Chapter 16 #2
I withdraw my hand from between her legs, ignoring her whimper of protest, and wrap my fingers around the back of her neck. I push her forward so she’s bent over the large branch sweeping out from the trunk, her breasts pressed against the bark.
“Spread your legs for me. Show me how much you want this.”
She gasps, grabbing the branch for support. Her hair falls forward, already tangled from my touch. The position leaves her completely exposed, vulnerable, mine.
“Beautiful…” I run my free hand down her spine. “You have no idea how irresistible you look like this.”
The rough bark has left red scrapes on her tender skin, which I want to lick.
With my foot, I nudge her legs further apart. She lets me, spreading her stance and leaving the most intimate parts of her ready for me.
“Stay like this. Don’t move until I tell you to.”
“Y-yes.”
I’m growing wet, throbbing with need as anticipation burns inside me like molten metal. The scent of her arousal meets my nose, making my head spin.
I thrust two fingers into her from behind. She’s so wet and ready for me that I slide in easily, and she welcomes me with a soft, desperate cry.
The feeling of being inside her makes the flame within me grow into a blazing fire, roaring out of control.
The forest floor beneath us pulses. Bare branches overhead shift and sway, creating shadows that dance across Hannah’s skin. Dark tendrils curl from my hands and arms. They grip her hips and wrap around her waist, holding her to me.
A little whimper escapes her, as if she’s trying to suppress the sounds of her pleasure.
“Don’t hold back,” I say. “I want to hear you scream.”
As I curl my fingers and stroke her inner walls, she obeys, crying out into the night. The noise sends a wave of pleasure through me. The dark tendrils tighten around her, leaving pink marks.
“That’s it. Take my fingers. You were made to be claimed by me.”
I stroke her inner walls again and again, drinking in her moans, making her whole body shake with the rhythm. She’s tight around my fingers, each movement drawing fresh sounds from her lips.
The ache between my legs grows unbearable.
I pull my fingers out and glide them over that sensitive pearl, which is swollen with desire. She shivers and cries out, her knees buckling. Only my grip on her waist keeps her on her feet.
“Julia—oh God—” She can barely form words, her voice broken.
I lean down to kiss and bite her back as I fuck her, my teeth finding spots that make her whimper. She tastes mouth-wateringly good. I can feel her ecstasy feeding me, her pleasure radiating through the woods.
She’s making incomprehensible sounds, a string of curses and moans flooding from her lips. Her knees weaken further, her whole body trembling as she sinks lower.
I spank her, a sharp slap that echoes through the forest. “I told you to stay until I’m finished with you, pet.”
“Y-yes,” she stammers, straightening her legs. The submission in her voice, the way she immediately obeys despite her body’s protests, sends another spike of hunger through me.
I reward her by thrusting my fingers back inside. I pull out to toy with her, then push back inside, finding a rhythm that makes her moan my name.
“I’m going to come,” she gasps between ragged breaths. “Julia—”
I pull my fingers out, denying her the release. “Good girl. Turn around.”
I spin her to face me, and she’s a vision of desperate need, her face flushed and sweaty, her hair wild, her lips swollen. I push her down onto the carpet of leaves, following her to cover her body with mine.
The cold ground makes her gasp and arch beneath me, pressing against my still-clothed body.
I straddle her hips, looking down at the beautiful creature who’s somehow become mine tonight. Her eyes are dark, her pupils wide, and there’s something almost worshipful in the way she looks up at me.
I need to make sure this is going to work. That she’s fully submitting to me.
“You’re mine, and mine alone,” I tell her, my voice rough with desire. “Say it.”
“I’m yours,” she whispers.
I grab her face, holding her gaze. “Mine to touch. Mine to fuck. Mine to consume until you’re shaking and spent.”
“Completely yours,” she gasps.
The tingle beneath my skin comes alive like a rushing river. My power is ravenous, and it’s time to finish the best meal it’s ever had.
This is going to work. With the way she’s given herself to me, it has to work.
I push her thighs apart. The moonlight catches on the moisture between her legs, making her glisten. She’s so radiant, so perfectly offered, that for a moment I can only stare.
“Beg me for it,” I say.
Her chest is heaving. She’s shivering in the cold. “Please. I can’t take it anymore.”
I lean down over her, resting my hand over her center, teasing her.
“Please,” she says more insistently, writhing beneath me. “I’ve been so good for you.”
I slide my hand, now soaked with her desire, back between her legs. This time, I don’t hold back, sweeping my index finger relentlessly over her most sensitive part.
“Tell me you don’t belong to anyone else.”
“I d-don’t belong to anyone else.” Her voice is strained and desperate.
“Tell me you exist for my pleasure.”
“I exist for your pleasure.”
“Good girl. Now let yourself go. Don’t suppress anything. I want all of it.”
I lean down and capture her mouth with mine, drinking in her hitched breaths and whimpers. The leaves beneath Hannah curl and wither, crumbling to dry dust, as if my magic is accelerating their decay.
The incantation flows from my lips between kisses. I work my fingers quickly over her center, faster, faster, pausing to thrust inside before tracing another circle.
She arches beneath me, her hands fisting on my cloak, pulling me closer. The forest floor is cold and damp, but it doesn’t matter.
A shiver rolls through her.
“Yes—yes—” she gasps, the words smothered as I crush my lips against hers.
I feel the moment she breaks apart, convulsing with pleasure.
Dark tendrils of magic snap toward her like greedy fingers, pulling her life force into me. They swirl and twist in the air, wrapping around her and holding her close. The temperature plummets. Ice crystallizes on the dead leaves beneath Hannah, spreading outward in patterns.
I drink in her climax, feeding voraciously as her ecstasy flows into me. Never have I tasted anything so good. Never have I felt such an all-consuming energy surge into my body, flooding every cell like fire.
I moan, pleasure coursing through me. I keep drinking, sucking, taking everything she has to offer. Her essence is utterly intoxicating.
And fuck, it’s good. She’s good—the best I’ve ever had in decades of feeding.
It’s addictive, this pure connection. I can feel her flowing into me, warm and willing.
It’s even better than Charlotte used to feel.
The thought jolts through me like a warning bell. This is how it happened before—this moment where I knew I should stop and chose not to. Where pleasure eclipsed conscience. Where hunger won over everything else.
I should pull back. I need to pull back.
I don’t. I can’t.
Not yet.
Not when she tastes this good, not when her essence fills the empty spaces in my soul.
As her orgasm subsides, I keep drinking. She’s gasping into my mouth, writhing beneath me, her thighs clamped around my hips like she’s trying to keep me as close as possible. Her nails rake down my back through my cloak, leaving trails of fire in their wake.
More. I need more. My power demands it, singing with greed as it tastes something it’s been denied for a century. Hannah’s energy is like sunlight after endless darkness, and I’m drowning in it.
And then something shifts in Hannah’s breathing—less pleasure, more desperation.
The dark tendrils between us shudder. Branches creak as if trying to reach for me.
Her fingers dig into my shoulders, not with passion, but with something that might be panic.
The change is subtle, but I’ve felt it before.
Stop. It’s time to stop.
A voice in the back of my mind, small and desperate, fighting to be heard.
Through the haze of power and pleasure, it keeps whispering, begging me to pull back. This is exactly what Rebecca wanted—for me to prove I’m still the monster who killed Charlotte. For me to drain another innocent woman who offered herself to me and confirm that I haven’t learned a thing.
But the voice is too quiet, and Hannah’s essence is too sweet, and the power flowing into me feels too good to stop. I’m starving, and I have been starving for over a hundred years, and she’s offering herself so completely…
Hannah’s movements grow weaker, her gasps turning shallow. The warm flow of energy falters.
She goes limp beneath me.
The sudden stillness breaks through my frenzy like a splash of ice water.
“Fuck.” I jerk back, gasping, and the tendrils of darkness snap with a deep, sharp echo that reverberates through the forest.
The magic cuts off like a door slamming. The silence is deafening—no wind, no pulse of power. Just the sound of my ragged breathing. Frost has spread outward, climbed every tree, and encased every branch and leaf.
Her face is ghostly in the moonlight. Her eyes are closed. Her head lolls to the side, her arms falling slack on the decayed leaves.
My hands shake as I press my fingers to her throat in search of a pulse—the same ones that are still wet with her desire. Veins of darkness form webs under my skin.
Monster, snarls a voice in my head.
But her pulse is there, steady but weak, beating against my fingertips. Her chest rises and falls in shallow breaths, but she’s unconscious.
“Hannah?” I brush her hair back from her face.
No response. Her skin is pale, almost translucent, and there are dark circles under her eyes that weren’t there before.
The frost begins to melt, the ground around us crackling, water running off the trees in rivulets.
I sit back, breathing hard. I’m uncomfortably aware of how soaked my undergarments are. In other circumstances, this would not be over, and it would not have ended in one of us losing consciousness.
But this isn’t other circumstances.
I clutch my chest, searching for a sign of the binding spell. Did Hannah’s surrender break it? How can I tell?
I study my blackened fingers. Magic crackles between them, and I feel it stirring properly for the first time since I awoke. It’s strong—perhaps stronger than ever.
Have I done it? Am I free to leave this girl, this place, this century of imprisonment? Free to find Rebecca and show her what real power looks like?
A laugh bubbles up inside me, erupting from my lips. It fills the forest, making crows rise in a flurry from a nearby tree, cawing.
God, this power feels good.
Standing on unsteady legs, I straighten out my clothes. Hannah remains motionless on the ground, her breathing the only sign of life. She’ll recover. I somehow stopped in time and didn’t drain her completely.
I take one step, then pause.
I might not have drained her, but what a waste of restraint it would be to have her die from the cold after all that.
So, I take off my cloak and lay it on the forest floor. I move her onto it, wrapping it around her for warmth.
With my new power, I light a fire beside her for good measure.
How sweet it is to have my magic so responsive.
I turn away from her still form, my heart beating stronger than it has in over a century.
Rebecca is somewhere in that big house, smug in her victory, unaware that her perfect trap has snapped open.
It’s finally time to get revenge.