Chapter 39 #2
She growled and clutched his shoulders, pumping up and down on him, hard, determined.
She thrust and thrust, and Zarathos moaned and swore.
The heat of the bath curled upward, making him appear as a god of the mist, a being that was coming undone at her will.
She moved faster. The surrounding water roiled and sloshed and she held him tighter, restraining his movement as she thrust so forcefully a bit of pain spiked through her.
But she liked it. Only she would be able to control when he peaked—until she brought him the ultimate pleasure.
He hissed, then roared, and she felt his pulsing inside of her. There it was.
His expression was one of pure awe, as if she was the goddess that had forcefully stolen his soul. A dark smile curled her lips, and she leaned forward. “I know your secret.”
He didn’t move, staring at her. “What secret?”
“Why you take the potion,” she murmured, running her hands over his shoulders, enjoying the sensation of holding him in her body. “What the potion does, or at least what it most likely does. It hides your scent. Your blood. That is why you got so angry when I drew it at the opening ceremony.”
“The potion works as a mask, bringing out the scent I choose, in this case my abaddon blood. But draw the real thing and the elixir is useless. My scent—”
“But it wasn’t your scent that gave you away.”
They remained there, neither of them moving. Zarathos’s cock shoved inside her and he held her hips, his tail securely around her. She didn’t care what he was—demon, king, or something far darker—she was his heart and soul, bound to him in a way she could not understand nor escape.
“What was it?” he asked.
She laughed. “Who else would come up with the solution of covering someone in their own cum to hide that person’s scent? You could have given me your elixir.”
A hint of defiance tugged at his lips. “And watch you possibly collapse into a seizure? Not a chance.”
“You’re half incubus, Zarathos. And both half or full bloods are forbidden in the demon kingdom. Even little me is aware of that. You have been trying hard to hide it. But after the last trials when your blood was spilled—”
“Everyone knows.”
She ran a hand through his hair. “You’ve given up so much. You will now be as big a target as me.”
He sighed and lifted her off of him, sitting her back in the water. He bent his head forward.
“I don’t know why my father kept me alive. I was a liability to him. I was everything I shouldn’t be.”
“That is why he threatened to kill you.”
“I thought so at first, but then… then he ended up killing the others, my half-siblings, and sparing me. I had to prove myself useful to him over and over. And the godsdamned elixir was the only way he’d consider letting me exist. And then, when he died, and I became the next king, I couldn’t let my guard down, not for a second, or I was still as good as dead. ”
Aryana’s heart twisted. “You’ve been taking the potion for years and years.”
“I’d grown accustomed to it. To a certain amount every day at a certain time. And then you and the damn Bloodbound bond came along and all of a sudden I had to take it twice, three times as often and the seizures started again.”
Oh gods, the seizures were partly her fault. “But why? Why only incubi? They let female succubi live.”
He produced a bitter laugh. “Because incubi, even half incubi, are the only ones who can sire a shapeshifter. It is what occurs when an incubus sires a child with a human. And shapeshifters are a threat to the kingdom. They are a threat to everything. My father and the demon arch kings before him were intent on eradicating them. And they succeeded. To ensure no more came into being, incubi and half incubi were made illegal. I mean, our very nature drives us to sex. We are insatiable. The only method to guarantee that shapeshifters didn’t come back into existence was to make sure there were no incubi in the world. ”
“So, all incubi born of a succubus are killed?”
“Yes.”
“Your father changed your name. I saw that in your memories. Why? Why’d he do that?”
Zarathos shook his head. “He didn’t just change my name, he made me forget it.
My initial impression was that he was trying to conceal my incubus heritage by eradicating the name given to me by a succubus mother, but…
” —his jaw clenched—“the forgetting did something to me, it stunted my shadow powers. I used to do considerably more with them. I’m unsure if my father intended to cripple me so I wouldn’t be as great a danger to him, or if he was protecting me from a world that deemed I shouldn’t exist.”
“Perhaps,” she said carefully, “he cared for you in his own twisted way. It’s not all right, and doesn’t excuse what he did, but maybe—”
“Don’t call it love. I haven’t a clue what it was, but whatever that demon had for his children, it wasn’t love. I hated him,” he snarled. “I still hate him. Everyday I took my godsdamned potion like I was supposed to, and in the end he still… he forced me to watch while he tortured her and…”
“... and you killed the female who raised you,” she finished. She stroked his chest, trying to comfort him. “You had no choice.”
“I’m a monster.”
“She would have suffered so much more if you hadn’t acted. I’ve learned lately that demons have their own manner of expressing love. Sometimes it is more harsh and seems cruel, but that doesn’t mean the feelings aren’t there.”
“Please Vampress, let’s not talk about this anymore.”
She nodded, searching for something that might distract him. “You’d rather tell me about how irresistible you are?” She gave him a suggestive smile. “How intensely you crave my body?”
But Zarathos didn’t grin in return. “Make no mistake, I am dangerous. After this last encounter, I feel my potion completely worn off. And unlike the female of my species, incubi can be insatiable… I will keep going, lost in lust until I break you. That is partially why I had you take my blood. To ensure I stopped. Females have died because we get too rough, too out of control. It’s a blood lust to us.
We forget who, why, what and continue taking until there is nothing left. ”
Zarathos had hidden himself away for so long, locking his true nature behind walls of indifference and calculated bargains.
She’d seen glimpses of the authentic Zarathos beneath the potion, experienced the pull of something real, but he had always kept it buried, fearful of what might happen if he let it show.
It had taken so much from him. Years of distance, of silence, of pretending.
She met his gaze, her voice steady. “I’m not afraid of you.”
His eyes darkened, his lips pressing together as if fighting an internal battle.
“I know,” he replied quietly, his voice raw.
“You are braver than anyone I’ve ever known.
You stand in the face of all of this—of me—and you don’t flinch, even when the darkness is right in front of you.
Even when everything about me, everything I’ve done, might shatter you. ”
The words hung between them, a fragile understanding, but it was still not enough.
A slight tremble rolled through her from the cooling water, feeling the air crackle with unspoken tension.
“Please,” she whispered, her hands reaching for him, her touch tentative but determined, “tonight, be you. Be only you.”
He flinched, his hand coming up as if to pull away, but he didn’t. “I could hurt you,” he said, the words heavy with the weight of his guilt, his fear. “I could—”
She moved her head from side to side, her voice low but firm. “I’ll tell you to stop, and you will stop.”
He just stared at her, his face a mask of uncertainty, as though he didn’t fully believe she would trust him. His doubts were evident in the way he looked at her, like he was waiting for her to turn away, to see him for the monster he feared he was.
She remained there, unflinching, her gaze unwavering. “If not,” she added, “I know a thing or two about fighting off uncontrollable males.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, not ever,” he whispered, his voice shaking with a depth of emotion he barely controlled.
“Don’t you understand? It’s not the secret I’ve kept hidden that I fear most anymore.
What terrifies me most, what I can’t endure, is picturing you in pain.
The idea of losing you, of watching you fade from this world…
” He reached up and ran his clawed finger over her face, the nail sliding across her skin like if he pressed any harder she’d crack open.
“It would be worse than any death I could imagine.”
He looked at her, eyes filled with an anguish so raw it was as if he were already mourning her.
She took his hand in both of hers, her grip firm yet gentle, as if to anchor him in this moment.
“I trust you, Zarathos. You are no monster,” she said.
“I trust you to stop.” Her gaze never wavered from his, searching for any trace of doubt in his eyes, but all she saw was fear—fear of himself, of what he might become.
The force of his internal struggle seemed to press on him. “My blood could—”
She shook her head, interrupting him softly, but with certainty. “No blood, just you,” she murmured. “Only you.”