Endgame

Chapter 34 Aurora

AURORA

Oh no.

Oh.

No.

“Aurora.” Everett bangs on the door but he doesn’t raise his voice.

I hear the underlying panic in it, regardless. The threat is just as audible.

It’s bone-chilling.

I won’t obey.

Not when my period has started.

The blood that soaked my panties while I sat on his lap is leaking through the toilet paper I stuffed in them a second ago.

“What’s going on?” A sigh. “Aurora.”

“Go away, please.”

“Let me in, dammit.”

My chest tightens. He sounds genuinely worried, and I can’t do this. Can’t bring myself to tell him I’m bleeding.

The first man I’ve ever loved. The first man I’ve slept with.

I can’t.

Heat threatens to consume me whole.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. I think.

Even if I did find it in me to tell him, it’s not like he’ll go away. He’ll demand to be let in no matter what.

Everett, with his maddeningly sexy need to control everything, especially me.

He won’t take no for an answer.

He’ll do something insane and possessive like…I don’t know.

No, I do. He’ll break the door down. And he won’t stop there.

I can already see it. Him, forcing me to tell him where it hurts. Asking what he can do to help.

Everett will comfort me, after telling me about the death of his sister, who was possibly my mother.

All that pain in his eyes. All that ache. He’ll push it aside. He’ll listen to me, moaning about the searing pain in my lower belly. He’ll let me complain about how embarrassing this is, to have blood tainting my legs.

Better to say nothing at all. At some point, he’ll get too upset and give up.

Yeah, right.

“Aurora. Do not make me break this door down.”

Ignoring him, I rummage through the vanity cabinet and linen closet, searching for decent pads.

I find towels. Toilet paper. Soap.

They smell so lovely. They aren’t what I need.

Everything Everett does is well thought out.

Except he failed in stocking his home for me. Pads though? Tampons? There’s none of those here.

I want you with me. Want you pregnant with our babies.

Right, the almighty Everett must’ve counted on me getting pregnant on the first try.

My nipples harden at the same time that another cramp rips through me.

Fuck these period hormones. Fuck how horny they make me.

How disoriented.

A curse escapes me as I stare at the door.

“This is your last chance, princess.” The intimidating vibration of his warning reaches inside my soul. “You won’t like what happens if I have to come in there myself. I won’t use the remote on you this time. I’ll use my body. You’ll get to experience firsthand what you’re doing to me right now.”

“N-no. Don’t come in.” Another cramp assaults me and—“Ow!” Silencing the pained cry is impossible. It’s as if someone’s yanking on my insides.

Then my knees buckle, and I drop to the floor. I’m on all fours, a heap of flesh and bone and blood.

“I’m not leaving.” His fist on the door shakes the entire room. “You can forget about that. Let’s—” He groans, trying the handle again and again and again. “No. No fucking talking. Open the door. Consider this your last warning.”

His compassion, his possessiveness.

The humiliation I feel from how badly I want him here, , between my thighs…

While I’m bleeding…

A hot tear slips past my eye.

More tears follow that first one. Rivers of saltwater stain my cheeks.

They go on as Everett bangs on the door. As he talks to me, saying things like We’ll figure it out together and You’re not alone, just let me in.

“And you told me you weren’t a good man.” I laugh through my tears. Sitting on my shins, my hands cover my crumpled face as I laugh. “Ha. Ha, ha, ha.”

The room rattles. An earthquake, I think. Yes, an earthquake and a storm. There’s no other way to describe the force of nature that’s in here, in this bathroom. With me.

A loud bang scares me so much that I yelp. It’s the door slamming shut.

“There you are.” Warm hands rush to cover mine, to peel my hands off my face. “There you are.”

He’s the earthquake. He’s the storm. I should get up, I should run for my life.

Instead, I stay.

“What is it?” He’s crouching beside me, gray eyes studying mine as if he has the power to pull the answers out of me. “What hurts the most?”

As soon as he asks that, as his thumbs press against my skin, another wave of pain tears through me.

But it’s not the cramps this time.

It’s him. His fierce devotion to me. How badly I want it. All of it. All the time. How selfish I feel.

My teeth sink into my bottom lip.

“Everett.” A sob tears from me. “Loving you hurts.”

He furrows his brow. An emotion that looks a lot like anguish curves his mouth downward.

For a fleeting moment.

Next, I’m up in the air, being scooped into his arms.

“I don’t give a damn.” Everett supports me from under my thighs and back.

My nightgown presses against my legs, soaked with my blood.

He has to feel it too.

He must understand what this is.

Nothing on his face betrays any kind of disgust. He carries me to the shower in the corner of the room, his face stony.

“It’s not what you think.” Despite the shame and the blood, I place my clean palm on his cheeks. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

His unreadable gaze lands on me, stealing my breath. “Then?”

“We could’ve…” My tears have dried. My desire for him is ever-present, despite the cramps. “We could’ve been related, and I would’ve come back to you eventually. I would’ve wanted to be with you, no matter what. That hurts.”

His jaw works, and it’s hot. How furious he is. “What makes you think I would’ve let you walk away?”

“You see, we would’ve been stupid about it. Destructive. Every cell in my body wants you. All of me loves you, in the most selfish, reckless ways.”

“Quiet.” He lowers me to the floor, gripping my chin in his hand.

“You seem to keep forgetting this one final truth. You and I? We’re bound for life.

There’s no ifs or maybes. No whens either.

You’re mine until the day I die. And even death won’t be the end of us.

I’ll come for you from the afterlife. My body will be rotting in the ground, but my soul will come back to claim you.

If you think I’m joking, fucking test me.

Drive a knife through my heart. See how long it takes me to be right here again, by your side. ”

The raw emotions rolling off him make my knees buckle. Everett hooks an arm around my back, steadying me. Yanking me to him for a vicious kiss.

“Hurts,” I murmur, my lips brushing his.

“I don’t care if it hurts, don’t you understand?” he growls as his lips trail a hot path along my jaw, my neck. “Can’t you see that nothing could ever come between us?”

“Yes.” My thighs clench, my breasts heavy with desire. “I see that.”

I’m also on my period. I’m bleeding.

And his cock is hard against me.

Surely, he can’t want this.

Except he does. Everett once again proves to me that he wants me in every possible way.

He grabs the neckline of my nightgown and yanks. One pull, and he rips it down the middle. The fabric bends beneath his will. The threads are tearing beneath this all-powerful god.

Down to my navel, that’s how low Everett goes before he stops.

“You’re mine.” His touch is fire on my skin as he pushes the straps down my shoulders. “Not because you’re my enemy’s daughter. Not because you might be my sister’s girl.”

The nightgown falls in a heap at my feet. I’m stunned into silence by the position I’m in. Bare except for my blood-soaked panties. With the toilet paper stuffed inside them.

With my husband standing in front of me.

A light smear of blood coats his inked forearm. I’m getting turned on by seeing my blood on his arm, and just—no. His eyes eat up every inch of my body. Everett sucks in a breath as he takes in my face, my breasts, my clenched thighs.

I’m more vulnerable than I’ve ever been.

“Please.” I clasp my hands at the front of my panties. I’m ashamed of my blood. Of my arousal. “Let me wash up real quick, and then we can”—no, we can’t fuck while I’m bleeding—“talk. I’m yours, I promise. We aren’t blood”—oh God, that word—“related, so it’s okay. Just let me go.”

“Wash up?” He bats my hands away, grabbing my hips.

His firm hold on me and his sheer strength allow him to push me back against the nearest wall.

“Yes.” My neck is on fire. “I have to wash myself.”

“You’re not washing up.” He’s as violent and possessive as ever, thrusting his hips into my trapped body.

“Stop, please.”

My blood rubs into his clean jeans, and I’m just going to die.

I also wish so fucking hard that he’d take my panties off. That he’d fuck me.

This ache in my pussy, the pain of needing Everett. I’m losing my mind. This man is stealing my sanity.

“Stop?” He shoves a hand into my panties

I can’t help it. I scream, “No!”

He ignores me. Everett pulls the toilet paper from my panties and lets it fall to the ground.

“Everett, please.”

Nothing. No reply. I’m hot everywhere when he presses a knee to my thigh, pinning me in place as he shoves two fingers into my sex. Fucking me with them.

“This?” When he pulls his fingers out of me, he raises them between us. “That’s what’s bothering you? A little blood? It’s nothing.”

Without waiting for my reply, he sucks on them. He sucks my blood.

“You can’t be serious.” But he is. I’m turned on watching his red-tainted lips, the feral look in his gray eyes. He’s feral, possessive.

An animal.

Horror and arousal slam into me, choking me. I can’t do anything but watch him. Moan for him.

His lips purse as he keeps sucking, and the depravity of it turns my need into a wildfire.

We’re both captivated by the other. Me, seeking friction from his knee, and him, groaning as he licks me.

We’re both so fucked.

Then he pops his fingers out of his mouth, and I can’t speak. I’m beyond words when he swipes his crimson tongue over his lips.

“Wife.” One swift motion, and he tears my panties off me. Nothing holds the blood back. I thought I was exposed before. I was wrong. Epically wrong. “What part of you’re mine don’t you understand?”

My eyes lower to the floor, cheeks flushed. “But…all this blood.”

“Mine.” With my chin locked between two fingers, he takes his cock out.

I steal a glance at him. He’s so hard. Throbbing and heavy in his hand, the tip wet with precum.

“Your heart is mine.” When he jerks himself, I forget about bleeding. About my cramps. Wrong or right, none of that matters anymore. “Your blood is mine.”

Us being step-niece and uncle means nothing to him.

To me either.

The only thing that races through my mind is him.

Everett. Everett. Everett.

Everett and his flexed muscles. His hands that lift me in the air and slam me up against the wall.

His cock that impales me where I’ve been aching for him. I wrap my legs around him, digging my nails into his shoulders.

I let him fuck me with abandon. Allowing him to own me with his dick.

“Fuck, Aurora.” His lips crush mine, biting, sucking.

His skilled tongue rubs against mine, tasting me. His thick cock fills me, stretching me.

“Feels so good. Being enveloped in you. Have your pussy soaking me.” He goes as deep as he can, making me feel whole again. “Jesus. Don’t ever take that away from me.”

“I won’t.” I’m hungry for his mouth, for his filthy words. His mind-numbing kisses. My fingers dig into his shoulders, claiming him just as much as he claims me. “I won’t.”

He uses his thumb to circle my clit, and I explode. Bright light shines behind my eyes, my lungs burning. I yank Everett close to me, sinking my teeth into his shoulder.

I scream into his shirt, unable to silence myself.

It’s impossible, with how he keeps fucking me the way he does.

Even my cramps bow down to him. They’re all but gone as I come for so long, I think I might pass out.

“Good girl,” he says as he pulls out.

No. No, he can’t. Not when he hasn’t come.

But he doesn’t ask if I’m okay with this. Everett drags me to the floor, his fingers lacing into my hair.

Humiliation burns hot in my throat, tears stinging my eyes. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Yes, you did.”

He yanks hard, pain sparking at my scalp as he forces me down to my knees. I’m level with his cock, slick with my blood, throbbing inches from my lips.

As twisted as it is, I don’t feel disgusted. I see it like Everett does. This is a symbol of us. A dark, intimate mark of what we’ve just shared.

“Wait.” Then I remember what he said. “What did I do?”

“You remember what happens when you make a mess of my cock, princess.” His hand clamps the base as he shoves it against my lips. “Clean it up.”

I open my mouth to say yes, except he doesn’t care about my answer. As soon as my lips part, Everett shoves himself deep into my mouth.

All the way down my throat.

I swallow, desperately trying to breathe through this invasion. Because that’s what it is. He’s not asking—he’s fucking my throat, ruthless and cruel.

He’s taking what’s his, and that’s me.

“Your lips. Fuck. Look at you, stretched around my cock.”

There’s still blood on his length, no matter how hard I try to be good for him. I keep licking the taste of copper and my arousal off him.

“So fucking eager to take me.” Everett swipes some of it off on his thumb, smearing blood on my cheeks. Marking me. “Good little cum slut. Lick me. Suck. Yes. My God, you’re beautiful.”

At his words, at his undivided attention, I cry. I weep. I revel in being owned so thoroughly.

The sound he makes when he comes down my throat is unlike anything I’ve ever heard.

It shakes the foundation of this mansion. It reaches into my heart. Into the recesses of my soul, the parts of me I never knew existed.

“Baby.” I’m delirious, but I still hear him.

I’m still present for his care as he helps me up and removes my collar. He washes me with the utmost care, wraps me in a towel, and carries me to bed.

The towel he wrapped me in vanishes. I’m in a haze, letting my arms rise and fall as Everett dresses me in one of his T-shirts. He helps me put on a pair of clean underwear.

“Where’d you find the pad?” I mumble when he secures it on my panties.

He glances at me, his eyes warm. “In our bathroom.”

Oh, that’s right. He had a sister. My…maybe my mom. Of course he remembered to buy pads for me.

They just weren’t in one of the guest bathrooms.

My mom.

I yawn, refusing to tackle any more of this heartache tonight. I’m so happy. I’m keeping this emotion close to my heart for a bit longer.

Somehow, we’ve ended up in bed, both of us under the covers with Everett on his back and me curled into his side.

“Don’t get used to it.” His fingertips trace a path up and down my spine, gentle, steady, grounding.

“To what?” I tease as sleep starts stealing me away. “You, being nice?”

“To your period.” He presses a gentle kiss to the top of my head. “By this time next month, you’ll be carrying my child.”