CHAPTER 8
OUT AT SEA
Present Day
Itear the hand from my throat. No. My shoulder.
I deliver a blow to the arm that swings around to pin me.
Demon, my mind screams, Murderer. I push myself off the ground.
No. Off my cot. Whisps of shadow curl off the dark form attacking me, obscuring its features.
The demon is a full head taller than I am, broad at the shoulders and well muscled.
I search the ground for the bloody sword, but there is no blade to be found.
It raises a hand, stepping toward me, mumbling something I can’t discern.
I strike quickly, grabbing the demon’s arm and throwing a knee to its side.
It leans into the blow, cushioning the impact, and holds my leg against its side, moving forward to tip my balance.
I push off the ground with my free leg, letting it bear my weight on the leg secured at its side, throwing the force into a spinning kick that it barely dodges.
My leg glances off its head. It is faster than I am, stronger too.
I am going to die in a bloody heap on the floor just like them. I know it.
The demon growls, an unintelligible, guttural sound, shifting its weight until I am truly off balance.
I begin to fall, and it hooks an arm around my waist before I collapse onto the floor.
It throws me against the wall, pinning my hips with its own, before catching my wrists in one hand and securing them above my head.
Breathe, I demand of myself, Breathe.
But it isn’t my voice I hear.
“Breathe. Vari, wake up. You’re all right. It isn’t real.” The voice turns gentle.
Safe. You’re safe. It isn’t real.
A familiar scent fills my lungs, calming the demon that roils inside me. I lean into him, taking a deep breath, resting my head in the crook of his neck. His grip on my wrists slackens.
“I’m here,” he murmurs.
“Kesh?” My voice breaks.
“Yes,” he says.
He wraps his arms around me and pulls me close as my body begins to shake. This is about the time I would normally be letting Bront land a blow or two in the sparring ring, to refocus my mind.
“What do you need?”
What do I need? I need to start wearing a night dress to bed.
With that thought, I peel myself out of his arms and take a step away from the man, pressing my back against the wall as I will the world to come back into focus.
Vakesh keeps his eyes on my face as I stand before him baring more than my naked body.
The man just witnessed a sliver of the demon that torments me.
A dim candle sits on a small shelf by the door, its warm glow highlighting the sheen of sweat on his bare torso. I wonder when he came, how much he’d seen, and how it is that he always seems to know when I need him.
“I heard you screaming,” he says, as if he can read my every thought.
“I’m sorry.”
“No,” he says, sternly, “I am sorry. I shouldn’t have left you the way I did. I should have stayed. Made sure you…” His jaw feathers as his lips draw a thin line.
He takes a step toward me and leans against the wall. Towering over me, he braces a thick well-muscled arm on either side.
He takes a deep breath and gently repeats his question, his demand, “Tell me what you need.”
I press a hand to his chest and puff out a breath. “I need to spar.”
“I think we already tried that.” He smiles, placing his hand over mine reassuringly. “But I’m not opposed to another round.”
I eye the small space and consider it. I’m shocked when I find that nothing was broken in our skirmish, but I seriously doubt the rickety furniture adorning the room will make it through another bout.
I check on the darkness inside me, finding it coiled like a snake. It isn’t sleeping but it isn’t roiling either. It waits, for what I have no idea. The feeling is unnerving.
“Where do you find your release when you spar?” he asks. “Is it your control in the ring?”
“No.” I shake my head. “It’s when I let that control slip, when I let go and lean into the chaos.”
His brows shoot up and he smiles his understanding.
He knows the feeling, every Drakai does.
Control is life and to lack it often leads to one’s demise.
To embrace the chaos is to go against our very nature but to be at ease in that space, to be settled when you lack control, is also necessary and a far more difficult lesson to learn.
“No wonder you are struggling with your lessons.” He smiles wickedly, wrapping a calloused hand around my throat. “Tell me to stop and it ends,” he whispers, giving me a moment to end it before it even begins.
I hold his gaze, saying nothing, willing myself to let that control slip. His hips press against mine, pinning me to the wall of my cabin. I consider that this is the same lesson he taught me when he settled me onto his lap. It is, but it isn’t.
This feels … different. Almost as if we are sparring, but not quite. His hips roll against me, his hard length rocking against the sensitive nub of nerves above my core. I moan at the friction and his hand tightens around my throat.
My fingers tangle in the locks of his hair.
He lets go of my neck and collects my wrists, pinning them above my head.
I’m vaguely aware that this is the same position he was holding me in when I woke from my bloody vision, but its meaning is altogether different.
He leans into me, his chest pressing against mine, his lips brushing against the ridge of my shoulder in featherlight sweeps.
Closer, I need him closer.
He pushes a hand between us, and the friction of his pants is replaced by his palm. He snakes a single finger against my core, parting me, and my stomach clenches as his breathing quickens against the tingling skin of my neck.
“Kesh,” I whisper, “I want more.”
His body stills against my own, rigid with hesitation, a low rumble forming deep within his chest.
“There is only so much I can give you right now, mi’ajna,” he says, his voice tinged in regret.
I push him back until I can see the dark pools of his eyes then lean toward him with an offering of parted lips, my gaze dipping to his mouth.
He tenses, his eyes flicking to my lips then back to my eyes as the rumble in his chest grows.
I can feel the heat of his breath on my skin along with all the hesitation spooling in his body.
I see the moment he holds himself back from me, and I bury the loss before it snags on the threads of my heart, unwilling to let it spoil what he is willing to give me in this moment.
“I want everything,” I say softly, wholly aware that I have no idea what I am asking for but wanting all of him, nonetheless.
“You ask for too much.” I watch a silent battle rage in his eyes.
“Don’t think about it,” I say, offering him some of his own advice, and before he can protest, I hook my legs around his waist, settling the heat of my core against the thick length beneath his pants.
He presses into me, pushing my back against the wall to hold my weight as his hands hook my thighs right below my ass.
Resting his head against mine he whispers, “You’re already going to hate me for this.”
I don’t want to think about all the ways this can end poorly. I want to tell him there is nothing he could ever do to make me hate him. But right now, I just need him to stay.
“Say stop and it ends,” I tell him, the words fleeing my lungs in a breathy whisper. I push my hand down, grabbing a handful of the hard shaft between us.
Even buffered by the fabric of his pants he shudders at the connection and his hips buck against my arm.
With a growl, he spins us around, dropping me onto my cot and draping himself over me.
His eyes are ablaze with something akin to the darkness I fight within myself.
I wonder what demons haunt the master of shadow.
He drags my hand from between us, bringing it to his lips.
Brushing my knuckles against them, he sucks my thumb into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it.
My core tightens when he pulls it out with a wet pop.
He presses his thumb against my bottom lip, my mouth opening at his silent command.
My tongue works its way around the digit, just as his did mine.
His chest vibrates with a rumble as he watches, before pulling his thumb out with a satisfied smile.
“Good girl,” he says, and those two simple words begin to unravel me.
He circles the sensitive nub above my core with the same thumb, warm and slick, as he presses himself against my entrance. My body clenches and my hips rise to meet him. Frustration frays the edges of my pleasure when I feel the press of the thin fabric of his pants between us.
He lightly flicks that tender nub before soothing it with another caress and the demon roils inside me.
My body begins to shake beneath him as my hands wind their way down his sides.
They steal memories of the hard lines of his body, tucking them away for safekeeping, before my fingers slide beneath his pants, pushing them down his legs.
He catches my hands and pulls at his pants until they rest securely around his waist again, before he fists my hair, pulling my head back to expose my neck. He grazes his teeth along the lobe of my ear, the heat of his breath teasing fine whisps of hair when he whispers, “So greedy.”
I whimper as two fingers spread the entrance of my core and another slides right down the center. His thumb strums my sensitive nub and his fingers dip inside me, shallow and taunting as he issues a near silent demand, “Come for me, mi’ajna.”
With that simple command I come undone. His lips brush the crook of my neck, and he sighs deeply when my back arches, pressing my breasts against his chest, his body shuddering as if he too found his release.
His fingers sweep over me through the duration of my peak.
Slowly, when my shattered soul settles back into my body and I collapse fully onto the cot, his attentions cease.