Chapter 27 #2
“And purposeless? We’ve already decided they must be here for a reason. These dreams are intended to drive us together, like our lust. Like our truth touch too. We’re meant to explore these dreams. You’ve asked me if there was any way for us to be better, and this may be it.”
What was I getting myself into?
The demon king regarded me. “You’re right.”
Shit, was I?
He said, “I didn’t notice at first, but my magic seeks entry to your body when we touch.”
“Any old touch?”
He grunted. “A passionate kiss. Sexual touch.”
“We first kissed when I was sixteen,” I blurted. “This has happened since then?”
“Not back then. My power… understood you were not strong enough yet. Since your return, my power has sought to claim you, though.”
If I hadn’t known about the white magic, then I would have completely misinterpreted “my power” to mean his smoke. He didn’t want me to know about the ancient force he carried. He wanted to mislead me about the white magic that wished to inhabit me too.
My power understood you were not strong enough.
Yellows—maybe oranges and greens, too—weren’t ideal hosts. The white power didn’t work on them the same. Which would reinforce what I knew of Ronj’s ideals—where more powerful demons were the ones to control, and the smarter demons should lead.
I wanted to know how Carmine was alive, unmutilated, and wasn’t clawing at his scales and skin like the winners of Tiers that Tsan had heard about.
Whether or not I decided to harness this ancient power for myself, I felt that understanding Carmine’s control over it was crucial. Maybe I could still stop him from wielding the extra magic.
“So if we kiss in this dream, we’ll know whether your power tries to harm me,” I said.
Yep, I’d officially crossed the line of using my body to achieve my ends.
I felt okay about that in this space too.
Before returning here I’d seen any physical touch with him as a shame-filled failure.
But when the demon king touched me—the little kisses and caresses—I felt next to nothing.
I felt less discomfort in the idea of touching him here than in this prolonged and deep conversation.
Odds were, I’d need to complete another ritual or maybe the whole thing to really have a chance at defeating Carmine. And yes, the conversation with Neti had forced my mind to consider once more that maybe I wouldn’t make it out of this alive.
But nothing in the world—not even the mother herself—would stop me from my goal. I’d come so far already.
So while I might have once avoided kissing Carmine with every part of me, now that seemed like a methodical part of a plan. Figure out if there’s a weakness to his power. Figure out if I can navigate another ritual without his power hurting me.
Distract him from the attack on the fortress.
“I would know if my power hurt you after our kiss here, yes.” The demon king watched me. He sensed the trap.
Did he see my fake limp too?
I crawled over and straddled his lap, feeling my shorts ride up. “What are you waiting for?”
“The end, enamai. Always the end.”
I placed my hand against his cheek. “You have no control over the end. Just the journey there.”
His hands ran over my arms, and the straps of my camisole slipped off my shoulders by his design. “I don’t wish to hurt you. Even a kiss is a risk.”
“Pull away if you feel something bad.” I shrugged a shoulder. “We need to know if this is an option.”
He nodded, expression grim.
I leaned forward and kissed him gently. Pulling back, I checked his eyes. He shook his head, and so I returned to kiss him again, harder. Longer.
The demon king didn’t draw back, and so I tilted my head and arched forward to angle deeper into the kiss.
He pressed a hand against my lower back.
This was one of those dangerous moments. One where I could pretend that Carmine wasn’t who he really was. The temptation to chase the deep yearnings of my heart crashed upon me, and where I’d managed to deny them so many times, all at once, the floodgates were opened.
I’d already decided touching him in this dream was happening for a range of reasons. And maybe I wanted an excuse to relent at long last. Just once before I killed him. Just once in a dream where we couldn’t really satisfy each other anyway.
Without the potential of an orgasm, this wasn’t the same. I’d keep telling myself that.
I slipped my tongue into his mouth, and he met me stroke for stroke. My hands roamed his body, and the sigh that slipped between my teeth was real.
I broke our kiss. “Are you hurting me?”
We were breathing hard. How long had we kissed for? My lips felt puffy, but when he dragged a thumb over them, I wanted to start all over again.
“No, enamai. I can’t hurt you here.” Relief was evident in his voice and on his face as he pressed his forehead against mine. “We have our answer. If another ritual is warranted, then this dream is the best place to do it.”
He was going to leave. Mother be. Carmine’s morals were getting in the way, and I never thought that would be a problem.
I’d already made up my mind on how this dream would go.
I used his shoulders to stand, then slipped off my shorts. “I was just getting started, Carmine.”
I stood in front of his face, naked from the waist down.
His mouth was inches from the top of my thighs, and—yes—I was ready.
Three years ready and absolutely okay with this half-real version of touching him.
This was my goodbye, and I felt no shame in giving way to the mating one time.
I’d conquered that along the way somewhere.
But if I figured out how to end Carmine tomorrow, and this didn’t happen, then part of me would always wonder what relenting would have been like.
His swallow was audible. “What are you doing, Syera?”
I said, “Is something about me standing naked in front of your face unclear? Has it been that long?”
“You don’t know what you’re asking of me, enamai.”
“As far as we’ve figured, your power doesn’t hurt me in these dreams. So if you have another issue, then I’m all ears.”
He stared at the apex of my thighs. He had another issue, but if there was one part of Carmine that I could depend on, it was the part that would mislead me always.
He swore under his breath, then leaned forward to kiss the top of one thigh.
I gasped as the mating lust burst through me at his touch. My legs started to shake.
He parted my folds with two fingers, then sucked my clit into his mouth. I cried out, and gripped the back of his head as a distant quaking launched within me.
He pulled his face away. “Not yet. Whatever madness has gripped us in this dream, then it will last more than ten seconds.”
I nodded, my chest rising and falling.
He didn’t release my gaze as he stroked his two fingers through my slickness. Each brush of my clit pulled a whimper from me.
Carmine drew his hand away as the quaking launched in me once more. He parted my folds and just stared, and hissed, “You are beautiful, mate. You have no idea what I want to do to you. But neither of us could make it there.”
He kiss my clit again and groaned.
That was it. My legs buckled, and I looped my arms around his neck, finding myself straddling his lap again.
I wanted him painfully. “Carmine—”
Carmine rolled me onto my back, then settled on his haunches to lift my ass to his face. I stared down the plane of my stomach at him, and he held my gaze while kissing the insides of my thighs. He pulled me higher until my back rested against the tops of his thighs.
He pressed my legs wide, and they remained suspended as he slowly swept his hands back again.
My body trembled, and when Carmine plunged a finger inside me, actual tears escaped my eyes with the force of my scream. He drew his finger out, and added a second, then settled into a dipping pace. With his other hand, he spread my folds wide again.
I tried to lift higher to his mouth, panting hard.
Carmine bowed his head and stroked the flat of his tongue in one brutal passing. A screamed sob left me.
I thumped my head on the bed. “Carmine, please hurry.”
He continued to suck and lick with his mouth but drew his hand away. I felt the tip of his hard length against my back as he worked his cock.
Carmine flicked the tip of his tongue against my clit, and my body clamped down on his fingers.
“Fuck,” he swore against me.
Then he froze.
Carmine lifted his head and looked through the wall as if seeing something beyond it.
A growl rumbled in his chest, and the crimson surrounding his gray irises flared.
“What?” I whispered.
He drew away. “Enamai, I have to go.”
There was not a single thought about anyone or anything other than finishing this. This would never happen again. Even without the orgasm at the end, this pleasure would clear up any mystery on “what could have been.”
When he started to move, I growled. “I don’t care how you finish this, or how fast. But you will finish this.”
His eyes had never seemed so crimson. Carmine stared through the wall again, then snarled and tore his focus back to me. He bowed his head between my thighs again, pumping his cock in a blur. His fingers plunged rapidly, and he sucked hard on my clit.
And didn’t stop.
His furious gaze locked on mine as I screamed and bucked against his mouth, only to then limpen as soul-deep pleasure claimed me. Carmine roared his own release.
And even in the otherwise untouchable depths of this place I hadn’t truly experienced in so long, I felt his shock as a twin for mine.
We’d been ripped from a certainty we had known for three years and shoved into a new set of rules.
One where these dreams could end with an orgasm.