33. Kiera
Chapter 33
Kiera
I t’s been a long time since my dreams were just dreams and not nightmares dragging me back down the streets of memory. In Theos’ arms, though, that is all they become. I’m drifting down a long dark river full of black skies and diamond stars. It’s warm and safe here. Far away from blood and death and decay. I snuggle deeper into the space that smells of rum and spice. It invades my nostrils threatening to slip through to my very soul. A contented breath escapes me and a breath blows across the crown of my head. Baby hairs flutter at my temple and I wrinkle my nose at the sensation, trying to go deeper into the dream. Then wide, firm hands move over my front, down the plain of my stomach towards the place between my legs.
The sigh turns to a gasp as the first electrifying sensation of lightning sparks against the sensitive bundle of nerves above my sex. I jolt from the half-asleep state into one of full wakefulness to find that the hand is real and it’s Theos’. His name is both a groan and a scolding as it’s ripped from my lips. He pulls his hand back, but his mouth presses a kiss to my nape as he holds me in the same way we fell asleep. His naked front to my tunic covered back. That doesn’t last long. Theos’ hands push up the fabric so that he can touch me, skin to skin. I glance down to find a golden glow surrounding his fingers. The sparks of his Divinity light up the shadowy room as he flattens a palm against my lower belly. A shock rippling of energy moves through me. That strange buzzing that I’ve felt tingling beneath my flesh rises to greet this new sensation. The muscles beneath my flesh bunch and jump to meet the heat coming off the hand belonging to the man at my back. Theos’ body is like an inferno against mine, chasing away the last vestiges of the ice that filled my insides until there’s no hint left.
“ Theos .” My nails dig into the muscled forearm around my side as my spine arches. More lightning glows at the tips of his fingers trailing from him to me, making the nerves beneath my skin shudder in a mixture of pleasure and pain.
He nuzzles against the side of my neck. “I love it when you say my name like that.”
I shake my head, trying to clear it from the erotic fog he’s somehow woven over me. “Now … is really … not…” the time , I mentally add when yet again more of his lightning appears, this time jumping and dancing over the exterior of my flesh like tiny little sentient creatures.
Theos ignores my words and parts his lips. Sharp, sweet agony spills through me as his teeth sink into the column of my throat, and the evidence of a hot hard cock prods my ass.
“ Regis! ” I half gasp, half moan, trying to remind both myself and the man torturing me of the reason we shouldn’t be doing this.
Unfortunately, all it does is result in a low male growl. The world flips and my front is suddenly turned, my back pressed into the mattress beneath me as a very angry very erect Theos Darkhaven appears above me. My legs are spread and in the next second, I’m filled to the brim. My spine arches and my lips part in a silent scream as Theos is suddenly inside me, his cock sliding through soft not-quite-ready-yet flesh.
“I might not mind letting my brothers have you, Dea. ” His voice is a quiet dangerous rumble—sounding nothing like the usual Theos. “But if you ever call another man’s name while you’re in my bed … I will gut him upon this mattress and then fuck you in his entrails.”
As if intended to punctuate that threat, Theos withdraws from my cunt and then slams back inside with fervent desire. My hands are on his shoulders, my nails digging into his flesh until they draw blood.
“Don’t. Fucking. Threaten. Me.” Each word is marked by a low animalistic growl, and it takes several moments after the words are out to realize that the noise is coming from my own throat.
Liquid treasure eyes bore into me as Theos pulls back, his hips twisting before he sinks back into me. Lightning the same color as those eyes of his appears along the length of his arms. The scent of something smoldering, hot and wicked reaches my nostrils a split second before the sheets around us catch fire. Flames lick at my side, eliciting a gasp as I mentally prepare for the heat stealing over my skin and searing into me. Arms close around my body and Theos spins us, ripping the sheets from their position as we tumble to the opposite side of the bed. When I reopen my eyes after realizing I’d closed them in preparation for pain, I find myself sitting astride the big golden eyed Darkhaven beneath me. Other than a scorch mark on the otherwise pristine sheets, there’s no other evidence of his near lack of control.
“Off.” Theos yanks at the edge of my tunic.
Shaking off the sudden change, I stare down at him—confused and aroused. Perhaps it’s because I just woke up, but I don’t have any of the usual barriers I normally would. My mind isn’t focusing as hard as it should on all of the reasons why I shouldn’t let this man do what he wants.
When I don’t immediately do as he demands, Theos reaches up and grips two sides of my tunic. The sound of rending fabric reaches my ears a bit too late as he peels away the remains of my shirt and then does away with the under corset, leaving me completely naked astride him. He slaps my hip lightly—just enough to sting, though not to cause actual pain. “If you don’t want me to fuck you into unconsciousness, I suggest you ride me, Dea .”
My hands curl into fists against his chest. “Theos— fuck! ”
Whether he senses my impending protest or he is simply tired of being patient, the hard roll of his hips sends my body jolting up and down, my insides sliding against the hard shaft between my legs. Theos’ hands come up to grip my waist, lifting me and pulling back down until his cock is sliding between my folds in hard penetrating thrusts.
I shut my eyes again as the squeeze of my insides press hard against the cock inside me. My lower muscles contract around the intruder and the responding low masculine groan that echoes up from beneath me makes the sweat slicked hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
“You’re squeezing me so tightly,” Theos pants. “It’s as if you’re trying to strangle my cock.”
“Maybe I am,” I shoot back, my lids parting so I can peer down through my lashes at his face.
His neck is craned back, the sharp lines of his jaw no longer shadowed as the veins bulge beneath his skin. I look to where his hands are holding me down against him and curiosity has me lifting slightly on my own, rubbing up and down and back and forth. A hiss escapes him and then me as I inadvertently rub my clit against something. It feels good, so I do it again.
Up and down. Back and forth. Grinding. Hungry for a bit more of this pleasure when I should be focusing on anything—everything—else. Just once though. I want to steal a bit of time for myself, for privacy to reward myself for all that I’ve given up and all that I’ve yet to give up but know that I eventually will.
I can’t keep them—these deranged devious Darkhavens. They are not mine, and I’m not theirs. But I can take this with me when it’s all over—the memories of something good, of something pleasurable.
If I don’t die here in this place, in this academy at the hands of the Gods, then this will be all that I will allow myself for the future. A memory of once when I wasn’t so in control, when I allowed myself a short reprieve from everything else. Hopefully, it’ll be enough.
“Fuck!” Theos’ sharp cry as I feel his cock swell against my inner walls leaves me panting for more as he uses his hold again, slamming me up and down upon his shaft.
Wetness trickles from between my thighs, soaking his lap and the dark hairs at the base of his shaft. Sweat coats my flesh—my thighs, my shoulders, and everything in between.
“Kiss me.” Theos’ plea is a soft purr, hypnotic. So much so that I find myself leaning down to offer my mouth to him.
The second his lips touch mine, though, I realize my mistake. His hand comes up and clasps around the back of my head, holding me in place as he takes what remains of my sanity and completely obliterates it. The world spins a second time and he’s over me, his body moving like a lithe predatory animal as he powers into me. Our hips are locked in an age-old dance, my legs spread open for him. He grasps me by the throat now that my head is pressed back into the mattress and ravages my mouth.
Tongue, lips, and teeth collide in an explosive fury that I knew we both possessed. As hungry as he’s turning out to be, I’m more so. I bite back, sucking his tongue into my mouth and tormenting him with little needy sounds in the back of my throat. A hand squeezes against my breast. Fingers tweak my nipple, pinching down hard until the kiss is interrupted by a sharp cry from me.
“ Gods… ” I hiss out as Theos’ head dips and he takes my other nipple between his teeth.
He pauses and lifts his head. “Don’t bring those bastards into this moment, Dea ,” he orders, eyes dripping with icy gold. “The Gods have no place between your legs. Only me. When you cry out, I want to hear you scream my name.”
I have no words for his command, but as he dips his head again and begins to move inside me once more, I lose all other rationality that allowed me to think in the first place. With his cock buried in my cunt, Theos drives me to the brink again and again, but he must still retain some of his own sanity because he has no problem stopping just before we ever reach the point of no return. I pant. I curse him. I scratch at his back like a wild creature.
When he tries to kiss me again on the mouth, I bite, drawing blood and eliciting an amused chuckle from him. “So violent.” He doesn’t sound angry. “So perfect.”
My eyes burn at that statement and all I can do is cling to him as fresh tears well up, soaking through my lashes. No, I want to tell him. Don’t ruin this with lies no one would believe.
I’m a killer. I’m a monster. I am one of the dangerous creatures in the dark. That’s why Caedmon came to me. That’s why he believes I’ll be the one capable of killing the God King. No one good can be asked to do something so heinous.
“With me, Kiera.” I blink as Theos rocks into me, sliding back and forth between sore folds. Hands come up to cup my face. “Look at me.” I do and frown. “You’re with me, right now,” he tells me. “No one else.”
How had he known?
Wet slick sounds squelch through the room as he continues to thrust into me. A thumb slips over the bundle of nerves that is my clit and Theos is not the only one who can produce lightning. It ricochets through me, stealing away my breath and leaving me a mindless, sobbing mess of pleasure as I come all over him. It only takes an instant for him to follow me into the drowning darkness of release and then the two of us collapse against one another, panting, trembling, and shaking with the aftereffects.
I don’t know how long we lie like that, our skin pressed so close together that it begins to stick. I’m not the one who interrupts the peace that settles into my bones in a way that nothing else ever has.
“We need to talk.”
I roll my eyes at Theos’ now calm tone as his hand strokes up and down the goosebump speckled flesh of my back.
“Yes, because you’re so good at talking,” I mutter.
His hand leaves my spine and comes down in a sharp strike against my right ass cheek. I lift up slightly on his chest and arch a brow at him.
Theos scowls at me. “I’m serious,” he says.
Propping myself up on his chest with one hand, I wave my other in a gesture for him to continue. “By all means, Master Theos, talk.”
Another half-hearted slap and another roll of my eyes.
Finally, he speaks. “I need you to know that we will protect you.”
I stiffen at the implication his words bring to mind. Rolling away from him onto the other side of the bed, scorch-marked sheets dig at my backside. “I neither need nor do I want your protection,” I tell him.
“Tough shit.”
I ignore him and sit up in bed, pulling the straggling strands of my hair away from my face and twisting the spiderweb- colored locks into a knot on the back of my head. “Forget it, Theos,” I say, sliding off the mattress to pad across the floor. I scrub a hand down my dry face. Old remnants of the tears I shed last night still linger on my skin—I can feel the dried, salt-scented tracks on my cheeks. “We’re allies, I’ll give you that, but after this mission is over, you’ll go your way and I’ll go mine.”
“Are you fucking serious?” His sharp tone penetrates my mind but doesn’t dissuade me from moving about the room, gathering my trousers from the night before along with my underwear. I don them first before I grab my under corset up—thankful, at least, that he hadn’t torn apart this bit of clothing.
Tying the laces at the front of my pants to keep them closed, I slip into the under corset and redo the laces Theos had loosened. With the clothes covering my skin again, I feel stronger—like I’m putting on armor instead of thin fabric.
“ Kiera .” I don’t turn to look at him even when I hear the angry note in his voice. “You’re insane if you think after everything we’ve done that you’re going to walk away at the end of this.”
If there even is an end. My fingers still at that thought. It’s a sensible consideration. We could die. All of us. If the Gods find out the truth of everything, they could just as easily execute us and no matter how many secrets we uncover, if the rest of the world remains ignorant to the secrets hiding in the corridors of these academies then we have no real protection.
I hear the soft whisper of sheets moving and then footsteps on the floor. “We couldn’t have a relationship before because I thought you were a Terra—a human—but now?—”
I pivot to face the lightning-eyed Darkhaven, stopping him with a hand raised against his chest before he can reach for me. “Nothing has changed about that other than the fact that you know the truth about my bloodline,” I state coolly. “There is no relationship here. Not with you.”
Gold turns to wounded bronze. “And my brothers?” Theos asks.
“Not with them either.”
He stares back at me with silent rage. The emotions swarming in the depths of his gaze batter at my soul like a wicked storm wanting to be let into the safe haven of a castle that has withstood hundreds of its kind. I lock the doors and windows and let him see the icy control that has returned reflected in my own expression.
“I see.” Theos steps back, taking the warmth of his body with him. I curl my fingers into my palms, nails stabbing at the soft flesh there to keep from doing something ridiculous such as reaching out to bring him back.
I watch him carefully as he strides away from me and bends to pick up a pair of discarded pants. The hard planes of his muscled frame ripple as he steps into them sans underwear and does up the laces before turning back to face me. There is blood in my mouth. I blink and realize I’m biting down on the inside of my cheek so hard I’ve broken skin.
“Go.” Theos gestures for the door. “Go check on your friend.”
With a frown, I take a step toward a chair and lift a tunic that’s too big for me before pulling it on over my head. “Theos, I?—”
He stops me with a snarl. “I don’t want to hear it,” he snaps. “You want to be a fucking coward, then do so with someone else, Kiera. I am not the man for you to use and discard as you please.”
“That’s not what?—”
Lightning crackles along his arms, glowing golden in the dim light of dawn pouring in through the window. “ Go. ”
I swallow roughly, an apology poised on my lips, but I know with a single look it won’t be accepted. So, instead of offering any more justification for my decision, I just do as he asks.
I turn away from the kindest of the Darkhaven brothers and I leave, each step creating a staggering fissure of pain through the shattered part of my soul that I thought died long ago—before I ever met any of them.