Chapter 11 Weakness #2
“I am the first Lamia, the first Daemon, the strongest being on this earth. My power alone has the ability to shape or shatter this world. And yet you, Adriana, are my weakness. You. I cannot decide if you are my salvation or my torment. Here you stand, the beacon in my darkness, the sun that warms my frozen life. With every look, every touch, you are the harbinger of my downfall. You have the potential to ruin my control of everything that I am, everything I have tried to hide.”
Her mouth parted in a small gasp, the shock of his words crashing over her.
She could feel her heart stumble a beat, her body flush with that familiar heat within her as she noticed the still present bulge in his trousers.
He still wanted her, and she could see it was taking every ounce of his strength not to take her.
She leant forward, running her hands further up his thighs, noticing him tense under her touch, but he didn’t push her away. He needed to feed, but she also knew he needed to feel human again, and she was willing to give him both.
“We must make our weaknesses into our strengths,” she said, as she slowly unfastened his breeches.
She reached in and wrapped her hand around him, pulling him free from the trousers that had clearly become uncomfortably tight.
“That is what you told me. If I am truly your beacon, use me to find a way through this. Let me be the constellation that guides you through the darkest night. Let vulnerability be your strength, and let me be the light that pierces through your shadows. You have got this, Xander, and I have got you. Always.”
Xander’s eyes flared and his gaze dropped to her mouth, following the flick of her tongue against him. He gripped the arm rests of the chair, his knuckles white, as he chewed on his bottom lip.
She licked a long, slow path before swirling her tongue around his tip, her eyes never leaving his. As he let out a low moan, she wrapped her lips around him, taking in as much of him as she could and sucking lightly.
The wooden armrests he held began to splinter under his strong grip as his hips thrust forward. Adriana knew he was desperate for her to take him down her throat, but she wanted to take her time. She pulled back, her hand still wrapped around him, moving up and down at a torturously slow pace.
“And if you want Jonathon to watch you touch me, then I will let the entire town watch as I please you in return. You are mine, Alexander Duran, and I am yours.”
Her words seemed to unravel something within him, and Xander snapped. Her playtime was over.
He grabbed her hair, hauling her to her feet as he stood and bent her over the table.
He pushed her skirt over her hips and tore away her undergarments, leaving her exposed to him.
She felt his palm smack against her backside before his body leant over hers, trapping her against the wooden surface as his feet kicked hers wider apart.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to play with hungry Daemons?”
“I am not afraid of you,” she spoke sternly, truthfully.
He pulled her body flush against his, her back to his chest, and laced his fingers round the front of her throat. She looked up at him, noticing the small smile that played on his lips.
“No,” he said. “No, you are not. But I am of you. You are the death of me, Adriana. Destroy me utterly, if that is your purpose. Should you choose to break me, then be sure to leave nothing behind. If you are to be the one to ruin me, let it be absolute.”
He spun her around to face him and pushed her to sit on the table. Adriana widened her legs so he could stand between them, not wanting him to be anywhere else.
A familiar coldness spread through her mind, a soothing caress as he drifted through her thoughts. She realised he was searching for any signs that she didn’t want this, that she didn’t want him. But she knew he would find none.
Adriana could not find the words to describe how she felt about him, she wasn’t sure there were enough words in any language that would be sufficient. And so she reached up to untie the top of his shirt, and kissed him with everything she had.
She pulled the shirt from his body and kicked his trousers down as he tore apart every piece of clothing from her. His lips attacked her mouth, her neck, her shoulders, sucking and kissing his way down to her breasts.
She took in the Nocte brands that covered his body, the beautiful black swirls that resembled the shadows he controlled.
They danced and intertwined across his tanned chest and shoulders, extending up to the base of his neck and down his arms, curling down to his fingers.
Her eyes caught on the small scars that littered his torso, and the larger scar from an obvious bullet wound in his shoulder.
She traced them with her fingers, wishing she could remove all the pain he had endured.
Her hands drifted to the hard panes of his stomach, following the dusting of dark hair downwards, before wrapping around him again.
She guided him towards her, desperate to feel him inside of her.
He was bigger than she’d handled before, and she knew it would likely be painful at first. But she didn’t care, she just needed him.
“You are truly beautiful, Xander.”
Xander kissed her again, smiling against her lips. He pulled her hips to him as she wrapped her legs around his and eased into her, slowly, as though not to hurt her.
His lips never left hers, his mouth swallowing her moans and sighs as he fully seated himself inside her. She had never felt so full before, so perfect. And she knew that nothing could ever compare to the feeling of him.
She tried to grind her hips against him, urging him to move faster than the torturously slow pace he began to set.
“Please,” she whispered against his mouth as she twisted her fingers in his dark curls.
Xander’s hold on her hips tightened as he pulled back, almost withdrawing completely, and then slammed back into her. Again and again. Adriana clung onto his shoulders as his brutal thrusts jolted her body, a delicate mixture of pleasure and pain.
“You are mine,” he growled, as he looked down between them, watching where their bodies connected. “Look, Adriana, see how beautiful you are. How beautiful we are together. You were made for me… now watch me fuck you.”
She obeyed his command and looked down at the sight of him disappearing deep inside her. He was right—they were beautiful together.
Xander grabbed her jaw in one hand, pulling her face to his as he gave her a deep kiss. He bit down hard on her bottom lip, before pushing her to lay back against the table.
Xander placed her legs over his shoulders as he continued his harsh thrusts, the new angle hitting an unknown spot inside of her.
It was almost too much, and as he brought his hand between them and pressed down on that most sensitive spot between her thighs, rubbing in small circles, she couldn’t hold back her cry.
Adriana felt her stomach tighten, but before the sensation could build any higher, Xander stilled his movements completely and removed her legs from his shoulders, resting them round his hips again. Her eyes flew open and she saw him staring at her mouth, a painful look of hunger fixed on his face.
She licked her bottom lip and tased the metallic tang of blood. She hadn’t realised he had pierced the skin when he had bitten her lip. Judging from the look on his face, neither had he.
“Kiss me, Xander,” she ordered.
He returned his gaze to meet hers as a wide smile crept across his face, his fangs on full display. He leant down to kiss her gently, his tongue darting out to taste the blood on her lip, and let out a loud moan into her mouth.
Using her heels to push him back to her, she clung to his body as he resumed his movements.
One hand held the side of her neck whilst the other reached down between them again, his fingers stroking her with tiny, precise circles.
The pressure inside her climbed and climbed, she was so close to the edge she longed to fall off.
She couldn’t speak, could hardly breathe, but she knew what she wanted to offer him.
Focusing on that soothing coldness that lingered in her mind, she pushed forward what she wanted him to take from her, what she wanted to give him.
And as that coldness grew, as Xander’s hand pushed her head back, exposing her throat to him, she knew he had heard her.
He licked and nipped the side of her neck as his thrusts became harsher, more punishing, his fingers applying the perfect pressure as he stroked her towards her release.
“That’s it, let go for me, sweetheart.”
She fell as soon as he whispered those words, her entire body glowing with her Luciferus light. The second she clenched around him and her mouth opened in a silent scream, his teeth pierced the side of her throat.
She cried out, the delicious pain of him feeding from her only added to the waves of pleasure he inflicted on her body.
She clawed at his back as he continued to drink from her neck, his thrusts and fingers somehow never faltering.
It was all too much—she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began. It was perfect.
Her moans turned into cries and whimpers as he drew out her release, before he finally met his own. She felt his rhythm slow until he gradually stilled, his tongue cleaning the blood from her throat and soothing the sting of her wound.
Xander breathed heavily against her neck as he stood straight, pulling her into a sitting position with him.
He eased out of her slowly with a sigh and reached for the cloth he had used to clean her finger.
He used it to gently wipe the inside of her thighs as he continued to kiss over his bite mark on her neck.
Once he was done, he threw the cloth to join the pile of their clothes on the floor and held Adriana’s face in his hands, pressing his forehead to hers.
“I hope you know,” he breathed out. “That you may have just made a terrible mistake, because I’ll be damned if I ever let you go now. You are a part of me, my heart beats for you, Adriana. It has since the moment you knocked me on my arse the day I moved here.”
Adriana pulled away from him, her face twisted in confusion. Her body’s glow slowly dimmed and returned to her usual pale tone. “But you were so cruel to me? You were so rude and harsh throughout my training?”
“I know, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy getting a rise out of you. But it was not all done out of selfishness, I assure you.”
Her head tilted to the side, not understanding what he was implying.
“I knew your emotions were strong,” he continued, “and that they could be your greatest ally in controlling your powers. But I heard every bad thought you had each day I came to watch you, every sense of failure before you had even tried. I could feel you wanted to give up fighting it, so I gave you something else to fight. Better I became your villain than your own mind.”
Adriana gazed up at him with tears in her eyes. He had known her thoughts about herself, he had known she needed to fight, and when she could no longer fight herself, he fought for her. He had ignited that heat within her, the heat of anger, of desire, of power.
She wasn’t sure when she had fallen for him, nor whether it had grown slowly or happened all at once.
He had told her she had the potential to ruin him, and Adriana realised that he had power to utterly destroy her in return.
She knew, with absolute certainty, that she was perpetually and destructively in love with him.
“You needed the push,” he whispered, his thumb stroking her cheekbone. “And it is fortunate that I very much enjoy the sight of your angry frown.”
She laughed at him, resting her cheek against his palm. Her eyes began to droop, her body sagged against his as the events of the night caught up to her.
Xander gathered their clothes off the floor, giving Adriana a chance to see the brands on his back for the first time.
She could spot the Lamia’s eclipse that sat between his shoulder blades with an intricate swirling pattern above it like a tiny galaxy—the mark of a Manipuli.
His Nocte brands that covered his arms, chest and shoulders seemed to stem from his back, as if they were shadows growing from the moon that covered the light of the sun.
He turned back to her and picked her up in one arm, her body instinctively wrapping around him. Without a word, he walked them out of the kitchens and up the stairs. She had no idea if he knew which room was hers, but before she could direct him, she fell into a deep sleep in his embrace.