Chapter 26 #2
A deep growl cut me off and the darkness bled in front of me. The Commander suddenly towered over me, and I strained to look up at him. He stared down at me with murder written across his gore-splattered features.
“Stop.” His warm breath washed over my face as he leant down. I pressed my hands against his waist, unable to stop myself from touching him. Gods, I wanted him to touch me.
“You think you can take me, Little Drownling?” he mused. “You can hardly even stand.”
I bared my teeth at him, glaring through my eyelashes.
“There’s my vicious little prisoner,” he murmured. His eyes lingered on my lips for a moment. “It is just the venom from my bite making you pliable and willing. You will want to fuck me desperately for a few hours, but it will wear off and you will return to wanting to kill me.”
I swallowed hard, my hands lingering as they traced the hard lines of his abdomen, memorising him despite myself. “I hate you,” I murmured, forcing the words past my lips. “You’re repulsive.”
His chuckle rolled through me, leaving a shiver in its wake. “You are a liar, Little Drownling.” He leant in, lips brushing my ear as if to tell me a secret. “Fae can smell strong emotions. And even when you first saw me, lust mingled with your fear.”
Before I could respond, his hands wrapped around my waist and the other collided with the back of my knees. He cradled me against his chest and began walking, despite my sounds of protest.
“I can see it, you know” I whispered, voice breaking on purpose. “That you want to fuck me.”
“Stop.” He spat the command. The rejection should have hurt, should have made me feel embarrassed. But I pushed anyway. “I could feel it. Your cock got so hard for me.”
His grip tightened on me with bruising force as his eyes darkened. “Shut the fuck up, before I make you.” My stomach fluttered at the thought, the warm thrum of his venom pulsing through my veins made me want everything he would give me.
I barely registered the trees around us anymore.
My head lolled against his shoulder, the motion of his stride rocking me.
The venom pulsed in my veins like heat in dying embers.
I felt drunk on him. On his scent. On the strength of his arms wrapped under my thighs, holding me as if I weighed nothing.
One of his hands gripped my thigh, calloused and warm, while the other gripped my waist. Gods, he smelled divine.
Like caramel and sandalwood and something I didn’t have words for, something I’d only ever smelled on him.
It curled in my lungs and made my skin tingle.
The throbbing ache between my thighs returned with a vengeance, raw and unrelenting.
I wanted him. Desperately. Shamefully. My fingers tightened against the back of his neck, urging him to lean into me.
To taste me. I wanted to taste every part of his body, to feel him pulse against me, inside me—
“Stop.” His voice was a growl. Deep. Commanding.
I blinked, dazed, and looked up to find his jaw clenched tight and his nostrils flaring. He could scent it. Scent me.
“I didn’t say anything,” I said, trailing my fingers against his chest.
“You didn’t have to.” He adjusted his grip on me, trying to break contact. “Think about something else.”
I pouted and let my head fall against his shoulder again. “But you smell delicious.”
He exhaled sharply through his nose, a sound that might’ve been a laugh, or a curse. “Tell me what the Fire Fates told you,” he suggested, voice rougher than before.
“They spoke in riddles,” I muttered, and a frustrated sigh escaped me. “I don’t understand half the things they told me.”
“Try.” The command sat heavy between us. I scowled. My mind was fuzzy. But I tried to focus.
The words felt strange in my mouth. “They said I’m the key. The Soul Relics, I think only I can find them.” His stride didn’t falter, as if this information was not new to him.
“And they said…” I frowned, my memory piecing together their words. “They said I could save or destroy everything, and something about a Fated Mate.” He stiffened beneath me, just slightly, but enough that I noticed.
“But,” I added, trying to wave it off, “they called me the wrong name.”
“What name?” he asked, voice unreadable.
“Maraveth.” I waved my hand lazily, unable to focus through the haze and laughed bitterly. His jaw ticked, still silent. I shifted in his hold, leaning closer to his neck, drawing in another inhale of his maddening scent. Fresh night air with an underlying sweetness that made my mouth water.
“Do not speak that name again,” he demanded.
Curiosity nagged from somewhere deep within me, but it couldn’t surface through the heavy feeling that pulsed over me. I gently pressed my mouth against his collarbone, sliding my tongue against his warm skin.
“Why do you taste so good?” I whispered against him. His muscles coiled beneath me as he tried to readjust me in his grip.
“Stop it,” he ground out. “My restraint has limits, Drownling, and in your current state, you would not survive the things I want to do to you.”
My grip tightened around him and heat pulsed through me at his words.
“I don’t care about surviving,” I whispered against his skin.
He tugged me against his body roughly, my injured arm jarring against him, and sharp pain split through the haze. I groaned. Suddenly each step the Commander took caused a jolt of pain through my head.
“I care,” he grumbled. Before I could dwell on his response, the agony surged, taking my breath away and pulling at my very soul.
“My shoulder…” I paused, trying to think through the fog. “Everything hurts,” I whispered. He grunted in acknowledgment. A few moments passed in silence, and I stared at his chest, focusing on deep breaths and idly tracing the intricate lines of his tattoos.
“What does this one mean?” I asked.
He arched one thick eyebrow at me and clenched his jaw. “You do not ask questions about me.”
“Commander, seeing that I had my hand around your cock—”
He cut me off with a growl so deep, it sounded more animal than male. With his next step my arm lolled off my body, dropping against my will and I cried out in pain.
The Commander stopped walking, frowning down at me. “I wanted to walk to give my venom time to wear off. But your pain is worsening.”
“It’s fine, pain and I are well acquainted,” I said idly and stared through the treetops into the oppressive darkness.
“And how exactly are you so familiar with pain?” he asked cautiously and I chuckled softly. “You do not ask questions about me,” I mocked, and he glared at me for a moment. But I feared he could see straight through me. To every scar that marked my soul.
“Hold on to me.” His voice vibrated through me, and I tightened my grip.
I barely had time to inhale before the world unravelled.
The air around us collapsed. It wasn’t like falling or even moving.
It was like being unstitched, each thread of my body pulled into darkness and reformed somewhere else, somewhere in between.
Cold rushed over me like water. I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t think. The world turned inside out.
I could see nothing, but I felt everything.
Wind that didn’t blow. Screams that didn’t sound.
A thousand shadows brushing against my skin like fingers.
It was cold and burning and nothing at all. And then, impact.
We landed hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs.
Shadows tore from around us, from within me.
My stomach flipped. My vision spun. I clutched him tighter, trembling.
I blinked and the trees were no longer skeletal and looming, the air no longer thick with rot and whispers.
Instead, the firelight from camp flickered just ahead, warm and familiar.
“You are okay,” he murmured, his voice rough and oddly soothing. I wanted to believe him.