Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sasha was holding the end of a large wooden spoon, stirring what she assumed was a beef stew of sorts when she felt him arrive.
There wasn’t any other explanation for the hair on the back of her neck standing up, or for the sensation of fear that crawled up over her like a cold fog. Or for the way that the fire seemed to burn dimmer in the hearth, despite nothing having changed.
It was simply that light did not want to exist in a place he occupied.
The Dark King had arrived.
For tea.
Sasha Lancaster would have been terrified. But she wasn’t Sasha Lancaster in the moment, was she? No. She was a motherfuckin’ bog witch, and she’d just motherfuckin’ cursed somebody. No self-respecting bog witch was going to be intimidated by some motherfuckin’ legally distinct Ringwraith.
Whacking the spoon on the lip of the pot, she hung it on an S-hook by the fire.
So like fuck if she was going to be intimidated by a—
Turning around, her internal rant screeched to a halt.
Okay. Maybe the bog witch was a little motherfuckin’ intimidated.
Because darkness itself was seeping into the room through every crack and opening from the outside. Inky blackness like smoke was filling in around the seams where the misshapen door didn’t meet the frame correctly and through the gaps in the diamond-glassed windows.
Emptiness itself flooded in, blotting out the other half of the room until it ceased to exist. The best she could do was hold her head high. She had nowhere to run. Nowhere she could go. She’d invited him here, after all.
Before her eyes, the darkness began to coalesce into a form.
Just as it had obscured the other end of the room, it began to collect itself into the figure that she recognized as that of a man.
But he was a shadow, devoid of any features.
A silhouette of a figure only, towering over everything in the small space.
“You refused my summons, Witch.” His voice was a baritone rumble that she knew existed only in her mind. His was a voice that existed only in the nightmares of men. It twisted a dangerous knot deep in her stomach that wasn’t one of fear.
“I asked you not to order me about in front of my men…” Holding his hands out, she could see that his fingers ended in deadly, pointed claws. But she could make out no details of what they could be like—they were only darkness.
She knew this was no image of a man who was casting a spell to send this visage elsewhere. This was him. This was what he was. Now she really understood the moniker of “the Dark King.”
It took her a moment to process his words. He had asked her not to order him about? Being in a scene across from Vile in a genre but not a story she wasn’t familiar with was a literal round of life-or-death improv.
But it seemed he wanted to have their—eh—characters to be amicable behind the scenes, if not in public.
“And I asked you not to send your errand boys around to yank me about by my ponytail. If you want one of the Sisters of Jid to attend you at your castle, you ask. Such has been the ways of my family for centuries.”
He said nothing.
“Tea?” She gestured at a kettle hanging from the fireplace crane.
“No.”
“No time? Or…no desire?” She smirked, planting a hand on her hip.
He was silent and simply watched her.
Interesting. Why didn’t he say anything?
Oh.
Shit.
Fuck.
Had she just flirted with him?
Oh God. Yeah. Yeah she had.
She’d just flirted with the Dark King as the bog witch and worse than that she hadn’t even noticed, because she’d…been so caught up in the moment.
Turning her back to him, she went to the kettle. Mostly to hide her look of wide-eyed horror at the sudden revelation. “You won’t mind if I make myself some, however. Hate to waste the opportunity for tea.” Fuck, fuck, fuck!
What was wrong with her? Fine, okay, she’d enjoyed being in character as Irene Adler. And this was fun being the bog witch so far, but—
A clawed hand fisted in her hair and pulled her back roughly from the fire. Cognizant thought left her head as she gasped from the sting in her scalp. Her gasp wasn’t one of pain.
Fire coiled low in her as his other hand undid the tie of her fur cloak. It pooled heavy around her feet with a thwumpfh. “You protest, yet I know how much you like to be pulled about…”
Oh.
Oh.
Their characters were…
She should stop this. She needed to stop this. She absolutely, positively, one thousand percent, had to stop this immediately.
The hand in her hair pulled her head back again, and her eyes slipped shut as she groaned at the sensation.
Had Vile written them like this? Or had she?
Had Sidney? Had Virtue?
Did it even matter…?
No. No, she had to fight this. This was wrong. Wanting this, wanting him, wanting to be like this—
The hand that had untied her cloak slid to grasp her throat. It didn’t squeeze, but simply rested there. When a warm breath washed over her ear, the words that came with it were not rumbled into her mind, but spoken aloud.
They were not in the voice of the Dark King, but of Vile.
“Let go, Sasha…you’re enjoying yourself. Let yourself be yourself for once…”
“This isn’t me,” she ground through her teeth.
“Oh, but it is.” The shadowy, clawed hand trailed down her body from her throat. Wandering over the swell of her breast, he splayed his fingers over her stomach. “Look at what you created around you…look at this story you’ve woven for yourself.”
“I—“
“You did,” he cut her off before she could finish denying that she’d done anything of the sort.
“This is you. Those adorable little monsters? You. This backstory of yours? You. I want to hear the story of the Widow you cursed. Please, tell it to me.” He sounded almost euphoric.
No, as though something she’d done had left him awestruck.
“Wh—what?” She was trembling. This was too much.
He pushed her forward, and she felt utterly helpless to resist. Like she didn’t know how. More importantly, she didn’t know if she even wanted to. He turned her around by the shoulders and pushed her up onto her dining table before pushing her flat to her back.
The Dark King loomed over her, the emptiness of his being once more spilling out around him to consume all the light in the space. But it was warm. And even as she felt him start to lift her dress, the only thing she could do was whimper in anticipation.
Not in fear.
Darkness hovered close to her cheek. “Tell me the story…I want to hear it fall from your lips. Please.” He was all around her. Everywhere and nowhere. Caressing her.
Arching her back, she sought more of the strange, ghostly sensation. She’d never felt anything like it. Like a blanket of heavy fog, all over her, he was there. Touching every inch of her, but not enough. Not nearly enough. A moan left her against her will.
There was a grin in his voice when he purred into her ear. “Give me what I am begging for, and can be a merciful King in return…”
And she was helpless to oblige, feeling his touch, that strange sensation, that everything and nothing all over her body.
She stripped off her dress in a desperate need to feel more of him on her, but it did no good.
“Why do people always believe they are the first and only ones in the world who ever know grief?” Her voice was breathy and muffled against the heavy blanket of nothingness around her. She couldn’t see the fire anymore.
The chuckle she received was approving. “Spread your legs…”
Laying on her back, she did as he requested. She felt so dizzy…was this hypnotism? Was he controlling her somehow? Was there some kind of mind-control when he surrounded people like this?
“If you want there to be…” Something pressed harder at her core, rubbing at her, almost enough to be called friction. “Do you want me to take away your control?”
“N—no!” she gasped the word, throwing her head to the side, resting her cheek against the table.
“Then don’t be such a silly little thing, Sasha…” Another roll of that almost-sensation. “You simply want this, and don’t want to admit it to yourself yet. And that’s quite all right. I am accustomed to it, as I understand how disgusting it is to desire me.”
That hitched something in her heart. Hard.
But she didn’t have time to think about it. Something—somethings were winding around her breasts, squeezing them tight. She tossed her head, her mind going white at the sensation.
“You have a story to tell. Focus on that, my sweet Sasha…and let me do the rest…”
Shutting her eyes or leaving them open did no good anymore. The void around her was now complete. She felt something taking her by the wrists, and she didn’t fight as the force lifted her arms above her head and held them there.
“The Widow ran from here, thinking she had been clever, to get a spell from a witch without paying me the gold in her—nnnh—pocket.” She broke off to pull in a whimper as something hot and warm and wet rolled up her core. “And that same night, she slipped the charm beneath her pillow.”
This felt…good. So good.
All of it.
“That’s it, sweet Sasha. I am here with you in the shadows,” Vile urged quietly, his voice still near her ear, despite him being…everywhere else. She felt him in so many places. It was impossible.
But he wasn’t human.
And that had its upsides.
“When the last candle was—ah!—snuffed out and the curtain drawn, the Widow’s husband returned to her bed. Just as she had h—hoped.” Lifting her hips, she desperately sought more of the bliss he was bringing her. The want was becoming a hopeless and maddening need.
“And?” he purred. Every time she chased his presence, he seemed to somehow retreat, teasing her. Bastard. “But of course. You know what I want.”
A story.
A story of suffering.
“Every night, he returned to her bed in darkness, and the Widow held him in her arms. Every night, she remembered my warning and never laid eyes upon h—” She moaned as what felt like a mouth latched around one of her pert nipples and bit down hard on the sensitive flesh.
To be fair, she couldn’t be certain what it was, as she couldn’t see.
And it was Vile.
Anything was possible.
The evil chuckle was quiet but validated her concern.
“Upon him…” She finally finished her sentence.
“Until, many months later, when she was pregnant with her husband’s child, the rumors in the town began.
The townsfolk began to whisper that the Widow was pregnant out of wedlock with the local drunk.
The Widow, upon hearing this, soon became convinced it was true. ”
“So beautifully cruel…” Pressure built against her core. She lifted her hips to it, needing it with a wild, almost primal need. But he pinned her in place. Not until she was done with her story.
“What if she was simply being fooled? The Widow had to know. A single peek would do. The next night, when her husband laid beside her in bed. She lit the match.”
Warm and firm, the strength in it feeling surreal, something slipped around her throat. Not squeezing. But promising to. Vile was silent.
Waiting.
Needing.
“Lying in bed next to her was the rotting, festering corpse of her husband—” Sasha had to break off in a sharp cry as Vile—as the Dark King—as both of them thrust forward. As she was filled to the brim in one swift, hard, impossible movement.
Arching her back, her cry was swallowed as he kissed her, his tongue tangling with hers. The thing around her neck tightened just barely. Together, it sent her crashing over the edge into oblivion, her body having been teased enough as it was already.
He growled loudly against her lips, the presence inside of her pressing harder as though trying to bury itself deeper. It didn’t help matters. Stars danced in Sasha’s vision as she struggled for air.
Need—to—breathe—
Vile ripped his head back away from her. The thing around her throat loosened. His voice was thick and raspy when he snarled down at her. “Overrated.”
All she could do was gasp for air.
“Finish your story.” It was a furious, desperate order from above her, thick with his own primal lust.
Not for her. Or at least…not just for her.
For the suffering she was describing. For what she had made.
This was about fifty shades of fucked up.
“Funny. Now finish your story.” The thing around her throat tightened again.
She shut her eyes, useless as it was, a shiver of pleasure running down her spine as it cinched around her. “The sheets that were clean and white that morning were now stained and ruined as if he had decayed there for months beside her…”
Vile moaned, his grip—if it was his hands at her hips—tightening as he began to piston inside of her.
“The Widow screamed. The horror of it all sent her into labor. The Midwife was summoned, and she gave birth with the dawn. And from her body came a stillborn corpse, as rotted as the thing that had put it there. It wasn’t long before the Widow began to rot from the inside out, and soon joined her husband in the gra—mmnfh! ”
Whatever it was that was now filling her mouth prevented her from finishing the very tail end of her story. But as it began to press deeper into her mouth, rubbing against her tongue, hot and hard, she knew Vile had heard enough to know how it would go.
“How wonderfully visceral and putrid…” He groaned as he filled her in more ways than one. “Look at you…look at how beautiful you are. I could make quite the villain out of you…and maybe, just maybe, I have.”
Too much. Too much of everything. Teeth pulled on sensitive flesh. Things twisted at sensitive bundles of nerves. And his words.
“You’re loving this…?”
His words were true.
Vile—
Please—