Chapter 12 #2
I can barely hear him. The rage pours out of me like a dam breaking, and I hit at him.
He captures blow after blow, meeting me just hard enough to make it hurt, as if he knows exactly what I need right now.
Because rage is my shield. Bubbling just beneath the surface is enough raw emotion to drown me and I don’t think I can cope with that right now.
She’s alive.
She’s safe.
I can’t fucking breathe.
Bael’s hands capture my wrists, and I wrench against him, but I’m a mess now and I sag as he holds me.
“You lied to me,” I gasp out, shaking with the shock of it. “I thought…”
“What?”
His face comes into focus, all hard chiseled planes and stubble. The warlord is back in place, his expression a shield. Or maybe I was imagining it all along. Maybe none of it was real. Maybe this was what lay beneath the surface all along.
Nothing.
I wanted. And I yearned. And when his lips grazed mine, a little, desperate part of me I thought long buried began to flutter with a temptation I’d never expected to find in this place.
“You knew I was hunting for you,” I whisper, because I need to know. “You knew and you deceived me. Why?”
He looks away from me. “Because I wanted you. And you would not have me. Not if you knew the truth.”
“So you lied?”
“I never lied. I omitted.”
“Why?”
“You wanted me dead,” he growls.
“Wanted? What makes you think I’ve changed my mind?”
Our eyes meet, his breath hot against my skin.
I slam my fists against his chest, forcing him to retreat. “Tell me the truth. Was this all a game to you? Did it amuse you to toy with me, knowing you were the very monster I hunted?”
“No,” he breathes, fury lighting the amber in his eyes.
“Did I deceive you? Yes. But not for amusement’s sake, but because for one fucking moment I wanted to be something other than the monster.
When you looked at me, for the first time I saw no fear in a woman’s eyes.
Because of you, I knew want when all I have ever known is duty.
And I knew I could never have you. I knew you would despise me.
I knew you would be my ruin. And I tried not to touch you.
But this?” He grips my chin, capturing my face.
“This was never the lie, Zyla. This fire between us burns hot, and even if it is fueled by the fury of your hatred, you can’t deny you want me too. ”
“Never,” I hiss. Pain explodes where my golden tattoo sits, and I gasp, shocked. “What—?”
“Liar,” he breathes, the molten gold of his irises consuming me, even as his fingers dig into my jaw. “Kasaros punishes those who lie in his kingdom.”
He drags a finger across my mark and the pain disappears.
I glare up at him with hurt, rage, fury.
He kisses me.
The action catches me off balance.
The last time he kissed me, he was careful with it. That kiss was a mere stoking of the flames, a touch of tinder to the yearning within us.
This is different.
This is hunger and need and fury. It’s everything we cannot say, words given a new language, one of flesh and touch.
Capturing my face in the palms of his hands, Bael consumes me, his tongue stroking against mine and his body pushing me back, back, further against the wall, until I am entirely at his mercy.
The maelstrom of emotion within me whirls in another direction, rage giving way to a flashfire of need.
Mine, his hands and tongue say.
Yours. I grab fistfuls of his hair, yanking him closer.
A hand slides down my spine, cupping me under the ass and then he hauls me into his arms, driving forward until my hips part around his, the hard press of his cock stealing a gasp from my lips. Biting his lower lip, I chase after the sensation, grinding against him, desperate for more.
“Zyla,” he growls, hands kneading my thighs. “Zyla, ease up.”
No. If I let it in, the emotions will drown me. I need this.
And some part of him must sense it. Hand sinking through my loose braid, he cradles my skull, tilting my face back for him to plunder. There’s a new desperation in our kiss, and I slide my hands between us, nails digging into the naked flesh of his abdomen, toying with the trail of hair there.
“Lioness.” Bael moans, drawing back for a moment as if he’s taking stock of my reaction. Stillness settles between us, broken only by our ragged breaths. The same confusion gleams in his wild eyes.
“I hate you,” I whisper, it is both a truth and not, and my mark heats as if the Labyrinth is unsure if it should punish me for the lie.
His eyes darken, as if he takes it as a personal challenge.
“Who’s the liar now? Tell me you don’t want this.
” He kisses his way down my throat, pinning my wrists against the hard stone wall as I hiss in thwarted fury.
But the sound of it seems to stir something within him, for he presses every last inch of his body against me, grinding the thick stave of his rigid cock into my hip.
The kiss of his teeth find my sensitive clavicle.
My hips jerk, the urge to soften against him damn near overwhelming.
Gods, I want to sink my fingers through his hair and haul his mouth back to mine, and I can’t because to do so would be to sign my surrender.
He’s right.
I want him. I want this. Even knowing everything that happened between us, everything that he is, doesn’t change the yearning my body feels.
Somehow he knows, his whisper the sound of midnight sin. “Tell me that if I slid my fingers between your legs, I wouldn’t find you wet and drenched, your hungry cunt desperate for me.”
I groan, shaking my head in denial, but it’s a lie. All of it is a lie.
The burn sears my skin but his mouth eases over it, healing my flesh.
His laughter reverberates against my skin.
“I’m a drei shifter, my love. I can smell the truth on your skin, smell your lies.
” The moist kiss of his breath over my ear sends a shiver through me.
“You’re wet, Zyla. You’re so fucking wet for me.
And I want to lick every last drop from your cunt. I want to fuck you so hard you scream.”
I kiss him roughly, biting at his lip.
It’s like I’ve unloosed the beast within him.
His lips crash down on mine, taking control of the kiss as if he forged it.
The stroke of his tongue finds mine, and then I’m lost, drowning in the feel of him, fixated on the sensation of every inch of skin pressed hard against me.
His hands on my wrists promise to leave bruises, and some part of me yearns for it.
But it’s the unconscious thrust of his hips that undoes us both.
His cock feels like a brutish weapon, grinding right between my legs as if it too can sense how much my body wants it.
He hits that spot and I see stars, gasping, begging, undulating against him in order to chase after that wave of pleasure.
It’s like the tide within me is receding, building up to one enormous crash of pleasure.
The wave beckons me, need twisting through my body, the pressure of his cock sending my thoughts reeling.
Oh…
Fuck.
Please.
Growling, he turns and strides toward the bed, taking me with him. My back hits the mattress, and then he’s upon me, hips shoving my knees apart, cock hot and swollen as he thrusts against me, thwarted by the barest fabric of his sleep shorts.
“Oh, my Gods,” I cry, tilting my head back and arching into him.
It feels so fucking good.
Tugging my neckline lower, he captures my nipple between his lips. Hot hands curve over my breasts, cupping them. Gods, I want more. I gasp, lost in the sensation. I’m not entirely na?ve of a man’s touch, but this… Nothing has prepared me for this.
Then he’s on his knees, a penitent warrior intending to do everything he’s just promised me. “Tell me you hate me.”
“I hate you.”
My mark blazes, burning.
Fisting his hands in the hem of my nightgown, he tears it straight up the middle. The shock of cool air against my bare skin leaves me feeling strangely vulnerable, but the throb of unfulfilled heat deep between my thighs begs for more. I’m so fucking wet I could drown an entire fleet of ships.
“Tell me no,” he breathes, looking down at me as if he’s never seen a naked woman before. There’s such… reverence in his eyes. And as he lowers himself to kiss the smooth skin just below my navel, I have to look away from him.
“No.” I sink my fingers through his hair, hauling him against me. “Never. Never.”
The burning mark tells of the consequences of my lies.
“Liar.” Bael grabs my ass in both hands, hauling me onto his mouth.
Breathing me in, rubbing his face across the crease of my thigh as if he can barely help himself.
“Goddess,” he gasps. “I’ve wanted to drink you in since the moment I saw you.
I could smell you, smell this hot, wet cunt, slick just for me…
Tell me no. Tell me not to taste you, to consume you. Beg me not to.”
I can’t do it.
The sight of him with his face buried between my thighs leaves me slick and swollen and I can’t do it.
All I ever had was revenge and my own cursed hand. And even if some male approached me, the temptation to share body heat just for one fucking night was never stronger than my drive for revenge.
But this… this is more than temptation. Whatever stands between us—whatever this accursed attraction is—it will never be slaked.
He’s right.
There’s a fire burning between us.
“Zyla,” he growls, rubbing his nose against my hip.
And I can’t contain myself any more.
My skin yearns for his touch. I’m so fucking wet. So hot. I need it. I need him.
“Do it,” I moan. “Make me scream. Finish me.”
Bael lunges forward, mouth hot as he claims me.
His tongue. Oh, fuck. I grab for something above me—anything—to hold onto as the flames within me ignite…
His tongue is fucking perfection. It drives inside me in one long, hot, slow stroke that ends at my clit, before he suckles so firmly, I can barely contain the scream in my throat.
I clutch helplessly at the bedhead, devastated in my desire for him.
There’s not one thought in this moment. No need beyond want. I want him. I want this. I don’t care if he’s my enemy. I don’t care if this is forbidden, if the tension between us yawns like a gaping chasm at my feet, threatening to drag me into it.
Growling like some feral animal, he eats at me, all teeth and tongue, his hands pinning my thighs down. The wave beckons, building higher, higher…
I bite my knuckles, desperate to contain it.
“Don’t you dare,” he gasps against my skin. “I want to hear every last sound you make. My name. On your tongue.”
No. I shake my head, because to give him that is to give him the ultimate surrender, but I cannot stop myself.
His tongue thrusts within me, he suckles hard on my clit, and I can’t stop my scream.
The wave crashes.
My body rocks against him as I dig my fingers into his hair and grind shamelessly against his face as waves of pleasure pulse through me.
It feels like forever.
And it leaves me shaking and boneless, hips jerking with aftershock.
Bael kisses his way back up my abdomen, a dark hunger in his expression. I barely have a chance to open my mouth before he claims it again, the hot, wet taste of my own musk slick on his tongue.
“We’re not finished yet,” he whispers, kissing his way along my jaw. “Part for me, my little lioness.”
The press of his cock strains against me, and I slide my palm between us and grab it with greedy hands, shocked by the sheer size of him.
The hot amber flames in his eyes glow as if the beast inside him is consuming him from the inside out. I stare back and he smiles, something dangerous in his expression. “Last chance to turn back.”
“When have I ever known fear?” I whisper, curling my hand around the back of his neck. My pulse kicks faster, because I know this is it. This moment takes us over the edge, into a world neither of us know. “Do it.”
Claim this one last inch of me.
As if he hears me, Bael drives himself into me hard.
Pain sears my nerves, my body stretching at this unaccustomed sensation.
I’ve never been afraid of pain, and there’s something about this feeling that goes beyond the physical.
It feels like surrender, but not in the way I’ve always thought of that word.
This is a giving of myself, and a taking.
One wretched little thing, just for me. Just for the girl who threw herself away, letting the desperation of her quest consume her.
This feels like taking some part of me back.
And as the pain abates, I realize the feeling is not unpleasant. Not at all.
Bael stills, and when he looks down at me the fury in his face is fully feral. There’s nothing left of the mortal now. Only claws and those vicious amber-gold eyes. “You were untouched?”
The word is almost an accusation.
“I was,” I tell him boldly. “Now are you going to do something about it?”
He curses under his breath, pushing his weight up onto one elbow as if he’s suddenly determined to take exquisite care of me. I swear I hear the words, “You’re going to be the death of me…”
Kissing my jaw, he forces me to tilt my head back. His hips move in a slow rhythm that soon has me aching for more. I dig my nails into his ass. “More.”
His pace quickens, skin slick against skin. It’s an ancient dance, and I’m shocked at how easily I fall into the rhythm. Teeth find my shoulder, and Bael growls deep in his throat as he bites down. Hard.
I scream, body bucking against him. Orgasm crashes over me again as if he’s pulling it from me with his magic. The weight of him pushes me into the mattress, and I want more. I want all of him.
“Zyla,” he gasps.
“Bael! Bael, oh Gods!” I come again, the sounds I make half feral with surrender. “Yes.”
Bael’s fist clenches in my hair, and he buries his face in my throat as he drives himself inside me, skin slapping against skin. It’s a bruising, punishing rhythm, one that will leave marks on my body, and I love every second of it.
One last thrust pushes him over the edge.
“Mine,” he growls, grinding against me as he spills inside me.
Mine, whispers something deep within as I soothe my hand down his spine.