Chapter 16 #2
I had immediately refused. I told her I didn’t want to hurt her. I told her I couldn’t hurt her. And then she had mumbled something about it always hurting less when she was constantly touched.
The next song begins and this time Darian dances with the woman dressed in her fox costume. His arm wrapped tighter around her back and his lips whispering something into her ear. Her entire body covered except her neck and hands.
She has asked me to touch her scars because constant touch would hurt less.
Constant pain eventually becomes nothing because your brain gets so used to it. A rewiring of sorts to get used to pain. And while pain can heighten pleasure, pleasure can also dull pain.
She’s using Darian to try and get used to the pain from being touched by using pleasure to try and dull the pain.
She’s trying to become used to the pain through sex.
And she went to Darian because I had already refused and she would have been shot down by the rest of her fated. She went to Darian because she couldn’t go to her fated.
Within myself I search for Thorne and knock on his mental walls. Darian continues dancing with the woman dressed as a fox into the next song. A woman I have a very strong feeling about as I curl invisible hands around that tether within me and yank it.
Her step faulters and her masked head whips to me before Darian pulls her further onto the dance floor.
Yes?
I take a deep breath.
Would you hurt Mavyn physically if she gave you consent and it meant it helped her in the end?
It’s something she needs. It’s something I don’t think I could ever do.
Pleasure and pain, there’s too much of a balancing act between them that I can’t push.
I can be rough, I can edge, but I can’t actually hurt them.
Darian. . . him and Thorne, that’s their kink.
They like pushing boundaries. Varian too.
His pause lasts longer than I would like it to before it feels like he cocks his head at me.
He’s somewhere in the room, actually disguised since out of everyone the society house presidents are meant to be and stay hidden.
Another little game where they need to make an appearance at the ball, everyone tries to guess who is who, and their society house members have the chance try and find them for a prize.
Why?
Because I think she’s –
I cut myself off before finishing that sentence and silence my thoughts where Thorne can hear. Confusion and intrigue bead through the walls he has at my silence. Unlike him I don’t usually try to hide my thoughts when we’re in each other’s minds. I don’t usually have anything to hide.
But he doesn’t know about that part of Mavyn’s curse. He hasn’t seen the extent of her scars.
Another reason she went to Darian. And the fucking angel can keep a secret. Despite the fucking fact that he’s essentially an open book. I’ve never felt a wall or barrier or shield up around his mind or emotions.
I know he has one, but his mental control rivals all of ours combined.
Callahan, Thorne urges within my mind. You think she’s what? Why would she want to be physically hurt?
I watch her dance with Darian as another song starts.
This one a quiet orchestra piece that gradually crescendos.
A song brought over from Earth I’ve heard playing several times through her earbuds.
It’s one of her songs where when she listens to it she loosens her hold on her aura.
Her scent deepening just a bit and her magic humming with that song.
Callahan!
Forget about it.
I can feel his – not quite annoyance. Not necessarily irritation or exasperation either.
Quietly, near the edges I hear him say, She’s my fated too.
You wouldn’t be able to notice the silent plea because Thorne does not beg, but I had been there in the shadows when Esmirra of Ebony told him about Mavyllora.
Thorne never romanticized life and fate as I did, but I could see how he reacted when he learned more and more about the bone witch’s little girl.
That still doesn’t mean it’s my secret to tell. She chose to trust Darian for a reason, and she didn’t have a choice in telling me her secret.
We keep forgetting. She is still a person and entitled to her own secrets and such because they do not affect us. Aside from being fated, she is correct in that we have no right to know her business.
I push Thorne out of my head so I can knock on Darian’s mental walls. Not commenting on Thorne’s last words because he is correct, but fate does not mean the same to Mavyn as it does to us. And I want her to trust us.
Even though Darian is an open book, I know he has certain precautions within his mind. I can feel his smug fucking smile from here as he links his mind to mine and allows me in.
Are we upgrading to mental beatings instead of just physical ones now?
The snide remark has me wanting to give him said beating all over again.
Varian has been brutal with his training and the rest of us have pushed past too many limits when sparring with Darian.
Tuesday morning Varian had personally sparred with him and Varian left with barely a scratch while Darian had lasting bruises.
I am not here to fight though.
Ask Mavyn if she’d consider telling Thorne the truth about her curse.
His mind is silent and I watch him and her as they spin around the floor. I watch him as he does not lean in and ask her.
Darian, I nearly growl. He simply hums and twirls her before dipping her. I know that is her you’re dancing with. Just ask her.
And why would I do that?
Because –
She doesn’t trust nor like Thorne, he cuts off. She has already told you all multiple times to mind your own business. None of you care for her boundaries.
And you do, I snap.
Yes. There’s a long pause. Long enough that I wonder if he has simply left this link between us. Well. . . not really – And I scoff at him as I watch his lips curl up from here. – but she could just as easily cut this thing between us.
And you’d let her go? His silence is answer enough. I shake my head slightly and sigh through my teeth. Did she come here tonight because of you?
No. When I did ask, though, she said she wants to try winning the wish. There’s a subtle emotion to his words that heats my blood. She entered her name in the hunting game, and she listed all of us as hunters.
My heart pounds as my blood rushes south. A couple waltzes for a moment in front of Darian and Mavyn and I see his head turning as if spinning her around. When the couple continues on and Darian finishes his spin, Mavyn is no longer with him and he locks eyes with mine.
Better go tell the rest of them. We all have to be together with her by midnight. And she’s planning to win.
A million scenarios go through my mind as the possibilities. There’s still one problem though.
She can’t be touched. She doesn’t want to be touched by us.
His grin deepens and lust seeps into every corner of my mind. An image floats through and my throat goes dry when I fully process and see it. All my senses consumed as I’m pulled into a memory.
Mavyn is laid out on a bed. Her wrists wrapped in ribbons of white and held above her head.
Dressed in nothing but her skin and scars.
Her lithe body displayed and every gorgeous curve exposed.
The floral note of her sweet scent stronger as Darian lays between her spread thighs and looks down at her center.
There’s another wisping white ribbon covering her eyes and one more forms to drift right over her nipple. Her body trembles with need and when that ribbon of white shadow traces over her nipple she moans. Her legs try to close but Darian wraps his arms beneath them and grabs onto her thighs.
The change is immediate as Darian tells her to breathe before sticking his tongue out and swiping it through her pussy.
Pleasure and pain war through her face and body. He hums as he licks again and creates more of his ribbons of shadow around her.
Keep breathing, Trouble. You’re doing so good, so wet imagining all of us with you. Touching you, helping to ease the ache of this needy little cunt.
He hums as the ribbon dusting her nipple tightens like a pinch and has her moaning again.
That was Varian, Trouble, he murmurs as he wraps his lips around her clit. Another ribbon traces along her arm. That’s Callahan, always so gentle with what’s his.
I fist my physical hands as a breathy gasp leaves Mavyn’s parted lips.
You liked that, Trouble. Like being his. Like being ours. His hands rub up and down her thighs as he speaks. Around your neck, that’s Thorne. Tracing your pulse point, in control of when you breathe and when you don’t.
She whimpers not from pain but pleasure.
From need. Even as Darian continues running his hands up and down her thighs and over her hips and stomach.
The pain obvious but dulled compared to everything else.
His fucking smirk appearing as he leans down again and traces his tongue over her before sucking.
Her arms strain in his restraints as she pants. I watch in utter entrapment as her body nearly tips in her climax before Darian stops.
Fucking asshole, she gasps as he chuckles.
Another whisp appears over her other nipple and both of them pinch making her squirm.
That’s what Varian would have done, he tisks.
I’m sure you’ll get a spanking eventually for every time you rolled those pretty eyes at him, too.
He hums again and swipes his tongue. But you’d like that anyway, Trouble.
So wet, so ready and wanting for your fated.
And we can’t forget Castiel. He’d watch first. Watch us with you first to see what you liked, what made your heart pound, what made you –
The memory cuts off and I gasp as I stumble forward. My head snapping up as I right myself to find Darian right where he was before with a glee. My dick is straining so painfully hard from that scene and I can feel precum bead on my tip.
She wants all of you more than you think she does. So much so that when she’s thinking about all of us touching her she can barely feel any pain at all. He winks at me and then disappears into the crowd. Midnight, golden boy.
Then he’s gone from my mind. He’s gone and I pound into the walls of Varian and Thorne.
I won’t tell them Mavyn’s secret, they’ll find that out eventually if this is her plan and she’s willing to risk us actually catching her, but I will tell them about the memory.
About Darian getting her off from the fantasy of us.
I look up to the large clock above the entrance.
The game technically starts at eleven which gives the prey time to run and hide.
The only rule is they have to stay on school grounds.
It’s only nine thirty-six, but the buildings of Syngenia are larger than they seem.
There are hidden doors and secret halls, catacombs, cellars, the tunnels.
But there’s a reason there’s never any winners for this game. And my Firecracker was only able to list celestials for her hunters.
My senses heighten as I tune everything out but her. Relying on that inherent knowing of when she walks into a room, when she moves, when she’s watching me.
Just like she is right now.