32. Chapter 32
Chapter thirty-two
W illa’s touch has driven me mad since the moment I wrapped my hand around her wrist. The silky slide of her skin, the luxuriant warmth of her body molded against mine; the way she comes alive at the mere brush of my hand, the hungry sweep of my mouth. It resounds through me every moment, an inescapable compulsion for more. More of what I cannot have, of what I don’t deserve.
Willa in all her vicious, wild glory is relief in its purest form. And now as I take her in my arms, it is not only her touch that drives my compulsion, but her fucking sounds.
The small exhale of breath at my sharp pull of her hair. The needy whimper as I run my tongue along the sumptuous pillow of her lower lip. The goddamn moan that starts low in her throat, and echoes through the cavernous room as I fill my other hand with the curve of her breast.
I was right to fear the temptation of respite, right to deny myself even a moment of rapture. For now, there will be nothing else. There will only be the exultation of her, forever chasing after the high of the pleasure she offers. It’s driven straight through me, embedded into my bones. The pain and exhaustion that nearly brought me to my knees only moments before, incinerated by the fire blazing through my veins. Flames stoked higher and higher with every taste of her lips, every brush of her luscious body.
I grip her hair tighter in my fist, taking that mouth that’s always poised for destruction and making it mine. My hot little tongue, my lush lips. Mine.
The word pulses through me, as Willa eagerly meets my tongue stroke for stroke, her hands gripping my shoulders with a desperation that feeds the flame burning low within me. I grip her ass in my free hand, hauling her up against my chest, threading her legs around my waist. Her body is petite and tight, and I hum in approval at the way her soft curves mold to the palms of my hand.
Her muscled thighs grip me, and I nearly growl into her mouth as I feel the pulsing heat of her desire through the layers of our clothes. Together, we slam into the nearest column, rattling the sconces so hard, their flames flicker. Willa laughs into my mouth, a rare, wicked sound that I devour, tasting it as I would a fine wine, growing dizzy on its essence.
Pinning her beneath me, I sweep my mouth over the smooth curve of her throat until I feel the delicate thrum of her pulse beneath her skin. She makes a keening noise as I bite down, grinding her core against my thigh, as my teeth sink into her. Fevered desire barrels through me as the taste of her skin floods my mouth: desire to taste the savage will imbuing her bones, to consume her fiery spirit piece by piece until it is no longer hers, but ours.
“Is this selfish enough for you, Darling?” I murmur against her collarbone, soothing the sting of my bite with a soft flick of my tongue.
“No,” she snarls back, her fingers gripping at the thick leather encasing my chest like she intends to claw her way through it.
“Good,” I laugh darkly, before angling her chin upward and sweeping my tongue along hers. “Because I haven’t even begun to take what I want from you.”
Willa shivers as my death swirls around us, wrapping us in a private cocoon in the middle of the throne room. Tangled strands of hair have come undone from her braid, the caramel and gold tendrils wild around her head. Her cheeks are a delicious shade of rose, the flush trailing over her throat and the delicate angle of her collarbones.
Possessive desire courses through me, as I find my own madness reflected in the dark curve of Willa’s smile; in the reckless spark of her eyes, and the breathless way she says, “Take anything you want, Your Majesty.”
The name pricks beneath my skin just as she means it to, a half-mocking challenge that is so perfectly Willa. Wild and unpredictable as a strike of lightning, and just as fucking dangerous. With a devilish smirk, I slice a ribbon through the front of her clothing in one swift movement. She gasps against me, her eyes glittering in delight as I slowly peel away her shirt and pants, dropping the ruined leather to the floor in a discarded heap without taking my gaze from her.
“That’s a dangerous thing to say to the Lord of Death,” I tell her huskily, taking a small step back to admire her bare form. “Death is the original coveter. It sees what it wants, and it devours it without remorse.”
The words are brutally edged, both a warning and a promise. But Willa only lets out a small hum of pleasure, squeezing her thighs together. My death spears around us, winding through the air in a sensuous rhythm, as I take in the pure fucking decadence of Willa’s body. Years of training have honed her form into a lethal weapon, graceful but powerful. Her small breasts heave with each of her breaths, as I take my time rolling my gaze over her, memorizing her piece by beautiful piece.
And rather than shying away from my gaze, Willa lifts her chin in defiance. Daring me to find fault in her; to run, just as I dared her only a few minutes before. With a devious look, she slips out from beneath me, and saunters over to my throne, her hair tumbling down her back in a silky curtain to frame her perfect ass.
She arranges herself on my throne, her tongue darting out to lick her lips as she stares at me with hooded eyes. “If you want it to be yours, then take it.” Her words are wanton, but they’re edged in a rare vulnerability. She’s asking how truly I want her, like it’s even a fucking question.
There is no question, no fallacy, to the way I want Willa. I want her enough to leave me breathless; enough to forsake every vow, every world, without care for the cost. I want her beneath me, beside me, for as long as I live.
Answer enough, my cock strains against my leather pants at the sight of her—stunning and bare, her supple curves a tantalizing contrast to the rigid lines of the iron throne. The glass windows expand behind her, the swirling night sky and the twinkling lights of Letum framing her olive skin in a wash of colors, haloing her hair.
A queen in her own right. Of the kingdom that should have never been mine, because it belongs to her.
The image brands itself into my heart, scorching every other thought from my head as I prowl toward her. It’s enough to drive every bit of remaining sanity from me, every bit of remorse for taking what I cannot possibly keep. I want to crack open her chest and fit myself inside her fucking ribs. I want to mark that pristine skin; to leave evidence of my hands, my power, of me.
So that no matter what happens—whether she leaves or stays long enough to hate me—there will be an imprint of this moment. An eternal reminder of the power she holds, the strength imbued into her bones with blood and pain; strength that can never be taken from her, never cut down or minimalized, if only she embraces it.
Willa tilts her head with a wanton smile, sliding her hand slowly down one breast, rolling the pink tip lazily between her fingers before continuing downward. She slings a leg over the arm of the throne to sit in the same lascivious manner I do. My mouth waters and my cock aches, as she bares herself entirely to me. Wet, pink, perfect.
I thread my death around my wrists, the agonizing lash of pain the only thing keeping me tethered to reality. Keeping me from lunging at her the same way I had in the atrium, desperate and starving. Because a part of me has always known that Willa is starlight—there one moment and slipping through your fingers the next. I don’t know how long I’ll have her, so if this is it, I’m determined to make it last. To savor every moment.
Willa slides her delicate hand further down her stomach with a wicked grin, meeting and holding my gaze even as another moan works its way out of her throat. Her lashes flutter as I prowl toward her, brazen desire and delicious obstinance burning in those stunning irises. I grip both sides of my throne, leaning over her. Her eyes are lidded and glazed; her cheeks flushed as her glistening fingers begin to move faster.
“You always have to learn the hard way,” I purr.
A hint of uncertainty flickers behind her desire, but I don’t give her the chance to consider it further. Instead, I move between her open thighs, close enough to feel the pulse of her hand against my pants. I lean in, and Willa’s mouth parts as she spreads herself wider to accommodate me.
Her breaths come in short little gasps as she squirms toward me. I can feel the need radiating from her—need to be kissed, to be taken. But I only whisper against her lips, “Death does not share.”
Willa’s answering moan threads through me, scorching my veins, hardening my cock. Her breaths turn to soft whimpers, as she works her sweet center more furiously. “You like that, don’t you Darling?” Willa’s entire body is flushed, ripe and beautiful beneath me. “My violence, my possession. You crave it.”
Willa nods desperately as her eyes roll closed, pushing her breasts toward me, wetting her lips with her tongue. Feral, wild thing, she’s so close to the edge, I can practically smell it.
“I don’t think you understand what it means, Willa.”
With a dark laugh, I unwind my ribbons from my wrist, and faster than she can react, wrap them tightly around hers. Pulling her hand up to the armrest of the throne, I bind her there. Her eyes fly open, and she exhales furiously at the shock of pain, the denial of the pleasure she chases.
“It means…your pleasure is mine, ” I growl, the sound more animal than human.
Willa’s mouth pops open and her eyes flare, even as she moves her other hand to her pink center. Stubborn, brave, brash woman. With another laugh, I bind that one as well, and a moan escapes from between her lips. Willa chases pain the way she chases pleasure, and I will be her king of both.
She squirms desperately, her gaze both furious and dazed, as I take hold of the throne and spin the chair to face the windows.
“Is that what you want to hear, Darling? That you’re mine? That I’ll fucking kill anyone who touches you?”
Her lashes flutter as she writhes against my death’s hold, straining, not to get away, but to draw closer. To press herself against my death, to lose herself in the pleasure and agony of it.
“Say it,” I command.
Her eyes are hateful and glazed, as they meet mine. “Yes,” she admits breathlessly. “I want to know every horrible thing you’d do to keep me.”
She doesn’t understand what she asks; the terrible things I’d do to keep her beside me. The ways I’ve dreamed of trapping her here, locking her away in the Lunaedon forever. Because though she is naked and vulnerable and lovely, spread like a feast before me, she is the one who holds the power. The power to steal away my respite, my relief—the illuminating beauty in my world of darkness.
Her breathing turns short, labored, and for a moment, I admire the way my darling endures pain. With small gasps, with trembling muscles. She doesn’t fight against it. She allows it into her, to edge her pleasure even higher. And I understand her need, the one buried in her bones—if we control the pain, we control its hold over us. We reorder it into something that cannot harm us, but instead, defines the good with its brutality.
“Tell me, Niko,” she begs, gazing up at me in a way that sears through my chest. “Please.”
I smile darkly. “A king kneels before no one, Willa. Not his enemies, not his subjects.” I release my knees, sliding over her body, as I fall to the ground before her. “But I will get on my knees for you. Every fucking day.”
Willa whimpers, as I run my fingers over her inner thigh reverently, pressing my mouth to the soft skin. She shivers wildly, and pleasure spreads through me at her eager response to my touch. To the rest of the world, Willa is cold as steel—hard and unfeeling.
But with me, she’s fucking electric.
“Look out at the world, Darling.” I say, inhaling deeply, letting the scent of her arousal burrow into my brain. “Look at everything I’d burn to the ground for you.”
She doesn’t know how true it is. What I’m giving up by giving in, and how fiercely I’ll hate myself for it later.
Willa’s answering moan echoes off the spiraling ceilings, before resounding back to surround us both, as I finally lean in to taste her, to devour her the way I’ve imagined since the moment I held her on the beach. I lick her in deliberate strokes, groaning into the heated center of her as her taste explodes in my mouth. Circling her entrance before running my tongue back up to her swollen bundle of nerves.
Though I swore to savor her, there is nothing languishing about the way I lick her. Her sweet, wet warmth is silk beneath my tongue, her taste emptying every thought from my head, but the need to take more. It’s an unyielding yearning, an addiction of the worst sort, that I’ll never be able to outrun.
I have not felt anything but the ice of death in two centuries, and the divine pleasure of Willa is enough to bring a lump of emotion to my throat. I am pain, death, emptiness. But Willa—she is so fucking full, so vibrant and beautiful, it humbles me to the point of tears.
She vibrates with pleasure, her hips bucking up toward my mouth as I take her clit between my lips and suck. Her eyes roll back, as she grinds against my tongue, my laugh of dark pleasure skittering over her.
“Eyes forward, Willa.”
They snap open at my command, dazed with carnal desire. I reward her rare obedience by pressing two fingers into her, nearly coming undone at the tight way her body clenches around them. I work her furiously with my mouth, and though she’s taking pleasure in my ministrations, I’m taking far more.
Always fucking taking. But what was once my most damning quality feels right in this moment. I’ll take everything Willa offers me, every small piece, every fraction of time.
She shudders wildly, crying out as I scrape my teeth softly over her clit, and then soothe it with the flat of my tongue. Her fingers rake through my hair, digging into my scalp, pulling me closer. Her taste is fucking divine, and I devour her with a fervor closing on insanity as she rides my face.
“I’m going to—Niko, I’m so close—”
Her husky voice slides through me like silk, and with one more furious pump of my fingers, curled to hit the right spot inside her, Willa comes apart. Her skin flushes, and her climax floods my mouth. I drink down every bit of it with relish, licking her clean, sucking at her swollen lips.
I lap her taste from my fingers with a groan, and it dives relentlessly into my skull. A rhythmic chant of mine, mine, mine.
She watches me with that feral gaze, her body limp and flushed on my throne. For a moment, I’m overcome by humility—Willa is stunning, a goddess of fire and vengeance, and I’m the one she allowed to satisfy her. And if that’s all I ever get, I’ll spend the rest of my life thanking the star above for a moment of beauty in a life filled with only pain.
But Willa has other ideas, as my death releases her. She fists her fingers in my hair, tugging me over her. Her mouth collides with mine, a furious clash of tongue and teeth that leaves both of us breathless. She claws at my leather tunic with her nails, breaking our kiss only to pull it over my head. My shirt follows, discarded into a pile on the floor.
She yanks at the waist of my pants, dragging them down to palm the length of my cock. I groan at the feel of her small hand, at the feel of her. The vibrancy of her magic dancing with the dark void of mine is enough to undo me completely; to untether me from earth and send me floating through time.
It’s what has drawn me to her since the beginning: the multitudes she contains. The way every piece of her was made to fit every piece of me. A perfect balance.
Willa leaps at me, and I rock back on my heels as I press her body to mine. As I revel in the soft brush of her skin, her lush breasts against the hard planes of my chest, the curves of her ass in my palms. Shedding my pants, I carry her to the window and set her on her feet. She gazes up at me in question, one I answer with a devilish grin. Spinning her around, I press her bare body against the glass pane.
My death spirals around her, the onyx ribbons only accentuating the way her skin glows in the soft lights of Letum shining through the glass.
“Someone will see,” she breathes, even as she presses her palms above her head.
I stand behind her, drinking in the reflection of us in the window.
“Good,” I tell her, stroking the head of my cock through her hot, wet center. “Let them see your power, Darling. Let them see the way you command the Carrion King, the way you revel in my death.”
Willa’s fingers splay over the glass, and she raises herself up to the balls of her feet, shimmying eagerly toward me. Her hair spills down her back in a shimmering curtain, as she gazes at me over her shoulder, eyes viciously dark and wild. I dig my fingers into her hips and lock onto her eyes, falling into the splashes of gold and green as I slide slowly into her.
I languish in her warmth, stretching her inch by inch, luxuriating in the way her body grips me, pulls me in. When I’m seated fully inside her, hands gripping her hips, my death spirals out around us both.
Unbidden, a wave of emotion spills through me. Scorching hot against the cold of my death, it lodges in my throat and radiates through my veins, and for the first time in my life, I feel warm.
Perhaps after all these years, I’ve finally gone mad. As I dig the pads of my fingers into her soft thighs, it certainly feels like it. Like Willa’s pulled me from the wasted shell of a body wracked in agony and weakness and given me something whole.
Her toes rise off the floor as she wiggles back onto my cock, seating me so deeply inside of her I let out a groan of satisfaction. My control has always been a tenuous thing—little more than a fraying thread. And as I begin to move inside her, that control frays thinner and thinner with every flex of her muscled legs, with every moan that escapes her lips.
My power rakes through me as I grip Willa tighter, moving into her with rhythmic thrusts. I pepper kisses along her spine, tasting her skin and sweat, before placing my own hands over hers, leveraging myself against the glass to fuck her harder. She meets me thrust for thrust, her lashes fluttering, her decadent mouth whimpering and moaning as she takes me so well.
“Take as much of it as you need, Willa,” I urge her, an echo of my earlier promise. “Be that selfish little thing I know you are.” She cries out as I drive into her. “Take my death and my relief.”
Willa needs no encouragement. “Harder,” she pleads, half-moaning and entirely desperate. “Please,” she begs. “I need you.”
Her words wind around my heart, as tight and heated as her body. An eternal tether, binding me to her, carving her into my bones and branding her on my skin.
I weave our fingers together, leveraging my body to drive deeper, to hit the spot that makes her fucking shudder around me. I’m panting in her ear, sliding my mouth along her throat, pressing her more firmly against the glass.
“Please, Niko,” she cries out.
“Who knew such a vicious creature possessed such exquisite manners?” I whisper against her throat, thrusting into her as my own pleasure tightens at the base of my spine. “Say it again.”
“Please,” she practically sobs, as I reach between her body and the window to massage the apex of her thighs.
“ My name ,” I growl, punctuating each word with a thrust so hard, Willa has to lift to her toes.
She meets my gaze over her shoulder once more, and a thrill shoots through me at the perfect defiance lining her expression. Because I may have Willa sprawled out before me, taking her for mine before the whole fucking kingdom, but she will never cede to me. Not for one second since the moment we met, and certainly not now.
And I love her for it. For her fight.
“Your Majesty,” she drawls in mocking, even as the warmth of her clenches so tightly around me, I think I’ll die with the pleasure of it.
Instead, I withdraw, long enough to spin her around and haul her up against the glass. I slide back into her at the same time I wrap my fingers around her delicate throat. I’m rewarded by a keening moan as she writhes on my cock, her eyes rolling back as I slowly restrict her air. As I fuck her against the stained glass.
“Say it, Willa,” I command, taking in every sound, every small expression. Memorizing the beauty of it all, the feel of it.
She’s abandoned any attempt to hold herself up, clinging to me as I move into her, her tits bouncing with each hard thrust. Moaning and wild, she rolls her hips, digs her heels into my ass, pulling me further into her, clawing her way closer.
“Corpsey,” she manages breathlessly, a small smile tugging at her mouth. I’d laugh if I were capable, but the only sound I manage is a savage snarl. I squeeze her throat harder, sweeping my mouth over hers. Our tongues clash, the sweet taste of her earlier climax mingling between us.
Her pulse flutters against my palm. “My name, Darling.”
Willa laughs wildly, even as I slow my thrusts, giving her only enough to soothe the jagged edge of her ache.
“Carrion King.”
Her eyes glint in delight, as she raises her chin to fully bare her throat to me. The gesture settles in my chest like an explosion as I tighten my grip.
“You’ll say my name, Willa, even if it’s with your last breath,” I tell her, leaning into her with my entire weight. Pressing her against the cold glass plane, every part of me sinking into every part of her.
Her mouth parts with a breathy moan, and her lashes flutter as I work my fingers more furiously. She clenches around me, and I nearly lose it at how tight she is, the pure decadence of being buried inside her.
“ Niko,” she moans, writhing against me, meeting me stroke for stroke. Chasing her pain and her pleasure.
My name is a wanton song, a fucking prayer, in her mouth. I wrap my arms around her, gripping her to me, keeping our rhythm as I carry her from the window and lay her gently on the floor. Her hair spreads across the marble like a golden halo, and as I sink into her, the wave of emotions—the warmth, the humility, the awe—spill from me entirely, a deluge of feeling.
“I thought you wanted the entire kingdom to watch you take me,” she says breathlessly, her fingers caressing over my spine and digging into my ass.
“I told you…your pleasure is mine,” I growl, leaning down to swirl my tongue over the taut tip of her breast.
“Yes,” she agrees, her lush body squirming beneath me.
Pleasure ratchets behind my spine, pulling tight, as I gaze down at Willa. She was beautiful when she was cold as steel, but now—she’s ethereal. Her hair is a mess, her lips swollen and red. Every inch of her tanned skin is flushed and sweaty. Satisfaction threads through me as I take in what I’ve done to her, the mark I’ve left behind.
The sight of it is enough to slice through the remaining tendril of my control.
And for the first time I can remember, I don’t try to keep hold. I give myself over to pleasure rather the pain, give myself entirely to Willa. Because she is the one person I don’t have to be controlled around.
The thought sparks inside me, an explosion of pure indulgence that shakes me down to the bone. That reshapes me at the core.
With Willa, there is no need to be gentle. No need to be light.
She only needs me as I am. Selfish, dark. Death.
And as she meets the obsidian depths of my gaze, I feel the truth of it. There is no hesitation in her face, only pure acceptance and wild need.
So I unmask.
I let go of my death, of the barrier I’ve always tried to hold between myself and my magic. My consciousness flows into the ribbons at the same time death floods my veins, and I want to fucking sob at the relief of it all. I drive into Willa with newfound fervor, and with each thrust, my power rises to my skin like she’s called it there.
The euphoria scrambles every thought but us: her skin, my power. Her fire, my drive. It all mingles together so furiously, I think I’ll combust with the sheer fullness of it. It presses at my skin, sinks into my bones, as my death comes undone, untethered, and spears into the air. The ribbons careen through one of the giant window panes, shattering the glass. But Willa’s power is there in perfect answer. She freezes the world around us, the raining glass slowing to a stop in the air, a physical manifestation of the way Willa has shattered me.
And through everything, Willa anchors me to it all—the pleasure, the pain. She is the tether I’ve always needed. Her eyes never leave mine as we move together, as I drive inside her, deeper and deeper.
“Everything, Niko,” she breathes, the words electric beneath my skin. “Give me everything.”
I give her exactly what she asks for, threading a ribbon around her throat; binding another around her hands. She cries out, clenching around me as the pleasure and the pain, the relief of my power and the agony of it, mingle together over her skin. As her power of creation rises in answer.
With one last ribbon, I bind Willa to me and lose myself entirely. She comes hard, a sharp cry on her lips, body tightening and shivering as she rides the rush of her climax. Waves of fractal light, the infinite color of the stars, spill from her in time with her pleasure. The sight of her, bound in my magic and in control of her own, sends my own climax tearing through me. With a groan, our powers singing over our skin, I spill into her.
Together, we collapse in a sweat-slick heat, her body entangled beneath mine. And I don’t want to let her go; don’t want to take my eyes off her for even a moment, lest she disappear. I don’t want to see the world around us, a world that will force us apart, that will make her hate me. That will steal everything good between us, and turn it to rot just like everything else I touch.
Willa smiles up at me, shy but luminous, and I grip her tighter. My heart feels like it might explode—like every emotion I’ve spent centuries burying will burst through it at any moment.
But as my breathing evens, my fingers begin to spasm. Slowly, at first, and then more viciously, as the pain that lay dormant while I was enraptured in her rises up to ensnare me, my despair along with it. It was foolish to hope the agony would abate forever; stupid to believe that just because I drowned in Willa’s fullness, I, too, could become full.
Splitting pain slices through my skull, and my skin grows tight over the corrosive feel of my joints. My fingers tremor again, violently enough that, this time, Willa notices. I try to push away as her brow furrows in concern; to hide my face from her before my body betrays me entirely. Before she can see the true depths of my weakness—the way my magic decays everything from the inside out.
But now that Willa has known the depths of me, there is no unknowing. She catches my face between her soft hands, dragging my gaze back to hers.
“I said I want everything,” she says softly. “I told you to tell me everything. That doesn’t just mean the things I want to hear. It means tell me your pain, Niko. Tell me all of it.”
For a moment, I consider it. Telling her everything, drowning her in the weight of my self-hatred and my mistakes; telling her the way I’ve split myself apart trying to make them right, only to spiral back into my selfish ways. That I’ve taken something for mine I don’t deserve, something I cannot have if I ever want the pain to end.
But I don’t say anything, because the taste of her is still in my mouth, the feel of her branded into my skin. And as weak as it is, I can’t give it up yet. So instead, I settle for the closest thing I have to a truth.
“Darling, there is no pain when you’re near. You are adytum in a lifetime of purgatory.”