Chapter 24 Bleed #2
The same lancet windows as those in the spring lined the stone wall, their insides open to the view of a raging sea.
Foaming waves crested and slammed down, sloshing like a shaken cup.
It had to be another island of his, close to the mainland.
The rabid water ran off the edges of the isle and into the center of Tavora, but the ocean never lessened, ever thrashing.
Acacius slipped his arms around her waist and lifted her up off her feet.
He threw her down on something plush and soft. Above her, a canopy of vines snaked around the bedposts. White moths crawled in the crevice of the greenery, fluttering overhead like particles of starlight.
Acacius pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it onto the floor. For once in her life, Marina praised the light spilling in through the windows as she admired Acacius’s sculpted build.
All the muscles writhed under his skin as he climbed on top of her, smirking. “I missed you.”
She lifted her arms over her head, accentuating the shape of her body in hopes to affect him the same way he did her. “You know, we have yet to have sex in a bed.”
The sheets were silky underneath her, bathed in a fragrance of bergamot and cedarwood.
Acacius’s gilded eyes darkened. “First time for everything.” He sat back on his knees, drinking all of her in.
She’d seen admiration in many others’ eyes. The way Ronin regarded Naia came to mind, and the envious surge of emotion that always followed from the matched affection. It wasn’t that she cared about being seen by the witch the same, but that she craved to experience such sentiment.
And as she watched Acacius study her body, an odd feeling invaded her heart—an entanglement of happiness and fear and exhilaration merging all at once.
She locked her legs around his waist and rolled him onto his back.
Straddling him, she flung her hair behind her shoulders. “Better make it memorable then.”
He looked up at her, jaws flexing, pressing his fingertips into her waist with restraint.
She grinned, running her palms over his stomach. His muscles rippled under her touch as she explored down his torso to his waistband, slowly unzipping his pants.
Before he could reply, she sank down and took him into her mouth.
His hips jerked up, and a dark rumble vibrated in his chest. “Oh, Rina,” he groaned as her tongue swirled, “keep this up and there will be no bed left standing when we are finished.”
She watched him over her eyelashes, biting his bottom lip, his chest rising and falling quicker, eyes rolling back. Arousal pulsed between her legs, proud to give him this pleasure.
She took him all the way in, the back of her throat hugging him like the flesh of freshly cut fruit.
He shuddered underneath her. “Fuck, Rina.”
Her body hummed with power as she grazed her teeth around him on the way out, playing with the tip in between her lips.
The muscles in his stomach spasmed and he rose halfway up, enough to thread his fingers through her hair and tug her head back, his length leaving her mouth.
She licked her shining lips as he fully sat up. His golden irises were eclipsed as he hauled her forward by the back of her head.
“Gods, the things you do to me.” He punctuated his statement with a rough kiss, tangling his fingers in her hair.
She ground her hips against his length, the movement bunching her skirt up her thighs. The friction blazed hellfire under her skin.
Her hands journeyed up his abdomen, over his chest and shoulders, memorizing every ridge and cut of his body, insatiably hungry for more of him. “I don’t know how much longer I can entertain this foreplay.”
He slid his hands under her lace blouse. “I have to say, Rina, I enjoy seeing you ravenous for me.”
He tossed her shirt and devoured her breast with his mouth, flicking and biting at her hardened nipple.
She wiggled against him to try and assist as he fumbled with the zipper of her skirt, frustration mounting in her.
He grumbled low against her sternum, sliding his fingers between the waistband of her underwear and skirt.
His biceps flexed around her, and a loud rip echoed. The fabric fell away from her waist.
Acacius threw the tattered pieces aside. “I apologize. I’ll replace them.” His mouth came down on her other breast.
Marina arched into him, throwing her head back. “It’s been days,” she said, breathless, understanding his urgency.
“Since you’ve had me,” he finished, licking up the curvature of her throat, lightly nipping at her chin. She could feel his smile against her skin.
Not once had anyone sounded so honored to win her affections. She could hear the pride in his voice, feel the devotion in the way he held her close. It was becoming harder for her to resist him; to keep the barriers she’d built around her heart from collapsing in his embrace.
Love had let her down too many times.
Marina cupped his cheeks and lowered her head to kiss him.
She set the pace—a slow breath through the nose, breaking apart and dragging lips together; a quiver straight down her chest, kneading in her stomach; time slurring like a fever dream.
She kissed him again and again like he was water and she’d gone a lifetime without it.
Acacius held the sides of her neck, pulling her deeper.
She drowned in delirium, in every sensation spreading through her system, every breath she shared with him, his arms snug around her. For the first time since Evander had invaded her bedchamber, she felt safe.
She bit down on his bottom lip, just to soothe it with her tongue. Tension coiled behind her navel, greedy and sharp. She could feel his length pressing against the inside of her thigh, dribbling streaks of anticipation down her skin.
This connection wasn’t enough.
She removed a hand from his face, lifted slightly on her knees, and guided his tip in between her legs.
Slowly, she lowered, taking in all of him.
Acacius sucked in a breath through his teeth and broke away from her mouth to find her gaze; his eyes, like two burning suns, shimmered through the dusky room. Their embrace trickled into her heart like sap, swirling with centuries of longing and pain that she wanted to vindicate.
In this sacred space between them, she would help him hold his anguish, just as he had when he’d whisked her away after her duel with Torin.
“Would you impale me again if I told you how lovely you are?” Acacius tucked her white streak of hair behind her ear and brushed his long fingers down the crook of her neck, following the shape of her collarbone and the arc of her breast. “Absolutely stunning.”
Marina gave him a light-hearted smile and twisted her hips, shifting him deeper inside of her. Small surges of pleasure sparked low in her belly.
She ground in wide, agonizing circles, her nerves weeping in ecstasy.
Acacius found purchase on her waist, lifting his hips to thrust even further than she could reach.
A breathy moan slipped from her lips.
“Rina, you’re slowly killing me every time you make me wait this long to have you.” His husky voice held a playful note as he sat up, angling himself to graze that sweet spot hidden in her flesh.
“Gods.” Marina folded her arms around his neck, pushing her breasts into the bare skin of his chest.
“I’m the only god you’re going to be praising tonight.” He plunged harder, augmenting the divine lust between them.
Onyx rose like mist from her skin. The energy in the air charged with an intensity as her divine power sank through his pores. His crawled up from his bones to welcome her into his skin.
Acacius tensed underneath her, his fingertips biting harder into her hipbones and driving further. “Say my name. You know what it does to me.”
Shivers quivered up her spine.
She whimpered, the pressure growing between her hips. “I’ve never felt more powerful than I do at this moment, Acacius.”
With a single murmur, she could bring him infinite pleasure. She held his fate, his restraint, in the center of her palm, and she wanted nothing more than to cherish it.
“Then make me bleed.”
His request snapped her out of her stupor.
She looked down at him, her long hair falling over her chest. “What?”
Acacius paused his thrusts, meeting her eyes with a fierce comfort. “Do not let Evander take from you any longer. He does not deserve to haunt you this way. Allow me to take the place of that memory he left behind. Associate my blood on your skin with power, not weakness.”
She allowed herself to fantasize it—a day where blood splattered across her skin failed to stir awake her past wounds.
Ever since Evander, she’d learned that there were tragedies in life that endlessly stole parts of her, parts where she would always feel the broken cracks.
Long ago, she’d grieved that fearless, trusting version of herself, with no expectations of those fissures ever healing.
A part of her reached out to accept his request, while the other darkened with dread at the thought.
“What if it doesn’t work?”
His expression softened, and he lightly cupped her cheek, stroking his thumb over her skin. “We stop and wash it away. Regardless, I will be here to comfort you. You will never walk in it alone again.”
“Do not make promises that you cannot keep.” It left her in a vulnerable whisper.
Acacius tilted his head at her, a solemn crease forming in his brow. “Let me show you that I am a god of my word. I will never be added to the list of those who disappointed you, Marina. This is my vow to you.” He pressed his palm against her chest, over her heart.
At the sound of her full name wrapped in his voice, a sense of calm and ease overtook her. There was no tautness in her gut urging her not to do this. Only a steady push to accept the help he offered. She believed him and his vow, and for the first time in her life, she wanted to rely on another.
“Together.” It was the only way. “We do it together.”
“Only if you wish to do so.” He searched her face as if to gain confirmation.
She nodded, her pulse firing and stomach twisting all at once. “I do.”
Acacius kissed from her jawline to her earlobe. His warm breath spread gooseflesh down her nape.
Using his hold on her waist for better control, he ground his hips up, refocusing her attention back onto their joined skin.
Her breaths quickened, and she bucked her hips to the tempo of his thrusts.
“Scratch your nails down my—fucking hell.” Acacius moaned out as she scraped roughly across the back of his shoulders.
His reaction pooled heat through her bloodstream.
Warm liquid oozed underneath her long nails and down her fingertips.
Her chest went light to the feel.
She peeked over his shoulder, slowly turning over her palm. Crimson beads ran along the insides of her fingers. Its presence stung her skin, and flashes of Evander, decapitated and gushing on her bed, flickered in her thoughts.
Her body stiffened.
She slipped her bloodied fingers into Acacius’s pale hair to hide them.
Her sense of security was fracturing, like the debris that orbited around Tavora’s isles.
His blood.
His blood is on me.
Her heart rate turned erratic, surging wildly in her ears.
He is inside of me, and his blood is on me, and I am—
“Are you still with me?” Acacius ran one of his hands up her spine and curled his fingers around her nape. The sensation of his touch calmed the pounding of her heart.
“Yes.” She hid her face in the crook of his neck. “My thoughts are spiraling.”
“Focus on this.” Acacius gripped the backs of her thighs and hauled them forward.
Marina’s back met the mattress with Acacius on top of her. He lifted her leg up by the crook of her knee, deepening his position inside of her.
She gasped, the intensity building in her core.
“Focus on me.” Acacius took her wrist and brought her stained finger up to his lips, licking away the blood. The sensation of his tongue convulsed a wave of pleasure down her middle. “You have all the control, all the power here, Rina. Nobody else.”
You are in control.
Marina kept her eyes locked with his, the cresting panic in her chest calming.
Compelled to try again, she dragged her fingernails down his chest.
Vermillion trails flowed down the contours of his pecs and abdomen, over her knuckles and the back of her hand.
Nausea flared in her stomach at the feel of it, wet and sticky on her skin.
But then she found his eyes again, two steady beacons guiding her through the night. She held onto them, fighting to stay in the present moment.
She was with Acacius—she was secure. And she’d never felt more alive. Whether they were fighting or laughing or doing this. Somewhere in between trying to kill her and ruin her life, Acacius had wormed into the chambers of her heart and lulled her weary soul back to life.
If she was his chaos, he was her darkness—a nebula of vicious night, beckoning her to step inside of his jaws. A place where their hurt and shame could be devoured as one.
“How do you feel?” Acacius’s thrusts accelerated just to slow again, the inconsistency of his speed driving her mad. She felt every inch of him fill her, just to be removed entirely.
“Terrified.” She ground her teeth, too occupied with the ache between her legs. “Liberated.” She smeared her fingertips down his marbled chest, smudging the stains like paint on a waiting canvas. Acacius’s pupils swallowed the aureate gleam of his irises. “Frustrated.”
He drove in her, all the way, curling the tension behind her navel. “You are safe, Marina, here, with me.”
His words reached her most scarred self. She felt that version of her let out a breath. The part of her that had continued trudging tirelessly through life, scouting out the dangers of gods, exhausted down to her bones.
In him, she found rest.
Marina bit down on her bottom lip, chasing his length with her hips. “Acacius, please.”
He smirked. “I do enjoy when you beg.”
He hooked upward as he continued driving in, massaging the spot inside of her bundled with dense nerves.
Her lips fell apart, and breathy whimpers spilled out. “Yes, right there.”
She arched her body into him, prying her nails deep into his back. Rivers of blood trickled over his shoulders and dripped onto her cheeks. It coated her fingers, painted her palms, along with her bursting release.
As pleasure shuddered through her, she ran her trembling fingers together, slick with his blood.
This, she sang his name as he pulsed inside of her, will be what I remember.