Chapter 38 #2
It’s almost like our need to control makes it so that when we have to relinquish some of ours, it’s easier to hand it over if the other person has to give up some too.
He gave me a glimpse of his passion, his want, but I had to give up a bit of myself to receive it.
He ripped my passion from me, but looking back, I think I tore it out of him as well.
I’ve been forced to give away so much of myself to him, but he’s given me much more than I realized. Maybe even more than he intended.
It spilled out of him in waves.
And it tore free when he knew I was in danger.
It’s like I’m seeing a whole different man. Maybe not a different one, but the whole man. Him. He cares about his brothers. Keeps his promises.
I’m theirs.
But I’m also his.
I lean in, pressing my face to his chest and breathe.
Darkness, metal, and firelight fill my lungs.
I drag my nose over his smooth flesh, all my senses crashing together.
My lips brush against a metal chain clinging to his flesh.
He stiffens as I press my cheek to his chest, melting into him, but then his hands slip into my hair as mine land on his hard chest. My fingers curl into his skin, nails biting into his skin.
That feral thing in me, the one they created, awakens.
Maybe she’s been awake this whole time, just waiting, watching.
Seeing him hack that man’s hands off sends a shiver through me.
They did it for me. So full of rage on my behalf.
“How many people have you killed?” I ask.
“Many,” he says. “Enough to ensure god has forever turned his back on me.”
“Is that why your name is Reaper?” I ask.
He exhales slowly. “I earned my name before I went to the school.”
My heart squeezes, imagining a faceless boy with shiny black hair dragging the shadowy outline of death behind him.
I’m aware of what he is. He killed Manuel, who may not have deserved it, but he knew the type of man my father was. Did he know more? Maybe he did. Or maybe my moral compass has become so skewed I’ll forever judge everyone by whether their actions mean they should be sentenced to death.
I killed a man for hurting me. Trying to do worse.
And I don’t feel bad because if he’d do that to me, he’d do it to someone else.
Cora’s face flashes through my mind.
“Did they deserve it?” I ask. “The people you’ve killed?”
He doesn’t answer right away, and when he does, it’s like the words grate out of his throat. “Not all of them. Some I didn’t even have to touch to kill. And some were so deserving of life, it killed a piece of me when they died. But killing isn’t the worst thing I’ve done.”
“What is?” I ask, moving closer to him.
For a minute he just breathes. His chest moves against mine, his fingers making slow circles in my scalp, holding my body to his, like if he can hold me close enough, soothe me, the horror of what I did, what we did and what that man tried to do, will seep out of me and into him.
“Stolen innocence,” he says
“What does that mean?” I ask, aware I’m whispering. I pull back to look up at the dark shadow of his face.
“I’ve taken so much from you,” he says. His grip tightens, and when his forehead drops to mine, I shift closer, dragging my hands along his pecs, faintly aware I’m feeling him, his skin, his heat, him, and drag then down to his sides until I reach his hips.
“You’re such beautiful brightness. I didn’t know how much I missed light and laughter until I saw you.
I crave it. Your spark. And every time I’m near you, I selfishly leech it from you.
I worry that one day, I’ll take so much from you that you’ll just be darkness inside, like me. ”
My fingertips dig into his hip as I exhale, so shocked at his confession that I’m stunned silent.
He combs his fingers through my hair, running them through the strands over and over, and it’s not until I move even closer, my hard nipples peaked under my bra and brushing along his chest, that I feel his thick cock, trapped behind his zipper.
Heat blooms in my belly, and I press my thighs together. “I like your darkness,” I whisper, my fingers slipping into the waistband of his pants. “Maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe I want to be filled with everything you are.”
His chest expands as he heaves out a breath.
It fans my face. Then his lips crash onto mine.
I angle my head as he cups my jaw, taking my mouth so hungrily, his tongue delving past my lips and moving against mine with a heated desperation, that a moan escapes me.
Pain sears through my busted lip, but I tug him closer, the sudden need to wipe away the lingering sensation of the soldiers’ hands coursing through me.
“Fuck me,” I grate against his mouth. “Take what’s yours.”
A grumbling moan leaves him, and he grips my ass, lifting me.
I wrap my legs around his waist, my arms around his neck, as he turns.
My back hits the wall, and I cling to him as I feel his hand move between us.
His belt clinks as it comes undone, and I sink my teeth into the skin on his neck, running my tongue over the flesh.
I drag my mouth lower, my tongue traveling over the metal links draped around his throat.
Salt and smoky sin flood my tongue. I want to drown in it, to consume him.
Own him as much as he owns me. Rip through his flesh and uncover the core of him and drink from his darkness.
“Delilah,” he breathes, my name clawing from his throat, raspy and just as desperate as I feel. The head of his dick notches against my entrance and I whimper, my grip on him loosening. “Come on, Kitten. Bite me. Tear me apart. Let me feel how much you want to be mine.”
My teeth sink back into his flesh as he inches into me. The stretch of him makes me cry out, and tears prick my eyes from the intensity of it all. The knowledge that part of me was so close to being stolen.
His fingers dig into my thighs, holding me up as he slowly eases in until he’s fully seated. His lips press mine, and he takes my lower lip in his teeth, biting just a tad too hard as he pulls out, then stills. The metallic blood touches my tongue, and pain slices through my lip as he sucks.
I know it’s coming, but when he slams forward, I cry out as his teeth sink harder into my flesh. He drives in deep, and then he’s moving, fucking me roughly. All I can do is hang on and let him take. Let him give. Because this time, he’s giving me as much as he’s taking.
This is us. Him and me.
He thrusts into me brutally, almost savagely, over and over, and it feels like I’m ripping in half.
Like he’s trying to burrow under my skin.
Reaper sucks at my lip, driving his tongue into my mouth, the metallic taste of my blood mixing with his fire.
It all builds up, a coiling low in my belly, until it feels like when it releases, it might be my undoing.
But then my orgasm hits, ripping from me with a scream, and I melt into him, nails digging into his shoulders.
His teeth scrape my jaw, then sink into my neck.
The bite of pain makes me cry out, but he doesn’t ease up.
He sucks at the skin, driving in harder and harder until pain blurs the lines of pleasure, and he grates out a desperate, anguished sound.
Reaper’s movements become sloppy, his fingers gripping my ass tightly as he rocks, then his hot cum floods me.
He releases my neck, and his open mouth presses to mine as he moans.
Then he stills, breathing heavily against my mouth.
With his dick still hard inside me, he tightens his grip and carries me through the door, and across the room, placing me on the bed.
I fall backward, boneless. He keeps our bodies connected, holding himself over me with one arm propped up near my head. He’s just a shadow above me, and I want every dark place inside him, even if it’s full of nightmares.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whisper. “What you planned? Snyder? Everything?”
His sigh fans my chest. “I didn’t want to overwhelm you. The stakes are too high to fail.”
“I know,” I say, trying to sit up underneath him, but he presses his palm to my chest, keeping me pinned to the bed. “I won’t fail.”
As I say it, I’m certain. There is no room for failure.
If I do, everyone I care about could die.
If I fail and Rune kills me, or worse, captures me, he will murder everyone, burn that whole place to the ground to seek revenge.
Because he would know that they got to me.
Turned me. And Rune wouldn’t just kill me, he’ll kill everyone and everything I loved first.
Cora.
Them.
Every single move Reaper has made has been an insidious creeping into my soul. A slow, yet violent taking of my heart. The fierce desire to protect them. The desperate want that constantly lives inside me to be theirs, for them to be mine. To avenge Cora.
Reaper slips out, and his fingers delve between my legs and drive in roughly, moving his cum in deeper. “This is ours.”
I tilt my hips, opening for him. “Yes.”
“No one hurts what’s ours.”
“No one,” I whisper.
“If they do…”
“We’ll take them to hell screaming.”
A rumbling chuckle leaves him. “Good girl.”