Chapter 22
“IS SHE ALRIGHT?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happened out there?”
“I don’t know!”
The voices were all around her, but her body was aflame, every inch of her skin prickling with heat. And she was hungry, so hungry, more famished than she had ever been in her life.
Everything was still, no more rumbling, no more weightless falling, just a solid cushion at her back.
She opened her eyes, her body lying on the bed like a corpse, her feathered black wings cocooning her in safety. They had eyes of their own, just like Bellinor’s, and from them she could see all. It was a dizzying effect, and she tried to focus on the men crouching over her, letting reality set in.
She had nourished the void and survived.
Le Voile’s darkness was not deeper than her own.
“Isabelle!” Rul gasped, pressing a palm to her cheek as if checking she was really there.
Isabelle. A name that didn’t quite fit her anymore, though she didn’t disparage it. It was still a part of her, somewhere deep down, though it was her no longer.
“Rul,” she rasped, getting used to her new tongue, her new lungs, the muscles of her neck and face.
“Why did you go out there?” he asked, his brows furrowed with worry.
She looked down at her naked body, her skin a light blue and covered in sticky red blood.
“I couldn’t let you be destroyed.”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Bellinor said, his voice soft. “You should have gone back to Marilet. You could have died.”
“But is that the worst thing? To die and become nothing?” she asked, recalling his words.
Bellinor smiled, though there was sadness in his eyes. Did he see himself in her? Her fall from grace? The brutal repeal of her blind faith?
“Are you in pain, baby?” Rul asked, petting his hand along her chest, her arm, reveling in the new skin laying before him.
Pain? Yes, she was in pain. Delicious, exquisite pain. But she would survive.
And she craved more.
“I need you,” she said, wrapping a hand around each of their necks and pulling them down to her.
Rul was at her lips in an instant, his smoky scent shrouding her. She nipped at his bottom lip, and when he didn’t protest, bit harder, puncturing the flesh and tasting his saccharine blood. She was ravenous, sucking hard, the delicate drops doing little to satiate her hunger.
Bellinor’s tongue met her neck, savoring her new flesh, her drying blood, suckling her skin like it was the sweetest taste in the world.
“What happened to you?” Rul asked as he pulled away with a gasp, running his hands over her breasts and squeezing hard.
She arched into his touch, her muscles clenching with need as Bellinor pressed kisses along her chin, making his way slowly–painfully slowly–up to her lips.
“I transformed,” she said, before Bellinor silenced her with a kiss, the moment so perfect she thought she would melt into le Voile.
“She’s like us, mon chéri,” he whispered against her lips, and Rul beamed, bringing his forked tongue to her breast, raking a line through her blood and circling her nipple.
She groaned, holding onto them like she’d lose them if there was an inch of space between them. She wanted to absorb into them, like le Voile had absorbed into her.
Bellinor pulled away from the kiss, cupping her face with his palms.
“Do you love me, my dear? Do you love us?”
Love. It was the one thing she still felt with all of her being, but she saw the consternation in his furrowed brows, the frown etched on his face. He still didn’t know. Even after she’d said the words. Even after she’d gone into the void for them.
“Does love exist in le Voile?” she asked, every muscle tensed as she awaited his response.
Rul looked on with interest, his jaw clenched tight and his hands gripping her waist.
“It exists because I say it exists,” Bellinor answered, and a grin pulled at her lips, elation filling her with a delicious lightness.
“And you’re the Devil who rules the Veil.”
“I am. I rule this place. And I rule you, my little love.”
She looked down at her body, her new muscles, her heightened form.
“Not so little anymore.”
Bellinor chuckled, petting her cheek sweetly.
“No, you’re not. But you’re still my little love. Because I love you.” He turned, placing his other hand on Rul’s cheek. “And I love you too.”
His gaze was back on her as she lay frozen on the bed.
“I’m sorry for punishing you when you said it before. I’m sorry for hiding away from you. Both of you. After what happened with her, I vowed to never feel that way about another. I couldn’t let myself be betrayed again.”
With his eyes on Rul, he continued.
“But I’ve loved you since the moment I created you. You saved me from my torment, my loneliness. I don’t know what would have happened to me without you here.”
He gave her a sheepish smile, like the words were difficult to say.
“And you. When I saw you devoting your life to her, the way you delighted in your penance, I knew I had to have you. I knew we were alike–you, me, and Rul. I felt the craving of your soul, and I needed to be the one to satiate it, the one that you wanted to satiate it with.”
His gaze traced her new form with a mixture of reverence and melancholy.
“And now… look what I’ve let you become.”
With warmth in her heart, she focused on Rul, who had tears in his eyes.
“Do you still love me?”
He gripped her hand, squeezing tightly.
“Of course, my sweet. I will always love you.”
She turned back to Bellinor, taking his hand as well.
“Do you love me like this?”
“I do. But this isn’t what I wanted for you…”
She shook her head, stopping him before he could continue.
“I wanted this for myself. This is where I was always meant to be, who I was always meant to be. I want your love, deserve your love. I deserve not to be alone anymore.”
“Yes, you do. And you’ll never be alone again.”
She believed his words, just as she did her own. She deserved to be loved for all of her sins and flaws, and she trusted Bellinor and Rul to do that.
With a great heave, she pushed Bellinor onto his back, her body lithe and strong as she straddled his waist. Claws extended from her fingers like knives, and she slashed at his clothes, the line of his smile splitting his face until it was a gaping maw.
He devoured her with his milky eyes, like he’d already decided exactly what he was going to do with her.
“I’m so hungry,” she moaned, rocking her hips against him, her cunt already slick with need.
This was a hunger that food alone wouldn’t satisfy, her wings fluttering behind her and cooling her heated flesh.
“Then let us feed you, love,” Bellinor said, digging his fingers into her hips.
A tendril of thorns snaked out of his tattoo, wrapping around her waist and circling her body, each luscious pinprick of pain alighting her nerves with pleasure.
“We know exactly what you need,” Rul said, brushing her tangled hair over her shoulder and pressing a kiss to her bloodied skin.
“I won’t be so easy to dominate anymore.”
She bit her lip, reveling in the strength of her new form, knowing it would only amplify the passion that raged between them.
Bellinor grinned, squeezing her ass possessively with a wild glimmer in his eyes.
“Then I suppose we will just have to force you to submit.”
Rul was at her back, grasping a fistful of her hair close to the scalp and tugging hard.
A moan escaped her, a delicious sound which reverberated in her throat, and she gripped her claws into Bellinor’s chest, holding onto him as his cock twitched between her legs. She wanted to mark him like he’d marked her, claim him in mind, body, and soul.
Le Voile had given her permission to release her inner darkness, just as it had done to Bellinor and Rul. The part of her that wanted to rejoice in pain, the inner deviant that she had been frightened of for so long.
There was a sharp sting at her neck, Rul’s fangs puncturing her battered flesh, and she screamed, her body electrifying with need. Tears spilled down her face, the rapture of pain overwhelming her, and Bellinor’s cock stiffened as if the sounds of her sobs made him hard.
Rul licked over the fresh wound, and she beamed with pride, her tolerance of the pain proof that she was worthy. She could take whatever they gave her, take it and cherish it, every bite and scratch and mark reminding her that she was owned by them.
“Tell me what you want us to do to you,” Bellinor growled, tightening his vines around her middle, blood seeping from the thorns puncturing her skin and dripping down her stomach and back.
She tried to grind against him, but they held her in place, firm hands biting into her skin.
“I want you both to fuck me. I want all of my holes filled by you. I’m so hungry.”
The words came out in a whine, and she knew she sounded pathetic, just as she knew they’d give her what she wanted.
“Beg for it,” Rul whispered, a finger pressing into her tight ring and making her clench around it.
Oh, she needed both of them inside of her, squeezing her gossamer barrier between their hard lengths, reminding her of their dominion. In le Voile she was theirs, and there was nothing else she’d rather be.
“Please, I need it. I need you both. I need you to hurt me, to feed me. I’m starving for you.”
Acknowledging her desire made her sink deeper into a state of submission, her pleas for attention tingling her nerves with excitement.
Without warning, the flat of Bellinor’s palm struck her cheek, and she reeled to the side, blood pooling in her mouth and tears burning at her eyes.
“Thank you,” she breathed, collecting the liquid in her mouth and spitting it onto his chest.
She smeared it with her hands, mixing her blood with his as his lips twisted into a triumphant grin.
“I’ll never get tired of you thanking me for hurting you,” Bellinor said, his voice deep and virile, like a rumble of thunder.
Rul grabbed a fistful of her hair once more, yanking her head back so he could hiss in her ear.
“The power you entrust us with is humbling, sweetheart.”