Chapter 6 Unholy Confessions
Six
Unholy Confessions
Suddenly Nora felt Dav’s fingers clamp around the back of her neck. With his other hand, he shoved the gown away and flattened her bloody palm over his heart.
The wound had closed. She didn’t understand why or how. She only knew that her blood was healing him.
“Yes,” she cried, “take everything you need.”
In a burst of speed, he flipped her onto her back, and his weight came down upon her. She clutched him between her thighs and ran her hand over his body, feeling the new life in him. Her own body pounded with awareness of everywhere they touched, as if she too were coming back to life.
He slid her hand down the damp planes of his stomach to the front of his trousers.
She felt the silk fabric and the forbidden steel beneath.
Together, they rid him of the last barrier of clothing between them.
Admonitions from the Order’s matrons fled from her mind.
Her thoughts filled with words she was not supposed to know and acts she was not supposed to imagine.
She gave in to her desire to explore his cock. He wrapped her hand around his shaft and guided her strokes up and down. Fascinated, she learned his shape and texture. His jaw clenched, deepening his bite, and they moaned together.
But his canines eased out of her neck, her hips twitching with the sensation. He gave the wounds on her throat worshipful licks until they healed into raw new skin. She arched under him, feeling empty, but he held her down and lifted his head.
“Nora. Are you really offering me everything?”
“If you’ll have me.”
“I’ll have you in every way you can imagine, on one condition.”
“Name your price.”
“You will not feel an ounce of shame about what we do to each other in this bed tonight.”
The guilt had bled out of her a little more with his every bite, leaving behind this wild rush in her veins. “You can touch me anywhere you wish. On one condition.”
His tongue swept across his stained lips for another taste of her blood. “Anywhere?”
“Nowhere is forbidden.”
“I’ll promise you anything.”
“I don’t want some tasteful consummation,” she demanded. “Don’t bed me like a proper husband. Ravish me like a heretic.”
He ran his hand up her thigh, over the impressions the scabbard had left on her flesh, and squeezed.
She held his glowing gaze and let the heat in his eyes burn her. His magic swept deeper into her mind, a dark thrill.
He was upon her with Hesperine swiftness and grace. In one heartbeat, his hard length was buried inside her. She dragged in a hoarse gasp, pinned to the bed on his shaft, her core stretched around him.
“Did it hurt?” he whispered.
“No,” she moaned. “It’s too good.”
He pulled out with blinding speed, leaving her wet and reeling. And then he filled her again, driving inside her with the power of an immortal.
In the ancestral bed of generations of holy knights, Nora lay impaled beneath a Hesperine and spread her legs wider.
Dav kissed her, shocking in his tenderness.
“I love how wide your mouth is.” He smoothed her hair back from her face.
“I love how wild your curls are.” He arched his back, and the different angle of his body pressed new pleasure into her.
His warm breath washed over her chest. “And Goddess, I love the size of your breasts.”
He closed his mouth over her nipple and sucked. Clutching his shoulders, she squirmed under his implacable hips. He worked her breasts over with his mouth, first one, then the other, until she was on the verge of climax and begging him.
But then he lifted his mouth away. He turned his head. When he kissed the scar Sancti had left on her shoulder, she froze under him.
He waited a moment, then licked the cut on her arm. “Does it hurt?”
She swallowed hard. “Not now.”
He lapped at the sluggishly bleeding wound. She could feel the sweet darkness of Hesperine magic flowing into her, putting out the burning light. Tears slipped down her cheeks.
When only unbroken skin remained under his tongue, he lifted his head and recaptured her gaze. He began to move inside her, his forceful rhythm grinding her thoughts down into a haze. She braced her feet on the bed, needing leverage. Needing to move. She rocked her hips up for his thrusts.
“I love how greedy you are,” he said.
Faster, harder, he pounded into her. She urged him on in wordless groans.
“I love the sounds you make,” he snarled.
She cried out, half growling, as her core convulsed around his shaft. His fangs drove into her throat once more, releasing her blood. She writhed under his bite, wringing out her long years of hunger on his cock. She felt him shudder with her and pulse against her inner walls.
At last she lay back, his fangs still embedded in her throat, knowing he had spilled a Hesperine’s fruitless seed inside her. She was thoroughly corrupted, and it felt better than anything she had imagined. She let out a wild laugh.
He put his mouth to her ear. “You want more, don’t you?”
“I’m so hungry, Dav.”
By the predawn hours, she lay spooned against him, finally too spent to move. The deepest ease she had ever known settled into her languid limbs. But her body’s reprieve was not enough to keep her thoughts at bay.
She said the words she needed to say. “I’m so sorry about Rahim.”
“I’m so sorry about your parents,” Dav said. “In Orthros, when someone loses a loved one, we say, ‘Your grief runs in my veins.’”
She turned her head, looking at his shadowed face in the dying firelight. “Your grief runs in my veins, Dav.”
He stroked her scars. “I know it does.”
“Why did he come here? Why would he do all of that for me?”
“It is an honored practice among our people. He became a Hesperine errant—an immortal who leaves Orthros to travel human lands, offering aid to your people. He was moved to use our great power to alleviate suffering in the mortal world.”
“And when he couldn’t come back for me…you did.”
“It was his last wish. He begged me to rescue you. I hope you can forgive me for taking half a year to accept that calling, and not so gracefully.”
She pressed her eyes shut. “If you can forgive me for greeting you as an enemy.”
His hand stilled on her arm. “That was not your doing. Nora, I will not let Sir Virtus hurt you again.”
The dream Rahim had given her that night came back to life. It was possible. A new life.
“Forget this place.” Dav whispered the greatest seduction of all in her ear. “Leave Tenebra behind. Come home to Orthros with me and let every night be like this one.”
She wrapped his arm around her, pressing back into him. Allowing herself one more moment of astonishing comfort from this being she had not known three days ago.
“Can you forgive me if I stay?” she asked.
His arm tightened around her. “Why in Hespera’s name would you stay?”
“You are trying to honor Rahim’s memory,” she said, “but I must honor my parents. I can only think of one way to do both. I must become a dame in the Order so I can hold Castra Gloria—and work from within to protect Hesperines from the knights.”
“The Order doesn’t matter,” he ground out. “I need you to come back to Orthros with me.”
“It matters to me. It mattered to my parents.”
“Nora.” So much pain in one word.
“I’m so sorry.” Her voice thickened. “I cannot fulfill Rahim’s wish. But we can get justice for him and my parents. I have a plan. Will you come back tomorrow night so we can end Sir Virtus—together?”
Dav pushed her onto her back. His golden eyes glowed at her through the darkness. “Here are my terms. I will go along with your plan. But when we have defeated him, you will give me one more chance to change your mind.”
She should refuse. If he tried to convince her again, she might lose the will to refuse him.
But she wanted one more night of a Hesperine’s persuasion, before she must remember how to be dutiful.
“I accept your terms.”
Dav followed Nora down the corridor, the most dangerous shadow in the dark hallway. Her blood flowed in his cleansed veins. Last night had changed him, as profoundly as the night he had transformed from human to Hesperine.
There was only one possible explanation for why she had been able to save him. She was the mate whose blood could free him from hunger for any other. The partner destined to share his long eternity.
Nora was his Grace.
Dav had already drunk more than enough from her to awaken their bond—and the Craving, the addiction every Graced Hesperine suffered. If she wouldn’t accept Sanctuary, he would face a short future of withdrawal and starvation.
He had found her at last, after all these centuries alone. His brother had died bringing them together.
Dav would not let anyone take her from him.
As she approached the door of the shrine where Sir Virtus awaited her, her terror washed over the Blood Union. But she put one foot in front of the other, walking with determination toward her greatest fear.
Hidden in veil spells, Dav looked Sir Virtus in the eye. Here was the fanatic who had tormented her. His were the hands that had killed Rahim.
Dav’s hand tightened on Arceo’s hilt. He could no longer call himself a healer after what he was about to do. He didn’t know what that made him. He only knew Sir Virtus was the greater monster.
“Honora,” came the man’s warning tone, “Arceo has not been returned, and now three more relics are missing.”
“I know, Uncle. I noticed when I was saying my afternoon prayers. I have spent all evening questioning the servants.” She held out the scabbard. “I found this.”
Sir Virtus snatched the empty dagger sheath from her. “Where was it?”
“Someone left it on my father’s tomb.”
Dav enjoyed watching the color drain from Sir Virtus’s face.
“Who?” the knight demanded.
“I do not know, Uncle. But it was very painful for me to visit the crypt today. Will you help me find comfort in prayer?”
“Of course, child. Of course.”
Sir Virtus took Nora’s arm, and her emotions flinched. Dav bared his fangs. He stalked behind them as they walked down the central aisle of the shrine.