Chapter 13 Rhianelle #2
A rush of air sweeps through the bedroom. The real masked man lands in the doorway behind me. Two immense wings fold against his back without vanishing. His breathing is heavy from the chase, and his eyes burn through the mask.
Two of them.
Two of them and one of me and nowhere left to run.
“The rings, Rhianelle,” the real one says.
The wingless figure steps toward me, his gaze as intense as the original’s. He shifts to my left, cutting off another path while the winged man guards the doorway.
I am trapped between them.
They move with the eerie coordination of two predators sharing a single mind.
“Last chance,” the winged man says quietly.
He crosses his arms, his folded wings framing him in darkness as his shadow-double closes the distance between us.
I curl my fingers around both rings and hold them against my chest.
“The rings are mine,” I say. My voice shakes, and I hate it.
His gaze shifts toward the wingless figure. “Then whatever he does next is not my responsibility.”
My attention follows his. There is something less controlled in the way the wingless one watches me, a wildness in his eyes that the original keeps carefully hidden.
He takes another step, and I retreat without thinking. The backs of my knees strike the edge of the bed.
I snatch a pillow and throw it into his face. The instant it strikes, I dart past him and make for the door.
The darkness pooled across the floor surges upward. It coils around my wrists like cool silk rope and binds them together. When I tug against the shadows, they tighten just enough to show me that struggling is pointless before easing again.
“You can end this whenever you choose,” he says. “Return the rings and the shadows will release you.”
I test the bonds around my wrists once more. “No. I won’t give them back.”
The wingless one laughs softly. “Then we have a problem.”
He cups my face in both hands and tilts my chin upward. His thumbs sweep across my cheekbones while his masked face fills my vision. Those dark, burning eyes are only inches from mine. Then he kisses me.
The kiss is completely feral, different from the ones the masked man has given me before. He claims me with a hunger so raw it steals the air from my lungs. His teeth catch my lower lip and I gasp. He uses the opening to taste me deeper. A whimper escapes me and he swallows it whole.
Behind me, the winged one’s hands settle on my hips.
My heart slams against my ribs. Two sets of hands.
Two bodies bracketing mine. The wingless one kissing me senseless while the winged one’s fingers trace the curve of my waist, my hips, the hem of my dress.
They move like one creature split in two and the sensation of being held between them is so overwhelming that my knees buckle.
The wingless one catches me and steadies me against his chest. His mouth drops to my jaw. He traces a burning path down the column of my throat. His lips find the hollow beneath my ear, then lower, following the line of my collarbone.
I try to wrench free. My fist swings toward the wingless one’s jaw but the shadow vines are faster.
Dark tendrils lash around my wrists and yank them behind my back, knotting tight before I can twist loose.
More vines curl around my legs and thighs.
I kick and the bindings absorb it without giving an inch.
The winged one wraps his arms around me from behind, lifting me off my feet. My back presses against the hard planes of his chest and the leathery brush of folded wings. He carries me to the bed.
The moment he lets go, I drop. My knees slam into the mattress and I tip forward, but the vines jerk me upright before I hit the sheets. They hold me there, kneeling, suspended, arms pinned behind my back, chest heaving.
The wingless one watches from the other side of the bed with a lazy, predatory smile.
Behind me, the winged one presses his knee between mine and forces them apart.
I clench my thighs together. The vines pry them apart.
They follow his lead, coiling around each thigh and pulling until I am spread wide and trembling on the bed with nowhere to hide.
“Scared?” the winged one murmurs against my shoulder.
Yes. Gods, yes, I’m scared.
There are two of him and my hands are bound and I can’t think. I hate that my body is responding to both of them. It terrifies me.
“No,” I lie.
A low laugh vibrates against my skin. “Brave little fawn,” the winged one murmurs. “Let’s see how long that lasts.”
The wingless one crawls across the mattress and hauls me higher on my knees until he is level with me. He pulls the neckline of my nightdress aside. His mouth closes over my breast and I gasp.
“Wait," I breathe. "Wait, I can’t—”
His teeth graze my nipple. The sound that rips from me is closer to a sob than a moan. My knees nearly fail again.
Behind me, the winged one gathers my nightgown, pulling it up slowly, his knuckles dragging against the backs of my thighs.
“The rings, Rhianelle.”
“No.”
His hand slides between my legs and I cry out. He finds me already wet.
Of course I am.
The kissing, the chase, the fear and want tangled so tightly together I can’t separate them. His fingers stroke through me and the wingless one swallows my moan with another kiss.
This is a punishment.
I know it. The steady, merciless way his fingers work me while his other self keeps my mouth occupied. They are taking me apart from both ends. I can’t do anything about it because my hands are bound. Every time I try to close my legs his knee presses between mine and holds them open.
“Just give them back and we will stop,” the winged one reminds me. His thumb circles my clit and my spine arches. “Any time.”
I try to shake my head but the wingless one's mouth is still on mine. He bites my lower lip and I whimper.
“Speak for yourself,” the wingless one says against my mouth. “I have no intention of stopping.”
Two fingers push inside me. I clench around them involuntarily, my bound hands flexing uselessly behind my back. He curls them, finds that spot, and my vision goes white at the edges.
“I won’t give them back—” I can’t finish the sentence because his fingers are pumping now, steady and relentless.
"Finish that sentence," he says. "I dare you."
The wingless one’s mouth travels down my throat, sucking and kissing the skin over my pulse. His hands tilt my jaw to give him access while behind me the winged one’s fingers drive deeper, faster. The orgasm builds fast.
“Come,” the wingless one says against my ear.
I shatter. The orgasm rips through me and I scream. My legs give out completely. They hold me up between them, four hands keeping me vertical while I shake and convulse and sob through the aftershocks.
I’m still trembling when the winged one pulls his fingers free and replaces them with something else. He enters me from behind and the stretch punches a broken sound from my chest.
Full. So full.
He seats himself inside me with one slow, devastating thrust and holds there, letting me feel every inch while the wingless one watches my face with those burning eyes.
“The rings,” the winged one says again. His voice is strained now, rougher, the control slipping.
“No,” I gasp, and he starts to move.
Every thrust sends a shockwave through me that the wingless one answers with his mouth. His lips drag across my collarbone while his fingers trace lazy circles around my nipple. He pinches just hard enough to make me cry out.
Pleasure stacks on top of pleasure until I cannot tell where one wave ends and the next begins. My body is not mine anymore. It belongs to both of them and they know it.
Behind me, the winged one's rhythm turns merciless. His hips slam forward harder, faster, each thrust driving the air from my lungs. His thumb circles my clit and I shatter. My inner walls clamp around him and he groans, low and ragged. But he doesn't stop.
He doesn't even slow down.
“How many?” the winged one breathes against my shoulder. “How many times can you come before you give them back?”
I’m crying. Tears slide down my cheeks and the wingless one kisses them away. His lips brush my wet eyelashes, then my temples, before finding the corner of my mouth. The gentleness is so at odds with the wildness still burning behind his eyes.
“Give them back and this ends,” the wingless one whispers against my lips.
I shake my head. I am stubborn, stupid, sobbing and bound, but I still refuse. The gold ring belongs to my family, and the rattan ring feels like it belongs on my finger.
I will not give them up.
Some wicked, reckless part of me does not want this pleasure to end either.
But I want it on my terms.
The shadow vines still bind my arms behind my back. I know these shadows. In dream after dream they have held me, chased me, caught me, but they have also released me when the pleasure became too much. They are fond of me somehow. Whatever lives inside them listens when I speak.
My fingers find the nearest tendril. I stroke it gently, the way one might soothe a frightened animal.
“Be more gentle,” I whisper through my tears. “Please.”
The vine shudders beneath my touch. For one impossible moment, the dark tendril flushes warm, as though something inside it is embarrassed. Then it unravels from my arms and melts into the floor, taking every last binding with it.
My hands are free.
Without the shadow vines holding me upright, my body folds. I drop face first into the sheets, boneless and spent. The winged one lets me fall.
The wingless one laughs. “Your shadow is pathetic,” he says to the winged one. “One sob from her and it crumbles.”
Anger flares hot beneath the exhaustion. I glare at the wingless one through my tears. He is unhinged, arrogant and cruel. Mocking the only thing in this palace that has shown me kindness makes me want to snap at him.
But I’m weary and my voice is wrecked. I have nothing sharp enough left to throw at him.
So I will use something else.
The thought crystallizes through the haze of pleasure and fear.
Two can play this game.