Gothikana: A Dark Academia Gothic Romance
Page 19
A hand on the back of her neck suddenly slammed her into a tree, her front pressed to the thick, rough bark, and she yelped as his tall, warm body pressed into her from behind.
“A stranger, little crow?” his lips found her ear, whispering the words right into them. A hand wrapped itself around her loose braid, pulling her head back. “Would a stranger know the exact taste of your come on his tongue?” he murmured into the side of her neck, tilting her head for his leisure. “Would a stranger know exactly how deep his cock can go in that tight pussy, hmm?” his words rolled over her as the hand from the back of her neck gathered both her wrists in one hand and held them behind her back. “Would a stranger know the way those your tits bounce when your nipple is flicked?”
“If I had sex with a stranger, yes, Mr. Deverell,” her words came out more breathless than she’d intended.
“Then would a stranger know the fears of your mind?” he demanded, his teeth scouring the side of her neck. “Would a stranger know that you like to break the rules, that you like doing the exact things people tell you not to do, that you get shy when someone gives you attention and bold when you think no one is watching? Would a stranger know the hunger in your soul? Would he feed it as I have?”
No, no he wouldn’t.
“You’ve lied to me,” Corvina closed her eyes, knowing she couldn’t move if he didn’t want her to.
“By omission,” he admitted.
“I can’t give my trust to a liar.”
“And I can’t give the truth to someone I don’t trust not to flee yet,” he pressed a kiss on her earlobe. “You earn my trust and I earn yours, and you’ll get all the answers you want.”
“And until then?” Corvina truly questioned her sanity at this point.
“Until then,” he bit the skin where her sweater had drooped to expose her shoulder. “I teach you.”
His words came with him freeing her hands and pulling her skirt up her hips, exposing her ass to the cold air. He tugged her panties to the side, and found her shamefully wet, a chuckle escaping him at her drenched heat. “A stranger, she says. Would you be drenching your thighs for a stranger?”
Corvina felt a flush crawl up her chest. Resting her forehead against the trunk of the tree, she held the sides of it just as he entered her with one clean thrust. Her body pushed up to her toes, the angle making her head roll back to his shoulder, a loud moan leaving her throat at the fullness.
“You want to know who I am?” he punched his hips harshly against her.
“I,” slam “am” slam “your” slam “madness.”
He bit the side of her neck, wild in his passion. “I’m in your head, in your blood, in your very veins. I’ve claimed you before anything else ever could. Your body, your heart, your mind, your fucking soul, it’s all mine. Your hunger is mine to feed, your madness is mine to tame. Do you feel that?”
She felt it. She felt it from her toes that were curled clinging to the ground to her thighs burning with the weight to her pussy being rammed repeatedly to her nipples scraping against the back of the tree to her neck throbbing from the bite of his teeth to her eyes burning with the overload of stimuli all over her body. She felt him own her, possess her, consume her until she was nothing but trembling sensation.
He tugged her hair. “Do you feel that?”
“Yes,” she panted, holding onto the tree as he slammed her against it again and again with his brutal thrusts.
“Yes what?” his deep voice breathed in her ear.
“Vad.”
“Fuck yes, baby,” he pounded into her. “My little witch with those fucking purple eyes, fucking made for me. And I’m your devil, am I not?”
Corvina rocked her hips back against him, whimpering. “My devil.”
“All yours,” he kissed her shoulder, his hand going down to stimulate her clit, sending tendrils of intense pleasure spreading out from the spot. He canted his hips slightly, changing the angle of the penetration so completely she screamed, her breasts pushing against the tree as she tried to get air into her lungs.
“Tell me you’re mine,” he demanded. “Tell me I finally get you Corvina Clemm.”
The heat of his body was so solid behind her. Wasn’t this what she had always wanted? To belong to someone completely, wholly, utterly, someone who knew her past and the potential issues that could arise in her future, and still claimed her entirely for himself? They didn’t know each other as they should, but time could change that. Time could make her understand his reasons for being the way he was, and make him trust her enough to share.
‘What if he’s evil?’ a cautious voice inside her whispered.
Only time would tell. Time. One thing she knew for certain – she was done denying whatever this was.
Lust was only their beginning. They were meant for more. She had to give it time.
“I’m yours,” she admitted, both to him and herself, and he responded with a thrust so sharp it made stars burst behind her lids, liquid fire spreading from where they were joined, running through her core as she shattered into a million pieces in the cage of his arms, anchored by his consummation of her.
He came inside her with a groan, his breaths warm on her neck, his chest heaving against her back as they both caught their breaths. She suddenly became aware of the quiet of the woods, the moonlight glowing on them through the branches, the scent of his body and the tree invading her senses. He pulled out of her, leaving a trail of their combined wetness on her thighs, and put her panties in place.
“You’ll walk to your tower with my come inside you,” he eased back enough to turn her around, his hands finding her breasts and massaging them, soothing them after the friction with the rough tree. “And tomorrow, when you start doubting this again, feel your sore pussy and remember who owns it.”
Corvina gazed up at him, her hands holding the sides of his waist. “And Verenmore? You... own it too?”
He squeezed her breasts. “Yes.”
“I have so many questions. I don’t even know which to ask first.”
He patiently waited her out.
“I’m willing to give this a chance. But I just... I need one thing from you,” she told him. “One thing, and then I won’t doubt whatever this is again.”
He waited more.
“Don’t lie to me or keep things from me,” she gripped the muscles on his sides. “Don’t make me feel like an idiot. If you can’t tell me something, just tell me you can’t. But not about something that affects me or whatever this is. You do that, and I’ll never trust you.”
He flicked her nipples. “Okay.”
“So many questions,” Corvina arched into his hands.
“Save them for later,” he let her go and went to where her shawl had fallen down. Flicking it a few times, he returned to her, draping it around her shoulders, cocooning her in the warmth.
“Stay back after class tomorrow,” he told her, covering the place on her shoulder he’d bitten her slightly. Once done, he tucked a strand of fallen hair behind her ear and gazed down at her.
“I’ve waited a very long time for you, little witch,” he kissed her piercing.
Her mouth trembled. “Will you tell me your story?”
“Tomorrow.”
Nodding, she began heading towards the castle, feeling his warm presence by her side. “Why pretend?” she asked the question at the forefront of her mind. “Why pretend to be just another teacher here? And say stuff like the student-teacher rule could affect you? And why don’t people know about the castle being in your family?”
He took his pack of cigarettes out from his coat, lighting it up. “So curious, little crow.” He puffed. “Which one do you want answered first?”
“I guess the last one.”
He pressed his hand to the small of her back, leading her back to the castle. “The mountain and the castle have been in my family for many generations, but nobody lived here for centuries. One of my great-grandfathers became a university board member and
offered the castle grounds as the location for the school. When the disappearances started, my grandfather pulled back the Deverell family name from public knowledge and put the Board at the forefront.”
Corvina held her shawl tighter as they climbed up the incline. “So does that mean you’re one of the members of the Board?”
He guided her up. “A silent one, yes. I took my grandfather’s place the night he died. That’s why I came here. I wanted to see this place.”
They emerged into the clearing in front of the tower, still shielded by the thicket overhead, and Corvina turned to him under the light coming from the tower.
“Tell me you’re not evil,” she gripped the front flap of his coat. “That’s all I need to know for now. Rest can wait until tomorrow. Tell me you’re not responsible for all the evil touching this place.”
He caressed the side of her face with the back of his fingers, tilting his head. “And if I am? Does that make you loathe me? Will that keep your pussy dry?”
Corvina felt her heart stutter, shame filling her as she realized it didn’t make her want him any less. She was truly not right in the head.
He pressed his lips to hers, soft and tender, unlike his grip on her chin. “Rest your pretty head, witch. I’m the devil you know, not the devil you don’t.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that while I’m not a good man, not by any stretch of the imagination, I’m not the evil haunting this place. I’m the evil hunting for it.” He gave her another little kiss. “Stay back after class tomorrow. Now go.”
Corvina took off to her tower at a run, trying to wrap her head around everything that had been revealed to her in the short span of a few hours, trying to understand who exactly her lover was with the little pieces of him he’d shared. She ran over the mountain she now knew was his, towards a tower that was his, a woman who belonged to him too, changed from the girl she had been when she’d entered these walls.
She reached the thick wooden door to her tower and turned around to see the entrance to the woods where they’d been standing.
The orange glow of the tip of his cigarette was all she could make out, his entire form hidden in the shadows, the master of the castle masquerading under the guise of a commoner.
Tomorrow, she would know why.
CHAPTER 19
Corvina
Corvina was antsy the whole day the next day.
She’d barely slept through the night, odd dreams invading her mind when she did, scenes from Dracula interposing with scenes from Verenmore.
It was a bizarre, horrific, yet erotic dream of masked students having orgies and drinking blood in the Main Hall, being controlled by one master sitting on a throne in the room. She’d been naked in his lap, riding his cock backwards while watching the display, exposed for all of them to see while he remained unseen behind her. He’d turned her around in the dream, his fangs scoring the curve of her breast until a drop of blood emerged and slid down right over her nipple, disappearing into his mouth. His eyes had opened and instead of the silver she loved, they had been all black without any whites. She had gasped and pulled her breast away from him, only for him to turn into a beast and throw her onto the floor, ravaging her as students drank each other to death, the castle floors turning black with their blood, soaking her hair and her skin.
“This is the Black Ball,” beast-Vad had roared, taking a huge bite out of her shoulder.
Corvina had woken up with a gasp, the hickey on her shoulder throbbing from where he’d bitten it in the woods, sweat drenching her entire body as it shook with both the horror and the arousal of the dream. Pressing a palm to her head, she had rushed to the bathroom and splattered cold water on her face, looking at herself in the mirror.
It had remained intact and uneventful.
Now sitting in his class, the last class of the day, discussing Dracula of all things, the dream stayed in the forefront of her mind.
“One of the key themes in Dracula,” Mr. Deverell said, tapping the open marker on the board, “is female sexuality.” His eyes slid to her briefly before he continued. “It’s written in a time and referring to a society where women were either entirely chaste, betrothed slash married, or whores and thus inconsequential to the society in their eyes. In a time as such, the overt sexuality of the three female vampires who seduce Jonathan, or Lucy who is turned by the beast, in short any female sexual expression, was taboo.”
Ria, the girl who always raised her hand, did so again. “Could it be that the taboo aspect comes from the correlation of female sexual expression with the act of consuming blood?”
As he addressed her, Corvina remembered the vivid visual of dream-Vad and his fang scoring the curve of her breast, that drop of blood that went in a straight line to her nipple, and the way he drank it up.
Shuddering at the wickedness of the image, Corvina crossed her hands over her breasts, somehow hiding her hardened nipples behind her arms while taking notes.
The class went on for what seemed like ages before the last bell of the day rang.
“Miss Thorn, Mr. King, Miss Clemm,” his voice rang out. “Please stay back for a few minutes. I’d like to discuss your papers with you individually.”
Corvina’s heart began to pound as she watched him take a seat on his chair, bringing out papers from one of the drawers.
People filed out of the class, and she stood up with her bag as well.
“What did you write about?” Jade asked her from the side as Ria went to him first. They had a quiet conversation, with him pointing out some things on her paper and her nodding.
“Just death, I guess,” Corvina shrugged, knowing he wasn’t holding her back for her paper. Though her paper was good, she knew that too. She’d written about deaths that left no answers for the living they left behind, mostly about her father’s and all the missing people from Verenmore who were no doubt dead after so long.
“I think I’ll go to the medical room. I don’t feel good.”
Corvina focused on her. “What’s wrong? Are you sure?”
Jade headed to the door. “Yeah. I like the medical room. It’s... peaceful. I’ll see you in the tower later.”
“Just, let me know if I can do anything,” Corvina called out to her, worried for her friend who’d been more and more understandably withdrawn after Troy’s death.
Jade gave her a thumbs-up and walked out, leaving her in the room with Mathias and Vad who were deep in conversation. Corvina let them be and went to the windows on the side. The day was dark, black clouds rolling from the zenith to the horizon, covering the entire landscape in an inescapable gloom. The steep cliff on this side of the castle went straight down into the blanket of dark green, nothing but endless mountains in sight, standing lethal and majestic.
The sound of a door clicking shut had Corvina whirling on the spot. Vad walked back to his table after closing the door and leaned back on it, folding his arms over his chest, his silver eyes encased behind those black-framed glasses that matched his all-black outfit.
His eyes did a slow, lazy perusal of her from head to toe. “Why were you aroused in class today?”
Corvina gripped the side of her bag, determined to have her answers from him. “Why are you pretending to be a teacher?”
His eyebrows went up. “I am a teacher.”
“You’re also the owner of this castle,” she reminded him.
“Correct,” he got comfortable on the desk behind him. “You mean why no one else knows that?”
“Yes.”
“What do I get in return for answering your questions?” his head tilted in a move she was beginning to recognize.
She swallowed, her choker ribbon right against her pulse. “Me. However you want me.”
“I can have you however I want you anyways, little crow,” he reminded her, and she knew he was right. “But it pleases me that you offered. So you’ll get your answers.”
God, he could sound like a dick sometimes, and it sti
ll turned her on.
“So why doesn’t anyone know?” she leaned against the window behind her, the knowledge of nothing but the glass between her and the cliff secretly thrilling.
“It’s a long story.”
“I have time.”
He nodded, sitting up on the desk in a sleek move. “My father paid my mother off to get rid of me. She dumped me somewhere and they sent me to the boys’ home, where I stayed for a very long time.”
Her heart ached for the little boy this man must have been, discarded so coldly like trash.
He took out a cigarette and lit it up, taking a deep drag in. “One day when I was thirteen, an old man showed up out of nowhere and adopted me. He took me to his really nice home and told me I was his grandson. His son had told him about me on his deathbed. He said he’d spent years trying to trace me.”
“That was good of him,” Corvina felt her chest lighten at the story taking a better turn.
He gave a dark chuckle. “You’d think that. He didn’t have another heir, you see. He was getting older and the Board was taking more and more control of the castle, and he didn’t want that.”
Corvina watched him blow a ring of smoke up at the ceiling, his body relaxed as he regaled his tale.
“He began to tell me all about Verenmore,” Vad said through the smoke. “Put me in a private school, made me learn all about the properties and controlling them, about taking on the Board. He taught me a lot of things, the only good of which was the piano. And that had only been done as a way for me to control my wild side. To train me to sit still and think alone.”
Corvina turned to open the window behind her, to let the smoke clear out, and moved to the nearest desk, hopping onto it as he continued.
“Verenmore became this huge, elusive treasure to me,” he explained, his eyes on the view outside the window. “It became this ancestral heirloom that rightfully belonged to me, a boy who’d never had a single thing of his own. I wanted it, as perfect as it had been in the stories.”