Slowly, I dropped to my knees at his feet and bowed my head, and the silk curtain of it spread to skim my flesh as I folded my hands in front of me, on my legs. I sat there, exposed and at his mercy. I listened as he slowly walked around me, his heated gaze singing my flesh as he took in my pose of submission.
The sound of fabric being removed told me he was taking off his clothes, or what he’d yet to remove before I’d stripped down to nothing for him. I imagined the taste of his flesh, the way it felt against my mouth as I’d leisurely tasted every inch of it. I craved the tang of his cock, the heaviness of it as it pushed into my mouth. Fuck, I craved everything about him.
“What are you imagining right now, sweet girl?” he queried thickly as his fingers traced the puckered flesh of one nipple, and then the other before it pinched the sensitive flesh, forcing a small cry of pleasure to escape my lips.
“Your cock,” I admitted and then cried out louder as his fingers tightened, pinching me harder than he had been.
“Try that again,” he offered.
“Your cock, sir,” I purred huskily. I lifted my eyes to his, showing him the fire that pooled in mine, the match to the inferno burning in his. I watched as the eerie blue glow ignited. His mouth curved into a wicked grin as the last word slipped before between my lips, off my tongue. “The taste of your flesh against my lips, Master,” I smiled demurely. “The feel of you as you invade my throat.”
“You’re going to cut this fucking thread I’m hanging by, but then you know that, don’t you?” he growled as he stood, slowly unbuttoning the jeans he wore. “You’re a bad girl, aren’t you?”
“I’m your bad girl, sir,” I uttered hoarsely, the huskiness in my tone as rough as his. I lowered my eyes to the floor, willing to play his game to learn some semblance of control again. I hated feeling out of control, and while I’d discovered my wings could be used to kill, and well, honestly I liked them, they were still new and being unable to control them was a problem.
“Stand up, grab the canopy of the bed, and don’t let go.”
Standing slowly, I turned towards the bed, doing as he’d instructed. My hands barely reached the wooden frame of the bed, but I forced my body to reach it as I stood perched on my tiptoes. I swallowed hard as his hands covered mine, slowly wrapping the silk around them and then tying them to the bed frame. Once he’d finished with them, he pushed my legs apart and gripped my hips. It forced me to hang there awkwardly. I had no control over my body. The only thing I could do was lean against the silk that held my arms suspended as he lifted my hips, parting my legs.
“I can’t move,” I uttered. His hand slapped against my ass, and I cried out, turning my head to stare back at him. I watched in stupefied silence as that hand landed against my ass once more before it rubbed and soothed the ache it had created.
“You can’t move, what?”
“Anything,” I grumbled only to cry out again as his hand landed twice more, turning the pink flesh red where he punished me. “Anything, sir!”
He laughed, the sound a husky mix of possession and lust. His fingers trailed through my pussy, slowly pushing through the heat and wetness he was creating. His finger pushed into my pussy, and I moaned at the fullness he created, riding them as he used his other hand to hold my shoulder and control the rhythm.
“Your body is hungry for me,” he rasped, the sound sending my already heightened senses over the edge as my body clenched around him. “You’re close, aren’t you?” he asked, and I nodded. “Words, Lena. Tell me what you need from me.”
“I need you to fuck me, sir,” I groaned as he added another, forcing my body to yield to his thrusts as he stretched it and readied me for his entry. My body was an inferno. The need to let go and feel overwhelmed me to the point that I was seconds away from succumbing to the orgasm that promised to let it all go, but he pulled away. I whimpered as the ache increased. Turning my head, I followed his back with my heavy glare as he pulled open a drawer and withdrew something.
“Face forward, Lena. Close your eyes, and spread your hips.”
I did as he instructed and then cried out as he pushed something hard and thick into my pussy. It clenched, tightening around it as he slowly pulled it out and then pushed it in deeper. His mouth skimmed over the globe of my ass as his other hand slowly began to work my clit with sure, strong strokes that fueled the fire.
“That’s it,” he encouraged. “Don’t come, not until I say you can.”
“Please?” I begged, only to feel his fingers leave my flesh and slap against it in an exquisite mixture of pain and pleasure. “Lucian,” I continued, and then the slap was harder, and everything inside of me began to uncoil. The moment I thought he’d send me over the edge, he stopped touching me, and all sensation stopped.
I blinked at the abruptness of it. My body ceased to feel pleasure or the mixture his touch allowed me to feel. I struggled to reign in the emotions but before I could, the wings unfurled, and I shook with the anger that it caused. Everything had changed. I’d changed into something I no longer recognized.
“Calm down,” he instructed and I struggled against the silk that held my hands as the need to run took hold. “Lena,” he urged as his hands slowly stroked my back, trailing down my spine between the wings. “Breathe, you’re safe.”
“I’m a monster,” I cried as I ceased struggling. His touch calmed, it soothed the ache in the center of my being that told me the protruding things that currently flapped behind me were evil, vile things.
“So am I,” he crooned as he kissed my spine. His mouth sent the fire pooling in my core, and I closed my eyes, just feeling the sheer magic of his mouth and what it did to me. “Put them away,” he urged.
I shook my head as my body trembled. “I’m done, I’ve had enough for tonight,” I whispered and felt him rising, leaning over my body to release the restraints that held me. He didn’t push it, didn’t question the need I had to end this right now, to stop everything because it was just too much.
Once I was free, I turned and stared at him. I could let myself feel with him, or I could walk away and not have to feel anything. I moved without thought, rushing him as he allowed it. I jumped before I slammed into him, feeling the power he projected as he caught me, slamming me down against the bed without me noting he’d teleported us.
His hands parted my legs, and his cock pressed against my opening. I rocked my hips in a needy motion as I waited for him to enter me, but he didn’t. I gazed up into his eyes, eyes that asked permission, and I blinked.
Lucian didn’t ask, he took; he conquered and destroyed and yet here he was, asking permission. “I need you,” I whispered through swollen lips as tears filled my eyes. He didn’t hesitate a moment longer. His body slammed against mine, and I screamed out as pain ripped through me. I dropped my head against the softness of the bed and met his body thrust for thrust with everything I had in me.
“Open your eyes,” he demanded. “You and me, we exist in a place that others don’t understand. You and me, we don’t live in their world. You exist in places of my mind that no one else has ever explored, or been allowed to see. Do you understand me?”
“Just move!” I ordered, not needing his words or possessing a mind to know what he said, let alone comprehending the meaning. The man needed to stop speaking in codes. I felt him thrust; rocking his hips as he took me to that place that one could or ever would. My body exploded in blinding light as pleasure shot through me. My wings expended, and I rolled us as I took what I needed without thought, or care.
I rode him as if the hounds of Hell had set after me and he was my salvation. His grunts and moans encouraged and then I lowered my head, nipping against his piercing as my tongue flicked against it, pulling it as an inhuman growl escaped from my throat. I kissed his chest until I found his shoulder, and then I claimed him. I bit into flesh, tasting blood as it pooled against my flesh. I drank, su
cking against the flesh until he was writhing and whispering my name as his orgasm tore through him.
Mine followed his, a never-ending wave of pleasure that washed through me and into him until we were both screaming and holding on to each other for an anchor. I uttered his name as I lifted my head, and stared down into inhuman eyes that seemed endless, ageless. Souls stared back at me, and I didn’t flinch or back away.
“Mine,” I said in a guttural tone, only it wasn’t human. It was Fury. It was what I’d become, and as I pulled back from him, I saw the cuts from my nails, the gouge in his flesh from my teeth and I felt my stomach drop as I lifted my worried gaze to his, and found him smiling up at me. “I…Lucian, are you okay?”
“You’re my monster,” he chuckled. “You can’t hurt me,” he said softly. “I’m not human, nor am I something that can sustain pain, Lena. You think you’re a monster? You have no idea what has laid claim to you. I promise you this, though, you will. And once you know, you may try to run from me, but this much you do know already. If you run, I will follow. There’s no world where you aren’t mine, do you understand? I would crush them, one by one to find you. Whatever this is that we share, it’s more than I’ve ever felt before. It’s more than I want to, but I’m not willing to walk away from you either. Do you understand me?”
“I understand,” I lied. I didn’t grasp anything other than the blood that oozed from the cuts my nails had created. I’d been oblivious to the pain, and never once had he alerted me to the discomfort he’d had to feel at my hands. I swallowed hard, staring down at my blunt nails and then back to the wounds.
I had to get away from this place, from him. I had to get away from my family because losing control wasn’t bad, it was gonna be a fucking catastrophe.
“Don’t you even think it,” he snapped.
“I hurt you,” I whispered horrified.
“Because I let you,” he growled as he sat up, wrapping his arms around my waist. “If I was human, yes, you would have hurt me. I’m not, and I won’t let you hurt them. Even if it means separating you from them, or forcing you to back down if you lose control. Let me help you. Let me teach you. Because either you let me or I’ll chain you up and force you to let me.”
“If I kill them, I will never come back from it.”
“I know, which is why I would never let it happen.”
“You can’t always be there to stop me.”
“Between me and my men, we got you. I got you, Lena. You’re my monster, my Fury. I promise to not let you hurt them, to keep you grounded and protected,” he said as he kissed the side of my face and my forehead. “Pretend to sleep with me,” he chuckled, and a smile tugged at my lips.
“Fine,” I uttered as I let him tug me down beside his naked body. “Someday you’ll tell me what you are, right?” I said after a few moments in silence had passed.
“Someday you’ll know what I am, Lena. Pray to the Gods that you can accept it when it happens, because I’m not strong enough to let you go.”
Chapter 25
I stood outside, perched on the roof of the Guild. This spot was quickly becoming my favorite place to think or ponder the world around us. I escaped to it when the tension or foreboding sensation grew too much to handle, and the world seemed to tighten the hold it had on my throat a little more every time something else seemed to go wrong. Everything was going wrong, as if the deck was stacked against us and we were running out of cards to play. I had begun to open myself to Kendra, while still holding certain pieces and aspects of what I had become away from her. Those feelings, those pieces of my old self she craved, they didn’t exist anymore, which she was slowly figuring out. I’d changed more than I could explain; choices I’d made had carved me into someone else, something else.
Lucian trained my body at night, and I craved those lessons like a drug user wanted a fix. I didn’t let him reach the pieces of me that weren’t healed, the broken parts that had yet to mend back together from the loss of our child; I wasn’t ready for him to see them. I wasn’t sure if I would ever be prepared for that. He either wasn’t processing the loss, or dealing with it in his own way, which I understood and respected, but some emotion would have been welcomed.
“You rang?” Hades’s deep baritone filled the air around me before a cloud of smoke filled the air, which he stepped out of as if he some way to literally step from the Underworld, into ours. I swallowed hard as I stared at him, peering into the bluish-purple depths that new my pain intimately.
“I need you to save my sister, make her into one of us,” I uttered without bothering to hide the pain that laced each word.
Snowflakes began to blanket the world as the air grew colder around me. I turned away from him, staring out at the multitude of fires that burned through the city. Some built by humans who had yet to seek sanctuary in the Guild, fighting to stave off the cold of winter. I’d remembered how cold the world was, and didn’t fault them for seeking warmth in the new world they’d found themselves trapped in. Besides, this was the Pacific Northwest, known for arctic cold fronts and unforgiving winters. Even though the cold no longer bothered me, I remembered what it felt like in the dead of winter.
“You want me to fight Death for her?” he asked, stepping up beside me as he hiked a dark eyebrow at my nod of confirmation. I felt him studying my face as I refused to turn away from the chaos of the city, or the billowing smoke of the fires that burned like my emotions.
“Name your price, and I will gladly pay it,” I assured him, knowing it wouldn’t be cheap. I finally glanced away from the fires to face him. His skin was utter perfection, bronzed as if he’d spent months sunbathing in the Caribbean’s sun.
“She cannot be saved, Lena.” It was a statement, unwavering as he watched me ever so slightly taking in the darkness that seemed to escape my hold as I processed his words. “If she is to die, she will die. She may survive it, but it is doubtful. But if Death has pulled her card, it cannot be placed back into the deck.”
“You saved me, why not her?” I argued.
“You weren’t one of them,” he admitted. “You were and are different than she is. She was the one born of your parents’ unions; you were created with magic that Katarina wielded. You were just an empty shell that was forged to be used for another purpose. Magic created you, and that made it easy to save you since you held no purpose. The others…they were harder, and yet they made a sacrifice and willingly released their souls. Kendra will not do that, and you already know it. You never really existed, Lena. The same goes for Joshua. He was the first they created, and therefore able to shape into a Fury because for you, he was willing to change. We didn’t fight Death for you; we just created you from what was left of you. The others, they were much akin to what you are, and it wasn’t Death who plucked their cards, it was Nyx. It wasn’t their time to die, and their selfless sacrifice awoke something in her to pull her to them. It made a simple task to intervene and send their souls below while keeping their minds in tacked. Kendra hasn’t made some grand gesture of a sacrifice, nor will she. It isn’t who she is. You know that. You’re mad, but they’ll all die on you. One day or another, they’ll be gone, and you will be here without them. It’s as simple as that. I told you that when I helped Nyx bring you back, I warned you that you’d watch them age and die and that no one would be able to prevent it from happening. Besides, your sister welcomes the end and therefore isn’t worthy of being immortal. She isn’t created like you, to know you were meant for something bigger than yourself. Hell, Lena, you stood up to the devil himself knowing your life was being forfeited and yet you didn’t flinch away from it. You are worthy of being immortal.”
“So I’m just supposed to accept that she may die?” I growled as my mind fought against the idea of a world that she no longer existed in. One where my family was gone, and I had to continue pushing through, moving forward. “I don’t accept that. You’re a God, Hades! Fight D
eath with me, we can win. Do nothing, and we all lose. No, no, you’re a God, and you can win this. We can win this.”
“It’s not black and white, Magdalena. Nothing is as simple as that. Death doesn’t lose, and you think he isn’t here already if her time is near? He is the one thing that not even the Gods will fight against. He will not lose her if it is her time. If he’s here, she’s already dead, and you’re just going to have to watch it unfold as we have done since the dawn of time.” I tried to ease the frown that creased my brows as he continued to crush any and all hope I had left with his words. “No one escapes their time, not even if the Gods intervene and beg it to be otherwise. Death is certain for mortals. He is everywhere and nowhere at all, and when it comes for them, nothing stands between it and him. You can try other things, but if he has plucked that card, she’s doomed. Nothing short of God himself intervening will stop it from happening. Pray the angels heed those prayers you continually send to the heavens, girl, because only her God can save her, and He doesn’t seem to care lately.”
“Go,” I stated coldly, my hate and anger burning brighter than the fires of Hell that lit the streets before us. It ignited as violent as Hell itself as it burned the world around us to ashes. The fallen cities of this world hadn’t asked for this war, and yet mortals paid the price with their lives as the Gods did nothing, as God did nothing to end their suffering. Why wasn’t anyone helping us? Where were they in this fight? I remained there long after Hades had turned to smoke and disappeared from my side. I stared out over the remnants that had once been a bustling city that was now a wasteland of those strong enough to survive this new world.
Becoming his Monster Page 19
