Chapter 20 Azrathiel
AZRATHIEL
Her palm burns against my chest like a brand.
Lightning fractures through centuries of careful control. Every nerve ending ignites. The celestial chains binding me flare white-hot across my shoulders, responding to her touch—her choice—with something close to recognition.
I've existed for millennia. Negotiated countless contracts. Walked through realms mortal and infernal without flinching.
None of it prepared me for this.
For her.
My thoughts scatter like ash in a windstorm. I want more. Need it with an urgency that borders on madness.
One hand keeps hers trapped against me while the other reaches up slowly, deliberately. My fingers trace the delicate line of her throat, feeling her pulse hammer wildly beneath the skin. The pendant rests warm between us—my mark, my claim.
"Bram will never touch you again."
The words emerge rougher than intended, edged with possession I no longer bother masking.
Her breath catches. Those dark eyes spark with challenge rather than fear.
"Are you jealous?"
The question lingers, daring me to deny what we both already know.
I lean closer, letting my thumb sweep along her jaw. "Violently."
Her lips part. Heat floods her cheeks.
The fragile restraint I've maintained shatters.
I grab her waist and pull her flush against me, capturing her mouth in a kiss that contains nothing gentle or courteous. She gasps against my lips and I swallow the sound, drinking it down like sacrament. Her hands fist in the shadowed fabric at my shoulders, clinging rather than pushing away.
When I finally break for air, she's trembling and flushed and beautifully undone.
"You're touching me now," she breathes, lips swollen.
Something possessive and primal coils tight in my chest.
I cup her face between both palms, forcing her to meet my gaze. The gold flecks in my eyes burn molten.
"No one but me, Ilyra." My voice drops to something barely human. "Only I can touch you. Only I can have you."
Her fingers tighten on my shoulders.
"Say it."
She swallows hard, pulse racing beneath my thumbs. "Only you can touch me."
The words slam through me like covenant law sealing fate.
Mine.
She's mine.
I kiss her again—slower this time, thorough and claiming. Branding the truth into her mouth until she understands exactly what she's become to me.
Not a contract. Not an obligation.
Everything.
The air shifts.
I don't think about moving, only that my hand is beneath her skirts, my knuckles brushing over smooth skin on the inside of her thigh. She gasps, the soft sound cut off as her entire body jerks.
Her slick arousal coats my fingers instantly, hot and yielding, slicking my skin with her essence. I have never felt anything so perfect in all my millennia of existence—this human heat, this surrender, this proof of her body’s answer to mine. It undoes me.
“You are so responsive,” the words grind out of me, raw with a need that feels ancient. “So wet just for me. I can’t resist.”
It is not merely observation; it becomes command.
Before she can even think to protest, I lift her—light as a feather in my arms—and settle her weight upon the worn wooden table behind us.
The rough, splintered edges of the wood scrape against my palms as I drop to my knees between her spread legs, the position one of supplication and possession both.
She looks down at me from that height, her eyes wide with shock and a dawning, glittering anticipation. Her chest rises and falls rapidly, her skirts a rumpled cloud around her hips, baring her to me. The sight is a covenant in itself.
My head dips under her skirts. The scent of her envelops me. My tongue finds her folds with predatory need. She cries out, legs clenching around my shoulders before spreading wider.
Her hands grip my horns, fingers curling around the ridged obsidian curves as if she might anchor herself against the storm I’m unleashing within her.
The first touch sends lightning up my spine, a sharp, possessive jolt of sensation.
No one has ever dared touch them before, not in intimacy, not in reverence.
The contact is a blasphemy and a benediction all at once.
A dark, possessive growl vibrates against her wet flesh, drinking in her taste as my tongue circles her clit with relentless, focused pressure.
“Azrath… Ah—Azrathiel…!”
My name on her lips is a prayer and a surrender. I pull back just enough to lift my gaze and see her face—flushed, beautiful, eyes wide and dark with feral need. My fingers slide through her slickness, teasing her entrance in a slow, circular motion that makes her hips jerk.
“What, flower?" I taunt, voice rough and low. "Talk to me.”
“I can't—” Her admission breaks on a sharp gasp as I slide two fingers into her tight, clenching heat. She is impossibly soft inside, velvet-wet walls gripping me with rhythmic, involuntary pulses.
“You can take it.” The words are both reassurance and command.
I pump my fingers slowly, deeply, watching her face contort with a mixture of pure pleasure and exquisite pain.
Her mouth falls open on silent, breathless screams. When I lean back in to lap at her clit, she trembles so violently I have to brace her hips against the table, holding her steady as I devour her.
Her back arches. The table groans under her weight. “Please…”
“Do you even know what you’re begging for?” My words vibrate against her sensitive flesh.
She shakes her head, bottom lip trembling. A tear escapes one wide, dark eye.
“Good. I’ll be the first and only man to show you.” My voice drops to a possessive growl. "Do you want me to show you what you’re begging for?”
Her head moves in frantic, desperate nods, fingers tightening around the curved arcs of my horns. I feel the pressure, the yielding sting of her grip—a silent testament to her surrender.
A low, satisfied smirk touches my lips against her damp skin before I return to my feast. My tongue works her swollen clit in relentless, circling strokes, a rhythm as ancient as my own hunger, while my fingers curl and press deep inside her clenching heat, seeking that hidden, tender spot I know will unravel her completely.
She finds it—or I guide her to it. A sharp, shuddering gasp tears from her throat, and her entire body seizes, rigid with shockwave pleasure.
Her thighs clamp tight around my head, a vise of ecstasy, as her release floods my mouth with sudden, sweet heat.
She sobs my name, a broken, breathless syllable, as the orgasm shatters through her in pulsing waves.
I don’t stop. I ride out every contraction, every tremor, drinking her down until the last faint shudder subsides and her limbs go slack against the table. Only then do I pull back, lifting my head to slowly, deliberately lick my lips clean of her taste.
Mine.