Chapter 14
AROUSING SUSPICION
THAT FAMILIAR BURNING ENGULFED MURMUR’S BODY. HE knew this agony well, but every time it consumed him, he suffered anew. His screams of pain morphed to screams of terror as his body dissolved, and he found himself trapped with thousands of other souls, locked together in endless suffer—
“Murmur!”
He stilled. That was new. That had never happened before, and he was quite sure he—
“Murmur!”
All of a sudden, he was thrust back into his sweat-soaked body, tangled in the bedsheets. The sensation of foreign touch on his skin—not the fabric of the bedsheets—reached his brain only a fraction of a second before he acted.
Before he was even fully conscious, he grabbed the intruder and flipped them under his body. He summoned his souls and used them as bindings, pulling the intruder’s arms and legs apart and pinning them down.
With one hand, he supported his weight. With the other, he gripped the intruder’s hair and yanked their neck sharply to the side. His tail barb poised at the pulsing artery, venom welling at the tip, ready to strike at the slightest provocation.
The intruder went still.
And Murmur finally realized who was in his bed.
He blinked, certain his eyes were deceiving him. But no, as his vision sharpened with his awareness, he saw the dark eyes of his little witch. Her pulse beat so furiously, he could see it in her neck.
But she didn’t move. She couldn’t. He had restrained her completely.
A deep, primal satisfaction filled him, overriding the residual terror from the dream.
The sight of fettered limbs had always given him a depraved satisfaction. He wasn’t ashamed to admit it. He enjoyed stringing his prisoners up, watching them try to pull their limbs free. He liked seeing the bindings that held them immobile.
But something about the sight of this little witch trapped was even more satisfying, to the point where he felt heat stirring low in his abdomen. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t angry. No, he was furious.
“Do you have no sense of self-preservation?” he snapped. “Do my commands mean nothing to you? I very clearly told you never to come into this room.”
The fear hadn’t left her eyes, but she replied hoarsely, “I thought you were dying, asshole.”
“You could have died.” He illustrated his point by waving his tail above her head in case she missed just how close it had been to her neck. “I thought your whole agenda here was to avoid that outcome.”
She glared at him but said nothing. She wasn’t nearly terrified enough for his liking.
His eyes were drawn down to her heaving chest, and he allowed them to wander over her neck, her jaw, and the pile of rich black hair still clenched in his fist. He’d never studied her this closely before.
“Besides, you should want me to die,” he said. “If I’m dead, you can go home, remember?”
Her glare intensified. If she hadn’t wanted him dead before, she looked as though she did now.
Then, she frowned. “What was that? A nightmare?”
“A vision,” he found himself replying. Why, he didn’t know.
He was too distracted, studying each individual eyelash around her eye. When he’d first taken her, her eyes had been covered in dark makeup. Now, they were bare. Her eyelashes were short but thick. She had slender eyes, but her dark pupils gave them an intensity that made them appear larger.
“Of what?”
“My death,” he replied distractedly, still caught up in his detailed perusal of her features. He wasn’t quite sure what was happening, but he wasn’t in a great hurry to stop it.
“Your what?”
“I dream of my death every time I close my eyes.” Why was he admitting this? He’d never told another living soul.
“Is it an actual premonition or just symbolism?”
“I’m a seer. I’ve had visions of the future for as long as I can remember.”
“Can you change the outcome of—?” Her eyes widened. “That’s what the spell is about.”
“In part.”
Why in the devil’s name was he telling her this? But he was too caught up in this strange moment to care. He was chasing something he didn’t understand, and perhaps didn’t want to understand, but he didn’t want to let it go yet.
“But you can’t die.”
He frowned.
She added, “Not until I’ve learned all your secrets.”
Their eyes met, and he fought to comprehend the sensations overtaking his body. He wasn’t used to feeling anything except perpetual coldness. He hadn’t believed he was even capable after millennia of infusing himself with necromancy.
“Let me free.” She pulled against the ghostly bonds still pinning her wrists and ankles down, and he noticed anew their positions. His much larger body was still over hers, his hips between her legs. He still gripped her long hair, tugging her head to one side and exposing her neck.
She struggled a little more, and the sight caused his lids to drop halfway down his eyes. His lips curved. “No.”
“Murmur.” She spoke through gritted teeth.
That heat pulsed low in his abdomen again. “Keep struggling. I enjoy it.”
They stared at each other. He hated maintaining eye contact with anyone, yet he enjoyed it with her. Perhaps because he enjoyed the sight of her feistiness melting away as he overpowered her.
“Murmur.”
The heat pulsed yet again at the sound of his name on her lips.
And then he felt it.
His body stirring. Awakening. Hardening.
And he suddenly understood what was happening, what rush he was chasing, what the sensation of heat filling him was.
His groin pressed against hers, and where before it had simply been an effective way to keep her pinned, suddenly, it was … more. Much more.
Her eyes flared, and she shifted. Friction. The heat pulsed. The blood pooled and throbbed. It was dizzying, hot. Alive. His head spun. His heart pounded.
Suyin made a tiny, breathless sound.
Her gasp broke the spell, and he lurched back, releasing his souls and freeing her fettered limbs.
“Get out.” His heart was racing so fast he found it difficult to breathe. His chest was tight. Constricting him.
His body was supposed to be dead. It had died ages ago. His consciousness had been animating a lifeless corpse for centuries. A corpse that felt nothing—no sensation of pleasure or pain or desire.
Apparently not.
Suyin sat up, staring at him, eyes wide.
“Get out and don’t come in here again.” His voice shook with his unsteady breath.
She opened her mouth. She was going to speak. She wasn’t running away. What the fuck was wrong with this woman?
“GET OUT!” he roared, and finally, she took the hint. She scrambled off the bed without another word and hurried out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
Suyin didn’t stop running until she was back in the safety of her bedroom. She sat on the bed and brought her knees up to her chest, hugging them tightly.
He got hard. Their bodies had been pressed together, her limbs spread apart and held down by spectral hands. Yeah, that part had been disturbing, but the way he’d been staring at her, their faces so close …
Keep struggling. I enjoy it.
A low pulse of heat throbbed between her legs.
“Fuck,” she said aloud. No, no, we’re not going there. Control yourself.
It was one thing to decide she didn’t want to kill him anymore. It was another to feel … this. He was a demon, for fuck’s sake. An evil demon from Hell who practiced necromancy and commanded an army of human souls. She just wasn’t that stupid. She wasn’t.
The scene replayed in her mind again anyway.
The way he’d pinned her so fast, she’d barely seen him move … His weight above her, his piercing stare, his pure-white hair falling forward, those proud horns arcing up above his head …
And then he’d gotten hard. She’d felt him grow thick and long against her. Her thighs clenched together at the memory.
And then he’d … freaked out.
What was that about? She’d always assumed demons were horny perverts who would fuck anything. But Murmur had never once displayed sexual interest in her before tonight. And the shock in his eyes told her he hadn’t expected his reaction either.
Had he never had an erection before? No, that would be ridiculous. He was a god-knew-how-old immortal. But maybe it had been a long time?
She’d compared him to a zombie multiple times. The few times he’d touched her, his hands felt like pure ice. Was it possible the necromancy he practiced had seeped into his body and changed him?
Was he dead, in a sense?
Except … nothing about him felt dead tonight. In fact, she very clearly remembered feeling heat pouring off him as he loomed over her.
Keep struggling. I enjoy it.
She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes hard enough that she saw stars. That should not be a turn-on. It was not hot. He was depraved and liked the sight of someone weaker than him struggling to escape. That was sick and twisted. Not hot.
Sick and twisted. Not hot. She repeated it like a mantra, as if hoping she could rewire her brain.
Forcing her mind off horny thoughts, she remembered what had happened before she’d ended up in his bed. Just thinking of the piercing scream she’d heard sent a chill down her spine.
She was shocked to learn he was a seer, but it made so many things about his eccentric personality make sense. Who wouldn’t be driven half mad by reliving their future violent death every time they slept?
A pang of sympathy shot through her. She’d read about blood-born witches with foresight gifts who had gone mad trying to interpret visions of the future.
Murmur was unfathomably old, and he said he’d been having visions for as long as he could remember.
Honestly, she was amazed he could still function at all.
That was what his spell was about. It made so much sense now. He was having visions of his own death, and whatever he was trying to achieve with that spell would prevent it.
More idiotic sympathy welled. God, could she get any stupider?
If she died down here, she would probably deserve it.