4. Leith
Leith
The cold air clears my head. The voices are gone, thank fuck.
That was an insane nightmare I have no inclination to repeat.
Ever. The courtyard lies mostly empty. Rain strikes the stone, collecting in the channels carved around the ward-posts.
Silver light moves beneath the water. Asha watches it with her new sight, her attention fixed on things the rest of us can’t see.
“What can you see?” I ask.
“Too much,” she says. “The wards run through everything. The rain carries silver current into the ground, and there’s purple power beneath it. Black marks keep appearing near the north tower.”
Tobin looks towards it. “Moving?”
“No. Fading, then returning.”
“Yseld?” Hale asks.
“Possibly. Or something else dead and irritating.”
“So like Leith then,” Hale remarks with a smirk.
I give him the finger.
Asha glances at me. Her blue eyes brighten with purple light for a second. “You’re covered in black threads.”
Hale turns to me. “From the archive?”
I shake my head. “It’s natural. It’s death.”
“Death,” Asha murmurs and rakes her gaze over me. “Yes. Death.”
We carry on walking and push open the doors to the residence tower. We head up the stairs, which are behaving for once, and stop outside Asha’s room. “You,” she says to me. “You come in. We have unfinished business.”
Her smile is soft and heated at the same time.
“We’re not leaving,” Hale states.
“Then you get to watch while Leith and I fuck, and you can’t join in,” Asha replies. She shoves her door open, and I push past Hale to enter behind her with a smile.
“You expect us to watch and not join in?” Hale asks, his voice incredulous. “Are you fucking joking?”
“Think of it as foreplay. He gets his turn solo, like you both did.”
“That’s right, fuckers,” I state, suddenly feeling stronger than I ever have. “You two can wait now. It’s my turn.”
“Oh, right,” Tobin states and enters the room. “One assumes that after you are done, we can join in?”
“If you want to,” Asha says coyly and strips off her top before Hale has come in and kicked the door closed.
My attention drops to lace-covered tits before I can pretend I possess restraint.
Asha lifts her arms and pulls the pins from her hair. Long blonde strands tumble down her back. She knows exactly what she’s doing. Every slow movement challenges me to lose control.
I close the distance.
“Still want an audience?” I ask.
She hooks her fingers into the front of my shirt. “I want them frustrated.”
Behind me, Hale makes a disgusted sound. “Cruel little goddess.”
Asha looks past my shoulder. “You knew that already.”
Then she drags me down and kisses me.
The contact destroys the last traces of the archive, leaving only Asha demanding my full attention.
I give it to her.
My hand slides into her hair while my other settles against her lower back. I pull her against me and deepen the kiss until she makes a low sound against my lips. Heat builds under my skin, tangled with death-current that wants to claim, restrain, and keep.
Asha breaks the kiss long enough to tug at my shirt.
I catch the hem and pull it over my head.
Her eyes travel across my chest, following the magic only she can see.
Purple light enters her irises again. She shoves me backwards.
My legs hit the bed, and she pushes again until I sit.
With a flash of magic I can’t resist, I undress her, leaving her naked in front of me.
She smiles and crawls onto my lap. Her knees settle on either side of my hips. I catch her waist, and black current spills over my fingers.
Asha looks down.
The threads wind around her, visible to her new sight. They travel over her skin without leaving a mark, gathering at her wrists and waist.
Her eyes lift to mine. “Possessive.”
I pull her closer and kiss her again.
She answers with immediate force, fingers driving into my hair. Her body presses against mine, warm and alive. That matters more than it should.
I turn and put her on the bed beneath me.
Hale swears from across the room.
“Having trouble?” I ask without looking away from Asha.
“Get on with it.”
Asha laughs softly. “He’s suffering.”
“Good.”
I lower my head and kiss her throat. Her pulse beats under my lips, steady and alive.
Asha grips my shoulders. “You’re checking.”
I lift my head. “Checking what?”
“That I’m alive.”
I tighten the black bindings around her wrists and press them into the mattress above her head.
“You were dead.”
“And you dragged me back.”
“I dragged you out. Tobin brought you back.”
“You commanded an entire chamber of dead creatures to release me.”
“They obeyed.”
“Because you’re terrifying.”
“Flattery won’t make me release you.”
Her eyes burn brighter. “Who said I want you to?”
I kiss her before she can see how deeply that answer lands. Her body shifts under mine, seeking contact, but I keep my weight off her. She’s had enough force driven into her body today.
Her legs close around my hips.
“Stop treating me delicately,” she murmurs.
“I’m restraining you with death magic.”
“Gently.”
“Would you prefer pain?”
Her expression turns wicked. “Are you offering?”
A harsh laugh escapes me. “You have no idea what you’re asking for.”
“I’m a five-hundred-year-old battle goddess. I know exactly what I’m asking for.”
Hale makes a noise of restraint and moves closer. Tobin has taken the chair beside Asha’s desk. His silver eyes remain fixed on us, and his calm has acquired a visible strain.
I send another thread of death-current around Asha’s thighs and hold them apart.
Her breath catches.
“Still too gentle?” I ask.
“Mm.”
I slide my fingers to her pussy.
She arches against my hand, and satisfaction strikes through me when I find her soaking wet. I stroke her clit slowly, keeping my eyes on her face while the tendrils of magic hold her still. Her pupils widen. Her lips part on a sharp breath she tries to control.
I press harder, circling her clit until her hips fight the bindings.
“Leith.”
“Pathetic?” I repeat.
“Don’t get smug.”
I stop.
Her blue eyes flash. “Did I say stop?”
“You said not to get smug. I’m considering my options.”
“Your options are touching me or dying.”
“Death threats from a restrained goddess. Very compelling.”
I tighten the tendrils around her wrists. Asha tests it and discovers she can’t move them more than an inch. The strain in her arms lifts her breasts, and every thought I possess abandons me.
I lower my head and close my lips around one nipple.
She gasps and fights the restraints again.
Asha moans when I push two fingers inside her and twist them. “Fuck.”
I work my fingers inside her until her sharp commands break into helpless sounds. Her death-grip on my magic sends a vicious thrill through me.
I lift my head from her nipple and kiss her, swallowing the next cry.
The world contracts to heat, power, and the violent relief of touching her. She fights every binding because surrender doesn’t come naturally to her. I hold her through it, refusing to let the fear from the chamber poison this.
Her orgasm hits hard. Her pussy locks around my fingers, thighs straining against the black tendrils while her cry fills the room. Purple light blazes through her eyes and races beneath her skin.
My magic reacts.
Death surges from my hands and floods every binding.
Asha’s pleasure cuts through it, fierce enough to turn the darkness silver at the edges.
Her nipples peak in the sudden cold, and she shivers as I ride her through her climax with my hand.
She rasps and pulls me down onto her. I strip myself by magic, my cock aching to be inside her.
I drive into her wet heat with one thrust that buries me to the hilt.
Her body clamps around my cock, tight and perfect, and a groan rips from my throat as the last fragments of archive horror burn away.
Asha arches beneath the black bindings, her wrists straining against them while her legs remain spread wide by the same magic.
I set a hard rhythm, each drive of my cock forcing another sharp cry from her lips.
“Fucking hell,” Hale curses.
Tobin moves closer, unable to stay away.
Their frustration feeds me. I lean down and bite the side of Asha’s neck, hard enough to mark. She moans and clenches tighter.
“Leith,” she gasps. “Harder.”
I give her what she wants. The bindings hold her exactly where I want her while I fuck her deep and relentlessly.
Death magic pulses through me in time with my thrusts, wrapping her tits and throat in lazy coils that make her nipples tighten further.
She fights the restraints because that is her nature, and the resistance sends fresh heat straight to my balls.
Withdrawing, I release her, but only to flip her onto her stomach.
The bindings reform instantly, pinning her face-down with her arse raised.
I slam back inside and reach around her to rub her clit in tight circles.
Her orgasm hits fast and violent. She screams into the mattress, her pussy pulsing around me until I follow her over the edge with a low growl.
Black magic floods the room in a final rush before I rein it back. I collapse over her for a single second, breathing hard, then press a kiss between her shoulder blades.
Hale is already moving, pulling his shirt over his head. “Move over. I want my cock in that mess you just made of her.”
“Fuck,” I groan and roll over before he physically removes me. He pounces on her, and I release her from my magic. If he wants her restrained, he will have to do it with hellfire.