Chapter 18
Penelope
Morrigan and Stirling are leaving for their official honeymoon today. They’re going to be gone for a few weeks, and it’s the first time I find myself a bit sad about my sister going off on her travels.
I stroll past her friends in the foyer and down the palace steps to their carriage.
The sun is high, radiating warmth on my cheeks.
It makes me wonder if Dahlia ever misses it, the sun, I mean.
Which then reminds me of the afternoon we woke up and she nearly got burnt.
Maybe she doesn’t miss it. The way she would talk about the night and the moon made me think she loves it the way I love the sun.
Mother is clearly flustered about something, as she flaps around Morrigan and Stirling. She gives them both a kiss, hugging them tight before hustling straight back up the steps, waving at me as she passes.
“Gotta rush, Pen, I have a council meeting. We’re opening the trade lines today. But I know how miserable you’ve been the last couple of weeks, maybe we should have dinner?”
“Sure, see you later, Mum,” I say as I make my way to their carriage. She’s right, I have been miserable. Nothing feels quite the same since the wedding. The palace is calm. Roman is gone for good and yet, I don’t know.
I’m just off. Out of sorts. Damn bored too, especially since Morrigan and I haven’t even bickered once. It’s probably just that. I loathe boredom.
Morrigan slides her case into the carriage and then turns to me. “Here,” she says and hands me our nana’s earrings. “It really did mean a lot to me.”
“I know.” I smile and slide them back in my pocket.
“I’ll give you a moment,” Stirling says, and gives me a quick squeeze before hauling her suitcase into the carriage, closing the door behind her.
Morrigan and I stare at each other not saying anything. It’s awkward. My cheeks heat. We’re not good at this, we only know how to quarrel. This is new territory, and I find myself fidgeting with my hands and toeing the cobbles.
“Oh my gods,” she huffs. “Come here.”
She grabs my shoulders and pulls me into a death grip of a hug. I laugh and then cough against her as she squeezes a bit too tight.
“I don’t like seeing you sad.” She strokes my hair.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m fine.”
“Really? Funny, I’d say you were fine before the wedding, and now you’re decidedly not fine. Almost like something is missing.”
I shrug against her.
When she releases me, it’s her turn to fidget. She dusts off her jacket and scratches her head before finally looking at me. “I wondered if maybe when we’re back, me and you can spend some time together? Like, real time?”
I smile. “I’d like that. It’s funny, but this morning I realised I might actually miss you while you’re away…”
She grins and opens the carriage door, stepping up and pausing. “Only might?”
I indicate the smallest amount between my thumb and index finger, and she just rolls her eyes at me.
What used to be nasty jabs at each other now feels like loving banter. She heads inside only to poke her head around the door and say, “I don’t know, Pen. I think you’ve found someone to entertain you just fine.”
She blows a kiss and shuts the carriage door. I replay her words, my brows knitting together.
“Wait. What?” I say. But she doesn’t open the door.
“Morrigan?” “What do you mean?” I bang on the carriage.
She pulls the curtain back and grins at me. Stirling’s head pops up behind her. She winks at me.
I glare at her, my brow furrowing as deep as the tunnels under the city. “What the fuck does that mean?” I shout through the window.
But the pair of them just grin harder.
“Morrigan!” I shriek, but the carriage driver cracks the whip and the horses lurch forward, clopping against the driveway cobbles. I stare at the carriage while trotting after it. “MOTHERFUCKER,” I yell.
The window drops, and Morrigan’s hand sticks out to give me the birdie. I can hear her laughing even as the carriage disappears into the distance.
She knew? How did she know? I mean, sure I didn’t leave Dahlia’s side in the hospital, but it’s not like we openly showed any kind of affection. No one saw her finger fuck me on the dance floor. The more I ponder her words, the more I realise what she was really saying.
“Almost like something is missing… I think you’ve found someone to entertain you.”
She did know. She was telling me to go.
I stare at the path where the carriage was.
“Shit.”
* * *
Night has long past fallen by the time I cross into Sangui City and make my way to the Whisper Club. I have no idea what I’m doing. How the hell am I going to find a single vampire in an entire city?
I figure I made it to the Whisper Club before and that’s where we met, so someone there is bound to know how to find her.
But I don’t even reach the club room. I put my hand on the club door handle and notice a strange little gargoyle creature staring down at me. I swear it moves, but I don’t have time to check because the door swings open.
“What the fuck? I was just leaving to come to New Imperium,” Dahlia says.
“Too bad. I got here first, and I figure you owe me,” I say.
Her lips twitch, she raises an eyebrow at me, and I know it’s taking every ounce of dominance she has not to grin. She hooks her finger inside the collar of my top and pulls me inside.
“And how do you work that out, Princess?”
I back up, she closes the gap.
The air around us ignites with electricity.
Fuck, I’ve missed this. She hasn’t even touched me and my skin is alive.
My back hits the textured fabric wallpaper of the hallway wall.
She places her arms either side of me, pinning me in place all over again.
My stomach flutters. Her dark eyes are alight; those pools that sucked me in weeks ago.
That kept sucking me in during the wedding visit and pulled me back to her weeks later.
My lips part, I try to find the right words, but I’m all turned around. Jittery with the need to touch her.
“You told me that if you bit me while you fucked me, it would be the biggest orgasm of my life…”
“Mmm, I did say that.” She licks her lips. I can feel the touch of her gaze dragging down my body, peeling my clothes off.
“You said we had to save it for another time. Well, Dahlia St Clair, it is another time. And I’m owed. So how about you fuck me, and bite me, and give me the best fucking orgasm of my life?”
She shakes her head and tuts at me. “Such a demanding little brat, aren’t you?”
I suck in my bottom lip, fluttering my eyelashes at her. “How about I earn my orgasm? I believe you said it tastes like the best orgasm of your life. So how about I fuck you and you bite me?”
My fingers find their way to her trousers and unbuckle the button. She grabs my wrist and holds me there.
“I… I don’t normally…” she starts.
I pull away, my cheeks flushing. I didn’t realise she didn’t want me to touch her. “Oh gods, I’m sorry. That’s totally okay. We don’t have to do that.”
“No,” she says. “I want to. Just. Not out here.”
Lightning fast, she picks me up by the thighs, flings me over her shoulder and speeds us through the club.
I squeal as she moves me faster than I’ve ever moved in my life.
My hair licks out like coiled whips. We veer down a really dark corridor and halt outside a black door with a single blood-red droplet emblazoned on it.
Dahlia kicks the door open and barks, “OUT.”
I can’t see much around Dahlia’s thighs, but I do feel the brush of several bodies as they abandon the room.
She takes us inside and then I’m dropped into an armchair. The room is blood red. Everything from the walls to the ceiling to the carpet and every chair, bench, and bed in here. The walls are lined with jars and toys and dildos and all manner of contraptions I’ve never seen before.
She stands before me, her jaw chiselled and her raven-coloured waves coiffed into place. She removes her jacket, followed by her shirt, then pulls her sports bra off over her head.
I reach out and tug her between my thighs, unbuckling and lowering the zip on her pants. I slide my hands in her trousers and under the band of her boxers.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
She nods and I pull them down until she tugs her shoes off and steps out of her clothes. I take her extended hand and she leads me to one of the beds. Her body moves like an animated marble sculpture, all lines and muscle and ridges. She’s fucking exquisite.
We reach the bed, and I knock her onto her back and climb on top of her, plunging my lips over hers.
She kisses me hard before reaching down to pull my dress up and over my head. I didn’t bother with underwear, not when I knew exactly what I was coming here for.
“Such a little slut,” she says, rubbing her thumb over my hardening nipple. I knock her hand away. It’s my turn and for once, she’s going to do what I say. I slide down between her legs and then stop.
“You okay?” she asks, leaning up on her elbows.
“I, umm. Yes. I just. I forgot it’s been a while, and I’ve only done this with one person before.”
“Can you remember what I did?” she says.
I nod.
“Start there, and I’ll guide you.”
She slides her thighs open, and I bend to meet her pussy. I drag my tongue over her core, tasting every inch of her. I’m instantly wet. Gods, I forgot how delicious a woman is. I flick my tongue against her clit, slow at first. But lick by lick, I remember how to do it.
A little moan slips out as I lap up her excitement. She’s tense, but the more I glide over her pussy, the more the stiffness eases out of her body. Until finally, she lets out a soft obscenity.
“Fuck, Penelope. Just like that. You love that, don’t you?”
I hum approval against her cunt as I lap faster. I bring a finger to her entrance. “Can I?” I ask.
“Not yet, more tongue.”
“Okay,” I say and suck her swelling clit into my mouth. She bucks against me, wetness coats my chin as I lick and flick my tongue faster and faster. She grinds her hips into my face, and with every rocking motion, my own pussy clenches. Pulses of excitement bolt through me.
“I’m so close. Swing your pussy up here,” she says.
I twist around and lay on her stomach, inching back until my pussy hits her mouth. “I’m going to bite you here.” she strokes her tongue over the pulpy flesh where my thighs meet, “but not until I make you come.”
“Okay,” I say and nestle back between her legs, reorienting myself now I’m upside down. I tilt my head to get the right angle and resume swiping my tongue this way and that against her clit.
She lowers her mouth onto my pussy and I swear I black out. Having the taste of her on my tongue while she fucks me simultaneously is almost too much.
Pleasure washes over me, every inch of my skin pulses with molten electricity. She slides a finger inside me, and I gasp, not expecting her to be able to do it from that angle.
I can’t cope, my pussy tightens, I move faster and faster, desperate to make her fall apart the way my soul is melting for her.
“Dahlia,” I cry out.
She moans as I dig my nails into her thighs and drag my tongue as far down her cunt as I can reach.
She groans at my touch. My pussy tightens, I’m right on the edge. I swear she’s holding me there on purpose.
“Finger,” she says. “Use your finger.”
I hook my arm around her leg and slide a single finger inside her. She’s tight and wet and the feel of being inside her sends my body reeling.
“Oh gods, I’m going to…” I cry out as she slides her finger in and out of me faster, her tongue ravishing my clit.
“Ready?” she says.
“Yes, do it. Bite me.”
There’s a press of cold as her fangs brush against my thigh. A sting and then…
“Fuck.”
My world explodes. She slides her finger in and out, to the same rhythm that she drinks me down. My eyes slam shut. My tongue flicks against her pussy once more. She bucks, groans and then her pussy clamps around my finger and she comes with me.
Colour drenches my vision. My body tightens, electricity shoots into every corner of my body. The orgasm hits my face, my mind. It fucking runs into my toes.
I am light. I am darkness.
I float in space, drifting on waves of gold and throbbing pleasure. The taste of her drenches my tongue. Every one of my senses is alive. I smell summer and winter and a thousand solstice nights. Ocean waves and blood moon skies.
It is endless.
I feel only pleasure for hours and weeks and years. Our bodies move together as she drinks and fucks and comes. Our orgasm stretches on and on until I am screaming and breathless and a boneless mess.
Finally, she releases me, licking at my thigh until it stings, and I assume, heals over.
She pulls me around until we’re lying face to face.
“Well…?” she says.
“Yeah, you were right. It was absolutely the best orgasm of my life.”
She smiles, smug, her dark eyes glimmering in the rouge light of the room.
“Told you.”
I lean in and kiss her. The taste of me mixing with the flavour of her as I slide my tongue into her mouth.
We stay like that, caressing, kissing, her occasionally taking another drink, until the thing hovering between us swells and bloats into an ugly creature.
“We should talk,” I say.
Dahlia strokes my shoulder in slow, gentle circles. “We should.”
“When you walked away… I hated it. I’ve spent the last two weeks miserable.”
“Me too,” she says. “And I really was on the way to find you. But I don’t have any more answers than I did at the end of the wedding. How do we make this work? You’re a princess. I’m…”
She gestures at herself.
I wipe a smear of my blood off her lip. “I think that if we both want this, then we can find a way to make it work. Even if that means long distance temporarily until we can figure out how I can move here.”
She nods. “I’d like that.”
“Besides. You’re mine now.”
That makes her eyes flash. “Oh, no. You are sorely mistaken, Princess. The only one owning anything in this relationship is me.”
She spins me onto my front and straddles my thighs, her hands hovering above my ass.
“Dahlia!” I shriek.
“Penelope,” she growls out my name as a warning. “Say you’re mine…”
“You just said this is a relationship. I might not be the greatest magician, but that math says you’re mine too.” I grin.
She brings her hand down on my arse.
Smack.
“My brat,” she snarls.
“My vampire,” I yell back.
She smacks my other cheek and then she releases me, sighing.
“Your vampire,” she says and holds out her hand to let me up. I beam at her as she finally admits defeat.
She is mine.
Today. Tonight. And fuck, I hope forever. I take her hand and brush my lips against hers, teasing. Tempting. Taking. I know I’ll be punished for this later. But it is so worth it. I can’t help the grin as I smile into her kiss and whisper against her lips…
“Your princess.”