Chapter 4 #2
"Silas." Every predatory instinct in my body hones in on my wife, on her open fist, on those incredible eyes, sparkling with malice. Hunger erupts and I become ravenous, desperate in a way I have never felt. "Bring me his soul, Bonded."
My body moves on her command, the tether snapping to release my stay, and I tear off through the rows of corn, circling my prey.
This will not be quick— I will make him feel every minute of that pyre we endured.
The thought battens against my skull as I hunt him, suck in a lungful of his fear.
It is delectable and my mouth waters, the empty hollow of my chest cracking wide.
Benjamin calls out for the same salvation his wife did, lost and disoriented, but just aware enough for the most basic parts of his mind to understand what is to come.
I stalk his steps, herding him closer to the Ash wood altar, terrorizing the last moments he will spend on this earth with the anxiety of being captured.
I am close enough to taste the salty sweat of his skin on the air, to lap up the sweet fear that wafts over the putrid stench of his rotting soul, close enough to see the terror in his eyes as my fiery maw reflects in his black-blown pupils.
“Are you a demon?” he cries. My twisted smile widens.
“I am a devourer.”
This is not the only body Mercy has brought back from the brink, but I will be the only one leaving this killing field tonight.
***
Three Turns of the Wheel Past
Screams pierce the night, clawing against my ears.
My eyes fly open, heart racing as Mercy thrashes beside me, a twisted snare of red hair and flailing limbs.
She cries out on a broken sob, naked chest arched to the ceiling, pale skin bathed in the blue hues of moonlight.
I reach for her, and she writhes more, shaking and screaming her agony into our home.
"Witchling, open your eyes, come now," I urge gently, wrapping my hands around her body and dragging it to mine.
Her skin is sweat-soaked, somehow scorching and balmy at once, and she shakes, trembling at an unseen terror I cannot defeat.
The scrape of her nails against the flesh of my arms cuts deep, but she clings to me, the whites of her eyes searching for my voice.
I keep talking.
Whisper against her temple words of comfort, coaxing her from the terrors of her mind, calling my Bonded home. My arms bind around her, locking a tight embrace but her feet extend, muscles bunched, convulsing.
"Shhh, shh, I have you. I am here, Vígdís.
" I say her ancient name against her flesh, one I called a thousand turns of the Wheel ago when we spoke our vows, entwined our essences forevermore.
Her terror ends as rapidly as it began, and my breath releases in relief the moment she goes still in my arms, the tension loosing as she rouses.
The peaks of her breasts rise and fall on labored breaths, her back plastered against my chest, and I say it once more, breaking our rules.
"Breathe for me, Vígdís, there you are." For a hundred turns of the Wheel, she has been Mercy and I have been Silas, but tonight, the power of her blood cares not what she is called.
"Bj?rnson?" she whimpers, head turning, eyes still searching.
I gently slide her body down, help her twist so we are heart to heart, so she can see my eyes.
Her hands draw up to my face, fingertips scraping across the short hair of my beard, the bones of my cheek, sweeping back fallen strands from my eyes.
Thousands of mortal lives lived and died since then, many names between us, but the first remains most precious to me.
"There you are," I coo, gazing into her blue eyes.
They remind me of the glaciers, of water breaking against jagged mountains of ice—of home.
Mercy's head falls against mine, foreheads pressed together as sweat beads and drips over her temple.
I hold her close, palm stroking against her back, hand over skin soothing and protective.
In my arms, she is safe. She gulps in air, and as it always is, her body reaches for mine to ground her, an anchor to this realm.
And as it will always be, I offer myself, sinking into her warmth like a key to lock, our bodies fitting effortlessly.
She moans, and I am enveloped in her tight warmth.
Hands roam, tongues twist and taste, nails scrape and when she sinks her teeth into my bottom lip, I growl against her mouth, taking the control she so freely offers.
Straddled above me, she rides, every rock of her body rooting her here. To me.
I sit forward, kissing down her neck, over her chest, tongue swirling around the tightened peak of her pebbled nipple.
She cries out, moaning my name, not Silas, or Richard or Louis.
"Bj?rnson!" she pants and it awakens me, turns my body and soul feral for her.
My hips punch up into her squeezing cunt, and I groan against her flesh, sucking and biting until her hands scrape against my scalp, tearing strands from root.
She comes on a breathy cry that steals my own release.
My hips surge, locking us together as I spill inside of her, curses falling from both of our lips as I collapse back against the bed, dragging her with me.
We share bated breaths, and she steals my eyes, searching them, reaching into the very essence of my soul as I soak inside of her, content and sated.
"Do you wish to talk about it?" I ask, quietly, pressing a kiss to the tip of her nose. Mercy folds her hands over my chest, rests her chin on them and considers. She looks rattled, deeply troubled in a way she has not been in many turns.
"I was burning," she rasps, swallowing around the words. My eyes narrow.
"You were burning? Or through another's eyes?"
"A Kindred's eyes," she clarifies, and I force myself to settle at such unsettling revelation.
"Another Kindred so close is rare. It has been how many turns since we last encountered one?" I search my memories.
"A hundred and fifty more, at least. Trials are coming to this land, Silas.
I hoped that we might have outrun them…but there is a Kindred close, and if we do not interfere, she will burn.
" She bites down on her lip, worry shuddering through her body.
The movement causes us both to moan, and though I hate to do it, I slip a hand between us, shifting her hips to pull myself free.
"If Witch Trials are coming, then we need to protect you," I reason.
She opens her mouth to protest, but I shove two fingers back deep inside her, curling slowly, palm pressed against the nerves of her mound.
"Let me finish," I chide, stealing her breath.
Mercy nods weakly and I continue to stroke her with one hand, push her sweat dampened hair from her face with the other.
"You will ward the house and land, and I will retrieve the Kindred.
It will be less suspicious if I were to appear in town, and we both know I am far less likely to be accused. "
She shakes her hand, lips parting but that protest dies on a wail as I pull free of her cunt, and lay a tight slap against her.
"Do not argue with me on this," I warn, voice soft and low and deadly and because she knows I am right to be cautious, she nods, relenting.
I have knelt before her, followed this woman to the edges of the earth and I rarely steal control, save for when she asks of it, with our bodies and pleasure.
On this, however, I will not relent.
"Good. Now that is settled, would you like to come again?
" I tease, pleased, dragging the pads of my fingers up and down her slit, feather light touches everywhere but the spaces she needs most. Ever the defiant little thing, her hips undulate, grinding her sex over the hand I have pinned between her body and mine. I pull my hand away in warning.
"Silas," she growls, biting against my chest, teeth sharp. It sends a thrill through me, the marking primal, the bite of pain an aphrodisiac.
"I asked a question, Witchling."
She glares at me, weighing the cost and reward of her defiance, "Yes," she bites, her body hot and perfect on top of mine. I slide my hand back between, palm up, pressing through her warmth, fingers seeking.
"That was not so hard was it?" I ask. Her head drops against my chest, shoulders hitching.
"I love the mess you make for me, Witchling," she whines, pants against me as I work in a finger, then a second, then a third.
The fit is constricting, but less so than she is used to, and she tightens her walls, sucking me deeper.
"Look at me," I demand, voice broken as I leak against her stomach.
She is a vision like this, my Bonded in rapture, the most holy sight these eyes have ever witnessed.
Her gaze finds mine, hair flipping in a messy tangle on a huff as she struggles to obey, taking more of me, nearly to the knuckle.
Tenderly, I grip the side of her face, let my fingers tap and drag against the softest parts of her, and when she finds her ecstasy, she becomes mine.
***