Chapter 31
Wild Rose
Vows to the Dead
The tempest within my mind rages, tearing apart the fragile garden that once bloomed in the quiet depths of my soul. In the stillness of the night, as I lie awake, I wonder how many graves I must dig to bury the fragments of myself that have already died. They speak of the bravest revenge being healing, yet how can I heal when my father’s laughter has been silenced forever and my mother’s embrace is now but a fading memory? How can I move forward when those I loved have left me with nothing but the searing pain of their absence?
And yet, how bitterly ironic it is that I have found the strength to keep moving forward, to resist the pull of an end, when living has proven far more difficult than dying. Each morning, I wake to the yearning for death, a siren’s song that tugs at my heart, as a mother calls her child home at dusk. It is a quiet ache, a blade lodged within me, twisting deeper with every breath. And when I look closer, I see that it is my own hand that guides the steel. Am I my own undoing? Is it not easier to surrender, to embrace the darkness that calls, than to continue mending what others have shattered beyond repair?
But why should I try to mend what cannot be restored? Why struggle to revive a world that has so easily torn me apart? Instead, I should leave, run far from this place, seeking peace. I need to find the quiet that will allow me to uncover who I am beneath the ruins, to learn once again how to love the shattered person I’ve become. This charade, this endless game, will only lead to pain. And in that pain, there is no comfort, no solace.
Death, perhaps, is beautiful in its simplicity. To know true peace, to step beyond the veil where time has no hold, to become part of the earth, a whisper in the wind. There is something compelling about that stillness, that absence of beginning or end. To release the burdens of hurt, of memory, of loss. Memory, after all, is nothing but torment—an unrelenting series of moments that refuse to fade. Perhaps if I could forget, if I could vanish into oblivion, life would finally feel like a gift, rather than a relentless curse.
“Are you okay? That was… I lack the words. Odessa look at me,” she holds my face in her palms. “It is alright to not be.” Naseria has always been the one who felt more, her emotions seat prettily on her sleeves, leaving nothing to the imagination.
“I’ll be alright.” I take her hands into my own, squeezing them with the reassurance I lack.
“You lie as bad as a perjury” Miro gives me a small smile, but as terrible a liar I am, he has never done so well hiding his concern. It flashes in his orbs every time our eyes cross paths.
“And just like a lousy hooker, you fail at concealing your worry.”
“Looks like we’re truly not good at stuff.”
“I say so too” He tugs both me and Naseria into his arms and for seconds we lay still in each other’s embrace.
It was a minor task to ease their hearts, but when Naseria hurried off to the library, we crossed paths on our way back. Miro, not so subtly, veered off to see Sybil, and I made my way down the gravel path toward the lake out back. Raindrops mar my skin as the storm grows steadily stronger. I settle on a bench, gazing at the tranquil view before me.
The lake glimmers like an aurora at dawn. It is statue still, yet flowing with a sequestered nature like no other. And a sap sweet scent hangs in the air, reminding me of honey. The chateau from here looks indeed as if it were pulled out of a fantasy. Magnificent and grande.
Mere moments ago, I have come to more candor than I could witness. I have a million questions for Bonnie — my long-lost grandmother, for Sebastian who has known all this time and for my darn mother who should have done better at opening her hornet’s nest. It’s no longer happiness I seek, but just a little less pain. To hold loss in your heart is like carrying the tombstones of your loved ones on your shoulder. You fall, your knees scrape, your hands bleed, and your body bruises along the way.
I feel his presence, like a splendid lightning that will tremble the earth to its core. His scent wraps around my neck, stealing my thoughts and caging my heed to him alone. He takes a seat next to me, his large frame crowding me in such a greedy vulgarity. His silence, as always, speaks more than words ever could.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I should feel ire coursing through me with vile intent, but I do not. I feel jaded, my bones are weary and lost. “You had no right to make my choice, and what if I did not want to know of her? Do you not feel the slightest bit of remorse?”
I’m lashing out like a brattish woman, searching for a wrong that is not there. I should be tickled pink to know I have family that wants to love me. Right?
Then why are my emotions running up the wall like a maniac? Something good happened today, and I can not see it. I can not accept it. He stands and falls to his knees before me, gripping my thighs in his hands.
“Remorse,” he spits out the world like it flares his tongue. “You wound me with your words, Wild Rose .”
His pained voice cuts through me like broken glass, and when the tears I had been holding back freely fall I look up to the now tar black sky. A single raindrop splashes on my lips and a thousand more follow, basking us in its pour.
“And you wound me with your lack of ,” I grit out the sentence, my teeth grinding like dust. I look back at him and his eyes have darkened to a gravel-grey shade and the cocktail blue he normally wears is almost gone.
“If it’s the harrowing voices in my head you seek, surely you will find them in that darn journal I incessantly write in, with you in thought. And with a disturbing desire that scribbles a myriad of manuscripts.” His grip digs into my flesh, harshly with each word.
“Your riddles mean noth?—”
“Your eyes, they captured my broken heart the moment our paths crossed. From the very first glance, an ache stirred deep within me, a longing I couldn’t name. I am no man of honor, yet I cannot bear to see you face this world without me, even when I am undeserving of your grace. There is nothing I would not do to see you smile, to see you happy. So do not doubt that my remorse for you runs deep. If I could, I would take your pain as my own, my love.”
His words bruise my heart like a lover's touch.
However the rain that soaks us does little to dampen the maddening need crawling up my spine, threatening to leave me breathless and wanting. His voice, his eyes, his confession, they’re like pretty rose vines that wrap around your limbs to draw blood. And, goodness how I want to taint his claws with the crimson that pours from my chest. I want him to bathe in it while I break apart his hidden self and make us one.
I gently place my palm upon his jaw, tracing the contours of his skin with my fingertips, my hand grazing the faint stubble that graces his chin. He leans into my touch, a silent surrender. My gaze falls to his lips—those irresistibly tempting lips that stir a longing within me, urging my own to seek the warmth of his.
“I want to know all of you. Promise you’ll let me?”
“Anything you ask of me, l will give.”
And so I yield. My tongue caresses his lips, tasting them, savoring their warmth, before I pull him closer, my fingers gripping the collar of his shirt, a silent plea to drown in the chaos we’ve created. He meets me with a fire unlike, his tongue a flame within mine, claiming me with a fervor that knows no restraint, each kiss a tempest, wild and endless.
Nothing about this kiss is holy nor sweet. He takes me with every breath he steals, leaving no space between us. I hold on to each second as if it were my last, and as the world fades into nothing, it is only him and me, lost in a place of our own making.
My hands move through his hair, loosening the careful knot he tied there. Soft strands slip between my fingers as I pull, and a flicker of fire stirs inside me. A shiver rises along my spine, spreading like a whispered promise.
Without breaking our kiss, he lifts me, and I wrap my legs around him. Thunder crashes, shaking the river and sending birds into the sky. My mind turns hazy, and when the air becomes too thin, I pull back just enough to breathe.
I lay my head on his shoulder, so beguiled by his beauty that I show no regard to the doors he opens, nor the stairs we take one at a time leading to his room. Not until I’m thrown on to his bed with my wet clothes sticking to my skin.
“Lord, you are a sight to envy,” he breathes, his eyes raking over me with a longing that sends a thrill through my body. He quickly slips off his coat and hurriedly shuffles out of his boots, and in his rush, my legs are pulled to the edge of the bed. A soft whimper escapes my swollen lips, and my body hums with anticipation and excitement . The lust in his eyes must surely mirror my own, each of us reflecting the ferocity that burns between us.
He comes closer, his lips hovering just inches from mine, his nose nuzzling gently against me before he captures my mouth with an animalistic growl. His woody, masculine scent overwhelms me, stirring a deep need to feel him inside me.
His lips make a wet trail down my chin, mapping every goosebump around my neck and over the curve of my boobs until he is buried between my thighs. He pulls my dress up and spreads my legs apart. His hands caress my flesh as my panties are torn off me with brutality. You would think he hates to see the flimsy material.
“That’s the second one.” I sit up on my elbows to peer at him.
“Perhaps if you wore none, this wouldn’t be an issue. ”
“You would rather I spend my days prancing about with nothing covering my —”I stifle a giggle as a smirk curls on his lips. “Such devious acts, Mr. Moretti,” I say, biting my lip as I curl a strand of hair around my finger.
“Whenever I part your legs, I want to see you bare, just for me.”
“And what happens if I refuse?”
“I can be cruel in your undoing.” His eyes glint with mischief.
The snide remark that sets on the tip of my tongue falls when he hungrily strokes me like a rapacious creature, tasting my lust for him with his tongue. His touch makes me blush in all the right places. My eyes roll to the back of my head as flames run down my body. He violently thrusts a finger inside me with a ferocious intent that makes my legs shake. He circles my clit, coating my arousal all over his fingers.
I feel like a book he has spread open, with his fingers running down its pages, over and over with so much tender roughness. I cannot get enough, and neither can he. Sebastian makes love to me with his mouth, biting, bruising, and licking me until I’m seeing stars and the fire inside me swallows me whole in an earth shuttering release, forcing an unbashful moan past my lips.
This is what I need from him. Rough kisses until we’re a breathless mess. Throat pulling and hair grabbing. I crave the sweet pain only he can make me feel. To tremble at his voice and whimper to his touches.
“You taste of pure poetry and god do I want those filthy lips wrapped around my cock,” he growls.
My dress is ripped off my body, leaving me bare to his liking. The material sits under me and a slight chill settles on my flesh.
“Then force me to my knees,” A sinister depravity flashes in his eyes.
“Soon, Wild Rose but not until your blood has stained my cock.”
What a foul, foul mouth he has, and what a shame how his dirty whispers and sweet nothings leave me trembling with desire.
His hands work at his shirt, undoing each button with ease. The room is bathed in darkness, save for the flickering candlelight and the soft glow of the moon spilling through the curtains. Which makes the scene rather romantic.
“Candles?”
“The lights went out a while back.” He pulls down his pants.
His muscular arms stretch over the bed’s wooden posters when he reaches for them. Intricate tattoos that I can not tell where one begins or ends, paint his flesh. All of them adorned with black ink, from his neck and arms like an art piece. My hands itch to feel over them all day long, to learn what each means and why.
I reach to feel his skin under my touch. His brawny arms, his chiseled abs, his thick —, he grips my wondering hand before I can wrap it around his pierced coc?—
“Lay back, I cannot take a second longer without being inside you.” he almost sounds like he’s begging.
“Neither can I,” the words that flow past my lips are unruly.
I lay down, zeal and fear coiling around me. He has quite the girth with a dazzling piercing hooked at his tip.
“You’re pierced, ” I breathe, my voice coming out in a gasp.
“Are you afraid?”
“Would you want me to be? ”
I hear it in the dark timbre of his voice, a sadistic note carefully veiled beneath his words, a murmur of something dangerous. It stirs within me a strange, unsettling thrill. But what fascinates me more than his hidden cruelty is the way I crave the fear, how it swells within me, drawing me in. There is something intoxicating about the danger he promises, the wild unpredictability of Sebastian. He is a madman, and tonight, I will lose what remains untouched, surrendering my innocence to the madness he embodies. The act itself seems inevitable, as if fate has woven this moment into my very being.
“I want you weathering beneath me, begging for me. I want you to take me so deep you feel me in your soul for years.” He rubs himself up and down, smearing his cock with my arousal. “Your pain nestles in my bones like it’s my own, your tears make my unfeeling heart wilt. You’re a rose Odessa, one with jewel thorns that seep the blood of your enemies, but I will be damned if I do not burn anyone that dares to make this precious rose wither. So do not dare question my remorse for you”
He rests one hand on the bed while the other snakes around my throat. “You shall quiver and scream my name like a fervent prayer that the dead will hear, won’t you?”
“How can you look at me with those eyes?” My heart aches, each word a quiet tremor in my chest.
“How can I not, when you’re everything I’ve ever longed for—and so much more?” His gaze holds a warmth that floods my soul, melting the distance between us.
“But I am broken.”
“ Tonight, let me show just how beautiful those pieces you loathe mean to me. I am a starved man, Odessa. Forgive me, for I won’t be gentle. ”
“Then do not be—” he thrusts himself inside me, tearing my innocence and taking it for himself. His mouth captures the scream that roars from my throat, twisting our tongues in a dance.
My nails dig into his flesh, scratching his back and marking his ass. It’s a pain filled pleasure and like wild animals, we ravish each other’s flesh, licking the blood that pours after and soothing the pain that follows.
He lifts me by the ass, gripping me with savagery as I tug at his hair. The euphoria that swirls in me is unworldly. I feel it tingle from my toes to my head, weaving through me with an electric wool. My back arches as he bounces me up his length and down.
“More, I want more of you, Thorn ,” I moan.
The bed creaks, the thunder cries, the rain pours and Sebastian fucks me like a beast. He devours me whole. He slaps my ass once, twice, thrice and my eyes roll to the back of my head.
“You’re mine to break, and I’m yours to own,” he whispers in my ear.
Only he can make me feel heaven on earth, and on bended knees his mouth sucks my nipples, ravaging my boobs until they’re bruised and swollen. His arms hold me so delicately, my body pressed against his that I can feel his heart beating with mine, our passion exploding so mightily between us. He strokes my insides with need as his lips taste the scent of every part of my flesh.
“Choke me until you’re all I’m filled with, fuck me until your sins are my sins,” I beg, tears running down my face.
“Your mouth will end me Wild Rose. You’re killing me my love.” Veins stretch up his arms and neck, and oh my does my cunt squeeze him with each thrust. We’re a heaving, sweaty mess, yet I’ve never felt more sinfully pure than I do in his arms. Protected and his. His hand settles on my neck once more, squeezing me until I can not breathe.
“Feed me your tongue.” I demand and he lets go, pulling me closer by the hair to suffocate me with his lips. The rain pours harsher, and so does my release, washing over my body like an electric pulse, and fuck, those stars cloud my eyes like a galaxy. He grunts so beastly as his own release fills me up.
“Such a pretty mouth, to say such dirty desires.” He smiles, not a smirk but a boyish smile that shows his left dimple and makes my heart flutter with butterflies.
“Only for you,” my hand brushes away a strand of hair that sticks to his forehead. “You’re so beautiful.”
He gently lifts me up and when his eyes make sight of the blood staining us, a lustful possessiveness flickers in his orbs. His finger runs over my folds, spreading our arousal and my blood, and then his tongue darts out to lick every bit of us.
“It tastes of our devastating passion,” he whispers into my ear, “and I want more.”
Deeply, deviously, darkly and demented until my limbs fall limp. Oh Sebastian, it’s me you make a wreck of.