That was victory.
It was only a few minutes before I heard Aenor’s breathing relax and her heart rate slow down again. I was surprised she’d fallen asleep so fast, close as she was to someone she desperately wanted to kill.
The sound of her breathing lulled me into my own sleep, and I let my body radiate more heat to warm her. I fell into a dreamless sleep, a void.
I woke to find a single light on, glowing over Aenor’s smooth, pale skin. She was awake. Still tied up, but staring at me.
“Were you watching me sleep?” I asked. “A bit creepy, don’t you think?”
Desire shone in her eyes, and she licked her lips. My pulse raced a little faster. Her pink cheeks were perfection.
She rolled toward me, her legs bent. Her skirt had ridden up high, giving me a view of her pale blue panties. They looked silky, delicate. I wanted to pull them off with my teeth.
My blood roared at the sight of her helpless before me. I could hear her heart beating faster. Her green eyes were roaming over my body like she was drinking me in.
“Tell me what you want, Aenor,” I said quietly.
She met my gaze, a shy smile on her lips. “You.”
Oh yes. I pulled her body close to mine, and she wrapped her legs around me. I kissed her deeply. Slowly, I ran one of my hands up her thigh, caressing her. She moaned a little as it slid up further, over her ass. She moved her hips against me, demanding.
I swirled my tongue against hers and teased the hem of her panties. She gasped as I brushed my knuckles over the front of the silk. Hot little minx…
Slowly, at the pace of a glacier, I slid down her panties, pushing them all the way down her legs, then off her ankles. Eyes shining with desire, she rolled onto her back. Her chest rose and fell deeply, breasts straining against her wet shirt.
I knelt between her legs, pulling up her skirt to her waist. With her hands still bound, her knees fell open, inviting me. I could see her arousal and struggled to stay in control. My conquest, spread out before me, ready for me.
Gods, she was perfection, but I’d force myself to take my time. I knelt between her legs, kissing her neck.
She groaned my name. “Salem…” The sound sent warmth spiraling through my chest. I grazed a little hint of teeth over her skin, drawing out the slow kiss on her throat. I flicked my tongue over her skin, tasting her. I’d kiss every inch of her while she screamed my name.
“Salem,” she whispered again.
Gods, I loved my name on her lips.
I started to unbutton her shirt and moved my mouth lower over her beautiful breasts. Her nipples were taut, rosy peaks.
I took one of them in my mouth, swirling my tongue over it. Her body was urging me for more, writhing with excitement.
“Salem, please…”
“Please, what?” I purred.
I stroked my fingertips down to the slickness between her thighs, sliding my finger in light circles.
As I teased her, I whispered, “Ask me for what you want, Aenor.”
I kept my touch so light that she seemed like she was vibrating with desire. Her body craved satiation, and I was drawing it out.
“I want you, Salem,” she said at last.
At that, I lost all control I had. I pulled off my pants, ready to slide in—
I woke from the dream with a start. Immediately, disappointment hit me like a cold fist. A chill washed over me.
What in the rockiest pits of hell…
First of all, I didn’t dream. I hadn’t dreamt since before I’d been cursed, eons ago. I hadn’t dreamt since humans still lived in caves, trying to kill each other with animal bones.
Second of all, I didn’t feel things anymore, and now I was feeling things.
And, most importantly, why was my mind on Aenor’s body? I was so close to finding the soul cage, and I’d become full of distractions.
Night still cloaked the room in darkness, but already I knew what time it was. Like clockwork, I always woke just before dawn. Rarely did I miss the first blush of morning light, no matter where I was in the world.
A cold sort of horror was building inside me as I realized I’d moved location in my sleep.
Beneath my body, I felt a hard floor instead of the bed. A single, thin ray of milky light beamed from under the crack in the door. Next to me.
Somehow, without realizing it, I’d shifted onto the floor just by the door. I’d slept in front of it. It was like… like I was guarding the room. It was the primitive behavior of an animal trying to protect its mate.
Dread crawled over my skin, but I wouldn’t let myself delve too deeply into what this meant.
We simply had to get out of here. We had to keep going, and I wouldn’t think about Aenor anymore. I wouldn’t look at her.
I had to kill the electric attraction I felt between us.
I’d simply make her hate me more than she already did. That wouldn’t be difficult, of course. All I had to do was tell her the rest of the truth about myself. Her revulsion for me would be complete.
I snapped my fingers, and flames ignited where the torches hung in sconces.
Aenor gasped, her eyes snapping open. “Gods have mercy…” she muttered. “I was having a really good dream.”
For just a moment, I was tempted to ask what it was, sparked with the hope that it was about me. Did we have the same dream?
Instead, I snapped my fingers again, popping the ropes of magic off her hands.
She sat up, rubbing her wrists. “Why are you waking me in the middle of the night?”
Tension tightly coiled my body, and I pulled on my shirt, smoothing it out. “Dawn is breaking. The storm should be over now.”
I turned away from her, unwilling to look at her long eyelashes as she blinked.
Already, my mind was on Mag Mell.
After all these years, I’d be going back.
It had been millennia since I’d ruled there, but when I closed my eyes at night, before I fell asleep, I could still see the way the sunlight streamed through the oak leaves. I could smell the richness of the soil and feel the heavy air on my skin. My second paradise, and second exile.
I’d poisoned it all, of course.
“The sun is rising soon, and I won’t miss dawn,” I said. “You threw us off course already with the storm you called up, and I won’t wait any longer. Call your magic boat. We’re going to the Merrow.”
She slid her perfect legs over the side of the bed, giving me a sweet smile I knew she didn’t mean. “Why the rush? I thought we were getting along so well after you tied me to the bed.”
Aenor
I sat across from Salem in the boat, blinking in the morning light. Coral streaked a periwinkle sky.
Before, he’d seemed so curious about me, staring at me with intensity. Now, it seemed like he didn’t want to look at me at all. Like I disturbed him.
Something about my understanding of Salem didn’t seem complete. I was missing something.
I supposed it wouldn’t kill me to know Salem a little better—what made him tick.
Right now, he seemed entranced by the sunrise as we sailed on the calm seas.
A gust of wind blew my hair into my face, the ruddy sunlight tingeing it with a violet hue. Peaceful. I could even hear the sea’s song lulling us along.
I sipped my coffee, the steam warming my face. Angel had given that to us before we left. She’d also handed over a basket of hot, buttered scones along with some kind of warning about burning to death. It had been a confusing mixture of comfort and terror.
She needn’t have continued to warn me. By now, the doom prophecies were clear.
I sighed and reached into the basket to pull out another scone. As I did, I realized what it was—the thing that didn’t fit with Salem’s entire malign presence. His whole I am an evil torturer who cares for no one vibe.
“What’s your cat’s name?” I asked.
“Aurora,” he murmured absent-mindedly, still looking at the sky.
“If you want to light the world on fire, why do you have a cat?” I asked.
He stared at me. “I fail to see the connection.”
“You have a well-looked-after cat, who you’ve named and everything. She’s groomed and healthy, and she clearly loves you by the way she was rubbing your legs.” I tapped my fingers on my knees. “Now what I don’t get is why look after a cat if you plan to destroy the world? You love that cat.”
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking I can love. Or that underneath it all I’m nice, Aenor. I’m not. I am Lucifer.” The rosy sunlight glinted in his eyes as he leaned back against the boat.
“I just wouldn’t imagine the devil would have a cat.” I frowned. “Or perhaps it fits.”
“Let me remind you who I am.” He stared at me, fury in his eyes. I felt his magic booming around me, reverberating in the inside of my mind. He was doing it again, godsdamn him. I tried to drown out the sound of his magic with a tune in my mind.
“I need to know. I’m after something I’ve wanted for millennia, and I need to know. Are we still going to the Merrow?”
“Yes,” I said through gritted teeth.
“And the Merrow knows where the soul cage is?”
“Yes.”
Slowly, he released the magical hold on my mind. He looked agitated, like the whole experience disturbed him as much as it disturbed me.
I sipped my coffee, unwilling to let him see that he’d rattled me. “Don’t worry, Salem—I don’t think you’re nice at all. I think you’re evil to your bones, and the world would be better off if you were dead. But I also think maybe you like company. And if you’ve been looking after a cat, maybe you don’t want your cat to die in an inferno of your making.”
The boat rocked gently over the waves.
“You’re trying to humanize me. Stop it.” Golden sunlight sparked off the blue in his eyes. “Can you hear the Merrow now?”
I trailed my fingertips in the water, reassured by the Merrow’s song floating through the waves. “Yes. His song has grown a little stronger. Any idea how far we are from Mag Mell?”
“Only a few hours.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Not that I’d expect you to care, but I’d like you to know that I have better things to do than burn the world down with you.”
“Ah. Yes. I’m sure you could be having scintillating conversations with Lyr at this very moment while he wanders in and out of a death realm.” He pulled out his flask of brandy. “Can he actually speak, or does he just grunt and break things?”
He almost sounded jealous, but he was getting me off my main point. “Exactly why do you want to burn the world down, Salem? What do you get out of it? Can’t you just enjoy your brandy and your fancy suits and your mansion? You could seduce any woman you wanted to.”
“Any?” He managed to imbue the single word with an ocean of innuendo.
At least I’d pulled his attention off the sky again, and he was focused on me.
I straightened. “Not me, obviously. But why can’t you just enjoy all that? What more do you want?”
That little smile disappeared from his lips. “I can’t enjoy any of it. I don’t feel anything, Aenor. Or at least I haven’t—” He seemed to catch himself, and he stopped. Then he leaned back in the boat, elbows over the edge like he was completely at ease. The wind ruffled his hair.
“You really think you can convince me to change my ways?” Amusement gleamed in his eyes. “You think you can find the nice devil underneath it all? That I should just be happy with what I have? Do you have any idea how long I’ve been seeking my destiny?”
I shrugged. “Maybe I sense you want more than just destruction. You’re longing for something else.”
“I am. But it’s not love, if that’s what you think. I can’t love. I never could. I feel animal impulses, nothing more. There’s nothing to redeem in me, Aenor.” A wicked curl of his lips. “Now I have an idea. Perhaps it’s time you got to know the real me, and I’ll disabuse you of this time-wasting venture.”
“I don’t have a choice about this, do I? Given that we’re stuck in a small boat together.”
“I was the second king to rule Mag Mell.”
“I saw that during my research.”
“When we get there, we will find it full of all sorts of depravity. Intoxicating wine and food, dancing and fucking. It’s where fae go for sexual gratification, to have their most debased fantasies fulfilled.”
That was his kingdom. Of course it was. “Can’t wait.”
“But once, it was a perfect paradise for the fae. Dancing, singing, poetry, cathedrals of oak trees that strained to the skies. But that wasn’t enough for me. Nothing was ever enough for me, because I always felt like I was falling. I changed paradise. I started turning it into the den of iniquity and depravity that you’ll find today. And for that, I was cast out by the good people of Mag Mell. But it was too late, because once the flames of my sin had begun to spread, they caught on like wildfire. Mag Mell was never the same. I went back sometimes over the years to enjoy myself, but I didn’t really need it. I had my own pleasures halfway across the world.”
First cast from the heavens, then from his own kingdom. “And why wasn’t it enough for you?”
“I could never fill the dark void in my chest, the feeling that I was plummeting.” The illusion of flames licked at the air around him, casting sinister shadows beneath his face. “In the heavens, I’d been a god, a leader among the celestial beings. I’d led the losing side in the war. And when I fell, Aenor, it was like my soul was ripped out of my body.” Fury danced in his eyes. “I wanted to fill the chasm with fighting and fucking and getting everything I wanted, controlling everyone.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay, so you’re awful. I still don’t get it. Why burn the world now? Connect the dots for me like I’m an idiot.”
He hesitated for a moment, then said, “I thrive in fire, Aenor. When I was banished from Mag Mell, I wandered across the world, growing more and more bestial. I was insatiable for the torment of others. I roamed across the earth until I found that little cave near Jerusalem, where I’d stare at the evening sky every night, my former home. Emptiness ate at me. During the day I reveled in two things: seduction and death. I created hell on earth in a place called Gehenna, near the field of blood. Women offered their bodies to me. Other supplicants burned their loved ones, offerings to their god. Sacrifices—to me. They killed their own children to please me. To get my blessing. And I liked it. I grew strong off it.”
Nausea spread in the pit of my stomach. He truly was more twisted than I’d understood.
I didn’t really want to hear more, but I had to. “And you want that from the whole world? It will make you happy?”
“It was my dark paradise. Humans call it Gehenna; some call it hell. You’ve seen the paintings humans have made, the stained-glass windows showing the flames of hell? They put them in the western windows of churches to catch the wild twilight rays. That’s my light, flames dancing on the glass to terrify people. I inspired that. That is my legacy. Thousands of years of human tribes killing each other, cursing each other in my name. Lucifer. Light-bringer. Tormenter. That’s my legacy.”
I hugged myself, chilled to the bone. “Why did people sacrifice to you?”
A slow shrug. “They thought me a god. Why wouldn’t they? I had wings, and magical powers. I didn’t disabuse them of this notion. And after all, I had been a god. I’m practically one now. So they burned their own in offerings to me, hoping to win my favor. In that cave where we encountered your mother, the victims’ screams echoed off the cave walls. They used drums to drown the cries out. You can hear them, can’t you? In my magic? But they needn’t have drowned out the screams on my account. I thrived on agony. That’s who I am, Aenor. I torment.”
My blood had turned to ice. “Yeah. I can hear th
e drums.”
He flashed me a sly, mirthless smile. “I’m a jealous god. If you’re going to make a sacrifice, make it to me.”
Something felt off in this story, but I couldn’t pinpoint what it was.
“You’re not a god anymore.”
“I will be,” he shot back.
Interesting. “Oh really? Is that your destiny?”
As the words were out of my mouth, an unfamiliar magic slipped over my skin, stroking up my bare legs.
What had we been talking about? I couldn’t remember. The air felt humid now, scented of gardenias. I sighed, all my fears evaporating.
I stared at Salem, at the dawn light that sculpted his perfect, sharp jaw line, his cheekbones. I felt like all the chilling things he’d just been talking about evaporated as well, leaving behind only his pure physical perfection.
Why was he transfixing me so much right now? He was a psychopath, dammit.
Some kind of seductive magic was at work.
Aenor
He stared back at me, the wind sweeping over him. Slowly, he took a sip from his flask. He leaned closer, eyes boring into me, like he was daring me to do something. The air seemed heavy and full of erotic tension.
“Stop it,” I snapped.
Only this time, he didn’t stop.
My pulse raced, nipples tightening in response. I felt acutely aware of the feel of my clothes on my body, like an excruciating sexual torture. I closed my eyes, trying not to think about Salem. I repeated the word psychopath in my mind. I thought of his torture cave, the scent of sulfur and burning flesh. Passion killer.
When I opened my eyes again, I forgot all those unpleasant things and remembered how he’d looked without his shirt on… a chiseled god. I crossed my legs, clenching my thighs. One… two… three. I wasn’t sure if I was trying to restrain myself or satiate myself.
Sea Fae Trilogy Page 34
