BASOREXIA
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Saya Claymore
“Kamai!”
I suck in a breath, desperate for air. My eyes fly open, and I lean forward, hand on my heart. The room is suddenly washed in radiant light. Sparks shudder in the air, electrifying and angry.
After I catch my breath, I look up to see Serun is gone. Instead, there’s a mass of black shadows eating away at my radiating light. From within the rippling darkness, dilated red eyes watch me.
Easing out a slow breath, the muscles in my body soften, forcing me to relax. My magik fades, returning the room to the golden glow from the fireplace.
Serun steps out of the darkness, leaving the shadows behind.
He sits on the couch beside me, his elbows resting on his knees, slouching forward.
Looking at me from the corner of his eye, he smiles, easing the knot in my heart.
“You lost control and let your magik eat at you—except this time, you were aware it was happening.”
I slowly nod, recalling the feeling of nature wanting to devour me.
“Try again.”
My fingers twist together in desperation. “What if it happens again?”
Serun shrugs. “I know how to stop it now that I have observed you.”
Isn’t he a fast learner?
I close my eyes and repeat the exercise until the rustling returns. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I sink, falling through the couch. I float in the darkness, waiting for something to happen. And, like clockwork, fear finds me. My arms tense as the vines wrap around my ankles.
I bring my hands to my chest, but the thorns quickly restrain my wrists, coiling and stretching out my arms. Pricks of pain from botanical fangs pierce my skin in clean, red lines.
“You think you can hide from me, Saya? We are blessed for a lifetime.” He stands over me, his cruel voice tightening around my throat. I am nothing but a platter laid out for him to violate.
The vines inch up my thighs, cutting away the fabric. His magik wants to consume me—like the Elder and all the men in Cherry Bloom always wanted.
Eat my flesh until I am bones.
“Kamai…” A whisper of Serun’s voice slips through the darkness, slicing through vines like a sharp blade.
Before I can think, ice tingles against my skin, splintering cracked, dry lips.
With it, the pain bleeds away. Vervain and moonflowers sprout from the soil beneath me before he comes into existence.
Familiar and gentle frozen fingers wrap around my wrists, pinning me to the ground, and one of his knees lifts close between my legs where heat burns.
Serun’s shadows drift from his shoulders like a cloak, his body hovering over me, his icy lips still pressed to mine. From behind him, the stars appear, and the swirl of the milky moon trails silky lines of light over the valley.
My fingers curl into loose fists as Serun’s eyes slowly open, settling on me as he unshackles my wrists and pulls back to look down at me.
“Was this ruse to make a move on me?”
He breathes a soft laugh. “I don’t need illusions to kiss you.” Before I can refute his words, he looks at the valley around us. “This is your sanctuary. Behind that sea of anger and fear, this is where you tenderly hold your magik.”
Propping myself on my elbows, I scan the valley and frown at all the purple blooming among the moonflowers. “I’ve never seen vervain here before.”
“It is beautiful.”
Facing Serun, I murmur, “Now would be the perfect time to make a move. Or are you still scared?”
Serun sighs, nearing me enough to taste his poisoned breath as he breathes, “Taunting me will get you nowhere.”
I lift my chin higher, hoping my mouth grazes his. “Then why are you so close?”
Serun’s mouth collides with mine, filled with passion, starvation, and depravity. He presses me back into the ground, and my thighs grip his waist. Lifting my hips, I press my heat against a thick cock, somehow bulging without blood.
Serun’s hand slips into my hair, tangling in the strands that seep into the soil. Moonflower petals graze against my bare flesh as his other arm wraps around my waist, enveloping me in his embrace.
Entwined like vines along a fence line, my legs coil around him, and my hands run through his silky hair, pulling at the strands.
Our mouths open, tongues on the verge of rapture as the tips touch, dancing slowly, burning with fiery passion. A passion that burns beyond eternity—stars so close to each other, but light years from finally colliding.
Everything about him pulls me in. His scent. His voice. The way his hands move, ghosting across my skin, but fiercely gripping my hair. I’m losing control. Unable to think. Unable to remember my fucking name…
And then I crumble. Words shatter into a thousand letters when his tongue starts to fuck mine. Slow.
Torturously slow.
In a way that I may need to pray to Mother to repent for the sin of it.
Breaking away, I breathlessly say, “You’re all I see, Serun.”
His nose butterfly kisses mine, enticing me to tip my head and for our mouths to softly tease each other. “And if I could strip you of your skin and kiss the scars within, I would.”
My nipples harden at his declaration, but before I can lean in for another kiss, smudges of red come into focus.
My eyes crinkle as I smile, and my hands lower from his hair to touch his cheeks.
My thumbs run across the lipstick stains.
“Sorry,” I say, showing him the waxy red that comes away.
Serun doesn’t respond. His eyes never leave mine as I sit up, forcing him to lean back into the bed of flowers. “I’ve stained your face.”
Lifting to my knees, I lean close to Serun. His ears pull back, but his face turns to stone as I swipe my thumbs across the red lipstick. I want to at least fade it, knowing he can’t see it in the mirror to do it himself.
“You’re being motherly again,” he murmurs.
I smile. “I hear that a lot. But hold—” I gasp as Serun crushes his mouth to mine, before I quickly squirm away. “I’m trying to clean you up in case you go somewhere.”
“Saya Claymore, I never leave without my shadows,” he says, using my full name and claiming it. “But if I ever did, I would roam the streets with this smeared across my mouth so everyone knows the only lips I am tasting are yours.”
Now, why did he have to say that?
Serun’s fingers slip through my hair while my hands move to his shoulders, gripping flesh as I melt into him. Our mouths consume, and our tongues become lovers, flicking across fangs. I whimper a moan at how easily he can make me love myself.
While one hand keeps me in this moment, firm in my hair, the other strokes across the skin of my exposed chest, slipping beneath the fabric to cup the tender flesh. I gasp at the fleeting pinch of pain across a pierced nipple before he shrugs the fabric to the side to expose my shoulder and breast.
He breaks away from the kiss, our eyes locking together. He explores more of my body, and I squirm when fingers brush over my moonflower tattoo. Then, my breath sharpens like a blade when his fingers delicately stroke where the bullet hit. A nasty scar that won’t go away.
Serun’s eyes are still on mine, unwavering. He doesn’t sexualise what’s happening. He doesn’t seem to care.
All he wants is to see me.
And I see him.
My hand moves over his, and I lean in for another greedy kiss, when an earth-shattering sound pulls me away. The moonflower valley floats away on the wind. Petals and blades of grass whip through the air, and the silver night warms.
I blink, returning to the couch.
Serun slips my dress back up and over my shoulder, cupping my breast for a heartbeat to conceal my erect nipple before the door bursts open. Maeve enters with her head held high, wearing a plum-coloured dress that hugs her curves.
“Brother and Lady Consort,” she says casually, sitting on the couch opposite us and crossing her legs. “Lucifer wants a weapon from the smithy’s apprentice. He says he’s good, and his oak holds.”
Serun touches the corner of his mouth, smiling at the lipstick he finds smeared across his thumb. Heat flushes down my cheeks and neck, and I look away, unable to hold his gaze. Instead, I face the door and spot the Death Spirit.
Oh, fuck me. I probably have lipstick staining my entire face.
“Was I interrupting something?” Maeve asks coolly with a lifted brow.
“Yes—” Serun starts, only to pause when I stand. “Kamai?”
“No, it’s fine! I should…get some air. And maybe a bucket of water…and…practice what you taught me!”
I’ve never been so flustered before. Even when Dan overheard me sucking off Jax, I kept going. Well, I hate the taste of cock, and I only kept going because Jax wanted me to, and…damn it. I need to get out of here and cool off, fast.
Serun tilts his head to the side, an amused smirk settling on the corner of his mouth. He raises his hand, as if wanting to keep me from escaping, but I effortlessly sidestep and scurry towards the door.
“Hello,” I say quickly to the Death Spirit.
He inclines his head, but his face is stone. I squeeze past him, my heart shattering its cage at the idea we almost had an audience. As I reach the steps, I stop, my ear twitching at Maeve’s voice. “Are you bargaining with death again, brother?”
“It has become a hobby,” he chuckles, but there’s a bitterness there I cannot place.
I lean closer, curious about what they are saying, but the Death Spirit looks at me knowingly. A mouse caught with the cheese among cats that know this house better than I do.