48. Lucy
Lucy
M idnight lays me in bed. The soft comfort of silk pillows and the faint scent of perfume are the last things I remember. Time must pass because even as I sleep, my dreams cross from night to day to night, the sun skimming my cheeks and warming my body.
There is something foreign in the air. A slow coagulation. The thickening of a pool of blood destined to be nothing more than a distant stain and fading memory of violence.
It all feels inevitable.
My stomach coils, the weight of dread pressing thick and fibrous on my ribs.
The Societas nearly killed me. I might be safe for now, but it doesn’t feel over.
Not yet.
There is something missing, some piece of information that will make it all make sense.
When I wake, Midnight carries me into the bathroom and lowers me into a bath. She soaps my body, cleanses my hair and razes the hair from my legs. She dries me, dresses me in nothing but a silk gown.
And she does it all in silence, as if savouring every second, every touch, every moment we have left.
Because that’s what these are, our last moments. I don’t know how I know that, but it’s a truth that lingers between the threads of my soul.
“Just stop it, okay?” Midnight snaps as she follows me back to the bedroom.
“Stop what, Midnight?” I say, my voice as tired as my bones.
“You’re acting like you died.”
“We all die.”
“Well, you’re not dead yet, so stop acting like it. Just don’t. I can’t stand another?—”
She cuts herself off, turning away from me as she stalks into the kitchen.
“Another what?” I say, striding after her.
“Just forget it. Go back to bed, you need to rest.”
But I don’t want to rest, not yet. I need to know what happened and everything is blurry.
“Where’s Thalia?” I ask.
Midnight halts. “Missing. Ignatius has hushed it all up, of course. Said she’s on leave. How can he be a hero helping me to save you only to turn round and lie to everyone moments later?”
“The lies have always come easy to him.”
“I’m so over all of this,” she says. “I can’t...”
I grab her wrist and pull her to me. She glances down. I’ve never taken control like this, I am always the submissive. I like my place. There is nothing I love more than her in control. But not tonight. Tonight, I am exhausted, and I need answers.
I want to control something, take something back. I release her.
“You can’t what?” I say, my voice hard.
Midnight’s nostrils flare, her fists clenching by her sides the way they do when she’s cross. “I can’t cope with another Aurelia.”
She sags. I let her hand go, and she continues, as if a dam broke.
“I get that our fate is predetermined. But she just gave up. Wouldn’t fight.
Once she knew it was terminal, she just stopped.
Laid in bed all day and refused to try, she wouldn’t look at magical solutions.
She wouldn’t do anything. I just wanted her to fight.
If she couldn’t do it for herself, then do it for me.
Keep pushing because she wanted another day, another week, another month with me.
But she didn’t. She accepted her fate and gave up, and it broke me. ”
My heart aches for her but… “I’m not Aurelia.”
“I know,” she nods. “I’m sorry. I knew as soon as I made the comparison it was wrong. You’re nothing like her.”
I’m not. And yet, part of me wonders if I have given up. I have always fought. Spent my life fighting my father. Injury after injury, and yet tonight, things are different. Am I resigned to my fate? Whatever that may be.
Tonight, I need something different. Need control. Power.
“Get on the floor,” I say, that professor tone lacing my words.
Midnight hesitates. This is not how we work. Something defiant flashes through her gaze. But she nods.
“I don’t sub, but for you, I will gladly get on my knees.”
“Such a good boy,” I purr, testing the water. Her shoulders heave a deep sigh.
Interesting.
“My safe word is moth,” she says, and I laugh.
“You’re kidding?”
“I hate them, I’m hardly going to say that word in the bedroom.”
“Okay, well, I don’t think you need a safe word, I just need to be in control for once. I can’t explain it.”
I rest my backside against the kitchen counter and loosen the robe ties, baring my pussy to her.
She licks her lips, hungry.
I grab her by her hair and draw her to me. She winces against the tug, but her eyes quickly turn molten.
I spread my legs open for her and pull her to my cunt.
Such a simple pleasure, a woman on her knees for you, licking and sucking your clit. My robe slides open, displaying one nipple that hardens in the cool air.
I watch as her tongue dips in and out between my folds and she moans in pleasure at my taste.
But I’m not ready to come. I want to have my way with her first. I yank her off my pussy and slide out from her grasp.
“Undress,” I say. “Leave a trail of clothes on your way to the bedroom. I want you naked on the bed, waiting for me.”
She does exactly as I ask, dropping an item of clothing every few feet until I hear the flop of her body onto the bed.
I take my time making my way through the apartment after her. Savouring the fact she’s having to wait, to do as I bid. It’s heady, this power over another, I see why she likes it. Anticipation grows the longer I hold out, the longer I resist my own urges.
But as I step inside the bedroom, my newfound willpower cracks. I slide between her legs and run my tongue down her slit. She’s warm and wet and tastes fucking divine. I moan against her pussy as I drag my tongue up and down.
She bucks her hips, grinding against my mouth. I curl a hand around her thigh, holding her in a bruising grip, and bring my free hand to her pussy. My fingers tease her entrance.
“More,” she says.
I slide my finger inside her cunt, thrusting slow and steady until she’s wet enough I can slide another in.
She gasps. “Oh fuck, Lucy. Faster.”
I curl my fingers, loving the way her pussy clenches around me. I drive my hand in and out, until she’s writhing against my mouth. My tongue ravishes her clit quicker and quicker until her back arches off the bed. Her hands fist the duvet, and she spills over into an orgasm.
But I’m not done. One isn’t enough. I climb on top of her, flipping around and laying my belly flat on hers. I shuffle back until my pussy rests against her mouth.
She grips my thighs and pulls me down onto her face, dragging her tongue over my clit.
I lay my head on her pelvis and lower myself to her apex. I suck her into my mouth. She cries out as I flick my tongue hard against her swollen, sensitive bud.
I’m still aroused from the kitchen, so it doesn’t take much for me to climb to the same place she’s in.
It’s too much. She’s too much. The taste of her pussy in my mouth as she ravishes mine makes something split inside me. I scream her name as pulses of hot static swirl between my legs. Our rising climaxes, building and building.
I rock against her as she lays there and takes every flick and lap of my tongue. I angle myself to slide a finger back inside her and she jolts, whimpering against my pussy.
She pushes my legs open and slides a finger into me. We move together, hips bucking, tongues ravishing clits, and moans filling the bedroom until we both tip over the edge and I am blinded by an orgasm that reaches every cell in my body. It sends a pulsing electricity from my scalp to my toes.
And I drift somewhere else.
Runes fill my vision.
Celestial.
Contractual.
Demonic.
They swirl and twist and reform until deep in my mind a singular rune forms.
One that twists and morphs, crumbling into a single sentence.
One that tells me how to break my contract.
One that shatters everything.