Chapter 41 #3
And just like that, the blood rushed south again. Harder. More painful than before.
I stepped between her knees, my gaze dropping to her centre—swollen, wet, and glistening with my seed.
"You cannot be serious," she whispered, her voice a breathless, incredulous rasp. She looked down at the erection straining against my stomach. "You are insatiable."
"I am a starving male,” I corrected, a dark, dangerous smirk curling my lips.
I dropped to my knees.
Her eyes widened. "Cain, what—"
"Tasting my wife, of course”, I said, the words vibrating against the inside of her thigh.
I didn't wait. I grabbed her hips, pulling her to the edge of the marble, and buried my face in her.
I feasted.
I used my tongue broad and flat, then sharp and punishing. I licked up the mess I had made, swallowing her, drinking her down like holy water. She tasted of salt and sweetness and life. She tasted of us.
"Oh gods—Cain!"
She bucked against me, her hands tangling in my hair, trying to pull me closer or push me away, I didn't know.
I didn't care.
I was possessed. The Void was screaming at me to destroy, to break, to kill, and I was drowning it out with the taste of her. Every whimper she made was a brick in the wall keeping the last vestiges of my sanity intact.
I sucked her clit into my mouth, humming against it, feeling her tremble.
"Please," she sobbed, her hips jerking. "Please, it's too much—"
“You will take it," I snarled against her wetness, biting her sensitive skin, without breaking it, this time.
Her leg jerked out in a spasm of pleasure, knocking into one of the heavy votive candles lining the vanity. Hot wax splashed onto her thigh, searing a path down her skin.
She hissed, her body tensing, but she didn't pull away.
I paused, looking up from my feast, my face slick with her. I smirked at the new mark on her skin.
"Look at you," I whispered, running a thumb over the cooling wax. "Addicted to the burn already, Little Aenite?"
She grabbed my hair, yanking my head back with a ferocity that matched my own. Her green eyes were wild, dilated, burning with a lifetime of defiance.
"I have choked on pain since the day I was born, Cain," she hissed, her voice trembling but fierce. "I don't need more scars from you. Tonight, you don't get to just hurt me. You also get to give me the pleasure I have been starved of."
She tightened her grip, pulling me back into her.
"Make me forget," she demanded. "Make me forget everything but this."
The command shattered me.
I reached up and slapped her clit. A sharp, stinging flick of my fingers.
She screamed.
Her inner thighs clamped around my head, crushing me. I kept eating. I kept sucking, merciless and cruel, driving her over the edge and into the abyss.
She shattered again, harder this time, her body convulsing, her eyes closing. She went limp in my hands, utterly spent.
I stayed there for a moment, breathing in the scent of her, my face wet with her pleasure.
I stood up, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. I looked at the filling tub, then at her—satieted, beautiful, mine.
"The bath can wait," I muttered.
I lifted her into my arms again, carrying her out of the steam and back into the bedroom. I laid her on the sheets, pulling the heavy furs over her.
I climbed in beside her, pulling her back against my chest, wrapping my arm around her waist.
She stirred, turning her head to look at me. Her eyes were hazy, sleepy, but filled with a terrifying, absolute softness.
She looked at me like I was no longer just darkness, but hers.
“I think I can really fix you and you could fall in love with me too…” she whispered almost to herself, the words slurred into the pillow.
I froze.
The Void laughed.
I kissed her forehead, my lips lingering on her skin.
"Sleep now, Ophelia," I commanded softly.
She drifted off, her breathing evening out, her hand still clutching my forearm.
I lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, listening to the silence she had created inside me. It was terrifying. It was addictive.
I brushed a stray lock of hair from her cheek, leaning down to whisper the truth she would never hear.
“I long for you in a way no male should ever long for anything other than power,” I murmured to the shadows, the confession tearing out of my throat like jagged glass.
“But you see, Ophelia, before you I am weak. For you have found your way into the depth of my Void and pulled until the echo chamber turned into music.”
I traced the line of her jaw, my hand trembling.
“Now I haunt these halls and hear your melody like a siren’s call,” I whispered, closing my eyes against the sting of unspent tears. “Not fearing the crash, but longing for it.”
But the crash would kill us both. And I could not let her die.
As the haze of pleasure faded, the cold reality crept back in. I had claimed her. I had marked her with wax and blood and seed. I had tasted her soul.
And judging by the look in her eyes, I had already made her love me.
And that only meant it would hurt more when I destroyed her world tomorrow, but I could never allow myself to love her back.