Chapter 42 #2
His words rain over me, and I preen beneath them, languishing beneath the approving weight of his gaze he slides back into me.
This time, I hollow my cheeks, flattening my tongue along the underside of his length.
I relish the way he shudders in response; the way he rakes his fingers through his own hair and then through mine, like he is too undone to keep them still.
Like only the flimsiest tether holds him back from ruining me entirely.
The ribbon at my throat tightens, shortening my breath as Niko increases his rhythm. With each thrust, he hits the back of my throat, the sound wanton and wet.
“That’s it, Darling,” he purrs, watching how my lashes flutter with every thrust with careful intent; watching how I squirm in search of friction to ease the growing ache at my core. “Let me see those pretty tears.”
His praise is warm against my skin, sinking to the ice of my bones beneath. I pull him deeper into my mouth, and somehow, it still isn’t deep enough—I need more.
And Niko, who sees me better than anyone ever has, knows.
He grips my hair, pulling my mouth further onto him until tears gather at my lashes and arousal drips down my thighs.
He sets an unrelenting rhythm, and I revel in the ruin of his pleasure.
With each stroke, the mask of the Carrion King slips a little further.
The wild flutter of his lashes, the guttural groans; the dig of his fingers into my scalp.
Niko is always so intentional in his appearance, from first the moment I glimpsed him unraveled, I recognized it for the rare secret it was.
He armors himself in a curated exterior, and though I’m the one on my knees, there is a heady power in being the only one he allows to peer behind it.
His messiness; his primal ferocity—of everyone in every world, they only belong to me.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
With each thrust, Niko grows wilder. Sweat beads on his forehead as his hips piston forward, a guttural moan vibrating through him. His praise washes over me like a baptism, his words both wicked and adoring, and I come alive in their thrall.
When he pulls out of my mouth, I hardly have time to catch my breath before he’s lifting me from my knees to place me on the ledge of the deep stone surrounding the spring.
He kisses me with feverish abandon, his tongue dancing with mine.
I claw at the buttons of his shirt, while he yanks up the hem of my dress.
Body pinned between the hard rock and the sculpted planes of his chest, I can only throw my head back with a moan as he buries himself deep inside me.
The breath of relief on his lips is my undoing, like even the fractional moments we were parted were entirely unbearable.
And star above, I feel the same in my bones as he stretches me, my core tightening around him like my body is determined to never let him go; determined to bury him so deeply inside me, I no longer feel the sharp edges of myself—the jagged pieces shaped by grief and anger and regret.
“More, Niko,” I breathe, half out of my mind with need, my skin glistening with sweat. “I need more.”
More of his pain. More of his pleasure. More of all of it.
I want him branded onto my fucking skin; for him to rearrange my bones and reorder the very beat of my heart.
Niko’s answering laugh skates wickedly over my skin, the sound both mocking and lethal. He leans into me with his full weight, and I nearly come apart at the feral possession written along the honed lines of his jaw.
His fingers wander down my body, tracing the curve of my breast. Over the soft plane of my stomach and down to circle my clit so gently, I shiver.
“Mmm,” he hums. “I love when you’re greedy.
When you demand all that you’re owed.” His eyes darken as he leans in to lick the half-dried tears from my cheeks. “It’s never enough, is it?”
The utterance seems more for himself than me, but I nod anyway, writhing and desperate for more.
He meets my gaze with reverence, with patience—with hunger and worship.
A reassurance that no matter how far I need to fall into the darkness to shatter my numbness, he will be the anchor to guide me through.
A ribbon lashes like a whip over my thigh.
I cry out, writhing wildly beneath him as he brushes his thumb once more over my aching center.
Heat radiates from the lash, pain and pleasure spilling through me in equal measure, a flood of feeling.
It is a release and a reckoning, and I want to sob as everything I’ve buried rushes over me.
The shame, the pain, the regret. The love, the pleasure, the want.
For the first time in my life, I let myself feel all of it.
“Fuck, Willa,” Niko breathes. “You’re squeezing me so tight.”
I whimper at his words, and then again, as he brings another lash down across the sensitive skin of my inner thighs.
The pressure of his thumb is now a consistent rhythm that sends my thoughts scattering into oblivion.
Another lash, and I’m clenching around him as he thrusts into me, the pleasure and the pain each heightening the other until all I can do is gasp his name over and over.
One more lash, and I pray to the star above it will leave a mark, no matter that it’s impossible.
A permanent claiming, an eternal reminder, so if the universe ever succeeds in tearing us apart again, there will be no question who I belong to.
My pain, my pleasure. My wrecked heart, my weary soul. All of it has always been his.
Niko fucks me with newfound fervor, his gaze never straying from mine. I’d only wanted him to take, but somehow, the taking always feels like giving. Giving me back myself when I am lost in the shadows; grounding me in pain, lifting me up in pleasure.
“You are mine,” Niko snarls, before claiming my mouth, his tongue savagely dancing along mine. “Mine to love, and mine to hurt. Do you understand me, Willa? You don’t get to hurt yourself any longer. The pain isn’t yours anymore, because everything in you belongs to me.”
My breath catches at his words; at how well he understands me and how carefully he keeps me together.
“Say it,” he commands, angling himself so that stars bloom behind my eyes. “Now.”
“It’s yours. It’s all yours, Niko,” I breathe, pain and pleasure radiating over me, through me, in alternating waves. “I won’t punish myself anymore.”
The ribbon at my throat loosens and fresh air barrels into my lungs. I give myself over to the obsidian depths of him and in them, I find adytum. Pleasure spills through me like a cleansing flood, as I come apart in the safety of the Carrion King’s arms.
We lie tangled for a few long moments, Niko trailing light kisses along my collarbones as my breath evens; as I settle back into my skin, feeling a thousand times lighter than I ever have.
For he was right—I’ve been punishing myself for so long.
For failing Celie, for never being able to cure the plague.
For hurting him, for failing the kingdom.
I’ve always been paying an eternal penance for never being enough.
But in the arms of the Carrion King, I find that I am.
And not because he’s suddenly made me whole; only that he’s reminded me who I am beyond what the world tried to make me, the woman I’ve been afraid to be for too long.
Beautiful, powerful. Vulnerable and angry and caring—and beneath it all, the girl who dreamed in the bellies of dungeons.
Who hoped when there was nothing to hope for.
That is who the island chose as an anchor. That is who I need to be to lead the kingdom, even if it terrifies me to fail.
Niko picks me up, carrying me to the water. Together, we slide beneath the surface, the heat soothing the ache of my muscles as I finally choose to let my fears free, rather than allowing them to poison me.
“What if I can’t do it? What if I can’t win against the Aeternalis, Niko? What if—what if everything is ruined because of me? Will you still love me then?”
To my surprise, he laughs, his ribbons spiraling near his head to the cadence. “Do not waste my time with fictitious scenarios. I know who you are, Willa, and I love every part of you. You can hide from yourself…from the world. But you have never been able to hide from me.”
His words are incendiary—like the spark of a flint—but I don’t burn beneath their light. I shine. Because he’s right. Niko has always seen me, even when I didn’t want to see myself.
“It’s time you remember who are you, Darling,” he whispers onto my lips, his breath now mine.
“Tell me. Tell me of the little girl who fought to survive.” The brush of a kiss against my jaw.
“Tell me of the woman who faced down a king of death.” Another over my forehead, so light, I shiver.
“Tell me of the Queen Who Dreamt. Who saved our worlds with only a brush of her mind.”
When he pulls back, his onyx gaze is fathomless. “Tell me of Willa Darling, so that when it is spoken, you will remember. And when you forget, I will echo it back to you. I will give you back yourself whenever it feels like she’s lost.”
“You already have,” I whisper back, my eyes fluttering shut. Fat tears stick to my lashes as something cracks open in my chest—something warm. “You always find your way to the truest parts of me.”
“Navigation in depthless storms…” he sighs. “That is my specialty as a captain. I’ve always been able to find my way home.”
I open my eyes. “And now? Are you home?”
I don’t know if I mean Letum, or if I mean me. But Niko does. He takes my hand and brings it to his mouth, brushing kisses over my knuckles. “You are adytum. You are true north. You are home. And no matter the span of stars or the violence of storms, I will always find my way back to you.”
I feel the truth of his words in the way he kisses me, and though it is far gentler than before, it is no less of a claiming.
“I love you,” I tell him, the words both the simplest and heaviest thing in the universe.