Chapter Eight #2
Face smeared in spit and tears, mouth full of my dick, he gives me a look. An are you kidding, I fucking earned this look.
And that’s it.
Blades of light score across my eyes as my orgasm hits me like a storm, roaring thunder and torrents of hail.
My hips thrust forward and I’m half aware of Alexo gagging again, but he’s sucking, too, taut, single-minded draws of his mouth, and it yanks one last spurt out of me, tremors setting off uncoordinated twitches through my nerve endings.
He rocks back, shoulders hitting the door behind him, chest heaving. Sweat glosses his skin and his hair’s a mess, his face utterly wrecked but matched by his satisfied, exhausted smile.
Arms numb, I reach for him. The post-orgasmic haze is throbbing through me, and I need him to come, too, need to see him fall apart—
But I note a spot on the floor between my feet and the way his pants are gaped open.
He came from blowing me.
I haul him up, but he seems too blissed out to stand yet—that’s fine. I’ve got him.
His mouth tastes like me. I’m all over him, my scent mixing with his; I’m the reason for his tear-streaked face. I scoop him into my arms and plunge my tongue into his mouth, soaking up the combination of us, the branding of me on him.
I want to leave him this way. To walk out that door and back into that gala with him looking like this, so everyone knows—the guests, the reporters, anyone who sees pictures of the event—everyone knows whose he is.
I make sure he’s steady on his feet before I tuck myself away, then fasten his pants.
I adjust his shirt so it hangs right, and I fix his body chain that got twisted a bit on his shoulder.
His hair’s a riot of curls, so I do what I can to tame them back down, and I find a roll of paper towels and wet a few in a utility sink before gently wiping his cheeks, his throat, his lips, under his eyes.
He lets me, his breathing stabilizing the longer I work, his gaze on me observant, peaceful.
When he’s more or less set to rights, I clean the floor, toss the paper towels, and run my hands up and down his arms, watching ripples of goose bumps set off in my wake.
“Thank you,” he says into our calm silence.
I smile. “I should be thanking you. That was—”
“Awkward? Messy? Gods, I slobbered everywhere.”
“Perfect.” I take his chin between my thumb and forefinger. “It was perfect. You are perfect.”
He blushes. But the hazy peace dims in his eyes and he doesn’t smile, his gaze drifting down to stare at my chest.
“Mm,” is all he says, noncommittal.
“Are you—”
“We should get back out there,” he cuts me off and forces up a grin, framing his face with his hands. “Do I look okay, or do I look like I got face-fucked by a half giant?”
A chuckle bursts out of me. “I hardly face-fucked you.”
“Hm. You’re right. Next time, then.”
And he’s out the door before I can do more than sputter a response.
The hall is empty around our closet, thankfully, and Alexo walks a few paces ahead of me as we make our way back to the doors.
He’s putting distance between us, and I’m not entirely sure why.
I know it has to do with the secrets he’s still keeping, the things he can’t let me know, the things I won’t ask about.
Maybe I should ask about them. Maybe, if they’re going to upset him like this, I need to.
I quicken my pace and snatch his hand in mine. He glances up at me, but instead of pulling away or giving me that sad look again, he smiles. Relieved.
We push through the doors that lead us back into the hotel’s entryway, where the gala’s in full swing. People linger around the bar here, and in the ballroom, a band plays; I’m almost certain that’s Darian on guitar.
“Dance with me?” I ask Alexo.
But he’s frowning at someone in the entryway, and my whole body goes icy with rage. If it’s Tem here to whisk Alexo away again—
I follow his gaze, but it’s a group of people talking. And looking at their phones.
In fact, most of the people in the entryway are looking at their phones and speaking in the hushed way of discussing something scandalous.
Still holding Alexo’s hand, I head over to the nearest group of my teammates—Aaron and a few other defensive tanks. They all have their phones out, and I barely manage a “Hey, what’s going on?” before Aaron’s giving me a sympathetic look.
Sympathy?
He crooks his phone at me. “You heard yet?”
Alexo and I look down at his screen.
It’s a news alert.
brEAKING: Boston, MA: Disciples of Galaxrien Vossen have once again attempted to resurrect the demon lord, this time via human sacrifice.
An adventure party apprehended the cultists and rescued the victim.
The victim, a forty-year-old human male, is a member of the Church of Urzoth Shieldsworn, the known rival of Galaxrien Vossen.
The cult was purportedly working off intel that Galaxrien’s mortal descendant is being hidden by the Church of Urzoth to “prevent his enemy from seeking righteous revenge.”
The victim has no known demonic ancestry. When informed of that, one of the cultists in custody responded, “Oops.”
The official spokesperson for the Temple of Galaxrien Vossen once again issued a statement condemning these ceremonies, saying the extremists are not endorsed by the Temple, as “Galaxrien’s authorized prophesied return will happen a century from now, and will not involve any mortal descendant of his, least of all a live sacrifice. ”
The Church of Urzoth Shieldsworn was unavailable for comment.
My stomach drops straight to my toes.
A human sacrifice now? Not just a piece of hair? The guy got rescued, but still.
Aaron pulls his phone back. Too late, I realize he’s watching me for my reaction, and I can’t work through my shock quick enough to school it off my face.
I’m a defensive tank on his team. Urzoth’s my patron god; I should react to this with violent anger. Offended, rampant fury.
But I’m horrified.
Aaron, though, doesn’t seem surprised by my reaction. He doesn’t get disgusted by my quiet alarm; none of the other defensive tanks standing with him do either.
They give me solemn nods of support. Someone pats me on the shoulder.
“If you need to step out for a bit, I’ll cover for you,” Aaron offers.
They’re—helping me?
My teammates in Vegas would have been reaming me out for being such a soft, pathetic embarrassment.
But Aaron and the others are dismayed by the news report, and the fact that I am, too, isn’t even in question.
“Thanks,” I say, gratitude heavy in my tone. I take a step past him. “I—”
Alexo doesn’t move with me.
He’s holding my hand—no, clinging to me, his other hand wrapped around my arm, all his fingers clawed in deep. And when I try again to walk us away, he refuses to budge, stone-stiff and pale, his gaze unfocused on the middle space where Aaron’s phone was.
“Alexo?” I tap his chin, trying to get him to look at me.
He doesn’t even blink, eyes bloodshot and frozen, his breathing going jackrabbit fast. That look of terror on his face hits me with a furor, making me want to spur to some kind of action, but I’m as stuck as he is.
Aaron and the other tanks peel away to give us privacy and I barely have the wherewithal to nod my appreciation before I’m bending to eye level with Alexo.
“Hey.” I cup his face. “Alexo? Ale—Belle. Belle, sweetheart, can you—”
His eyes flash to mine.
And he breaks.
Tears drip down his face, his whole body shuddering as fear releases him, and he shakes his head, shakes it and shakes it, whispering, “No, Orok, no—”
“It’s all right.” I tuck him into my side. “I’ll get you to your room, okay?”
He clings to me. “Can we go to yours?”
I hesitate. “Yeah?”
“Roommate in mine,” he mumbles, his voice choked.
I’ve never been more grateful that I always pay the difference to get my own room when the team travels. “My room. Yeah. Let’s go.”
Rather than braving the watchful eyes around the main elevators, where a few people now look from their phones to me with more of Aaron’s sympathy, I swing us around and back into the utility hall, then up through the private elevators there, the ones the team took when we first checked in.
The guest floors are quiet; most people are down at the gala or out for the night as I whisk Alexo into my suite. The door lock beeps behind us and I hit a light to illuminate the front room’s table, chairs, and couch. A door on the left goes into the bedroom, and beyond that is a massive bathroom.
Alexo steps numbly into the main room, his arms around himself, shivering enough that I punch up the heat on the wall unit.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask. That’s a stupid question; I think we need to talk about it.
Why did that news report scare him so much? Is it because he’s so connected to it now, being a follower of Urzoth?
My phone vibrates in my pocket. Honestly, I’m shocked it’s taken anyone this long, and when I pull it out, I see a few missed texts from my mom, no doubt having very strong feelings about the Galaxrien cultists stooping to abduct an Urzoth follower—fuck, that hasn’t sunk in yet—as well as a missed call from Roesia Sombercrown’s office.
My phone vibrates again, another call from the team manager.
I let it go to voicemail and toss it on the couch.
“They were going to kill that man,” Alexo says suddenly. It’s brittle, like he’s testing the validity in the words, hoping they’ll be wrong.
“They didn’t. An adventure party saved him.”
“But they would have killed him.” He finally looks up at me, caved in on himself, so damn small and lost it makes my heart crack. “They’ve progressed to full human sacrifice now.”
“Is being associated with Urzoth worrying you?” I step toward him and touch his elbows where he’s got his arms folded.
He shrugs.
I tilt his face up to me, needing him to see, to know a little bit of what I’m always trying to suppress. The steam rising inside me, the unstoppable impetus of obsession I fight tooth and nail to keep at bay every damn second.