15. Riley
RILEY
The Loire Valley countryside blurs past the car window in streaks of green and shadow as we drive toward Casimir's estate.
My stomach knots tighter with every mile.
Nico's hands stay steady on the wheel, but I catch the faint tension.
The ledgers might give us the next thread on this damn vault trail, but every instinct screams trap.
The estate rises like something out of a gothic fever dream—old stone walls draped in ivy, and manicured gardens that look too perfect under the fading afternoon light.
Casimir's servants greet us with silent efficiency, and doors click shut behind us with soft, final sounds that make my skin crawl.
I catalog everything: the long corridors with polished floors that echo just enough to mask footsteps, the antique glass in the windows that could shatter into useful shards, the faint seams in the paneling that might hide passages.
Casimir meets us in a private collection room lined with cases and dustless shelves.
Candlelight flickers across his sharp features, giving him that cultured, amused air.
"Welcome. I thought we might start here.
These ledgers cover transactions from the last two centuries—private collectors trading in...
unusual items." He gestures to a heavy oak table where several leather-bound volumes wait.
Nico stays close, a solid wall at my back.
I flip through the pages, my fingers tracing faded ink.
One entry mentions a fragment matching the relic's description, passed through a network of European collectors.
Another hints at the vault trail snaking through hidden holdings, confirming Casimir knows more than he let on.
Useful. Too useful. My thief brain notes the locked gallery doors, the too-silent servants stationed at intervals, the way Casimir watches my hands on the pages like he's measuring their worth.
"This confirms the map pieces are moving among people who understand their power," Nico says, voice low. "Not just treasure. Knowledge."
Casimir nods, elegant as ever. "Precisely. Possession is everything in our world."
I feel it before it happens—the shift, a faint mechanical hum under the floor. My eyes dart to a reflection in a glass case: a servant slipping something into a side door. Casimir's hand moves toward a hidden panel. The first trap isn't for Nico. It's for me.
A thin brass cuff snaps from the underside of the table toward my wrist, fast as a striking snake, while the floor beneath my boots magnetizes with a hard metallic click.
Casimir planned for a human too. He planned well, I feel the trap catch my sleeve before I twist sideways and let the fabric tear instead of my arm.
"Secure her first," Casimir says, the politeness gone from his voice. "The vampire is secondary. Now, hand over the obsidian and the fragments. The vault isn't for amateurs. I'll ensure it's... properly appreciated."
The room seals. Shutters slam over the windows with a metallic clang, cutting off the last of the outside. Hidden guards step from alcoves, weapons drawn. A containment chamber at the far end of the room glows faintly—vampire-proofed, symbols etched into the frame that make Nico tense.
"Son of a bitch," I mutter, already moving. Casimir lunges for my bag where the relic rests, his expression cracking into open obsession. "That map is legendary. The knowledge inside belongs to those who can wield it. Not some human thief and her guard vampire dog."
Nico strikes first, vampire speed blurring as he drops one guard with lethal precision, fangs flashing in warning.
But Casimir's prepared—too prepared. A mechanism triggers, and antique restraints snap from the walls toward Nico, chains laced with something that he's aware could harm him.
Another guard grabs for me. I twist free, heart hammering, and spot the floor seam I noted earlier. A weak point near the ledger table.
"Riley, stay behind me," Nico growls, ripping through a restraint like it's paper. But a guard fires—a silenced shot whining past my ear. I dive, rolling toward the seam, fingers working the edge. I jam a hairpin from my sleeve into the lock, twisting hard while Casimir shouts orders.
The relic in my bag pulses against my side, distorting the candlelight into strange shadows that make the guards hesitate. It reacts to me again, stronger, like it's feeding on the chaos. I don't have time to wonder why.
Nico takes down another guard, blood spraying across polished floors, but Casimir activates the chamber.
A panel slides, dragging Nico toward it with some unseen force—sunlight simulators or worse.
Nico fights it, eyes locked on me, fury and fear burning through his control, and the sight hits me square in the chest.
I wrench the seam open, revealing a narrow service passage beneath—human-made, overlooked in Casimir's vampire-focused trap. "Nico! Here!"
I snatch the smallest ledger from the table before we run. Not the oldest. Not the prettiest. The one Casimir reached for first.
He roars, breaking free and slamming a guard into the wall.
But as he reaches for me, the floor gives way under my foot—a secondary trap.
I slip, grabbing for the edge, legs dangling over a dark drop into what looks like an old cistern or worse.
My fingers burn, slipping. The relic bag shifts, nearly falling.
Nico's there in an instant, his hand clamping around my wrist like iron. His face is raw, terrifyingly efficient violence giving way to something naked and desperate. "I've got you. Don't let go."
The world narrows to his grip, the strain in his arm, how his stare burns like he's facing the end of everything if I fall.
I haul myself up with his help, legs shaking, and we tumble into the passage together.
Shouts echo behind us. I trigger a false door from inside the passage, sealing it with a grinding lock that buys us seconds.
We burst out into the gardens, stealing a dark sedan from the estate's service lot.
Nico hot-wires it in seconds, and we peel out, tires spitting gravel.
Casimir's betrayal is clear now—he wanted ownership, leverage, the vault's secrets for his collection.
He survives, probably, but he's exposed.
Whatever bargain Casimir pretended to offer dies behind us with the locked room.
We drive until adrenaline turns the minutes slippery.
Nico pulls onto a narrow side road and kills the lights near an abandoned cottage tucked behind overgrown hedges.
The place is temporary, unsafe—doors half-rotted, one window boarded—but it has four walls and a lock we could secure.
My hands shake as I check the relic; it's revealing a faint new line on the map fragment that points deeper into private holdings.
Not the end, but progress through the fire.
Inside, dust and old wood greet us. Nico barricades the door, his broad shoulders tense under his torn shirt. Bruises bloom on my arms, and his knuckles are raw. We're both alive. Me barely. That near-fall, the sight of him nearly trapped in that chamber—it cracks something wide open.
I turn to him in the dim light filtering through cracks. "That wasn't pretending back there. None of it has been, has it?"
Nico steps closer, eyes intense, controlled hunger simmering. "No. Not for a while. You do something to me, I can't quite explain. And I keep seeing you almost die."
Somewhere deep within, I want him, I hate how much. His nearness feels safe despite knowing he's a predator sent to end me once. But the danger stripped everything bare. "Me too. Watching them drag you toward that chamber. Nico—"
Before I manage to finish, he closes the distance, picks me up, and kisses me. I meet the movements of his mouth with a moan, his fingertips slide to my waist, lifting me against him as the kiss deepens. It's not soft—it's teeth and tongue, tension we let lie, exploding.
He walks me back to the hay in the corner, removes his jacket and shirt, and undoes his pants.
I watch as the clothes fall to the floor and he leans over me.
His bare chest pressing against my still-clothed body, the rough hay prickling my back like a thousand tiny reminders of how long I've denied this.
His mouth crashes into mine again, hungry and demanding, while his palms shove my skirt up to my waist in one rough motion. I arch into him, gasping as his fingers find the edge of my panties and tear them aside.
"Fuck, I've held back from you for too long," he growls against my throat, voice raw from all the words we never said.
Our tongues slide against each other's deep as his fingers roam my thighs. He spreads my legs wide as he moves from my mouth to my neck, kissing gently, which I know is a struggle for him right now.
His fingertips reach my pussy, and two fingers circle my already swollen clit increasing the pressure and the pulsing. He dips inside hard, his fingers curl finding a spot that makes my walls clench greedily, and a sound leaves me I can't control.
I continue whimpering, grinding against his hand, but he pulls back, dropping to his knees.
His breath fans over my dripping pussy, and he thrusts his fingers back in while his tongue—flat, warm, and relentless—laps from his fingers to clit, sucking the swollen bud between his lips.
My legs shake, pleasure coiling tight as I fist his hair and moan his name.
He groans against my throbbing flesh, the vibration sending sparks up my spine. His tongue flicks faster, while his fingers pump in a steady rhythm that I'm almost sure he could go faster because he's a vampire. But I'm soaked already, my hips haven't stopped rolling shamelessly against his face.
He adds a third finger, and my back arches higher. Stars burst in my eyesight. My thighs tremble around his head, my muscles tighten as the orgasm builds like fire in my veins. I'm gasping, teetering right on the edge—wet, open, and desperate for more.
I shatter hard, the sensation ripping through me like lightning.
A raw, broken moan tears from my throat as my pussy repeatedly clenches violently around his thick fingers, wave after wave of intense pleasure flooding my body.
My hips buck uncontrollably against his mouth, thighs squeezing around his head while his tongue keeps licking and sucking my swollen clit through every pulsing contraction.
I'm soaking his face, my come dripping down as I cry out. The ecstasy blinds me, every nerve singing as I gasp and shudder, completely lost in the overwhelming release. Only when the last powerful spasm fades do I collapse, panting, my body limp and tingling.
Before I catch myself, he surges up over me, eyes wild and desperate. He grips my hips with bruising force as he yanks me forward, lining up his thick cock at my pussy.
He thrusts in hard, slamming every thick inch deep inside me in one brutal stroke. I cry out at the sudden stretch, my still-sensitive walls clenching around his girth as he bottoms out, stretching me so full it borders on pain and pleasure.
He doesn't go slow. He fucks me hard and fast, hips snapping with punishing rhythm, driving into me like he's trying to erase every terrifying second we almost died.
The wet slap of skin on skin fills the surroundings, savagely thrust. I clutch at his shoulders, nails digging in as he pounds me relentlessly, his cock hitting that perfect spot over and over.
His head lowers as he rails me faster, deeper, the force of it shoving me up the hay.
My breasts bounce with every impact, my pussy soaking his shaft as another orgasm builds shockingly fast. It's like he's fucking the fear out of both of us, claiming me completely, each powerful stroke driving the shock from his body and straight into mine in the most delicious way.
I wrap my legs around his waist, heels digging into his back, urging him even harder.
"Yes!" I gasp.
A guttural sound leaves his throat as he slams into me so intensely.
My second orgasm rises fast and vicious, crashing over me without mercy.
I scream his name, my pussy spasming wildly around his thick cock, rhythmic contractions as ecstasy tears through every inch of me.
My vision whites out, body convulsing beneath him as wave after brutal wave rips me apart.
He doesn't stop. He fucks me straight through it, hips pistoning harder, chasing his own release with desperate, animalistic thrusts.
I feel him swell impossibly thicker inside me, stretching my pulsing walls to their limit.
He lowers his head, and groans in my ear, as I feel the spurts of his flood deep inside me and his cock jerk and throb powerfully.
His entire body shakes against mine, his hips still grinding deep like he can't stop even as he falls apart.
Our breathing is ragged, and our foreheads are pressed together as we gaze into each other's eyes. I trace his back with my fingers, and realize how much more intense this just got.
"That wasn't just survival," I whisper.
"No," he says, voice rough. "It wasn't."
I wanted him to deny it. I wanted a lie so I could wear it like armor.
"Temporary is starting to sound stupid," I say.
His mouth brushes my temple, barely there. "It always did."
I should argue. I should remind him I don't belong to anyone, especially not him. Instead, my fingers curl against his skin like I'm trying to keep him there.
"This changes nothing," I say.
Nico looks at me, and the quiet between us turns dangerous.
"Liar," he says softly.
And the worst part is, I don't tell him he's wrong.