Chapter 19 #2
So why was she letting him persuade her? Why was she listening to his point of view at all?
“None of this changes the fact that you took me without my consent and refused to allow me to tell people I wasn’t dead. You really want to prove your point? Let me go home and tell my friends and coven I’m okay. Then I’ll stop hating you. No more arguments. No more fights.”
The humor bled from his gaze, and it hardened. “No.”
“I’ll come back. I won’t try to escape. I’ll even swear a vow.”
“No.”
“Come on, Murmur.”
“No. We’ll cast the spell soon anyway. With any luck, it’ll be successful, and you can return to Earth for good.”
She ground her teeth. He had a point, but she was still goddamn frustrated. Just when she thought they were making headway, something always reminded her what he was capable of.
Maybe he was right, and he wasn’t treating her badly, but at the end of the day, he’d abducted her, and he wasn’t letting her go until he was finished with her. Her wants and needs were irrelevant. And that was something she could not overlook.
Facing the fire again, she looked down at the book in her lap. Her blood felt hot with her rising ire.
She needed to focus on the plan: help Murmur free her father’s soul and get as much information out of him as possible in the meantime.
That meant not pissing him off so much he made good on his threat to throw her back into the dungeon.
That meant swallowing her pride. Not insulting him or telling him how she really felt.
But damn, he made it hard, sitting there all smug, proud of himself for having bested her, with his gorgeous hair and regal features and eerily beautiful eyes. Damn him.
“So?” His voice filtered into her thoughts some time later. “Are we going to continue the lesson, or you would prefer to stew in misery instead?”
And just like that, the short fuse of her temper blew.
“You know what?” she snapped, forgetting all the reasons she should keep her mouth shut.
She closed the book in her lap and set it aside.
“I’ve had enough. You can take your precious information and shove it up your ass.
I don’t need anything from you. I don’t want anything from you.
I know you think I’m so desperate for information, I’ll take anything you throw at me.
But honestly, I’d rather not know than put up with your—”
His hand shot out of nowhere and wrapped around her neck, limiting her air supply enough that she broke off midsentence with a choked sound of surprise.
“Enough,” he growled. His relaxed posture was gone, and his souls churned restlessly in response to his agitation. He leaned forward, using his size to loom over her. His tail snapped restlessly. His horns towered above her.
“You come into my lair and start making demands. You distract me at every given opportunity with your questions and your sharp little mind. Wherever I turn, there you are. Even when you’re quiet, your presence is screaming at me, and it drives me mad.
” His voice deepened. “You beg me to teach you, and when I do, you make further demands of me. And then you have the audacity to shout in my face about all the injustices I’ve committed against you. ”
Instinct screamed at her to get rid of the grip on her throat, even if her pride wanted her to act like it didn’t affect her.
Her hands shot up to claw at his fingers, trying to pry them loose.
She wasn’t actually asphyxiating, but the limit on her oxygen was making her panic.
Especially with the look of unhinged fury in his eyes.
She’d pushed him too far, and now there was no telling what he’d do.
“Let me tell you here and now and for the last time: I don’t care if you don’t like me. I don’t give a fuck if you don’t like how I treat you. I don’t give a fuck if your friends on Earth are worried about you. I. Don’t. Give. A. Fuck.”
He was so close, their noses almost touched.
“Is that clear?”
She didn’t respond. His hold was loose enough for her to choke out a few words or nod her head if she wanted. But she didn’t. She glared at him instead, with all the fury consuming her body from the inside out. She let it burn her alive.
“I said,” he repeated, his voice a deep growl, “is that clear?”
She opened her mouth, on the verge of telling him to go fuck himself. But he met her defiance with an intensity she’d never encountered before.
Suyin exuded forcefulness. In every other interaction in her life, she bulldozed people who stood in her way. She was diminutive in size, but she made up for it with a ferocity of will and an almost unhinged fearlessness.
There was never a challenge she didn’t meet. There was never a gauntlet she didn’t throw. And she never backed down from a fight.
She had never met anyone who could match her will. Man, woman, or otherwise.
Not until now.
Unbidden, a throb of heat pulsed between her legs. Electric shivers traveled down the back of her neck and arms. No, you are not doing this, Su. You are not going there. You can control yourself. Do not give him what he wants. Do not—
She … nodded.
The movement was subtle, but she knew he felt it against the hand beneath her chin. Victory flashed through his bloodshot eyes. Triumph transformed his features from stern to cocky self-assurance.
It pissed her off. It turned her on. She didn’t know what the hell was happening.
“Say it,” he said. “I want to hear it.”
No, that was too far, there was no way she—
“I … understand.”
His lips curved. “Good girl. I’m glad that’s cleared up.” And then he released her throat.
She gulped in air, her eyes filling with tears at the sting on her windpipe. Other than that, neither of them moved.
Another pulse of heat raced through her veins. Attraction sizzled in the inches between them.
And then because she was an idiot with no sense of self-preservation or impulse control, her hands shot out and gripped his coat.
After that, she wasn’t sure who moved first. All she knew was that one second, they were staring at each other with the promise of death in their eyes …
And the next, their mouths were fused together.
Tiny tingles and simmering urges ignited into a powerful wildfire, one Murmur wasn’t sure he could stop. He slid a hand into Suyin’s hair and pulled her closer, pushing deeper into her lips and losing himself in her taste.
It wasn’t close enough. If he could have, he would’ve crawled right into her skin and consumed her from the inside out.
Suyin seemed to feel the same. Her grip on his clothing was tight, pushing him to the edge of his tolerance, but he allowed it. Their heads tilted in opposite directions, and their mouths opened wider so their tongues could keep twisting between them.
He’d thought he might detest even the pressure of her tongue, the slight restraint of her lips pressing against his, but that wasn’t what happened at all. Instead, every stroke, every mingling breath, added more fuel to the fire.
The space between their bodies felt like an ocean. The clothes between them felt like barriers that he needed to tear down immediately. He needed her underneath him, trapped and unable to escape.
He transferred his grip to her waist and lowered them to the floor, rising over her and using his body to pin hers. A gasp escaped her as her back hit the ground, but she didn’t try to break his hold.
He took a moment to appreciate the sight of her beneath him. Her skin was flushed, her chest heaving with rapid breaths, her hair spread out on the floor like a midnight halo.
She was small, but he was beginning to recognize a fierceness inside her that could not be conquered. He wanted to conquer it anyway. And in this moment, with her trapped below him, her eyes clouded with desire, he felt closer to his goal than ever.
One of his hands supported his weight, and the other dove back into her hair, clenching it in a fist. Then he dropped his head, and their lips crashed back together again.
She reached up, sliding her hands into the hair at the base of his loose braid, and that was when he hit the boundary in his head. His skin crawled at the invasion, and his pulse skyrocketed.
He lurched back, snatched her wrists, and then pinned them to the floor above her head with one hand. More hair slipped free of his braid, and it fell around his face above hers, blocking out the rest of the room.
As soon as her arms were trapped, he calmed, so he dove back into the kiss with renewed vigor. She moaned as their tongues tangled, arching her spine off the floor and pressing her breasts into his chest.
With his free hand, he reached down and cupped her ass.
She tried to hook her leg around his hip as he ground their bodies together, but he stopped her with a growl, gripping her thigh and pushing her leg open.
She didn’t seem to mind, her tongue still dueling with his until it caught on one of his fangs.
It was a light scrape, but the sudden coppery, sweet flavor of her blood made his head spin.
He could feel the heat between her legs, and it was quickly making him lose all sense. The taste of her blood was the final straw—he was seconds from biting into her tongue again to draw more. Or better yet, sinking his fangs into her throat.
But he dragged his mouth away suddenly.
As their gazes met, a thousand dark urges charged through his head like raging bulls. He couldn’t place a single thought or organize the tumbling chaos. All he felt was an unquenchable desire of epic proportions erupting from the center of his being.
He wasn’t entirely sure what would happen if he gave into it, but he knew it would be dark and twisted.
Like everything else in his mind. Like everything else in his life.
He also knew he would no longer be in control, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to let go to that degree. There was no telling what would happen.
He searched Suyin’s dark eyes. He saw desire reflected back at him, but he also saw wariness.
He understood. She was right to be afraid. She was right to be unsure.
“I’m giving you the chance to leave now,” he said, his voice sounding strange to his own ears. “I won’t stop you. I won’t chase you.” No matter how badly I might want to.
Her eyes flared slightly at the word “chase.”
He wasn’t sure why he was warning her. Shouldn’t he want to take what was offered now, before she had a chance to reconsider? Shouldn’t he want to feed whatever dark beast she’d awakened while he had the chance?
And yet the idea of taking something from her that she wasn’t sure she wanted to give was repulsive. No matter that he’d stolen her from her home and stolen her blood. This felt different. He didn’t want to steal this.
“If you stay, I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to stop. This is your chance to go.”
She swallowed visibly. And he saw the moment his warning fully penetrated. The haze of desire faded enough from her gaze for it to sharpen with understanding.
He released her wrists and pushed off of her, dropping back against the couch.
He closed his eyes, flexing and releasing his hands, and fought to get his urges under control.
They were strong enough even to drown out the wailing of his souls.
It should have been a reprieve, but it was far from that.
“Go.” His voice was a growl.
She didn’t move, lying frozen on the floor as if begging to be leapt upon and ravaged.
“Go before I change my mind,” he snapped.
Apparently, she knew better than to ignore that. Without another word, she scrambled to her feet and hurried from the room. The door banging shut was followed by her echoing footsteps down the hallway.
Alone, he dug his claws into the floorboards at his sides and gritted his teeth, fighting to get whatever monster had crawled out of him back in its cage. Not long ago, he’d been feeling content and relaxed for the first time as far back as he could remember. Now, he was anything but.
He swore that one of the reasons he’d survived as long as he had was because he’d transmuted the sexual urges that ruled so many demons. He’d never been controlled by sex. The most powerful succubi in Hell had never been able to get a rise out of him.
And now this. Reduced to a raging monster of primal urges.
He took deep, calming breaths. He flexed his power over his souls, just to remember what control felt like. He reminded himself what was at stake, and why he couldn’t afford to lose focus now.
But the inner battle raged on.