17. Chapter 17
Chapter 17
Mace
" W hat the actual fuck were you thinking?" Viola snaps at me, slamming the door to our cabin behind her. "We agreed we wouldn't share our mission. People are going to panic." After I answered everyone's questions about how we knew the Gods were in trouble, Viola all but chased me back to the room in her anger.
I sit on the bed and stretch my legs out, trying to maintain some semblance of calm to counter her fury, but I can't help but be pleased that at least she's talking to me directly now. "I thought it was the right thing to do to explain what we're doing to people. I'm done lying to them."
"And that requires you to call me a savior? Painting a target on my back, setting me up to single-handedly let down all of Krillium?" She's pure rage with her arms crossed in front of her chest and jaw ticked so tight I wonder if her teeth hurt. There is relief in that stance for me. This is the Viola who challenged me so much back in Ytopie. We may have been tiptoeing around one another, but this version of us is one I know we can both handle well.
What I cannot handle is the quiet, reserved Viola who ignores me.
"It doesn't require it, but it helps. Spreading the word that the Race is over will bring joy to these people who sorely need it. They will bring what we said back to Dalery, and we will gain the support of the city for our mission."
"Can you even do that?" she interrupts. "Can you even end the Race all on your own?"
I stand up and stalk towards her. "I don't give a fuck if I can or not. I just did." All the guilt I have felt these past two days finally got some relief at the proclamation, and I'll be damned if I don't chase this feeling in every city. "The Race is done. Himureal is back, and that was always the goal. I don't care if he's not what we expected. I'm done sending your people to slaughter."
Her face softens ever so slightly, and she pushes past me to sit on the bed. "So we get the Gods back, and then they help us defeat Himureal. What then? How do we replenish power, if not through the sacrifices?"
"I don't know, but the sacrifices are not an option anymore. Maybe the people will go back to the pilgrimages of the old days. All I know is I won't have any blood on my hands again. We'll have to ask them what we can do when you bring them back." I kick her legs open with my foot and stand between her knees, crowding her space. "Because you will bring them back."
After running my thumb down her cheekbone, I grab her chin in my hand and force her to look into my eyes. "I know we've discussed, and all of us have our doubts and reservations, but I have to believe you are some sort of God. You will be the new God of Winter. These are your people. You need to let them know it's you who deserves worship. You are who they will bow to." She tries to wrench her face from my hand, but I hold tighter, fingertips whitening as they press into her skin. She has barely looked at me since we came to Dalery, and I am not letting her undivided attention go any time soon.
Her nostrils flare as she snarls, "I don't want anyone to bow to me, Mace. I didn't ask for this responsibility."
I smooth back her hair with my free hand. "I know, my numen," I purr. "But you must take it and nurture it." She moves to stand, but I push her back down with the hand on her head. "Stop. Let me say this. Since we came to Dalery, you have been cold and distant. And I know being in a place that highlights how awful I am cannot be easy for you with me right here beside you, so I have given you space. I know I caused you an untold amount of pain and that all the bad memories of your life are now mottled with my image. But I am not going anywhere. Before the ritual, you told me you saw me, so see me now as I say this."
I lock eyes with her, lowering my voice reverently. "I know we could be something great if you would let us."
She squirms uncomfortably, and I push myself closer to her, forcing her legs farther apart and her chin directly up to keep her stormy gray eyes on mine. "I do not deserve you, I am well aware. Your soul may be gray, but mine is the darkest of nights. Every time I look at you, I am reminded of the mistakes I made under the guise of goodness, just as I am sure when you look at me, you see the traumas you lived through. I cannot change the past, but I will spend every day atoning for my sins at your feet, my numen."
"Numen?" she whispers, tongue darting out to lick her lower lip.
I grin. "Divine spirit. It's something I read in the high priest of Winter's journal." She raises an eyebrow at me, and I smooth it with my finger. "It suits you, I think." I drop her chin and step back, giving her space to process my words without leering over her. Her fingers move in the black bedsheets, gently tapping as she chews her bottom lip.
"I don't know if an apology will ever be enough, Mace. It was easy to forget when we were in Ytopie, but now that I'm here with my people and living in the devastation, it is hard to give you a pass for your actions."
Her words are true but cut like knives. I clasp my hands behind my back and nod, no desire to fight back from what she's saying. "I understand. I meant what I said, though. I will atone for this every day. I will spend my life making my sins up to you. Even if you never forgive me, I'll still keep trying." I drop to my knees and lower my gaze to the ground. "You have my devotion."
She pats the bed beside her, and I rise to my feet before I sink into it, the weariness of the day getting to me. I rest my head in my hands, elbows propped on my knees. "There isn't anything I can do to undo my mistakes, Viola. I let Stone's obsession with bringing back Himureal become my own, ignoring all else for that single goal. I left my brother to flounder for all those years, never once trying to push through his animosity and just love him." A jolt passes through me as her hand makes contact with my shoulder blades, rubbing small circles, pausing every few rotations to tap a pattern on my spine.
"You can't take every burden in the world upon your shoulders, Mace."
"Can't I? You seem content to let me." I implore, turning my head to the side to see her. "They're all issues that stem from me. I have to take ownership of that."
"I am struggling with it, but that doesn't mean the weight I am putting on you is fair. Grief isn't logical, even I can admit that. And besides, the stuff with the Race wasn't your idea, though, it was –"
"Stone's, I know. You keep saying that, and I think, in your own way, you're trying to give me an out. But I still perpetuated it and made myself the fucking figurehead of it. You said it yourself. Your nightmares have my face." I could convince many people I am stoic and reserved, with barely a care for external stimulation.
But Viola Mistflow is not one of them.
"Cut the bullshit, Mace." Her harsh words stiffen my spine immediately. "You've been moping around here since we left the forest, and you saw my house, and I recognize that I haven't made it easy for you to snap out of it. But I get what you're feeling. Believe me, I fucking get it." She groans, dragging her hand down her face in frustration. "I'm about to have to tell Jaz that I am the reason their oldest friend died. My face haunts nightmares, too. Maybe not as many as yours does, but it's still there. What good are we going to accomplish here if you cannot get the way you feel about your iniquities under control? You're becoming a timid mess. Where did the Mace go who taunted me during opening ceremonies? Where did the Mace who grabbed me by my throat while he fucked me on his desk go?"
Before she can finish her last sentence, my hand is around her throat, my thumb pushing against her jawbone and my long fingers gripping the sides of her neck. It won't cut off airflow, but it will make her lightheaded enough to heighten sensations. "He's right here, my numen, or did you forget?" Her pupils widen, but she says nothing as I leer over her. "I'm sorry I let that happen. You see," I tighten my grip, "I have multiple sides to me. It seems you do not have the mental fortitude to deal with my more emotional side, though I cannot say I'm surprised."
She sneers at me and tries to wiggle from my grasp. "You son of a bitch," she growls.
I push her to her back on the bed with my other hand and throw my legs on either side of her hips while never letting my grip on her neck loosen. "Is this what you want? You want me to take over you, fuck you until you can't walk so that you don't have to listen to how I feel and recognize the mirror to your guilt? Or do you want me to fuck the feelings out of you, the overwhelming grief you feel for those you've lost that didn't get to come home like you did?"
Viola spits on my face. Hot moisture drips down my cheek. With fire in her eyes, she grinds out, "That's exactly what I fucking want."
"Then you'll get what you want, my numen," I say as a sinister grin creeps up my face. "I live to serve you."
Her hips instinctively rise to meet mine, and though this was not how I wanted to bring her to bed again, I can see this is what she needs.
I think it may be what I need as well.
We have been dancing around one another, hot and cold, for two days now, unable to voice if we can stand being together with the harm I caused her. I know she feels guilt for wanting to be with me despite it all, and I feel considerable remorse for the role I played in the deaths of so many, both of which are a combination that leaves us pulling together and pushing apart in equal measure.
Releasing her throat finally, admiring the redness of the skin, I pull her shirt up and over her head. She tries to get off the bed, and I tighten my knees around her hip bones, pinning them in place. "Let's be clear here. I want you to want this, and if you don't, I can leave. But if you want to play cat and mouse, I will happily trap you. So what are you going to say if you don't want what's happening, numen?"
She thrashes under me, hands grappling to pull my shirt off of me. "No? Stop?"
I shake my head and leer down at her. "Those won't do. I want to make sure you really mean it when you ask me to stop. Let's try… boots, yeah?" An image of her with her dirty boots on my desk pops into my mind, along with the memory of the desire I had to punish her for it. "Say it for me three times."
Viola wrinkles her brows, sitting up on her elbows, "Boots?" I glare at her, and she sighs, rolling her eyes. "Boots, boots, boots."
"Good girl. And what does boots mean?"
"That I'm done and want you to stop."
Smiling, I pat her on the head before pushing her back flat on the bed. "Good girl. You say that word, and everything stops, no questions asked. But now, you're mine. If you don't want to feel anymore, I will happily join you in that abyss. But do not mistake me – this conversation isn't over. We will work through the thoughts that plague us both. For now, though, I will devour you."
I rip the wrap off her breasts and expose them to the thick air of the cabin. Beads of sweat run down between her cleavage, and I bend at the waist to lick it off. I drag my tongue down her torso, and when I reach the top of her pants, I pull those down her powerful thighs. Without removing her boots, she's tangled in her bottoms, but I ache with the need to take it a step further. I push her feet together and up, butterflying her knees and allowing me an unobstructed view of her gorgeous cunt. I use the breast wrap to secure her feet further together, wrapping them at the ankles so the soles touch one another. It's a little sloppy, but I have to work with what I have on a boat in the middle of the ocean.
Viola is panting but quiet, not speaking at all. "Oh, my sweet numen. Now you have nothing to say?"
She looks down at her lower half, her knees spread wide open, her feet pushing up towards her ass, and how it exposes herself to me fully. "This is demeaning."
Tracing my fingers up her thighs and watching her skin pebble, I chuckle under my breath. My fingers meet her lower lips, and the slickness there gives away how she really feels. "You may find it demeaning, but your cunt seems to enjoy it."
"You should do something with that dirty fucking mouth," she whines, starting to wiggle against my touch.
"I seem to remember I promised to teach you a lesson for putting your filthy boots on my desk," I murmur before I lean down and press my lips to hers, forcing my tongue into her mouth at the same rhythm I push my fingers into her. I'm vaguely aware of the crack of lightning outside the ship, but my mind is too focused on providing Viola with pleasure to concern myself with it.
I made a mistake in not tying up her hands because one has made contact with my cock over my pants, and I groan into her mouth at the sensation. She pulls away from me with a look of triumph and slides my trousers down so my cock can be freed. When her hand wraps around it, electricity jolts through me.
"Hands off," I growl, peeling her fingers off my length. She wrinkles her brow and moves to grab it again. I stand up from the bed, removing my fingers from inside her. "I said, hands off."
She crosses her arms and huffs, frustration at me boiling over. It's a good look for her. If she doesn't want to talk about her feelings, doesn't want to deal with the emotions that come with being alive, and only wants to fuck it out, that's what she'll get. But it will be on my terms.
I slip out of my clothes, and she eyes me hungrily, lingering on my cock that is already throbbing with desire for her. I wrap my hand lightly around it and lazily stroke it while she watches. "You will have to learn to follow directions. Good girls get rewards, bad girls get punished. I told you to take your hands off, and what did you do?"
She grinds out, "I tried to grab you again."
A smile snakes its way across my face. "That's right, you did. Now, you have to watch while I touch and grab. I'm going to move closer to you, but keep your hands to yourself, or you won't get to come, understood?"
Viola rolls her eyes, huffing out her agreement. I move closer to where she lies on the bed, standing directly beside her head. She turns her head towards me, and the tip of my cock hangs dangerously close to her lips. She licks them, and her mouth falls open expectantly. I lean down and drag my thumb across her bottom lip. "Oh, Miss Mistflow, it looks like you're feeling hungry. Is there something I can do for you?"
She flicks her tongue out to lap a bead of arousal from the head of my dick, and I shudder involuntarily. "You said to keep my hands to myself, nothing about my tongue," she says smugly.
"Is that the game you want to play, then?" I reach down and place my hand on the back of her head. "Open, now." Her mouth falls open, and I slam into it, using my leverage on the back of her head to drive all the way into the back of her throat. " There you go, you're such a good girl swallowing all of me." Her groans vibrate my cock, and my eyes roll in the back of my head.
There is no chance I will last long like this, and I'm not done playing with her body yet, but I can't help but savor the way this powerful woman submits at my hands.
I want to punish her for her insolence and her brattiness as I drive into her mouth. Her eyes water as she takes my cock down her throat, and she moves her knees together, unable to maintain the butterfly position as she seeks friction between her thighs. Watching this impressive woman come undone heightens my pleasure to the point where I almost reach climax well before I need to.
Reluctantly, I pull myself from her mouth. A string of spit attaches her lips to my tip, and I groan at the indecency of it. I shove my fingers into her mouth, and she sucks them in without question, eliciting an involuntary growl from the bottom of my throat. Before I can change my mind and take over her mouth once more, I return to the bed and slowly work her boots off her feet. She sits up on her elbows, excited at the idea of her makeshift restraints being removed.
Unfortunately for her, that's not in the plan.
I slide the pants from her legs after the boots but rewrap and tighten the chest binding around her ankles. Her legs are tightly restrained together, allowing me to easily throw both of them over my shoulder.
Holding my cock by the base, I slide it against her slit, watching how her body shudders with the attention. The dragging is slow and agonizing, and I long to bury myself inside her. With her ass lifted from the bed, she's lost a lot of her leverage, but still, she circles her hips the best she can in an attempt to slide herself onto me, seeking contact and to be filled. That level of desire does something to my ego.
I lean forward, one hand wrapped around the legs I hold hostage and the other resting on the scratchy sheets, folding her in half in my attempt to get as close as possible to her face.
"Be a good girl and use your words, Viola."
She throws her head back and groans. "You're fucking impossible, Mace."
I chuckle deeply. "It's of no matter to me, my numen. You're the one who needed this. I'm happy to go back to discussing our collective guilt and concerns." To punctuate my sentence, I pull my hips back slightly, removing the little contact the head of my dick had with her clit. Though at this point, if I don't have her, it would be a punishment to me as well, I'm prepared to metaphorically leave her out to sea if she won't play by my rules.
"That sounds like pure misery. Please just fuck me," she nearly whines.
I drag my tip down her and back up, grinding it into her clit. "I told you last time I prefer politeness."
Her voice comes out in a growl. "If I'm a God, as you say, why should I have to beg you?" She tries to wiggle out from underneath me, but it's futile as I pin her to the bed .
I lean down, releasing my hold on her legs and placing my hand on her throat. "Oh my numen, haven't you learned yet? Outside this bed, you are my God, and I will follow you. I will decay the world, leaving nothing but ash if that is what you request of me. But the moment our clothes come off, you are mine. I will use you in the way your body longs for. Only me." I run my tongue up the column of her throat. "No one else will get to fuck you to help you forget the fact that you survived when so many died." I nip the curve of her ear. "I will do that for you. But we do it my way," I snarl, punctuating the words with a flex of my fingers against her throat. "I told you. I live to serve you, and the best way I can serve you in this bedroom is by taking control of you. Giving you a chance to be anything but a God. Here, I make the decisions for you because from now on, outside of our bed, it will all fall to your shoulders."
Sitting back on my heels, I push her legs to the side, twisting her hips so her knees can lay flat on the bed. I cross my arms over my chest before I snarl, "So I'll tell you one more time. Be a good girl and use your words."
I can see it pains her to relinquish control. Someone like Viola, who has done nothing but control every aspect of her life with rigorous discipline, is, of course, going to struggle with letting someone make the decisions for her, which is why she needs this. Part of me thinks this is the core of her interest in me. She was attracted to Mace, the Patrician, that domineering and cold persona I manufactured, and she just happened to get to know me and like the man behind the mask. But that's not who she needs right now.
Viola deserves a moment in time when the weight of the world is not on her shoulders. And if I can take that from her, I will gladly do it, even if it is fleeting.
"Mace, please fuck me. Please. I need you." Her hand grips my arm tightly, and her eyes are watery. I lean down and kiss her sweetly, tracing my fingers along her cheekbones.
"Of course, my numen. Anything for you." I slide into her in one smooth motion, hand on her hip, and watch her back arch off the bed. Lightning strikes again, and I curse under my breath.
It's quite inconvenient that everyone will figure out whenever we're together. But I can't bring myself to care too much when I'm inside of her, feeling her warmth squeezing me.
Her soft pants are delicious, tickling a part of the back of my brain that longs to conquer. I quickly abandon the twisted position I have her in and shove her legs up towards her shoulders. I push them as far as she can manage with one hand on her calves. I lick my thumb on my free hand and wedge it between her lips to grind into her clit, relishing the moans that tumble out of her. "There you go, that's my girl," I murmur as she tenses beneath my touch. I lean my weight forward onto her legs, pushing myself even deeper inside.
Viola's eyes roll back in her head, and her teeth are biting into her lip so fiercely she may draw blood. I can see her body tense, and I know she is on the precipice of her release, and though I am tempted to stop it and continuously take her to the edge, she needs this. My thrusts are shallow, scraping that sensitive spot within her as I grind my thumb along her clit. With a long, low, deep moan, she explodes, body twitching and thrashing beneath me. Her fingers grip the sheets as her back attempts to arch off the bed. When she collapses beneath me, I thrust twice more into her, coaxing the rest of her orgasm out slowly as I release inside her just as another bolt of lightning cracks loudly outside.
I pull out and immediately unwrap her legs, stretching them straight and rubbing any lost blood flow back into them. I lay beside her, pulling her head to my chest. To my surprise, she begins to cry softly.
"It's okay, my numen. You'll be okay. We'll figure it out." She sniffles as I run my hand across her shoulders, tapping the pattern I've watched her do so many times since I've met her.
A knock on the door startles us out of our bubble. Tulip's voice drifts through the circular peephole in the door. "Can you two quit fucking around? This Godsdamn storm is going to take the boat out."