Chapter 11
I feel the heavy thud of my axe hitting the floor outside the door, followed by the clatter of our masks and the soft sound of our shoes being kicked off. Rhys doesn't say a word; he just grips my wrist, his fingers like iron shackles, and pulls me into the Sandman room.
The air in here is thick, smelling of ozone and ancient dust. My bare feet sink into the black sand that carpets the entire floor, the grains cool and gritty between my toes. I shiver, not from the cold, but from the sudden, sharp spike of adrenaline hitting my gut.
"What are we doing here, Rhys?" I whisper, my voice trembling. "I thought we couldn't use the scorpions for at least six months. My head is still fucking reeling from the last time."
Rhys stops in the center of the room, turning to look at me. His eyes are dark, blown out with a hunger that looks almost feral, his expression twisted into that psychotic, possessive smirk I both crave and fear.
"We aren't here to get into your brain, Ophelia," he rumbles, his voice a low, dangerous vibration. He steps closer, his heat radiating off him in waves. "Unless, of course, I use my cock to completely dismantle every single thought in that pretty little head of yours."
I swallow hard, my heart hammering against my ribs. I look down at the black sand and see them—several obsidian-black scorpions, let loose from their jars, skittering across the floor with a terrifying, rhythmic clicking of their legs.
"If one of those bastards bites me now... what happens?" I ask, my voice barely a breath.
"You die," he says simply, his tone devoid of any comfort. "The previous venom is still swimming in your bloodstream. A second dose would shut your heart down in minutes."
The danger is absolute. It’s fucking insane to be in here, exposed and barefoot, with lethal predators crawling around our ankles.
But as the terror peaks, I feel a sudden, violent surge of heat between my thighs.
I'm soaking wet instantly, my lace underwear clinging to me, the fear acting like a fucking aphrodisiac.
Rhys doesn't lead me to the lounging area. He doesn't want comfort. He slams me back against the wall first, his lips crashing onto mine in a kiss that tastes of desperation and blood. It’s not a request; it’s a conquest. He’s aggressive, his hands roaming my body with a frantic, starving energy.
He doesn't undress me—he practically rips the clothes off, the sound of fabric tearing filling the silent room.
I’m just as feral. I claw at his shirt, ripping buttons loose, my nails digging into the lean muscle of his chest, desperate to feel his skin against mine. We are two animals fighting for dominance, stripping each other bare with a violent urgency.
Then, he slams me down onto the black sand.
The grit digs into my back, the coarse grains scratching my skin, but I don't care. He doesn't go slow. There is no preamble, no gentle teasing. He enters me in one brutal, punishing thrust that knocks the wind out of my lungs.
"Fuck!" I scream, my head snapping back into the sand.
He’s fucking me with an insane, rhythmic violence, his body slamming into mine with a force that makes the world blur.
It’s crazy, primal sex. He flips me, grinding my face into the black sand, his hands gripping my hips so hard I know there will be bruises.
He hammers into me from behind, each thrust deep and unrelenting, driving me further into the grit.
When he flips me back onto my back, I feel something.
A light, tickling sensation. A prickle of legs.
I freeze. My eyes widen as I see a black scorpion crawling up my thigh, its stinger arched and ready. It moves slowly, deliberately, until it rests right on the soft swell of my stomach, its obsidian body contrasting sharply against my pale skin.
I gasp, my body instinctively jerking to shake it off, but Rhys’s hand slams down on my shoulder, and another one my throat, pinning me flat against the sand.
"Don't you fucking move," he growls, his voice a psychotic command.
He doesn't stop. If anything, he fucks me harder. He thrusts deep, his cock hitting my cervix with a jarring force that makes my entire body shudder. Every time he slams into me, my stomach heaves, and the scorpion shifts. The fear is blinding. I’m terrified that one wrong twitch, one involuntary spasm from the pleasure, will provoke the creature to sting me.
"Look at it, Ophelia," he hisses, his eyes locked on mine, wide and manic. "Feel it. Feel how close death is while I'm inside you. You're mine, even the breath in your lungs belongs to me."
I try to wriggle, a sob escaping my throat, but he presses his weight down, crushing me into the sand, his thrusts becoming faster, more desperate. I am trapped between the man I love and a lethal predator.
Then, I see them. Three more.
Three more black scorpions emerge from the sand, crawling over my hips, one sliding across my breast, another venturing toward my neck.
The sheer terror of it—the feeling of those cold, chitinous legs dancing on my skin while Rhys ravages me—sends a shockwave of arousal through me that is almost unbearable.
The fear turns into a white-hot fire. I want it more. I want the danger, the madness, the absolute surrender to this psychotic moment. I arch my back, pushing my pelvis up to meet his brutal thrusts, practically begging for him to destroy me.
"Look at me!" he orders, his voice cracking with intensity. "Look at me, not them!"
I force my eyes up, locking onto his dark, obsessive gaze. I can feel the scorpions resting on me, their weight almost imperceptible but their presence overwhelming.
"I love you!" I scream, the words ripped from my soul. "I fucking love you, Rhys!"
The confession seems to snap something inside him.
His expression shifts from predatory to something even more consumed.
He lets out a guttural, animalistic roar and begins to fuck me with a renewed, frantic energy.
He isn't just taking me now; he's trying to merge our souls through sheer physical violence.
He thrusts so deep and so hard that I can't even scream anymore; I can only gasp, my vision swimming in black and red.
The scorpions are still there, witnesses to our madness, as Rhys drives us both over the edge, his body shaking with the force of a climax that feels like an explosion, leaving us both breathless and broken in the black sand.
The explosion of his climax doesn't stop him. Most men would collapse, spent and shaking, but Rhys isn't most men. He’s a fucking lunatic, and as he cums deep inside me, his pace doesn't slacken. He keeps hammering into me, his cock still hard as iron, driving me further into the gritty black sand.
"I'm not fucking done with you," he growls, his voice a jagged edge of obsession. "Not even close."
The room is a nightmare of obsidian and lust. I can feel the scorpions still dancing on my skin, but now, new ones are venturing onto him.
I watch, breathless and trembling, as one of the black bastards scuttles up his muscular arm, its legs clicking against his skin.
It reaches his shoulder, the stinger arching back, a lethal needle poised to strike.
I open my mouth to scream, to tell him to move, but it's too late.
The scorpion plunges its stinger deep into his shoulder.
Rhys doesn't flinch. He doesn't even hiss. He lets out a low, guttural laugh that sounds like it crawled out of a grave. I watch his eyes—those dark, haunting eyes—and they shift. The pupils blow out until the iris vanishes, leaving two voids of absolute, ink-black madness. It’s like something has snapped, or something has entered him.
He looks possessed, his expression twisting into a mask of unhinged, psychotic devotion.
The venom hits his system, and instead of slowing him down, it sends him into a fucking frenzy.
He rips my legs back, pinning them against my chest in a position that makes me gasp, exposing every inch of me to his hunger.
He begins to pound into me with a violence that is terrifying.
This isn't sex anymore; it's an assault of love and madness. He’s fucking the life out of me, each thrust a brutal collision that rattles my teeth and sends sparks across my vision.
"I fucking love you, Ophelia!" he roars, his voice echoing off the stone walls.
His voice deep. Deeper than before. "You're mine!
Every drop of blood, every fucking breath!
I'll kill them all—anyone who ever touched you, anyone who even looks at you wrong, I'll rip their fucking hearts out with my bare hands! "
As he ravages me, his voice softens, turning dreamy and distant, even while his body continues to batter mine. He’s seeing something I can’t see. He’s back in that moment, the day he first saw me.
"That leaf..." he whispers, his breath hot against my ear as he slams into me.
"That beautiful, autumn leaf in your hand...
I knew then. I knew you were the only thing in this rotting world worth owning.
I've dreamt of this—of breaking you, of fusing us together until there's no telling where I end and you begin. "
He flips me over with a sudden, violent jerk, slamming my face back into the black sand.
All the scorpions on my body fall off. He doesn't stop the rhythm; he just changes the angle, driving into me from behind with a force that feels like it's splitting me in two. It hurts—it fucking hurts—but it’s a delicious, searing pain that blends with the pleasure until I can't tell them apart.
He reaches around, his large hands gripping my breasts, squeezing them with a bruising intensity.
He leans down, his teeth sinking into the sensitive skin of my shoulder, marking me, claiming me.
He moves to my breasts, sucking and biting at my nipples with a starving desperation, leaving dark, purple bruises that will last for weeks.
Then, his hand slides down, his fingers finding my clit. He begins to masturbate me with a frantic, expert precision, his thumb grinding against me while his cock continues to hammer my cervix.
The combination is too much. I scream, my body arching, and I plummet into a crashing orgasm.
But he doesn't let me recover. He keeps going. He spanks my ass, the loud crack of his palm against my skin echoing through the room, the sting only fueling the fire between my legs. He pushes me further and further, driving me into peak after peak.
One. Two. Three.
I lose track of time. I lose track of the room. I lose track of the positions he changes me in several times. There is only the grit of the sand, the danger of the scorpions, and the insane, possessive force of Rhys.
Four. Five. Six.
My muscles are shaking, my voice is gone, and my mind is fracturing. Every time I think I can't take another, he finds a new way to break me, his thrusts becoming more erratic, more feral.
Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.
I'm sobbing now, a mixture of terror and absolute ecstasy. I want to get away from the sheer intensity of it—it's too much, too scary, too unhinged—but I'm addicted to the madness. I crave the way he's destroying me.
Eleven.
I stop counting. I can't. My brain is just white noise and heat. I'm coming so many times that my nerves are fried, my body vibrating with a frequency that feels like it's going to shatter my bones.
Rhys is beyond reason now. He’s a beast, a god of obsession, his eyes blacker than the sand beneath us.
He lets out one final, animalistic scream, his body locking up as he delivers one last, deepest-possible thrust. He cums inside me again, a violent surge that feels like it's filling every void in my soul.
The world tilts. The black sand seems to rise up to swallow me. The adrenaline, the fear, and the sheer exhaustion of a dozen orgasms crash over me like a tidal wave.
As Rhys collapses on top of me, his heavy, sweating body pinning me into the grit, the darkness finally wins. My eyes flutter shut, and I faint, slipping into a void where only he exists.