Chapter 31 #2
“Because you’ve had her every Aethertide. That’s what she said, right?”
I set my hand on the wall beside her head. “Would it get you to stop asking stupid questions if I made you come so hard that you forgot how to speak? Is that what I have to do? Should I tell you what every symbol on your body means and how many ways they’re telling me to defile you?”
Her fingers curl into my shirt in response, and the sweet scent of her arousal blooms. Damn me. I take her mouth again, rougher this time, biting down until she lets out a helpless whimper. Her hips grind into mine, chasing friction.
I wrench away with a shuddering breath.
Control. Control. Just a little longer.
“We’re leaving. Now.” My voice comes out low and rough as I straighten her veil. “Because if we don’t take off in the next few minutes, I’m going to eat that pussy in public, and I need to get you somewhere safe. Don’t leave my side.”
She gives a sharp nod. Smart girl.
The Devaliant presses close as we navigate through the crowd. I clutch her hand tightly, terrified of losing her in the sea of bodies. More than a few demis give her appreciative glances as we pass, and I crush her against me to mask her human scent with mine.
“Eyes front, asshole,” I snarl at a leering male.
His gaze darts between my gore-streaked hand and thunderous expression before he blanches.
More irritated hisses follow us through the plaza, but no one’s stupid enough to get in the Wolf’s business over the woman at his side or the demi he just incinerated. Not when he’s clearly in the grip of Aethertide’s madness.
“Next time, just ask me to paint you instead,” I mutter to the Devaliant. “At least then you’d be wearing my marks instead of the fuck-buffet menu Amara smeared all over you. You’d be covered in touch her and die symbols in every language.”
“But you’re single,” she says, because she lives to irritate me at every turn. “Isn’t that why Aethertide affects you like this? That’s what you said yesterday.”
There was peace in my life before she blundered her way into it.
I slept. I functioned. I had just enough sanity to get through the day without murdering everyone who glanced at me wrong.
And now look at me. I’m a barely functional wreck with a perpetual hard-on and a craving for the very last pussy in two realms that I should want.
I shoot her a glare. “If you don’t stop moving that bratty mouth, I’ll gag it with my dick.”
Amara finds us at the edge of the square, falling into step as I haul the Devaliant toward a deserted alley. And it’s only centuries of iron discipline that keep me from shaking the ever-loving shit out of her.
“You,” I snap, jabbing a finger in Amara’s direction. “When my higher brain functions crawl out of whatever rut-induced hellscape they’ve fucked off to? Oh, you and I are gonna have words.”
“Listen,” she starts, hands raised. “She said she wanted to help about Rhosyn.”
I bare my teeth, a snarl building in my chest. “You painted what’s mine in sex instructions for other gods to see.”
Her eyebrows shoot up at the words what’s mine, and if I were even slightly more sane, I’d be backtracking.
I’d be making denials. I wouldn’t be saying stupid things.
But the fever is pounding through my head, insisting those symbols are for me, and everyone who’s seen them needs to have their eyes removed.
“She needed to look like everyone else,” Amara insists, because she clearly has a death wish. “I gave her the most common ones.”
“She could have been discovered. She could have died. So shut up while I’m still letting you breathe.”
Amara’s jaw tightens, but she’s smart enough not to push. She knows exactly how close to feral I am right now.
She turns to the Devaliant instead. “Those demis didn’t know anything useful about your sister, so I’ll go to Hellevig myself and find out what’s happening. I’ll come back the morning after Aethertide passes. I can take you to my place in the meantime until the Wolf’s… situation stabilizes.”
And it’s exactly the wrong thing to say because it trips some primal switch in my brain. I snake an arm around the Devaliant to pull her more firmly against my side. A growl builds in my throat.
Mine. Stays with me.
“Wolf.” The Devaliant’s voice is soft. Breathless. “I’m staying. It’s okay.”
I shudder. Something cracks open in my chest at her words. A mortifying sound, close to a purr, rumbles through me as I nuzzle into her, breathing her in. Setting my mouth right over the symbol at her neck for mine.
“If there is a single mark on her she doesn’t beg for…” Amara lets the threat dangle.
I’m already spreading my wings. “Yeah, I got it.”
Then we’re airborne, the city falling away until it’s nothing but a blur of light far below.
I tug off the Devaliant’s veil to smell her better, to drown in that addictive scent that’s driving me mad.
The Devaliant buries her face against my neck, and a shiver goes through her, her fingers tightening on my shoulders.
So close to the most sensitive part of my wings—the erogenous covert feathers closest to the skin.
No other lover has ever touched me there, and it’s madness that I’m even considering commanding her to.
The night sky splinters around us, stars shattering into ribbons of color that twist and dance through the darkness. It catches in the Devaliant’s silver hair and dusts her skin in shimmering opal. She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I should say something. An assurance that she isn’t about to be fucked within an inch of her life by the animal wearing my skin. That somewhere beneath the rut-fever, I’m still capable of sanity.
But that would be a lie, and if nothing else, I’ll give the Devaliant the dignity of honesty.
In no time at all, the tower comes into view. I aim for the garden, touching down on silent feet. Carefully—so carefully—I set the Devaliant on her feet and force myself to step back.
“Get inside.” I’m amazed the words emerge as anything close to intelligible. “Now. Before I forget how to be careful with you.”
She hesitates, and I think, Yes. Fucking please. Just give me an excuse to snap. To push you down and take what I want—
The Devaliant must see something in my face because she’s moving before I can act on the impulse. I follow her through the halls, staying close enough to hear her rapid exhales. It’s only when we reach her chamber that my control finally shatters.
I’ve got her caged between my body and the door before she can so much as gasp. The sound she makes incinerates the last scraps of rational thought. The Devaliant tips her head back, baring her throat—an offering and a surrender.
Here, it says. You can have it. I yield.
“Evander.” A ragged whisper.
Of course she’d use my name right now when I’m out of my mind with want, and that’s all it takes to push me over the edge.
So I take her mouth the way I will take the rest of her—with tongue and teeth. Starving and reverent. I’ll worship every inch of her until my name is etched on her bones. Until there’s nothing left of me but what she chooses to keep.
She makes a sound that’s half prayer, half plea. Begging me to have her. I imagine myself tangled up in her limbs, inside her. Imagine how wet she’d be, how she’d sound when I moved. Would she grasp me like now? Would she want me to take her harder?
“The symbol on your neck?” I whisper. “It’s asking for someone to Claim you tonight.”
She swallows hard. “And would you? If I hadn’t ordered you not to?”
I can’t. You aren’t for me.
So I toe open the door and nudge her gently across the threshold. “I think the marks on your body are making promises you don’t want to keep, and I’m not in my right mind.” I step away. “Lock yourself in. Wash the paint off. Don’t come out until this passes.”
Please. Please just obey me for once in your contrary existence.
She studies my face, and I brace for her refusal. For the inevitable, disastrous moment she throws herself against my discipline to see how far it bends.
But then the Devaliant dips her chin in a nod.
It takes every shred of my control to slam the door shut. Panting, I slump against the surface, tip my head back, and just breathe, and breathe, and breathe. I try to claw back some semblance of sense and sanity.
We want what we want. Even when we know it’ll destroy us.