Chapter 36
V Points Like an Arrow to Treasure
This wasn’t bloodlust.
Bloodlust had overcome me on the beach of Zaraga—the one and only time. This was different. I was hungry, yes. Starving, even. Ravenous. But it still wasn’t bloodlust. I was mostly lucid.
My thoughts came and went, sometimes muddled, at times crystalline. I felt both of this world and in another transcendent one, filled with equal parts pain and pleasure.
My maddening and unbearable desire for Alobaz wasn’t bloodlust at all.
It was a lure I should have resisted. And yet I’d been the first to give into it.
My actions were what catapulted Alobaz into a frenzied arousal that matched my own—thrust for thrust, teeth-gnashing kiss for desperate kiss.
My body—every single fucking part of it—wanted to collide with him and never separate.
Absolutely terrifying.
For a long time now, probably since I fought in the pits as a young girl, I’d accepted that I was fucked-up in the head. Here was further proof. Totally irrefutable proof.
“I hate you,” I said into the curve of Alobaz’s throat as he pounded into me with wet slaps that turned me on more, had me jerking my hips toward his, wanting to take in his slickened dick to the hilt every time.
“I hate you too,” he said on a grunt. “You almost killed me.”
His dick was thick and enormous and perfectly stiff, and all I could feel while he was inside me. He slammed into me. My eyes rolled upward.
I hummed. “I will … kill you.”
I’d ripped his shirt open, and now ran my hands along his bare chest, dragging my nails over ripple upon ripple of hard muscle.
My breasts had popped free of my corset. He lowered his head and sucked a nipple into his mouth so hard I gasped, then nearly left my body when he did it again.
“If your dick doesn’t get me first,” I said on a smoky chuckle, and next a lascivious moan that was suitable soundtrack for a brothel’s advertisement.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” he snarled into my neck, right beside the iron collar, imbued with inescapable shadole faithum, he kept on me.
“We def’nitely should … n’t be doing this,” I panted.
By the Ethers, how fucked up could one woman be? He was my captor. He had me chained up like his bitch slave. Collared like I wasn’t a person. I was all but leashed.
Plus—plus—he was my twin brother’s motherfucking murderer.
As if that weren’t enough to land me solidly in the I’ve lost my ever-loving mind category, he was a Rubor.
A Rubor. The sworn enemy of any and every D’Arco from birth—or rebirth, depending.
Not just any ol’ Rubor either, but the dynasty’s principal enforcer. The very reason the Rubors were dominating the D’Arcos.
If Rafaela could see me now … well, locking me up in the cage would be the least of my worries.
The cage, I could endure. I’d done so many times before.
But her disappointment? That was a cage I couldn’t escape.
Yet here I was, jumping his bones. And I really, really didn’t want him to stop pounding into me.
“I hate you,” I told him again. This time, what I really meant was, I hate myself.
“I know, beautiful, I know,” he murmured softly as if we were lovers.
But we weren’t lovers. We were mortal fucking enemies.
He might not know it, but I sure as scorch did.
“Don’t you dare be sweet to me,” I snapped.
He laughed darkly in my ear, his breath hot and enticing along its shell. “Oh no, I wouldn’t think of it.”
I slapped his shoulder as hard as I could. His next thrust hitched but then he continued.
I actually sighed inside in relief.
I’ve lost my damn mind.
“I mean it. I’m only screwing you ’cause it’s better than feeding from you, and I’m hungry.”
“Of course you’re hungry. You haven’t eaten in at least six days.”
Six days? I attempted quick math, but his cock was too magnificent, and he too skilled at stabbing me with it. I couldn’t even remember how many days I began with for Kemuel’s spell.
“You know,” Alobaz said on a thrust and a grunt.
The head of his dick jabbed against that spongy spot along my inner walls—and my mind blanked.
He did it again and again and again. Warmth was pooling inside me.
Rapidly, I blinked in an attempt to clear my head of its current rapture. I can’t climax with my mortal enemy, dammit! Screwing him was one thing. A need that had to be satiated this way or with feeding from his vein, and that would never happen.
But to actually be vulnerable with him so as to allow myself to explode, well, that couldn’t happen. It just couldn’t.
You shouldn’t have started all this by impaling yourself on his dick, then, Sora, my voice of reason chided from what felt like very far away.
A tear of fabric snapped me out of myself. Alobaz was propped onto his hands to either side of my waist. My corset lay ripped open beneath me.
Unreasonably enthralled, I watched the muscles of his forearms ripple and bulge as he tore at my skirt.
It fell away as his mouth twisted in concentration, his hair sliding free of its leather queue.
His hair was a wild, golden nimbus around his head as he stared fiercely down at me.
His eyes, the ferocious expression on his face, were wilder still.
All at once, I lay fully nude beneath him—save for my lace-up boots. Though no whore I’d ever met wore a fae-warrior’s boots, I wouldn’t go anywhere without mine—not on purpose, anyway.
Alobaz licked his lips, devouring me with his gaze. A sheen of sweat coated his face and what was exposed of his body, making his skin appear dewy, steamy. His pants bunched around his knees; his shirt hung from his elbows.
He licked his pillowy lips another time, reminding me of a hungry wolf about to feast. Pinned down by his strong body, I couldn’t help but squirm, wanting the wolf. Wanting him. Wanting it all—even as a tiny, distant voice cautioned that I wasn’t allowed to have what I wanted. I never had been.
“You must be the most breathtaking woman our world has ever seen in all its long history,” he said, his tone pitched in awe.
I was used to men lusting after me. It was a constant. When those others did, though, it felt different from this.
He sank onto his forearms and rolled his hips, pushing himself so deep into me, then holding there, his tip so far inside me I could sense its energy, how close he was to his own release.
“I mean what I said,” he added.
He rolled his hips again and again, slowly now, savoring. The frenzy had passed. His eyes, before glazed, fevered even, were now a clear, impossibly deep ocean.
My desperation had quelled some too—so long as he wasn’t going anywhere. Which meant the thrall of my hunger no longer served as an excuse.
I should stop what I was doing immediately.
I didn’t. Of course I didn’t. Stopping was the very last thing I wanted to do. Continuing was all that felt right and good in a world so full of shit it could bury a person alive.
What he said … right.
“What’d you say?” I asked.
Languidly now, he pushed in and out of me, in and out. Gloriously slick from my arousal, he caressed me from the inside out.
“When?”
With both palms cupping his ass, I squeezed, enjoying the flex of his muscles beneath my fingers. “You said you meant what you said.”
“I did. I do.” He sounded far away now, as distracted as I’d been before.
“So what did you say?”
He pulled back to look into my eyes. His gaze skimmed across the collar at my neck and then quickly back to my eyes. He rolled those strong, gorgeous, sexy hips against me again. The man was all brawny muscle and slick moves, with the cock to match.
“You didn’t hear me?”
“No. I was otherwise occupied.”
He chuckled, and the deep rolling rumble made my inner walls contract around him. He groaned.
“So?” I pressed.
“I said…” He thrust into me as deeply as he yet had and held there, his balls squeezed against me.
He hummed. “If you feed off me…” He pulled back, slammed into me again, held so incredibly deep inside me.
“I don’t have to tell anyone.” Another thrust, another delicious hold. “If you don’t want me to.”
He thrust deep enough to cleave me in two, and again remained there. My eyes rolled upward for the umpteenth time.
I tried to focus on the conversation. “That’s awfully noble of you … for a murderous despot.”
“I’m not the despot. My father…”
“Is…?” I prompted.
He didn’t respond, not even with a nod, though I was certain that’s what he’d been about to say. Had he continued, he would have been committing treason against the empire. Against the precious emperor, the asshole prick to end all asshole pricks.
To keep me from heading down a dangerous road, Alobaz picked up the pace. It took only a few pulses inside me for my thoughts to empty again, for the frenzied desire to build deep inside me, where he kept fomenting my arousal.
In, in, in, in, in—and I was squirming and moaning, gripping him everywhere I could reach, stretching my lips for his.
He slammed his mouth against mine so forcefully that our fangs touched.
The cut in his lip, already healing quickly thanks to his s?nglure nature, reopened.
His blood swirled around my tongue. Onto his.
Once more, thought was gone. All that remained was driving need.
I swallowed—and with that gulp I tasted a tang more delicious than any other in my entire time since my rebirth. Like an animal, I sucked on his tongue, drinking every drop of his blood that seeped into his mouth.
After a hard thrust that seated him as deeply inside me as he would go, he waited there, and gave himself over to the kiss. As I sucked his tongue, his responding moan was savage. His kisses grew fevered, like there was no getting enough of each other.
He pulled his head back a few inches. Instantly, I turtled my own forward, stretching for him. He dragged his fangs against his lower lip, slicing it in two additional places, then crashed our mouths together.
His blood drifted across my tongue. It tasted like smoked wood, chicory, evergreens, and … like safety. Security.
With a gasp that was also part growl, I yanked my head back. Eyes closed, he followed, trying to press his bleeding kiss to my mouth.
As hard as I could, I pushed on his shoulders, shoving him away.
Eyes snapping open, he caught himself on his hands. “What is it? What’s wrong?” He scanned me, searching for a problem—to fix, it seemed.
As if he were my protector. As if he weren’t the most dastardly and heinous killer in the entire Opalese. As if he hadn’t ruined my life and ended my brother’s.
“Get off me,” I snarled.
Screwing the enemy like he was the last man in the Opalese, and I wanted him all for myself, was a problem, sure, no denying that. But it wasn’t the biggest problem.
Losing myself to him—in him—that was a huge fucking problem.
Drinking his blood? Even bigger.
I hadn’t pierced his vein like an animal and drunk from it, but I was one small, blurry step away from that.
Though I was collared and chained, he backed off immediately. When he slid out of me, I had to close my eyes so he wouldn’t register the sense of loss I really, really, really didn’t want to feel—but still did, and intensely.
Hands on his hips, akimbo to that enticing, drool-worthy V that pointed like an arrow to treasure, he stood beside the bed, while I lay splayed across it.
His pants slid down to bunch around his boots, and his shirt hung from his waist, evidently too torn to otherwise stay on.
When I’d shredded it, I didn’t remember.
Scratches I similarly didn’t recall inflicting crisscrossed his smooth skin, slashing across the crests and valleys of his muscles.
His cock stood erect like a disciplined soldier, glistening with proof of how much I wanted him. His tip beaded with further evidence of how much he desired me. The soft, silky skin of his shaft was stretched taut along his thick girth. His balls were drawn tight against its base.
Saliva pooled in my mouth and I swallowed at the sight. When I tasted his blood anew, I tightened down on my resolve.
“Are you alright?” he asked, his eyes bright and hungry as they trailed across my bare skin.
They skimmed the swells of my round breasts and the hardened peaks of my nipples.
My boobs hadn’t yet gotten the message that playtime was coming to an abrupt—and premature—end.
He dragged his stare down my body, to rest on my pink, wet folds.
I should have probably pulled my legs closed—I didn’t.
He drew in a ragged breath that caused his chest and shoulders to shudder violently. His dick bobbed.
I tsked, as if only he were to blame for what we’d done. I’d let the hypocrisy bother me later, if at all.
“No, I’m not okay.”
With evident effort, he forced himself to look at my face and keep his attention there.
“I’m your prisoner, as you so aptly pointed out earlier.” He’d also said I was his, I was busy recalling, and that was a claim better forgotten.
He blinked a few times, ran both hands through his hair, tucking errant bunches of that shiny, gilded hair behind his ears. He cringed.
“I, uh, didn’t expect this to go … where it went.”
I was in the process of debating how much harm there really was in continuing to admire the most gorgeous dick I’d ever seen in my entire life, and if I really should ask him to tuck himself away—when the door swung open without a knock of warning.
Alobaz, ever the fighter, didn’t bother to shield his nudity, but swung around to face the new arrival while unsheathing his shortsword from where it hung from his belt at his back.
I, the secretly consummate assassin, who hadn’t even given thought to his sword—or, well, not that one, anyway—rose to my feet in weaponless preparedness.
Ramone Vásquez, the seasoned soldier who’d seen nearly as much action as Alobaz, according to my history books, and who didn’t shock easily, I’d wager, dropped his mouth wide open to gape at us.