Chapter 35 #2
Niko has other plans, leaving my side to skate back down my body.
He kneels before me, his ribbons spreading my legs wide, baring me to him entirely.
Newfound heat flushes my skin, an alluring mixture of humiliation and excitement.
Without breaking his gaze, he leans down and buries his tongue inside me.
I moan around the gag, my head swimming with the feel of his wicked smile as my hips buck toward his mouth.
I’m already so sensitive, the vestiges of my last orgasm still lingering as he deftly builds the next one. The ribbon at my mouth loosens, freeing my moans. Niko’s growl of approval at the sound of them vibrates through me, and I think I’ll come apart at the seams.
The pleasure of his mouth edged with the pain of his death is nearly too much to bear. It crashes against me like a wave, and star above, I want to drown. I throw my head back, as another climax tears through me.
My heart races roughshod in my chest as I thrash against Niko’s ribbons. Shockwaves of pain radiate from every point of contact as he keeps me firmly in place, challenge sparking in the fathomless depths of his eyes. He grins sinfully, and I begin to shake my head. “Niko, please…”
I don’t even know what it is I’m begging for, desperate both for reprieve and for more.
The Carrion King only cocks an arrogant brow, and tightens his ribbons.
“I can’t—” I half-gasp, half-moan, as he presses a long finger into me.
“You can,” he laughs darkly. “And you will.”
Another finger, and his eyes flare possessively as I nearly come apart again. Everything is so sensitive, it almost hurts—like one more brush of my skin will shatter me entirely. My eyes roll, my head dropping back onto the mattress as Niko begins a steady rhythm.
“Look at me, Willa.” The quiet command of a king, and I follow it like he reigns over me.
“I’ve spent an entire year without the warmth of your cunt,” he purrs.
“And now, you’re going to give me every—” A thrust. “—single—” And another.
“—thing you’ve denied me. You don’t get to decide when that debt is paid. ”
His fingers curve to hit the sensitive spot inside me. “I do,” he growls as I buck wildly. “I told you…your pleasure is mine. And you’re not even close to giving me what I’m owed.”
The merciless edge of his words sends my heart leaping into my throat.
Niko may not fault me for sending him away, but I was a fool to believe his understanding was something soft.
He is death, and death is a covetous monster.
It demands repayment for that which was stolen; repayment for everything that should have been his all along.
I gave myself to him the moment I decided to stay in Letum. And in my grief and hurt, I’d forgotten what that meant.
Now, he means to remind me, and star above, he does it fucking well. I’m entirely out of my mind as he wrings another climax from me, reduced solely to the impulses and responses of my body. Sweaty, desperate, writhing. More, more, more.
His mouth, his hands, his death—all of it mirrors my own insatiability. Like the feel of him has set me aflame, and now I happily burn at his pyre. With each orgasm, the wall I built between us crumbles a little more, until I’m bare before him, nothing more than shaking ruins and wreckage.
And when he finally—mercifully—releases me from his ribbons and sinks inside me, my magic erupts from my skin to dance with his death.
I am stretched, full, and I want to sob at the pure splendor of it.
How had I not truly understood the numb hollow inside me until he filled it?
How had I not understood that Niko, and his magic, has never been somewhere to lose myself?
He is the anchor that grounds me when I’m lost; no matter his darkness, he is the light that calls me home.
Seated fully inside me, he pulls me up to his chest so that we’re face to face. And when we begin to move, it is in perfect synchronicity. A commandment; a penance; a reckoning.
Niko pistons his hips upward, his gaze devouring the bright flush of my skin, the sinuous twisting of my body. I rake my fingers through the silky strands of his hair, magic rippling from me as I ride him. No longer stained with shame or guilt, it shimmers with infinite possibility.
And when I meet his gaze, I drown in the depths of his death.
“We endure.” Though phrased as a breathless demand, Niko sees it for what it truly is: the most delicate dream I possess.
He nods. “Yes, Darling. Always.”
At his words, I let go—let go of everything I’ve held onto for the past year alone: the bitterness, the fear, the shadows, the burdens—until I am light as air in Niko’s arms.
He devours my cry of pleasure, sweeping his lips over mine as I fracture once more, finally free from the restraints I’ve held myself in. Digging his fingers into my hips as I clench around his cock, Niko thrusts once more, before spilling into me with a satiated groan.
We remain entangled for a few breathless moments, my hands still buried in Niko’s hair, his death still laced around me like silk. My heart is as raw as my body—like one word will shatter it to dust. And perhaps Niko feels the same, as he leans his head against my sternum, holding me quietly.
“I missed this,” he whispers after a few long moments. “The sound of your heart.”
The vulnerability of his words—the echo of my own longings in them—disintegrates whatever remains of the armor I’ve held up against him.
Tears blur my vision as I pull back, allowing myself to take Niko in fully for the first time without fearing how I will be broken by it.
The slash of dark brows and long lashes against his moon-pale skin; the sharp rise of his cheekbones; the soft pout of his mouth.
His is a cruel cut beauty, one that embeds itself in my heart. Because in a lifetime bereft of loveliness, his is overwhelming in its splendor.
I crinkle my brows, drawing my fingers along the tattoos beginning beneath the ridge of Niko’s jaw.
The spiraling stories that speak not only to the wonder of the universe, but to the wonder of him.
Tattoos that were inked only in black before his exile, are now entwined with soft whorls of color, woven through each of the tales.
He shudders, as I trace a thread of deep purple beginning behind his ear and trailing lazily down his throat.
Niko tugs me into the crook of his arms, leaning us both back into the mattress, but I don’t let him tuck a blanket over us. I keep running my hands over the new ink, for just as he’d been denied my body, I’ve been denied his. And I’m determined to learn everything I missed while he was gone.
With a start, I realize all the new threads are connected—each color a part of the same tale, the interwoven lines all coming together above his heart.
“What is this story about?” I ask timidly, feeling as though I have no right. Something like dread twines around me as I wonder which tale he found significant enough to keep permanently. I’d once memorized everything about him, and I hate there’s so much I don’t know.
Though he doesn’t open his eyes, a faint smile graces his face.
“Dark dreams and selfish passions, as the best stories always are.” His hand splays over my lower back, pressing me into the hard length of his body, molding me into him.
And when his eyes flick open, I want to fall into what’s reflected in the obsidian depths. “It is the story of us, Willa.”
My heart stutters in my chest, like its beat is reordering itself to the rhythm of his.
“The truest of them all, and the only one that brought color to a lifetime of death.”