Parasight

by E. S. Carter

  “Give me your mouth, Cal,” I command, needing to take one thing from her before I give her what she needs. Call me selfish, I know I am, but I also know I’m close to the edge and having her mouth belong to me might be enough to satisfy the beast.

  She complies immediately, whether because of her training or because she wants her lips on mine desperately, I’m past caring; for when her mouth finds mine, I lose all rational thought.

  Her lips latch onto mine with purpose, a little hum coming from the back of her throat at the contact, like the noise you make when you’ve just had your first taste of something you’ve craved. And fuck if it doesn’t drive me insane.

  With my leg holding hers in place, and her arm trapped between us, I release her wrist to run my hand up the length of her arm, over the curve of her shoulder until it meets her smooth neck. It would be so easy to squeeze right now, to cut off her air and wrap my entire hand around her throat and a part of me wants that so bad. I fight back the urge and continue around to her nape where I thread my fingers through her hair and cup the back of her head. She sighs into my mouth, her lips opening just enough for my tongue to lick across the seam.

  She tastes like summer sunshine, a flavour so intoxicating I want more. My fingers curl into her scalp, and I tilt her head back, her lips opening further, her tongue nervously touching mine before it retreats and she shivers. Then, to my surprise she dips it out to taste more, her movements bold and decisive, her lips and tongue searching mine with an unexpected fervour. She controls this kiss; she owns this kiss, and it is equal parts powerful and terrifying.

  I roll us, her body curving into mine refusing to break the connection. Without crushing her, I press her into the bed, and she fucking sighs like my weight is not just welcomed but essential. She pries free both her hands and links them behind my neck, her fingers roaming over the sensitive skin sending bolts of electricity down my spine. My body is on fire from her touch, my need escalating to the point of no return. Her tongue tangling with mine, her hands on my skin, our bodies entwined is enough to make me lose my goddamned mind, and then she lifts her pelvis just a fraction, an instinctive reaction by her body to the need she feels bubbling up inside, and I lose it. My kisses turn from drugging licks to gentle nips and then to bites. My hand in her hair goes from holding to pulling, and my hips roll into her violently. I bite into her juicy bottom lip, and taste the sweet tang of her blood and I freeze. Every muscle in my body locks in place.

  My skin turns icy cold, the blood in my veins thrumming with destructive energy, my cock demanding I cause hurt or receive pain.

  This is wrong, so fucking wrong.

  Tearing my lips from her mouth, I drop her head to the bed, and my arms release her. Before she’s had time to react, I’m on my feet, the need to cut, to tear or to fucking run far from here pounds in my brain.

  Mere hours ago I dismembered a man in the most horrific way, and I fucking enjoyed it, not only that, I needed it, and that same desire thrums through my every cell right here, right now.

  I want blood, and I want flesh. I want to bite at her tits, carve my name into her flesh and paint her with my cum. Then I want to clean every part of her with my tongue and do it again.

  I want her teeth on my cock, my fingers plunging roughly into her cunt until I slap her clit so hard she blacks out.

  “Grim, w-what is it? What did I do?”

  The confusion in her voice grates across my frayed control, and my Devil bares his teeth, hissing inside my head demanding that I take her.

  “Nothing, you did fucking nothing,” I snarl through clenched teeth unable to even look at her let alone comfort her. I turn my back and pace across the room, my fingers flexing and releasing, my hands itching to wrap around her long, silky smooth neck. I hear her sit up in bed, the covers rustling with her movements, the scent of both our arousals tangy and delicious in the air.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuuuckk,” I roar, snapping my head back before slamming it into the back of the door. Once, twice, three times, until the wood splits and Cal’s panicked, “Stop! Please stop!” breaks through the red mist coating everything around me.

  Blood trickles from a cut on my forehead and pools against my closed lashes. My breaths are heavy and strained as I fight with everything I have not to turn around and tear Cal’s clothes from her body.

  I was a fucking fool to think I could give her anything, even something as simple as a kiss.

  “Don’t you dare fucking come near me, Cal,” I warn when I feel her move from the bed. “I want to fucking ruin you.”

  She stills, and I close my eyes begging my fucked-up mind to gain control. The air in the room beats against my back like a fist, my skull so tight around my brain that every breath requires too much movement for me to handle.

  “Grim, let me…”

  “No,” I bellow. “Get on the fucking bed and stay there. If you push me, Cal, I will make every man who has ever fucked you look like a fucking saint. You will bleed. You will cry and I, Cal, I will be fucking laughing as I tear you apart.”

  She doesn’t speak again, but I don’t hear her move either, and as soon as I know I’m not going to turn around and do everything I threatened, I tear the door open with such force that it comes off the top hinges and hangs precariously at a tilt. Then, without looking back, because I daren’t, I storm through the small cottage. When I reach the outside, I run. My legs power me through the long grass as if the hounds of hell are on my tail. I reach the edge of the forest that borders this property, but I don’t stop. My feet eat up the ground as I charge through the trees, low branches tearing at my face and arms. I run until I can run no more. Finally collapsing at the foot of a huge oak. The tree is gnarled and old, its bark split in places, its branches reaching out into the dark sky as if it’s trying to capture the moon.

  Is that what I did there tonight with Cal, tried to capture something that’s beyond my reach?

  I pull Missy from her sheath, her pretty, serrated edge glittering in the shaft of moonlight. With just her tip, I drag her down my thigh, through the fabric of my jeans, the tearing of denim echoing out into the night. Then, with both pointer fingers, I pull at the edges of the cut until it becomes a gaping hole. Missy has left a light incision that runs down my flesh, but it isn’t enough because my Devil demands more. With quick, light motions, I run her tip down my leg three, four, five more times, crisscrossing over each cut until blood bubbles up to the surface to create a masterpiece of colour.

  Each slice elicits just enough pain to release the evil coursing through my veins. When I finish, and I’m content with my work, I bring the blade to my mouth and with long, careful licks, I clean her until she is once again gleaming in the moonlight. Missy likes my tongue on her. It gets her off almost as much as the blood.

  With Missy back in her cover, her comforting weight against my leg, I lift my head and stare up through the branches. An owl hoots somewhere in the distance, its haunting call bringing me back to the here and now. I must stay away from Cal, nothing good can come of us being together in any way. Hopefully, she will see that now. She’s had an up close and personal glimpse of the Devil I carry within me, and with everything she’s already endured and overcome, she doesn’t deserve to be subjected to that ever again.

  I’ll stay far away from her. I don’t need to be by her side to keep her safe. The truth is, I can tell myself I’m staying away, but after our encounter tonight she will likely never want to be in the same room as me again. I’m not only pushing her away to save her from me but to also save myself. There cannot be a next time because I only just survived this time. I can never put her in that position in future, because I know I’m not strong enough to deny myself again.

  Calliah

  I wake up in my bed, the blankets once more tucked around me, yet, I know I’d fallen asleep on the floor last night, my back pressed against the wall, my unseeing eyes locked on the open door.

  He came back.

  The knowledge makes
me sad and unlike yesterday morning when I felt protected knowing that he’d looked after me, today I feel discarded and used.

  I don’t know what happened last night. I know he wanted me, I’d felt it. His hands were greedy and claiming, his mouth aggressive and needy, his hard length pressing between my legs. And I wanted him equally. I wanted to finally be the one to make the choice of who I let inside me. I wanted to see if these new sensations and feelings would ever reach the crescendo they appeared to be reaching for, and what would happen when they finally got to the peak. When his teeth nipped me and bit into my flesh, my blood spilling out over his tongue, I ached with the knowledge that he now carried a piece of me inside him. I vibrated with the realisation that I was under his skin, but it was that moment which pushed him over the edge, and what I experienced afterwards left me craving more of him. He thought he scared me, but he didn’t. Feeling him in turmoil, listening as he fought against everything his body demanded of him was torturous.

  I ached to my bones when he walked away and prayed whatever he fought against would win and bring him back to me, even if I didn’t survive the encounter, it would have been worth it to experience one night with a man for whom I’d become a willing sacrifice.

  “Hello. Calliah, are you decent?” calls a female voice from the entryway.

  Faye. Did Grim call her to look after me or was she coming here with Cole anyway?

  “I’ll be right out,” I call back, needing a few more minutes to reinstate the walls around my bruised, bloody and beaten heart.

  When I finally leave the room a couple of minutes later, pulling an oversized hoody over my head, I’m shocked to have Faye wrap her arms around me in a comforting hug. Normally I would be unable to accept the gesture, another’s touch too much for my senses to handle, but today I’m muted and desensitised to it, so I permit her embrace for far longer than I’d typically be able.

  “I hope you don’t mind me spending the day here with you. Cole has come to aid Luke and Grim, and once I was aware that you were no longer needed to gain access to The Kingdom, I didn’t see any reason for you to be staying here alone.”

  She releases me and steps back, oblivious to the weight of her words.

  “No longer needed.”

  “Plus,” she continues happily. “Cole tells me that James Cooper has invited us both to tour his vineyard. It’s like Hunter Lodge, but on a far grander scale. I’d love to see what they do there.”

  My silence alerts her to the fact I’m not as excited by the prospect of a visit as she, I sense her gaze settling on me, the weight of her stare unlike anyone else’s as it penetrates my skin and searches through my emotions.

  “Stop doing that,” I caution, my voice even to my ears, a harsh snap through my teeth.

  “I’m not doing anything,” she returns, her words careful and precise.

  “You are, I feel it inside me, burrowing and prodding, hunting through my thoughts and feelings. Stop doing it or leave,” I warn, uncaring of the repercussions.

  She doesn’t leave. She sits on the small threadbare sofa and sighs.

  “For a blind girl, you see far more than most. No one, not even Cole knows about my gift.”

  “Your gift?” Is Faye like me?

  “Come sit with me, and I’ll tell you. It’s only fair seeing as I know all about your talents, but you must promise that you will not reveal this to anyone, just as I promised to you.”

  “Grim knows about me,” I blurt out. “He knows, and that’s why I’m no longer needed, so I understand if you decide not to tell me your secrets, for knowing them is another weakness I do not wish to bear.”

  “Calliah,” she begins, before standing and leading me to the sofa. “You and I have much to share and seeing as we have all day, let me tell you the story of a girl who loved her mother dearly and the gift she acquired upon her death.”

  We talk for hours. In fact, it’s the longest I’ve ever spoken with anyone.

  I discover everything about Faye’s gift, and I explain, as best I can, about mine.

  We trade stories of our childhoods, not all of them painful. She tells me about her mother, and I share with her stories about Damaris. Then she tells the story of her husband and, although it’s a horrific saga filled with pain and death, she recounts it as if it’s a beautiful fairy tale. The girl who was gifted to a killer as his bride, and together they destroyed an evil empire.

  “Do you love him?” The question is both rude and unnecessary. The love she has for Cole evident in her every word, but still, the query falls from my lips because I need to know how love can build in a world like ours.

  “With my every breath,” she admits willingly, a smile making the words bright to my ears, but my inquisitiveness backfires when she questions me.

  “Do you have feelings for Grim?”

  My head drops, my face staring down at my clasped hands.

  “I feel things for him, yes, but I don’t know what those things are. I do not have names to give them,” I confess quietly.

  Her hand gently covers both of mine, her touch not unwelcome and I revel in this simple contact I have with another person.

  “When I first met Grim,” she admits with a small laugh. “I was terrified.”

  I lift my head and turn towards her, my actions letting her know I want to hear more.

  “In fact, I’m still terrified,” she discloses. “But I also see through his darkness and understand him better. He’s loyal, but also unpredictable. He’s honest but impossible to control. He’s also a brother to Cole and Luke, albeit not by shared blood but by spilt.”

  “He terrifies me too,” I admit, and she squeezes my hand in comfort before finishing my sentence for me.

  “But not in the same way as me, he terrifies you because of the things you have no name for, am I right?”

  I nod because voicing my admission scares me more than the feelings I have for Grim.

  “Does Cole love you?” I answer with a question of my own, needing to hear that there is hope for men like these to reciprocate unnamed feelings.

  “He would die for me, he has died for me,” she confirms, awe thick in her voice. “That is stronger than love and more powerful than hearts and flowers. Those four letters pale into insignificance compared to a man who would willingly give you the ultimate sacrifice.”

  “I’d end myself before hurting you.”

  Hearing him say that pained me, but the truth in his words is stronger than an unnamed emotion.

  “I’d like to go to the vineyard with you,” I decide, placing both hands on my thighs to stop myself from fidgeting.

  “Really?” she responds excitedly, her body giving a little jump of excitement causing the old sofa to squeak beneath her. “I’ve never been to Italy. I’ll let Cole know that we need the jet, we can leave tonight. I’m eager to see if we can implement any of their rehabilitation therapies at Hunter Lodge.”

  “Tonight?” I squeak, unsure if I’m ready to leave here yet. My fragile heart still hoping that Grim will return to me and tell me he’s made a mistake.

  “Yes, why not. I’m sure Cole would prefer us to be far away from here for the next few days. It’s the perfect time to go.”

  “But I-“

  “No buts, Calliah. You came here and did what you had to do. It’s time to move on. Grim would never have left the market alive if you hadn’t been there. I’ve heard the story of that night. Now let us leave here knowing they have all the tools available to end The Kingdom. You’ll have your justice, and still be a part of their destruction, but how much better would it be to become a part of the foundation of something that gets built from its ashes?”

  I feel her studying me as I allow her words to sink in and settle.

  “Okay,” I agree eventually, my aching heart pounding sadly with my decision to leave. “There’s nothing here for me, let’s go to the vineyard. I’d like to see if I recognise anyone there. It would be good to see that others like me have survived and are
building new lives.”

  “Then that’s what we’ll do,” she states firmly before standing and making her way to the door.

  “Faye,” I call out after her, stopping her before she steps outside. “I’d like it if you called me Cal.”

  “I’d like that too,” she replies with a smile in her voice. “I’ll be back soon, Cal. Make sure you’ve packed and are ready to leave in an hour or so.”

  Then she’s gone, and I sit in silent wonder.

  I think I’ve just made my first friend.

  Grim

  After a night of zero sleep, sat in the woods staring at the moon like a fucking deranged wolf-man, I drag myself back to our base and the first person to see me is Luke. Fucking great.

  “Nice to see you being at one with nature, brother.”

  He looks briefly at my torn and bloody jeans before his eyes come back to my face and he adds, “What’s up, your little trophy not giving you any, so you had to go searching for a mamma bear to stick your dick in instead?” He nods down to my leg, “Or did the bitch scratch you up real good, just as you like it?”

  I ball my fists and clench my teeth. I’m not in the mood for his shit and judging by the gleam in his eye he’s fully aware.

  “Fuck you, Luke. What’s got you all chipper and up in my shit this morning? Have you been tying my long-lost brother to a bench and filling his arse until he begs to call you his Daddy?”

  Oh, that gets a reaction, and all humour bleeds from his face, his eyes glinting like steel, his jaw so tight he likely cracks a few molars.

  “Cole’s waiting in the main house,” he states blandly, his tone tempered, but his eyes seethe with an unrestrained anger that confirms my direct strike.