CHAPTER 19
Aimee
It’s been a week since my last confrontation with Killian, a week in which he hasn’t tried even once to reach out to me. Good! It means he took into consideration my advice and understood the fatal consequences of our star-crossed chemistry.
It’s also been a week since I started my training with Blaise, and I’m improving, even if at a begrudgingly slow pace.
Yesterday, I stood my ground twice against his attacks.
Granted, it was twice out of a whopping total of twenty of his charges.
But, I will take any minuscule victory I can get, even if there’s a nagging voice in my head telling me he probably took pity on me and let me win in those instances.
I’ve also nicked his biceps during dagger play, as he keeps calling it.
Not enough to draw blood, but enough to get a small, clean-cut hole in his fighting leathers.
If I focus long enough, and shut the door on the perpetually churning maelstrom of thoughts inside my head, I can almost track his body through the flash of chaotic movements.
That’s what I plan to do today. Hone in on that razor-sharp sense I seem to develop, and try to land a more substantiated blow.
I need to get better at this fast. Otherwise, I’m just a jittery, declawed kitten facing the death-and-destruction-breathing monstrous dragon the onpyrs are.
Lost in my thoughts, I bump into a stone-hard shoulder just outside the doors leading to the training hall. I look upwards, preparing to apologize, but the words die on my tongue as I stare into black, hatred-filled, squinting eyes.
Just my fucking luck! It’s none other than Leilah, the textbook crazy ex!
She corners me against the wall before I can even blink, hissing through menacing fangs, kneeing me in the stomach, while wrapping one delicate, yet bloody lethal hand around my throat.
“I’ve been waiting to get my hands on you, you stupid cunt!” she spits in my face venomously.
A string of curse words hangs on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t get shit out past her draconian chokehold.
I flail my arms and legs uselessly, not landing even one meek blow.
Fucking hell! This bitch is fatal. Of all the ways I imagined dying, being strangled by a spiteful, mad-stalker-level former lover of the guy I am NOT even banging was not in my top ten.
Hell! It wasn’t even on that list at all.
“What he sees in you, deplorable magicless twat, I can’t understand!” she seethes, saliva flying everywhere, a dollop of it landing on my chin. Ew! This is the second time one of these fanged creatures has drooled on me. Do I look like a fucking sponge to them?
“You…your breath…stinks!” I wheeze out, enraging her further. She coils her other hand back and punches me between my breasts. My breath rushes out of my lungs with a whooshing sound, as pain explodes in my chest.
“You presumptuous Fae whore! He is mine, you hear me! I will squash you like the insignificant bug you are if you ever even think of laying a finger on him!” She’s screaming to the high heavens now, her almond eyes swimming forcibly with unfettered madness.
Damn! This bitch is not only the sole passenger and conductor of a full-blown psychosis train. She is the train! And I’m about to get railroaded into an early, abrupt death, at her hands.
All of a sudden, the training hall doors boom open, and Blaise barrels through, tackling Leilah to the ground.
I slide down the wall like water rushing down a mountain, landing on the floor in a heap of wobbly limbs.
I’m frozen in place, unable to move, or do anything besides hyperventilate, and watch the bloody scene unfolding before me.
Blaise is absolutely feral, fangs bared in rage and distaste, as he lands blow after blow in Leilah’s shrieking face, arms, neck—everywhere.
“You don’t fucking touch her, you batshit excuse of a vampire, you hear me! You don’t even look her way from here on out!” he bellows as he continues punching her into a bloody pulp.
Guards start piling in around us, alerted by all the screaming and commotion.
“Take her to the dungeons until the King arrives and decides what to do with her!” he says, and the sentries hurry to grab a struggling, bloodied Leilah.
“He will behead you for this.” Blaise throws her one last look before turning my way, his gaze melting from icy fury to gentle worry.
His hands are up in a soothing gesture, palms facing me, fingers splayed wide.
“Come, let me take you to your room. May I carry you there?”
I nod, wincing when he hoops an arm behind my knees, and the other one around my shoulder blades, cradling me like a fragile baby.
“But…our training…we didn’t get to…” Words come out hoarse from my mouth, my throat scratchy and bruised.
“Shhh, kitty, you’re in no shape for training today. Besides, I was just waiting for you to let you know that training’s canceled for the next few days. I have to leave.”
My voice is a weak whisper. “Why? Where?”
“To the North, princess. There’s talk through the grapevine about another impending attack on Dithrau. We must safeguard that city at all costs. It’s all that stands between the onpyrs and crossing the mountains to the capital.”
I nod meekly as we reach my bedroom door. He pushes it open with his foot and strides in with precise, confident movements.
“I will leave later tonight, or tomorrow morning, after Killian arrives from Ryawarath, and deals with the raging bitch in the dungeons.”
He delicately places me on top of the bed and stands to leave.
“Hasn’t he been here in the last week?” I ask against my better judgement.
“Do you think he would have stayed away from you for an entire week if he were here?” Blaise smirks, amused.
Well, there goes my wishful thinking!
“He left for Ryawarath after you gave him the intel on your sister. He tried to track her down himself, to no avail. But he activated all our spies in the Fae kingdom to sweep the lands like you advised.”
A tart taste fills my mouth at that. It has nothing to do with my near-death experience, and everything to do with Killian chasing after my sister in person.
Of course, he went there himself. He all but spelled it out for me—the lengths he would go to secure Aurora’s aid. As he should, for all our sakes!
Then why do I feel Blaise’s words like a metaphorical slap in my damn face? My envy tastes bitter and stale on my tongue, like spilled mead on a filthy tavern tabletop.
Oh Gods, I hope I’m not turning into a cheap carbon copy of Leilah.
At least she fucked him—had a taste of that vicious sin he portrays.
I just had one—not nearly enough—make-out session, and some unforgettable heavy petting.
Those should be enough to fuel my dreams for a while until I can get over this troublesome bee in my fucking bonnet.
“Rest, kitty cat. I’ll send Nella with some herbal remedies for your bruises and ailments,” Blaise offers with a slight bow, directing his steps towards the door.
“Thank you, Blaise. For intervening earlier—for saving me,” I say, voice filled with tender gratitude.
“No need, Aimee. There’s nothing we wouldn’t do for you.”
The door shuts after him with a resounding thud, leaving me with my injuries and ambivalent feelings.
As promised, Nella arrived a short time later, with several ointments, herbal teas, and tinctures to soothe my pain and help regain my strength.
I spent the remainder of the day cooped up in the fuzzy softness and security of my bed, napping, munching on replenishing foods, and overthinking—what I do best.
Despite the earlier incident with Leilah, I felt safe here, in this castle, in the Vampire King’s court. How fucking ironic that I have finally found my haven, and it’s with my kidnappers? I never felt this sense of well-being in my childhood home, nor did I feel it in Annerough, not really.
But here, between Killian and Blaise, I feel protected in a twisted way.
I am aware, though, there is still a huge shoe about to drop, in the shape of my wicked twin, and I wonder if I shouldn’t press harder on my escape plans.
I might not want to run away from them anymore, but I have no desire to be around when Aurora shows up.
I half expected Killian to barge in at any moment, to swoop me in his impossibly chiseled arms, and vow that nobody was ever going to harm me again, not over his un-dead, awe-inspiring body.
When late evening turned to midnight, and he never showed up to comfort and console me, I was half elated—half disappointed he seemed to have gotten past his obsession with me. It was a good thing after all, no? It was what I wanted.
It would make forgetting him so much easier if he didn’t linger around, to flaunt that unrighteous body of his under my nose, pouring alcohol over my common sense and setting it ablaze.
With those errant thoughts swimming through my mind, I went to sleep, praying to whoever would listen that I wouldn’t succumb to another Killian-induced sexual fantasy.
As per usual when I seldom pray, none of the Gods actually listen, and I wake up in the middle of the night to a palpable presence in my room. I squint my eyes through the darkness, trying to assess if it was a friend or a foe. It was the Vampire King himself, yet not entirely.
Killian stands at the foot of my bed, silent and stoic, all crimson and misty.
Stark naked.
“Must be having a lucid dream,” I mumble to myself, drinking in all his naked, shadowy glory.
Shadow Killian tilts his head in an animal-like, predatory way, as my gaze lowers to his sculptured chest, carved from stone hard diamond and sin, along his lickable V-cut abs and zoning in on the sizeable package hanging thickly between his legs.
“Oh Gods, my imagination is really running wild tonight,” I gasp as my mouth waters and my thighs clench.
He smirks, all shadowy smugness and salacious self-satisfaction.
Even my dream version, non-corporeal Killian knows what a fucking catch he is—dripping arrogance like honey.
“Not going to talk?” I ask coyly, and he shakes his head no, mimicking closing his mouth shut, locking it, and throwing the key away.
“Ooooh, I can work with that!” I whisper, standing on my knees in front of him, on top of the mattress.
He reaches a hand slowly towards my face, his cool, tendril-infused fingers caressing gently my jawline. He stops just below my nape, as if asking for permission, which I hastily give with a hungry nod.
And then we clash, flesh and shadows combined, in a kiss so damning—meant to burn down empires and drag the stars from the sky directly into the gutters.
My dream is so sharp, I can even feel the cool steel of his piercing gliding against my tongue.
I lace my fingers through his ghostly hair, blood-red tendrils caressing my palm, and I moan in sweet surrender when he pushes me back on the bed, hovering above me tauntingly.
The temptation is far too great, and I decide right then and there that if the only way I can have Killian is in a dreamscape, I will milk this fantasy, and his shadow self, for all its worth.
I push my hips upwards greedily, rubbing against his rock-hard yet feather-soft cock, and his figure starts to hum with unbridled energy.
The kiss turns chaotic, violent to such a degree that it feels like Shadow Killian wants to end me—to ruin me—only so he can bring me back to life, in a perpetual loop of mutual destruction.
And then he enters me without restraint or mercy, pushing his pelvis forwards, his cock gliding right through my soaking folds.
I gasp at the bursting sensation—the feeling of him inside me so enrapturing I half scream, half moan in pleasure and pain.
I am so far gone, lost in the suffocating sexual intensity, that I can’t even remember when he took off my nightgown and panties. Or was I naked to begin with?
His mouth peppers kisses down my throat, nebulous fangs grazing my feverish skin, pressing firmly, but stopping short of puncturing.
I am beyond intoxicated, my mind askew, my body on fire.
“Oh Gods, oh Gods,” I invoke between heavy pants, “Please, oh please, let me come this time.” I beg without an ounce of shame, as I feel rapture burning through my veins, scorching me from the inside out.
An ethereal rumble passes through Shadow Killian’s chest, and he changes the angle, pushing back to sit on his calves, bringing my ass up on his thighs, my ankles locked around his head, as he pushes harder, deeper into me.
His hands are like unforgiving bands on my hips, guiding me up and down his length at a maddening pace.
More shadows pour out of his crimson frame, rubbing my clit, flicking my nipples, tugging on my unruly strands of hair. One wicked tendril parts my lips and caresses the inside of my mouth, like a thumb begging to be sucked.
So, I do just that. I wrap my lips around the mist, sucking, lapping, biting in sensual abandon.
Orgasmic bliss is approaching at a galloping speed, and if I could just hold on to this dream with my teeth and nails, I could reach the rhapsodic finish line that has been evading me for so long.
I grind myself harder on him, chasing my release, and the Gods must have finally taken mercy on me, because I combust in a million shattering tingles, wave after wave of ecstasy leaving me criss-crossed and starry-eyed all at once.
This is the best goddamn climax of my entire twenty-three years of existence. I can’t believe I was worried real-world Killian would be my ruination. Dream Shadow Killian just obliterated my fucking standards when it comes to sex.
There’s no chance in hell that anyone else could measure up to this height of carnal insanity. Anyone else except for the King himself. But that’s a shrine I will never get to worship.
Shadow Killian smirks—yes, fucking smirks—changing the angle yet again, bringing me on top of him, lazily pushing his hips upwards, pistoning from beneath. His mouth encircles my painfully erect nipple, and he bites down like a ravenous beast, consuming its prey.
The orgasmic haze doesn’t even clear out before another wave of pleasure hits my unraveling senses.
This is going to be a long night!
Turns out the dreamland shadow version of the vampire I conjured in my mind’s eye doesn’t need to come or take any breaks.
The early hours of dawn arrive before I fall back into the messy, sweat-riddled, pheromones-imbued silk sheets—my body spent, my craving utterly sated, and my eyes hooded with elated languor.
Smoky coils of energy wrap around my body like a lover draped in silk, pressing a purring kiss to my forehead. I sigh happily, falling into a dreamless sleep within the dream.