17. Chapter 17
Chapter 17
Mace
I close the door to the room after our eventful dinner, looking at Viola, who is perched on the edge of the bed.
I want to be furious at her for leaving me, but I can't find the energy. She looks exhausted. Broken.
If anyone is good at faking that they're okay, it's Viola Mistflow, and it appears that's what she has been doing. Deep dark circles have taken up residence under her eyes, which are normally stormy but currently are as dull as a worn blade as she stares at the bare but clean room we are sleeping in tonight. She looks thin. Two weeks of living in a cell has not allowed her to use her muscles as she is used to, and it's caught up with her. I have no doubt she'll build her strength back quickly, but it must be tough for her.
She already felt so out of place in her body.
I sink down next to her on the bed, the soft red linens sliding under my hands. "Do you want to talk about what happened there?"
She sighs and turns to face me, eyes tired. "He promised an asshole he could marry me." Something akin to a growl escapes me, but Viola places a hand on my chest gently. "He felt bad about it, I think because he told me the man was the one who killed my parents and that his death was a present for me."
"Did he kill your parents?"
Viola pulls the leather tie from the end of her braid and runs her fingers through her thick white hair, shaking it out. "No, he didn't. But I tasted his blood, and I'm pretty sure he's killed a lot of women, Mace."
I freeze, back rigid. "What do you mean?"
"I saw images of women being torn apart, ripped into pieces." She waves her hand as if banishing the horrific images. "It's of no matter now. I put him down."
The casual manner in which she speaks about killing someone used to bother me. I guess now that I have a death on my blade, it has lost some of its horror. I wrap my arm around her shoulders and pull her to me, tucking her head under my chin.
We sit like that for a long time, just listening to each other's breaths and heartbeats. Eventually, Viola breaks the comfortable silence. "I was never leaving you, Mace."
"I know, my numen."
"I would have slaughtered half of Ytopie to get back to you," she says, voice barely above a whisper.
"I know, my numen." My hand strokes down her hair. The slightly cool temperature of it used to be off-putting, but now that I have lost her, it is welcome and reminds me that she is real.
"You got your first kill."
I chuckle and respond, "I think we both know that I've got more death on my hands than that."
"It's not the same as being the one to pull the blade," she reminds me.
"You're right."
"How are you feeling about it? From what I heard and saw, this was not a necessary kill." From someone else, those words could be judgmental. But from Viola, they are curious.
It takes me a moment to sort my thoughts before I answer. "He was willing to let the rest of the land suffer. He wasn't going to give us any information on where to find the artifact. And when I found out that he hid it on a dangerous island and that I am going to have to watch you fight and get injured to get these items back?" I shudder, lifting her body slightly and pulling her onto my lap. "You've been through so much, and now, because of him, you're going to go through more. I was just so fucking mad, numen." I look up at the vaulted ceiling, it's brown beams collecting dust in the crevices as I inhale deeply and try to calm myself.
"Viola, I never doubted that you would come back to me. I would have left a trail of broken bodies behind me if it could have led you to me." I grab her chin, tilting her face up so she looks me in the eyes when I tell her this next part. "There is no horrible thing I will not do if it means I get to have you in my arms. I will burn the world, leaving just us if that is the only way to have you here."
She raises her hand, fingers blackened with decay dancing across my cheekbones. "Mace, I was a ghost when I met you. I followed my routine, pretended others didn't exist, and buried myself in training. Then I met you, and it's like all the blood rushed back through my veins. Every day without you was a slow trickle that led me closer to insanity. Without you, I am not a God. I am just a monster hiding in plain sight."
Her words stagger me, and I have to stop myself from gasping. Viola Mistflow has never needed anyone in her life.
She's made it clear to everyone she's met that Viola does not now, and never will, need another person.
And yet she just said she needs me.
Her words weren't exactly that, but the meaning was clear.
She doesn't want to be without me again.
She doesn't like who she is without me.
I try to stop it, but I can't. Tears pour down my cheeks and fall on her hair. She looks up at me, a loving smile on her face. She doesn't call attention to the tears – she just wipes them away. Here, with her in my lap and her words in my ears, I have found my home.
"Never again will there be a day you wonder if I love you, numen. I begin and end with you, my beautiful nightmare."
She adjusts herself on my lap, pushing my back towards the bed and hovering over me. Her hair falls forward, tickling my cheeks as she cages me in with her arms. "Hi," she breathes, her lips hovering over mine. I wrap my arm around her hips, pulling her flush to my body, connecting our lips, and pushing my tongue into her mouth.
Her body immediately recognizes mine, melting into it. I feel every inch of her on me, the curve of her breasts on my chest, her hipbones socketed inside mine. She grinds her body against mine, my arousal becoming more evident every moment she is against me. I wrap my arms around her waist and roll us over, pinning her beneath me. Her flirty smile makes my stomach flip.
This moment is different than other times we've laid together. It feels raw, the edges jagged. I sit back on my heels, remove my shirt, and then wiggle Viola out of her pants. She doesn't fight me. She even lifts her hips to make the process easier. Sitting up, she removes her own tunic and unwraps her chest, exposing her breasts to me.
"Come here," I say, pulling her towards me. My legs rest over her hips, and we sit face to face, entangled, holding each other and worshipping each other with our mouths. I kiss down her throat, to the top of her breasts, and her back arches as I close my lips around her nipple.
It's hard to explain the emotions that are welling up in me as her soft flesh brushes against mine. In some way, this feels like our first time. Something about the separation, the worry that maybe we wouldn't make it back together, has charged this moment with more emotions than I think either of us expected.
"I need you, Mace," she whispers against my mouth, hands drifting down to my waistband. "I need you."
"I live to serve," I respond, laying her gently down on the bed. I slip out of my pants and undergarments and return to the bed, kissing a path from her cute, round little ears to her hip bones. I breathe in the smell of her, the soft musk of her natural scent. The dark curls between her legs tickle my chin as I pepper kisses across her waist, eventually making my way to her core. I slip my tongue between her lower lips, dragging it slowly from her entrance to the bundle of nerves at the apex. I suck her clit into my mouth, rolling it between my lips, and I revel in her soft pants and moans.
Viola weaves her fingers into my hair as I devour her, pulling me tighter against her heated flesh. The taste of her gives me a head rush, my cock straining against the bed, my hips instinctively thrusting. The soft sheets slide around my shaft, and the combined friction and the taste of my God in my mouth is almost too much to bear. I thrust two fingers inside her, the wetness of her arousal pulling my fingers in with ease.
My other hand reaches down to grip my cock, and I squeeze and thrust into my fist as I suck her clit. I've been without her for too long, my body too keyed up that I worry I'll blow my load before I even get the chance to slide inside her. "Mace," she pants my name, "bite me, please." I look up at her from my position between her legs, and her head is thrown back in ecstasy. Not one to deny my numen, I nip and nibble her clit as I curl my fingers within her. She shatters around me, flexing around my fingers and legs trembling on either side of my face.
Viola's fingers tighten in my hair and yank, pulling me up her body where she kisses me soundly, chasing her flavor from my tongue. Our bodies slide against one another, my cock weeping for her, and when she wraps her leg around my hips, I notch myself at her entrance and sink down. Her moan comes on an exhale, soft and breathy, as she rocks against me. I roll my hips slowly, dragging myself out and then pushing in at a creeping pace.
"Mace," she growls, "faster."
"You'll take what you get, Miss Mistflow," I respond, thrusting my hips as punctuation.
"We're back to Miss Mistflow, then?" Her hands wrap around my waist, where they join her leg, trying to pull me down faster, deeper. I flatten my body atop hers, mouth next to her ear, where I nip her lobe and then lick and kiss the area underneath.
"You left. You didn't think you'd get away with no punishment, did you?"
She throws her head back, not in passion but in frustration. "Mace!"
"Viola," I drawl. My hips continue their languid pace, the slow drag of my flesh against hers punishing us equally. Viola sits up, her body curling like she's about to flip us over and take control, so I grab her wrists and pin them to the bed above her. "Am I going to have to restrain you?"
She wrinkles her nose, pouting. She could break out of my hold easily, but this powerful God is choosing to submit to me, and that sort of power will go to my head if I let it. Looking around the room, my eyes land on my mace, propped against the worn wooden desk, and snatch it up in my left hand. Viola eyes the mace with confusion, raising her eyebrow questioningly.
Setting my intentions for this is easy. A mist of muted gray magic reshapes the steel from the mace into a delicate chain that I wrap around Viola's wrists and secure against the bed frame. She tugs at the chain and laughs. "It looks like you ensured that a mace was still holding me down."
I laugh, shaking my head as I pull on the restraints to test them. "Do you remember your word?"
"I'm not going to need it, Mace."
"Any and every time we are intimate, that word is in play. Now, what is it?"
"Boots," she says quietly, tongue darting out to lick her lips.
I wrap my hands around her hips and pull her onto me hard. She yelps at the suddenness of my movements. "Good girl."
With her hands restrained, I am free to touch, lick, and bite my way around Viola Mistflow's exquisite body. She writhes beneath my touch, her flesh pebbling and the sweetest sounds of pleasure escaping her lips.
Eventually, the slow movement of my hips tortures me just as much as it does her, and I pick up my pace, finally giving her the pressure she's been longing for. She pulls her feet around my hips again, trying to urge me further, and I grab one leg, push it towards her head, and slap the back of her thigh. The crack of flesh is overshadowed by the yelp that comes from her pouted lips.
"What the fuck, Mace?"
"Are you using your safewood?"
She sits on it for a minute, flushes red, and shakes her head. Using her leg as leverage, I thrust harder, deeper, into her, smacking her thigh every time she bucks her hips to try to control my pace. Eventually, a red flush from my hand dresses each of her thighs, and every time I add to it, she clenches around me, the pain morphing into pleasure in the moment.
I slide my hand between us, making slow, lazy circles around her clit and cherishing each gasp she grants me. I feel her tense beneath me, back arching, as her release comes quickly, and I rush to cover her mouth with my palm, stifling the noises. "Shh, people are trying to sleep, and you're being awfully rude," I chastise.
She licks my palm, and I shove my fingers in her mouth, pressing down on her tongue. She closes her lips around my digits and sucks as I roll my hips and thrust into her. "Mace," she says around my fingers, "unchain me."
"Are you using your safeword?" I ask, freezing my body.
"No, I'm not upset about what's happening. I just need to touch you." Her voice is vulnerable, and I know the effort that admission took her. My Geomancy magic removes the chains and reconfigures them into the head of my mace again, and I rub Viola's wrists. She wraps her arms around me, pulling me down to lay chest to chest.
And then she flips me over.
With a look of triumph on her face, she rides my cock, her breasts bouncing with her movements. "Viola…" My voice is laced with a threat that is only partially empty as the pleasure crawls up my spine. "You tricked me."
"I did. But I did also want to touch you," she says, leaning down and placing her hands on my chest to support herself as she slams her cunt down on my cock. My eyes roll to the back of my head, my fingers digging into her hips.
I thrust from below, doing everything I can to prevent her from controlling the entire situation. Still, it's a battle for dominance between us.
And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Viola grinds her clit on my body as I thrust from below, and she falls apart. Watching her body come apart, the pure ecstasy on her face helps me find my own release, and I stutter out two more drives into her wet heat and then collapse backward, pulling her chest to rest on my own.
We lay connected, panting, covered in sweat and our own fluids, and fuck, I have missed this woman so much. Hearing her heartbeat, feeling the tickle of her breath against me, looking into the eyes that are so cold for everyone but those she loves. I missed all of it.
"Hey, Mace," she says softly, drawing circles on my chest with her finger.
"My numen."
"Do you ever miss the lightning?"
I wrinkle my nose. "What do you mean?"
"The lightning that would strike when we were together."
Laughing, I shake my head. "Not really. Do you?"
She shrugs, tilting her head up to look into my eyes as best as she can from the angle. "Sometimes. It was something that was ours. Before I would even admit that you were mine and I wanted," she inhales sharply, "no, needed you, your magic was trying to make me see it."
As I stroke her hair, I set my intentions, and in the far-off distance, a crack of lightning and a roll of thunder sound.