Chapter 38
Thirty-Eight
Threats
Warmth slammed into me like a wave as Riven’s mouth met mine. Soft and wrong, yet unbearably right. A spark flared under my skin. No, not a spark. A light.
His lust bled through the kiss, molten light rushing into the empty well in my chest.
The agony dulled. The world steadied. My fingers twitched. I gasped into him. He groaned as if the sound dragged him under.
The haze loosened, just enough for the horrifying truth to register: I was kissing him back, matching his hunger. It was like I’d been smothered and he was the oxygen bringing me back to life. I fisted his shirt, dragging him closer and clinging to him with desperation—
Riven’s body jerked and his groan became a sharp, ragged sound, breaking the kiss.
My vision snapped into painful clarity just in time to see the hilt of a dagger jutting from his thigh.
Solas stood behind him, chest heaving, quiet fury crackling in every line of his body. “Get. Off. Her.”
He wrenched Riven backward by the collar. I slumped sideways into the grass, the world spinning again.
Black blood poured down Riven’s leg, a dagger was embedded to the hilt in his thigh.
“Princess—”
“Don’t you fucking move,” Solas barked over the top of him, stepping between us like a wall of iron.
“I was saving her,” Riven drawled, wiping his thumb across his bottom lip. “Not my fault if she liked it.”
Solas grabbed the knife jutting from Riven’s thigh and twisted with brutal, slow force.
Riven grunted, gritting his teeth, but his smirk didn’t falter. “Still worth it.”
“Your orders were not to kill him, yes?” Caelum asked calmly. “Keep twisting and you will sever his artery.”
Solas grunted, turning and scooping me into his arms like I weighed nothing. My head lolled weakly against his shoulder. The movement jolted my raw nerves; a thin whimper escaped me.
“Easy, sweetheart,” he murmured, voice gentler now. “I’ve got you.” Riven limped after us, leaving a trail of black blood.
“Escort this fool to the infirmary before he bleeds all over the damned floor,” Solas yelled to a warrior as he strode through the stone archway that led back into the castle. Solas carried me through corridors, but I couldn’t appreciate the beauty over my racing thoughts.
I kissed Riven. It had felt so familiar, that it was almost right. Shame curled through me. Guilt. Fear that the Commander would feel this through the bond and it would hurt him.
I pressed my forehead weakly into Solas’s chest, eyes burning.
“Where is he?” I whispered. The bond pulsed in my chest, tight and wounded, and I couldn’t tell if the pain swirling there was mine or his.
“He had to travel to Someria, a town levelled by a swarm of Nightbourne last night. Just hold on.”
While I was tangled up in bed, people were dying. Because of me.
Solas opened the large doors to the Commander’s rooms by kicking them with his feet.
Riven pushed in behind him, a trail of black blood oozed across the floor in his wake. Cool silk blankets soothed my feverish skin as Solas lowered me onto the bed.
Shadows erupted in front of us, violent and choking the air with power. The Commander of Death stepped out of them, onyx eyes wild. He looked carved from darkness itself.
His gaze landed on me first, taking in my trembling hands, the feverish flush crawling up my throat before landing on my swollen lips.
Something shattered across his face as his nostrils flared, breathing in deeply.
The bond flooding me with his whirlwind of feelings. Terror. Guilt. Realisation. Rage.
His eyes cut to Riven and every candle guttered. Shadows surged like a tide, slamming against the walls hard enough to rattle them.
“She is not yours to touch,” he said, voice low and lethal, “now, I will make you pay the price with your fucking pain.”
“All I did was save her, and I would gladly do it again,” Riven said, amusement dripping from his voice.
The Commander’s snarl ripped through the chamber, raw and feral. “She is mine.” He closed the distance between them in three long strides and wrapped his hand around Riven’s throat, lifting him off the floor and shoving him against the wall.
“She… Kissed… Me back,” he gasped, an unhinged grin splitting his face as his head slammed against the stone. I flinched, worry rising through my exhaustion. Riven’s sarcasm was going to get him killed.
The Commander leant in, voice a low growl. “She may have let you kiss her. But she begs me to fuck her.”
Riven’s grin faltered as shadows crawled up his body. The image of Bohdi being melted from the inside out flashed through my head.
“No,” I said weakly. If the Commander heard me, he didn’t show it. “Please, stop”
“I’m… more useful… to you alive,” Riven choked out. Shadows crawled across his face, creeping into his ears. He squirmed. “The Mortals are setting you up!”
The Commander paused, loosening his grip enough for Riven to gasp.
“Speak,” he demanded.
“They just want the princess back. The Iron Guard accompanying them have been tasked to take her. They want to sacrifice her. To gain back favour of the Gods.”
“You are still more useful to me dead,” the Commander seethed.
Riven’s features morphed, ageing and transforming into the face of my father. I cringed, nausea swirling in my gut.
“I can be whoever you need me to be,” my father’s voice said.
The Commander dropped Riven, letting him crash to the floor as he shapeshifted back into himself.
“And what new display of testosterone is this?” Cerilla’s voice drifted in like cold water as she stepped through the doorway, skirts whispering behind her.
She raised an eyebrow at her brother and helped Riven stand, touching the wound on his leg.
Her fingers came away covered in red blood. My brow creased. It was red. Not black.
“I follow the path of blood,” she sighed, “and of course it leads to you, brother.” She flicked her wrist. A steaming pot of floral tea appeared beside me. I managed the faintest smile of thanks and she returned it warmly.
“Come along, Mortal boy,” she said, tugging Riven by the wrist. “Let me put you back together.”
Riven shot me one last smirk. But something unreadable flickered in his eyes before the heavy doors closed behind them.
Solas lingered, his shoulders tensing as his eyes flicked between me and the Commander. It was like he expected violence to erupt at any second.
“Go,” the Commander snarled without looking at him.
Solas didn’t move. “I’m not leaving her alone with you,” he said quietly, steel under every word. “Not when you look like that.”
Shadows snapped like whips across the floor. The Commander lifted his head slowly, looking at him with pure black eyes.
“She is bonded to me,” he said slowly, his voice rough. “She is safe.”
Solas opened his mouth, ready to argue.
A pained sound escaped me, soft and broken as my body trembled against that insufferable heat surging violently through my veins.
Solas’s expression crumpled as he took a step towards the door. “Stay the fuck in control,” he pleaded, voice dripping with worry before he slammed the doors shut behind him.
The room fell silent. The Commander was suddenly in front of me, hands cupping my face. “I am sorry,” he said, voice breaking on the words as if they hurt him.
My eyebrows crinkled together. I had kissed another male merely hours after I bonded him, and he was apologising to me?
“I should have been here. I should have known you were too stubborn not to empty your power.”
I leant into his touch, letting it cool my burning skin. “I didn’t mean to kiss him,” I whispered so softly that it was barely audible.
He gathered me into his lap, arms wrapping firmly around me even though it cost him, his shadows were attacking him.
“I can shadow jump you to the ocean,” he muttered to himself, panicked and furious.
I shook my head weakly. I didn’t think I could survive being torn apart and stitched back together.
“Or—” he hesitated.
My stomach fluttered in anticipation at the way his eyes heated and dropped to my lips.
“I will take care of you,” he promised, voice dark and breaking.
I could already feel the familiar tingling seeping into my skin. Knowing how good he could make me feel turned the anticipation into its own quiet torment.
His lips brushed mine, a touch so tender it almost hurt. He became unnaturally still; nose twitching and anger surged down the bond. He could scent Riven.
I wanted him to smother any trace of it with his own. I lifted my head, closing the space between us and claimed his mouth. He stayed deathly still for a heartbeat, startled that I had made the first move. But he melted beneath my touch and his hands tangled in my hair.
I deepened the kiss, sliding my tongue into his mouth and my toes curled at the moan that rumbled through him.
The lust, the pure power oozing into me through the bond was enough to bring me back to life.
His hands gripped my blouse, tearing it from my body and I gasped against his mouth as his palm squeezed my breast.
“You are going to have to do better than that,” he whispered when I moaned.
His voice shook with restraint and something hungrier.
I arched into his touch, warmth flooding into me, sinking into my skin.
He pulled away, trailing his tongue down my neck, leaving a warm wet path in his wake.
I cried out as he bit down on my nipple, pain ebbing into pleasure.
This male would be my undoing. No one had ever made me feel the way he did.
Alive. I plunged my fingers through his hair.
I needed to kiss him. Needed him to fuck the life back into me—
“Your shadows,” I whispered, eyes widening as the volatile things crawling over his skin. Hurting him. His eyes were pure black, dark veins spreading around his eyes.
I tilted my head, exposing my neck.
“No. You are too weak right now,” he growled, pulling my pants from my body. “I can stay in control.” I wasn’t sure if he was reassuring me, or himself.
A whimper left my lips as he trailed a feather-light touch down my stomach, pausing between my thighs.
“I need to make you moan loud enough for that fucking Mortal to hear from the infirmary.” His unhinged words sent a needy rush of heat between my thighs, and he slid his fingers against my overheated flesh. Excruciatingly light. He chuckled at the impatient noise I made.
“It is a matter of pride,” he murmured, plunging two fingers inside me.
A low, involuntary moan escaped me, far louder than I meant it to be. My body jolted, inner walls twitching around his large fingers as they moved in and out of me without mercy.
“Just like that, love,” he praised as his dark eyes devoured me.
He loved this. Loved seeing me shaking under his touch.
I could feel it through the bond. It tingled against my skin and overfilled the hole in my chest. He growled, the bond flaring hot and sharp between us.
“I want to hear it,” he grunted, adding a third finger into me, and I threw my head back from the stretch.
“Who. Do. You. Belong. To?”
His fingers drove into me, each word punctuated by his knuckles striking my flesh.
When I didn’t answer, he pinched my clit between his thumb and forefinger, hard enough to steal my breath.
“I belong,” I moaned, surrender curling through every word, “to the Commander of Death.”
A sound more animal than male tore through him as he pulled out of me. He flickered like a wraith as he undid his belt and shoved his pants down to his knees.
Darkness tugged at his very existence, but those dark, endless eyes stayed on me. He gripped my ankles and pulled me to the edge of the bed.
He looked unhinged. Like a monster. It should have scared me, but the wetness coating my thighs showed us both just how much I liked it.
He gripped my legs behind my knees with brutalising force and I reached between us, wrapping my hand around his thick cock and pushing him against my entrance. He growled, shoving into me without mercy.
My back arched off the bed, stars shooting across my vision.
He was fully seated in me with one thrust. I struggled to adjust around him, pain and pleasure blurring as he slammed into me.
He snarled, throwing his head back, half of his face consumed by shadows.
He reached between my legs, thumb pushing against my clit and rubbing it in time with each merciless thrust.
“Fuck!” My back bowed off the mattress, the pleasure crushing the air from my lungs.
His need slammed into me through the bond, replacing every bit of magic I had lost.
“Please. I need—”
The words fractured apart with every claiming thrust.
“Tell me,” the Commander panted, voice rough and uncontrolled.
“Harder,” I moaned.
His control snapped. Shadows surged, wrapping around my wrists with a cold bite of pain to hold me in place. He slammed into me with brutal, devastating force, gripping my hips as if the world would end if he let go.
My vision went black at the edges and the world splintered into heat and light.
“Commander!” My cry fractured, my fingers clawing into the sheets as my body tightened and then shattered beneath the wave of release.
He fell over the edge with me, roaring with a deep, primal sound that shook the bedframe.
His body locked over mine, cock pulsing hard as warmth spilled inside me.
Pure bliss engulfed me, but it was short lived. The Commander pulled out of me, panting and baring his teeth. He dropped to his knees, fisting his hair and screaming as shadows tore through him.