Chapter 41
KORITHAX
Ihook my hands beneath her thighs and lift her with me as I rise, her soft gasp brushing across my mouth as her legs instinctively wrap around my waist.
I should not be doing this. But I need her more than I need air. More than I need sense. More than I need the distance I’ve been trying so desperately to keep between us.
She is the only reason I am still breathing—still existing—in this fractured, cursed half-life. Without her, I would have driven a blade through my cold, dead heart the moment I returned. I do not want to be anything without her. I don’t think I can be anything without her.
I don’t know what’s more desperate for her—me, the bond, or The Void. Either way, whatever restraint I had left, has finally snapped.
I turn and throw her onto the bed with enough force to make the mattress dip beneath her, golden hair fanning wildly across the sheets. She looks up at me flushed and breathless, lips swollen from my kisses, eyes wide and bright.
Mine.
Heat surges through my palms. Instinctively, panic flashes through me. What if I lose control? What if my fire has changed to the point of harming her, too? The Void stirs, eager. But beneath it, something steadier rises in me. Trust.
I know my flame. I know the way it answers to her, even now. I know that for all the darkness in me now, there are still things it will never destroy. So I let it move.
Black-edged fire races over her body in a swift ripple of heat, consuming every scrap of fabric between us without touching the skin beneath. Her blouse curls to ash. Trousers vanishing in glowing embers.
I pause at her feet, catching one boot in my hand before the flame can reach it.
With a quick tug, I pull it free, then the other, tossing them carelessly to the floor beside the bed.
Even half-mad with want, I know better than to destroy the boots she worked hard to break in.
Only then, do I let the fire continue, every scrap of fabric on her body vanishing in sparks that die before they land.
“Even Void-touched,” I murmur, “my flame will never harm you, little flower.”
I let my gaze drag slowly down her body. Gods, she’s perfect. Her breasts, full and heavy. The curve of her waist. The soft, delicious swell of her stomach that I have worshipped in dreams and memory alike. By the time my eyes reach between her thighs, my mouth is watering.
“New style?” I ask, tilting my head.
Her cheeks flush scarlet, thighs pressing together in sudden nerves. “I thought I’d try a landing strip,” she says with a shy little giggle.
That sound nearly obliterates me.
I grab her ankles and force her legs apart, groaning at the sight of arousal slicking the insides of her thick thighs.
“Fuck.”
I drop to my knees at the edge of the bed and drag her down to me, hauling her closer. I sling her legs over my shoulders, lifting her by the hips for better access, then drag my tongue through her cunt without hesitation.
She tastes fucking divine. If heaven exists, then this is what I imagine their wine would taste like. Sweet, delicious, and utterly addictive. Her soft sounds only make me more feral as I feast on her, teasing and tormenting her clit before diving my tongue inside her, consuming every last drop.
“Korithax,” she whines, hips bucking relentlessly against my face.
I add two fingers, curling them just right, keeping a relentless rhythm as she grinds against me. Tongue and hand working together, I push her higher and higher until she cries out, her body erupting in white flame that bathes the room in brilliant light.
The Void reacts instantly. It recoils first, snarling, offended by the purity of it. Then it surges forwards, greedy and furious, drawn to the raw force pouring from her like a beacon.
Pain rips through my chest as I clamp down on it, every muscle locking while I force it back. Force it still. It wants to drink her power. To twist it. To make it scream.
But I don’t let it.
I anchor myself in her. In her warmth, in her scent, in the sound of her breath breaking around my name. I bleed the pressure away before it can touch her magic. The effort is agony, but I welcome it. Better me than her. Always me.
I pull back, staring.
She lies there glowing faintly, breathless and flushed, her white fire slowly dimming across her skin. Awe crashes through me so hard, it nearly buckles my knees. This woman owns my soul.
“I think I missed that more than I missed you,” she giggles.
I scoff a laugh and climb onto the bed, rolling us until she’s above me. “Show me how much you missed it, princess.”
“Can I try something?” she asks, suddenly shy again.
“Anything.”
Her land lifts, white flame blooming softly to life. “How do I do what you do?”
“Just like when you guide it to attack,” I say quietly, even as The Void stirs beneath my skin, sensing opportunity. “But give it no power to harm.”
She concentrates, brow furrowing, her tongue catching between her teeth as she focuses. I feel it immediately—the shift in her magic, the way it hesitates, unsure. The Void presses forwards, eager to corrupt it, to twist it, swallow it whole. I grit my teeth hard and lock down on it.
The effort is brutal. It feels like trying to hold a living thing beneath my ribs, forcing it still through sheer will. Pain blooms behind my eyes, white-hot and blinding, but I don’t let it bleed into my face. I can’t. She can’t know.
Her flame moves—hesitant at first—then steadies.
I subtly redirect it, bleeding off the excess power before it can sharpen, shaping it without touching it, without letting her feel the correction. The Void fights me, snarling, clawing, furious that I’m denying it. But I hold it back despite the cold sweat breaking across my skin.
Her flame glides over my body, dissolving my clothes inch by inch. It’s cool against my skin, raising goosebumps in its wake, reverent rather than destructive. I breathe through the ache, through the burn in my chest, through the way The Void thrashes at being denied.
When she finishes, her eyes light up, bright and proud. “I did it!” she squeals.
I smile up at her, even as my hands tremble faintly at my sides.
“Well done, my queen,” I murmur. “I’m proud of you.”
And she never once realises how close The Void came to swallowing it whole.
I spank her ass hard enough to make her gasp as a distraction. A desperate attempt to keep myself anchored in sensation, instead of the war raging inside my skull. She leans down, placing slow, gentle kisses along my throat as she grinds herself against me, her soaked cunt dragging along my length.
The last threads of my restraint snap clean through. I flip us in one swift movement, pinning her beneath me. She lets out a soft, breathy gasp, her hair fanning out around her as I trap her wrists above her head.
I lower my mouth to her throat and bite, my elongated canines piercing skin.
Rip out her carotid artery, The Void whispers, just as my tongue strokes over her strong pulse. Taste how quickly she can die.
My eyes squeeze shut as I groan against her skin, copper flooding my tongue. I hate how good it tastes. I hate that some ruined part of me wants more.
I bite harder without meaning to, intoxicated by the warmth of her blood, by the pulse fluttering wildly beneath my mouth. She squirms under me, breath hitching. I suck and lick and bite again, losing myself in the haze of hunger and want.
“Korithax,” Daisy whispers. “You’re hurting me.”
Reality slams back into me so violently, it feels like being struck. My eyes fly open, landing on the blood that streaks the pale curve of her throat. My marks stand angry and red where I went too far. Too rough. Too lost.
“Fuck. Fuck—FUCK!” I scramble back from her to the edge of the bed like she’s fire and I’m drying kindling, my chest heaving and hands shaking violently. What the fuck have I done?
“It’s okay,” she says softly.
I can’t look at her. Can’t look at the evidence of what lives inside me. Can’t look at the place where pleasure became harm in the space of a single fucking breath. Coward. Monster. Weak.
She moves before I can retreat further, climbing after me until she’s standing in front of me, hands wrapping firmly around my forearms.
“Hey. Look at me.”
I force my gaze to hers. Those ocean-blue eyes meet mine without fear or hesitation.
“You stopped the second I said it hurt,” she says firmly. “You did nothing wrong.”
“I should never have made you bleed,” I growl. “Never!” The Void laughs low in my chest.
Her eyes sparkle, surprising me with a smile and a flush to her cheeks. “I kind of liked it. And it’s not like it’s the first time you’ve done it.”
I go to open my mouth to argue that it was different before. But before I can speak, she drops to her knees in front of me, looking up at me through her dark lashes and wrapping her hand around my cock.
“Daisy—” She silences me with a teasing stroke and the drag of her tongue, tasting the bead of cum that has gathered there.
I groan, head falling back as she takes her time, inch by inch, as if she has all the hours in the world, and intends to ruin me with every one of them. Her hands grip my thighs, grounding herself as much as me.
The Void snarls at being ignored. At losing my attention as she takes control over the situation.
I gather her hair into my hand, pulling it away from her perfect face as I thrust up into the back of her throat.
“Fuck, Daisy. Look at you,” I growl. “So fucking pretty on your knees for me, princess. Look how good you take my cock down your throat.”
Her eyes glitter as spit drips from her chin, her mouth working me with devotion that has my pulse roaring.
Emotion crashes into me harder than lust ever could.
Because she is here, touching me after everything.
Because she knows exactly what darkness I carry, and still kneels before me like I am worth loving.
Sunlight spills across the room in wide golden bands, warming the stone floor and catching in the sheer curtains that sway with the morning breeze.