26. Midnight
Midnight
L ucy sags against her sofa, her body completely spent. But there, glistening on her neck, is the hint of the symbol we were hoping for.
I reach out and hesitate. Her skin shimmers.
“Wow,” I breathe.
The symbol is there, but I can’t quite make it out. It’s too faint.
She rolls over, lying flat on the sofa. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s there, it’s just so light it’s hard to make it out. Look in the mirror.”
She attempts to get up and stumbles, and I realise this is not what I’m supposed to be doing. I should be caring for her while she’s in this state.
“Come here,” I lift her into my arms and carry her to her bedroom where there’s a full-length mirror.
“See,” I say.
She frowns.
“Demon’s sake, Lucy, it’s right there.”
Her face crumples. “There’s nothing there.”
I huff and place her down on the bed. “Get under the covers, I’ll be back.”
I fetch her some water and some scraps of paper, then I ferret around until I find a pencil. I return to Lucy and pull her chin around. “Fuck, it’s gone,” I groan.
“How inconvenient,” she says, but her eyelashes flutter at me.
I set to sketching what I could see of the rune. I’m finishing the last bit when she snatches the drawing from me.
“Shit,” she says and scrambles out of bed, jumping to the mirror and pulling at the skin. “Why can’t I see it?” She claws at her neck.
I get off the bed and tug her hands away from her throat. “I told you, it’s gone. I can’t see it now either.”
“You have to do it again.”
I frown. “Do what again?”
“Whatever you did to make it appear. I need to see it.”
The first two times, I made her come. This time, she made herself come with my help. I wonder if that’s why it was fainter and didn’t last as long.
“You sure about that? What I did was fuck you… all the way to an orgasm. This time you made yourself come… And you insisted it was a one-time thing.”
“Oh, I see,” she says.
I wink at her, knowing it will wind her up. “Hmm, so I couldn’t possibly make you come again.”
“That is bad news.” She drops to her knees and crawls along the floor. Her breasts are round and full and swaying with her body as she crawls on her knees. It makes my mouth water.
“Gods dammit, Lucy… we need to talk. Not fuck.”
“But, Daddy… I need another orgasm… please,” she says as she halts at my boots.
I stare down at her naked flesh. She sucks in her bottom lip; my pussy aches with need. I’ve already lost.
But when she lowers herself to my boot and places a kiss on the toe, I snap. My boxers are soaking and my pussy is desperate for touch. I raise my foot, tucking it gently under her chin and push her onto her back.
Keeping my heel on her chest, I strip. Top first, sports bra, then I unbuckle my belt. I release the pressure on her sternum to remove my boots and trousers. Then I lay my body over hers, shift back until my cunt mounts her face and lower mine to her pussy.
She’s swollen and sticky, her scent intoxicating, and I am gagging to taste her.
My tongue slips between her folds, and I lap up every exquisite drop of wetness. She tastes fucking divine, and I moan as I lick down her slit.
Her tongue finds my clit before her lips close over it and she sucks. I close my eyes and rock over her mouth, letting the sensation of her lapping wash waves of pleasure through my core.
She bucks underneath me, sensitive from her first orgasm, but I don’t care, I want to drag another one from her.
I twist my arm over her thigh and slide a finger into her pussy. She’s warm and so wet for me that I glide in and out, my tongue flicking at her apex.
She moans against my pussy, desperately hanging on to her orgasm as she builds me higher and higher.
But the closer she gets, the more she moans and the quicker I climb. Her pussy clamps around my finger, her hips tilt as she trembles and comes in my mouth.
Her sweet release sends me over the edge, my body stiffening as I fall apart on her face. I lay there, motionless, unable to move from the sensory overload until I remember why she wanted this.
I climb off and help her up and there, brandished on her neck, is the symbol, clearer and bolder than I’ve seen it before.
I guide her to the mirror but her face falls.
“You can’t see it?” I ask.
She shakes her head, tears spilling down her cheeks. I scoop her up and carry her to the bed, resting myself against the headboard, sliding her between my thighs. I finish drawing the symbol and then hand her the paper.
“Thank you,” she says.
I lean in, pressing my lips to hers. She freezes and then relaxes, moving her mouth against mine, slow and hungry.
I deepen the kiss, my hands caressing her head, gliding through her dark hair. The world shrinks to me and her, and the soft mattress beneath us. And it’s the first time I think I may be in trouble.
I love the way her body feels under my fingers. The deep spicy smell of her perfume. It’s addictive and moreish and I want to bite and lick my way over her skin until I’m sated.
She lays in my arms a while, both of us coming back to earth and I remember that awful confession.
“We need to talk,” I say.
She goes rigid in my arms. But we have to discuss it.
“Your father…” I say and leave it hanging in the air. When she doesn’t offer any information, I probe again. “What do you mean he is the one who hurt you?”
“It’s complicated.”
She tries to wriggle out of my grasp, but I pull her closer against me, enveloping her with my arms and tugging a blanket around us.
“Uncomplicate it, Lucy.”
She resists, fidgeting against me until she realises I’m not letting her go. She huffs and settles against my chest.
Her hair tickles my chin, but I drink in the scent of crackling fire, autumn flowers and warm summer wind. I have to suppress the urge to inhale her deeply. To bottle her scent and keep it forever.
For the first time, I find myself wishing I could keep her forever.
“I told you, I’m trapped in a contract. He made it when I was born. I don’t know the full story, only that there was a contract which saved my life and that the contract has consequences.”
I run my fingers up and down her arms. “Explain the consequences.”
She turns her face into my chest and huffs. “Mostly that I can’t move against him. I can’t fight back. If I attack him, or even sometimes just threaten him, the results aren’t good for me.”
“Your eye and knee at the Severance Rite?” I ask.
She nods. “I get nosebleeds, my bones break. Bloodshot eyes. I’ve thrown up blood when things get really bad. I imagine that if I kept going, I’d end up dead.”
“What kind of sick, fucked-up contract is that?”
“One that means he always wins. It’s why I need your help.”
“He needs to win against his child?”
“I think it’s more that he needs to win full stop. He’s manipulative and sometimes aggressive, but there are good parts to him. He’s never actually hit me. My injuries are self-induced when I try to fight back. Besides, he saved the city, didn’t he…”
“Why does that sound like a question?”
She presses her lips shut, as if sealing in a secret.
“I’m failing to see anything good about that man,” I say.
She sighs, twining her fingers into mine.
“When I was little, every full moon, he’d take me down into the basement, and we’d watch the Veil and make up stories about the shades that would drift in and out.
He used to make me draw my nightmares out when I was scared, and then we’d burn them together in the cloisters. ”
“And what about now? He hasn’t stopped being your father just because you’re an adult.”
She releases my hand and tiptoes her fingers over my skin. “Things are harder now. I fight back more. But…”
“But that means you get injured more?” I ask.
She nods.
“I see.”
“You going to tell me why you want that Demonic Favour?”
I shift, untangling us. It was easier making her talk than having to admit what happened to me.
“There’s not a lot to tell, really. I thought she was the love of my life. She got sick. I sold my soul to save her.”
She gets out of bed and roots in a couple of still unemptied boxes until she finds a set of pyjamas.
“Then why aren’t you with her now?” she asks, sitting back on the bed and picking up the drawing of her symbol.
“She broke us,” I say. But Lucy’s frowning at the image, turning it this way and that.
“What is it?” I ask.
She shakes her head, staring at it. “It just can’t be.”
“Can’t be what?”
“They’re contract runes.”
I frown at her. “Why do you have contract runes on your body?”
“I wouldn’t. Not unless…”
“They’re your own contract runes?”
Her head snaps up. “I think this is how we break my contract.”