin. In the next breath, his lips are around my nipple, and his fingers are sliding up my thigh beneath my shorts, pushing aside my panties.
The slightest brush is enough to have me bucking. I’m not sure who groans louder, me or him. He pushes his fingers into me and curls them, hitting the spot that makes me fist his hair, and I hang on for dear life because my body wants to give out from the electricity bursting through my veins.
Lynx chuckles, moving back up to meet my mouth, then mutters against my lips, “You’re soaking my hand like you’re alive.”
The heel of his palm rubs my clit, and there’s no god that could stop the scream I let out. He thrusts into me at a relentless pace, hurtling me toward the end where that blinding light keeps growing brighter and brighter until it’s the only thing I know.
Moisture saturates the thin fabric of my panties and drips down my thighs. The sound of his fingers sliding against my wetness is nothing short of lewd. It’s in perfect harmony with every moan and hiccupped groan Lynx pulls from me.
He captures every ragged cry with his lips as if the sound will carry him through to the next life. He keeps kissing me the same way. Hungry, desperate, like he wants to consume not just taste.
I keep clawing at him, bucking my hips in time with his movements. At least I try to. There’s no rhythm to the roll of my body. I can’t decide whether I want to feel more of his fingers or the length of him rubbing against me in silent promise of what’s to come.
Ecstasy explodes in every corner of my being. If I wasn’t a ghost, the house would shake with the force of my cry as I sink my nails into his shoulders. Not even a Tor’Oth could yank me down from this high. Not even Lynx when he pulls his fingers out just to throw me onto the bed.
“That’s it, baby. Break my skin,” he groans.
Frustration at the sudden loss doesn’t get to form in my mind before he’s on me again, head bracketed between my thighs, sucking my clit into his mouth. My overly sensitive flesh screams at the sudden contact and melts at the same time.
I yelp when he pulls away to nip at my thigh, then tears the material of my shorts and panties. The sound of fabric ripping is loud enough to momentarily kick me out of my lust-addled stupor to really look at him.
Black has eaten up every hint of blue in his irises. Even in his human form, he looks more animal than man, staring at me like I’m his next meal and he plans on savoring every bite.
Wet beads of darkness line his back—evidence of the carnage caused by my nails. I don’t feel the slightest bit of remorse.
The dull glow of moonlight caresses the high points of his cheeks and the curve of his shoulders, brushing along his arms so they look larger than life, wrapped around my hips to hold me down.
He wets his bottom lip as he stares at the apex of my thighs. A flash of self-consciousness makes me squirm, but it’s quickly squashed by the deep, hoarse timber of his voice.
“Look at my pretty, dead pussy.” Lynx’s lips pull into a purely demonic grin before he drags his tongue down my center.
I curl everywhere. My toes. My legs around his shoulders. My fingers into his hair. The pleasure is soul-consuming in every sense of the word.
“Your cunt could kill a lesser man.” He laps at my clit then fucks me with his tongue before going back to kissing the bundle of nerves like I’m a delicate piece of treasure and he’s consumed by greed.
But maybe it’s me who wants too much because it’s not enough.
I want to kiss him. Fuck him. Ride him. Feel his chest against mine, and the slap of his hips, and the rumble of his chest.
“I need you,” I whimper, tugging on his hair to bring him up toward me.
“If you whisper like that, I’ll stop pretending I can resist you.”
He takes his pants off and climbs over me faster than I can process.
I don’t get the chance to think before he’s lining up his cock and thrusting into me. The only thing I can do is scream. Pleasure mixes toxically with pain. This feeling, it’s unholy, and carnal, and every form of sin I’d happily pay for.
He draws his hips out. “Say it again.” Lynx snaps forward so I can all but taste him in the back of my throat.
“I need you,” I cry out, dragging my nails down his back—for more or less, I’m not sure. My eyes are rolling to the back of my head, and my lungs have stopped working. My body stretches and aches to accommodate his size, but whatever sting of pain there is, it’s smothered by his lips on mine.
He curses, and his next thrust almost ends me. “I’m going to fuck you so good your heart’ll start beating again.”
With every pummel of his hips, the pain recedes until the pleasure becomes too much. Unshed tears burn my eyes, and even if I wanted to, I couldn’t stop them from falling. There’s nothing I can do to keep myself from crying out like the sky has opened.
Skin slaps against wet skin. Our ragged breaths twine together between broken kisses.
Sweat beads between my breasts, and my pulse roars in my ears.
Every one of his grunts and groans sends me higher.
I’m a pile of smoke and flesh, crying out the name of a demon who cursed me to an endless existence in the house that haunts me, and it’s the most alive I’ve ever felt.
“Pretty girl, your pussy would kill me if I wasn’t already dead,” Lynx rumbles against my ear. “You have no idea how thin the line is between wanting you and losing my mind.”
I say something—I think I do. Maybe a plea. Maybe a demand.
My pleasure is cresting, and there aren’t any computable thoughts in my mind. A tear trickles down the side of my cheek. I think I scream his name again. Syllables repeat and pour from my tongue, louder as I near the peak that’ll make me see a divine being.
Lynx’s thrusts turn rampant. He’s not just fucking me; he’s rutting into me like a crazed animal that’s broken from the thread that’s been holding him back. It destroys me. Rockets me toward the edge so I’m drowning in bliss.
My core tightens, and everything detonates. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt. Nothing, whether in this stage of the afterlife or the next could feel this good. I claw at his back, the sheets, his arms—anything my hands can reach—as I scream.
That’s when I hear the roar that shakes the walls. It matches Lynx’s powerful drive, which adds another layer of pleasure to the climax. His lips crash against mine, kissing me like it’s the final piece of this puzzle.
Our lips keep moving together as his thrusts slow until they stop altogether. He twitches inside me, and our combined warmth drips out of me. I’m not sure whether or not it stains the sheets.
Lynx presses his forehead to mine, staring into my eyes through the darkness. The corners of his own are soft—vulnerable. “You’re not allowed to leave. I won’t let you.”
I nod. “Okay,” is all I manage to say as a promise because every time I hear something like that from him, a part of my heart splinters and mends at the same time. But it’s a lie. I can’t promise it. Neither of us can.
And that thought is sobering.
He turns us so we’re both resting on our side then drags the thin white sheet over us even though it hardly does anything to stave off the cold.
We lie there, saying nothing, with Lynx rubbing my hair between his fingers, dragging his hand up and down my body.
I trace the symbols etched into the skin of his chest. I want to ask what they mean, but I don’t think this is the right moment.
I know I should say something—I just don’t know what. Everything I want to say feels too heavy, but saying nothing seems wrong too.
Something howls in the distance. Based on Lynx’s muttered curse, I assume it’s Tidus.
Sighing, he tightens his hold on me for a couple of seconds before moving to sit at the edge of the bed, taking the warmth with him.
I try not to let my disappointment show, but I must fail epically if his smug grin is any indication.
He walks to the window, facing away from me to look out at the lake. The contrast between the moonlight and shadows hitting the muscles of his arms and back has me mesmerized.
Each dip of darkness is an ode to the strength I’ve felt beneath my fingertips from the years he spent honing himself into a demonic weapon. I move closer and try to peer at the symbols etched into his back.
The markings circle the center of his upper back like a sundial before radiating outward. The symbols look similar to the ones decorating his pecs and arms, but the one going down his spine has my eyes narrowing.
I creep out from the comfort of the bed and fight a shiver caused by the chill as I close the distance to see his tattoos better. Something about the pattern prods at a memory I can’t quite pinpoint.
I’ve seen it before. In the grimoire, maybe?
No. The memory feels older than just a few months. It’s something I’ve seen a hundred times before, like a word I’ve heard repeated too many times to count but never cared to log in my mind.
The lettering thickens near the circle, thinning out at the base of his spine like a sharpened point.
My internal temperature drops. I step back and scramble to put on clothes.
“What is it?” Lynx asks, on edge.
“Follow me.” I don’t turn around to check if he does as I stumble through the door and down the hall, heading for the opposite side of the manor.
No one at the party pays either of us any mind, too drunk to do anything more than trip about and slur through conversations.
I fist my clammy hands, pulse rising with every step toward the room that started it all. I hold my breath and hesitate for only a second before opening the door into Ella’s room.
“What are we doing here?” He knows just as well as I do that I haven’t come in here since I buried myself.
“It has to be here somewhere.” It’s the most I can offer as I launch into my search—moving the drapes around, kicking aside furniture, looking beneath random pieces of fabric and junk.
There were several things I brought here the night of Ella’s birthday. The candles and chalk are exactly where I left them last time, her urn is in my grave, and the grimoire’s back in the room we just left. There’s one thing missing.
“What are you looking for?”
I kneel beside the bed and peer beneath the frame, and there it is, untouched since the night I accidentally summoned my first demon.
My arm strains as I stretch to get the item nestled between balls of dust. It takes all my concentration to pull it out and hold it up to the light.
“A dagger. I used it for the summoning—it was the object my sister cherished the most. It has to be on here somewhere.” There’s a dark patch on the metal that’s seeped into the engravings. “I must have bled on it worse than I thought.” I frown. “Could that be why you’re bonded to me?”
I have to angle the blade to properly make out the markings, and when I do, it feels like I’ve figured out the key that will get us out of here—and the thing that will damn us both.
“The symbols—they’re exactly the same as your tattoos,” I whisper, but I might as well be shouting.
“Where the fuck did you get this?” There’s a deadly tremor in his voice that spikes my adrenaline.
“What? I-it’s been in my family for generations. My grandma gave it to my sister,” I rush to say. Why is he getting so upset about this?
“Tell me your name.”
I frown. “What? It’s Sable.”
“Family name,” he demands.
“Eldrith.”