Chapter 13 Rhianelle #3
They are not the only ones with tricks.
I drag myself up onto shaking arms. The wingless one is right there, close enough to touch, still wearing that smug grin. Before either of them understands what I am doing, I crawl across the sheets and take him in my mouth.
The sound that rips from the wingless one is guttural and completely undone.
“Fuck,” he chokes out. His hands fly to my head, fingers tangling in my hair while I work him with my tongue.
I can barely breathe. The winged one is still inside me, still moving, each thrust driving me forward onto the wingless one.
“What are you doing?” the winged one starts, and I feel his rhythm falter behind me. My body screams that this is too much, that I cannot take being filled from both ends while my legs are shaking and tears are streaming down my face.
But I refuse to stop.
Because when he hits the back of my throat and I swallow, the winged one groans behind me.
They are connected.
Whatever I do to one, the other feels. The realization sparks through me. I hollow my cheeks and take him deeper.
“Gods, Rhianelle." His voice is barely there. "You'll be the death of me. I'm going to—”
The wingless one’s fingers spasm in my hair. His hips jerk forward. The sound he makes is wrecked and completely destroyed. I look up at him through my lashes and his masked face is tilted toward the ceiling. The tendons in his neck stand out like cords and he is close. So close.
Behind me, the winged one grips my hips hard enough to bruise. He drives into me faster, as if he feels what his other self feels.
I suck harder. My tongue works the underside, tracing the ridge. I do everything I can and the wingless one breaks.
He comes with a shattered groan that echoes off the bedroom walls. His whole body locks as salt and heat flood my mouth.
The magic that held him together unravels. He is dissolving, fading slowly into the darkness around us. His hands in my hair are the last thing to go. Then he is gone. Nothing remains but the warmth and the taste of him lingering on my tongue.
The loss of him in front of me pitches me forward. My cheek hits the mattress.
“Do not expect me to vanish so easily,” the winged one says. With nothing in front of me to brace against, every thrust from him drives impossibly deeper. His pace turns savage, hips slamming forward with a force that shoves me up the bed.
“Wait—” I try to push myself up. “I need—”
The winged one’s hand presses between my shoulder blades and pins me flat against the sheets. He is only giving me quick, shallow thrusts but by the gods, they’re hitting all the right places.
Oh, no. This cannot be happening again.
He slams forward and buries himself to the hilt. His hand slips between my thighs, grinding his thumb against my clit. The combination of fullness and pressure sends me hurtling over the edge.
I scream and come so hard my vision goes black. My fingers twist in the sheets to brace against the overwhelming sensation, but it swallows me whole. Behind me, his rhythm slows. He pulls free and I crumble face down into the sheets.
The world slowly returns. I am lying face down on the sheets, my legs still twitching with aftershocks. Every muscle in my body feels wrung out. Emptied. I don’t think I can move even if I want to.
“Clever little fawn,” he murmurs. “But it’s not over yet.”
The winged one rolls me over. His hand closes around my thigh and spreads my legs apart. I whimper because I have nothing left. My body is spent, hollowed out, barely mine anymore. If it is possible to die from pleasure, I am certain this is how.
"Please," I sob. "I can't take any more."
His tongue drags up the column of my throat and his teeth scrape against my pulse. I wipe the tears from my face with the back of my hand and steel myself for whatever comes next.
Something moves in the dark.
The shadow vines erupt from the floor. They do not reach for me.
They reach for him.
Dark tendrils lash around his wrists, ankles and waist. They yank him off me and drag him backward, leaving a rush of cold air between us.
His wings snap open on instinct but the vines are already there, coiling around the membrane and pinning them flat against his back.
He thrashes. The veins in his neck stand out as he wrenches against the bindings. More tendrils pour from the walls and ceiling. They string him up like a fly caught in a spider's web, leaving him suspended and furious.
"What are you doing?" he snarls at the shadows. His own shadows. The ones that have obeyed him without question in every dream before this.
They do not answer. They tighten.
I stare from the bed, too stunned to move. The most powerful creature I have ever encountered is hanging from his own darkness, muscles straining, wings pinned, completely trapped.
Something soft drapes over my shoulders. I flinch before I realize it is a blanket. A shadow vine has pulled it from the bed and wrapped it around me gently.
“Thank you,” I whisper. My voice is still trembling.
The vine brushes once against my cheek. It nuzzles softly before retreating.
I pull the blanket tighter and sit up slowly. My legs shake when I stand. On the bedside table, a teacup sits steaming beside a small plate of biscuits. Neither was there a moment ago.
A vine lifts the teapot and tips it carefully, filling the cup to the brim without spilling a single drop. It sets the teapot back down and nudges the plate of biscuits closer to me, as though worried I might miss them.
I pick up the cup. The tea is warm and sweet, exactly the blend I like. I take a biscuit and bite into it while watching the masked man thrash against the vines. Crumbs fall onto my blanket. I brush them off.
He is furious. Magnificent and furious. Every pull of his arms makes the vines creak but they hold. The shadow pours more of itself into the bindings each time he nearly breaks free.
“Let me go,” he snarls at the darkness. The vines tighten. “Traitorous, useless—” Another tendril wraps around his chest and cinches. He bares his teeth. “When I get free, I am burning every shadow in this palace to ash.”
The vine beside the teapot ignores his ridiculous threat entirely.
I set the teacup down and wipe my eyes with the heel of my palm.
A tendril inches toward me across the floor. I flinch, and it freezes. The vine sags, curling in on itself. It retreats a few inches and waits there. Guilt pricks at my chest.
“I’m sorry, but earlier you bound me with my hands behind my back,” I tell the vine quietly.
The tendril wilts against the floor. Its tip curls inward, as though it cannot bear to look at me. After a moment, it slinks closer and coils into a small, apologetic loop at my feet.
“You want to make it up to me?” I ask.
The vine perks up.
In one sudden motion, the tendril yanks the masked man free from the tangle of shadows suspending him. He crashes down and the vines drag him to the bedpost. They pin his hands against the wood.
His wings crumple against the post, folded at an angle that cannot be comfortable. His chest heaves.
The vines knot themselves tight and settle, coiling back with the smug satisfaction of a job well done.
I did not expect that.
I walk toward him slowly. My legs are still unsteady. He wrenches against the bindings hard enough to make the bedpost groan, and I freeze.
For one terrible second, I think the shadows will not hold. The muscles in his arms bulge with effort as the dark tendrils stretch thin.
They hold.
I let out a breath and look at him properly. His tunic hangs open, baring the scarred planes of his chest, and his breeches sit low on his hips. Dark hair falls across the mask in damp strands, his jaw clenched tight enough to crack stone.
Not so frightening now that he is tied up.
My gaze drops lower. He is hard. Painfully, desperately hard, straining against his breeches. The sight of it sends a sharp pulse of heat through me despite everything my body has already endured.
I did that to him. After all the chasing and relentless pursuit, he is the one left aching.
“Rhianelle.” The fury has vanished from his voice. What remains is raw and stripped bare, a tone I have never heard from him before. “Please. Give the rings back. They are all I have left.”
The words hit somewhere behind my ribs. This is not a command or a threat.
It is a plea. Of all the treasures and magnificent things within this palace, he is begging me for two small rings hidden in my dress.
The way his voice breaks on the word please tells me these are more than treasures to him.
They are a lifeline to something he has already lost.
My chest aches. I want to give them back. I almost do.
Instead, I just stare at him. The proud, powerful creature is pinned to his own bedpost, asking me for mercy with the same mouth that showed me none.
Something shifts inside me. The exhaustion is still there, bone-deep and real, but beneath it a different hunger stirs.
I want him.
I think I have recovered enough.
I ease onto the bed and move closer. Burning eyes follow every movement through the mask. I place one hand flat against his chest. His heart hammers against my palm.
I climb into his lap and wrap my fingers around him. He hisses through his teeth.
“Untie me,” he says. “Untie me and I'll—”
“No.” I hold his gaze through the mask and sink down slowly.
The sound he makes is strangled. His head falls back against the bedpost, the lines of his neck pulled taut. The bindings creak as he strains against them. His knuckles whiten against the wood while every muscle in his body fights for control.
“Rhianelle, don’t—” His voice fails him.
I settle fully and hold still. His jaw clenches. A vein pulses at his temple. He is shaking beneath me from the effort of not moving.
I rise slowly. Then sink back down. Shallow, unhurried, savoring every fraction of the descent.
“This is cruel,” he says through his teeth.
I roll my hips and watch his face contort. "Hmm. Now you know how it feels."