by E. S. Carter
“Let’s go, brother,” Luke says from his place at my side.
The four of us here, all supposed allies, yet we are faced off against each other like enemies.
“You’re going to need stitches if you want to keep your good looks.”
I ignore him, focusing instead on my blood brother before me.
“If I ever find out that you’ve deceived us and that this whole game was to gain you the only seat at the head of The Kingdom, I will remove every, single, bone from your body one by fucking one. You got me, brother?”
James nods and opens his mouth to reply.
“Don’t fucking speak,” I threaten, spit flying from my mouth and mixing with the blood running in rivers down my face. “I’ll talk to you when you’ve more than proved your worth. Until then, I’ll be watching your every move and trust me, brother,” I sneer, the word burning on my tongue. “I’ll be waiting for you to fuck up because I can promise you that nobody will save you from me if you do.”
With my final words, I launch the chair into the wall at my side where it splinters apart on impact.
“You can clean up this mess,” I declare, turning and striding from the room. “I’m collecting Cal from the vineyard and taking her away. Don’t bother trying to find us. I’ll see you back at Hunter Lodge in a couple of weeks.”
Then I turn my back on these three men, my three brothers.
Ignoring the pain of my open wound, I find the nearest vehicle, which happens to be a shiny and brand new Audi R8 and I leave this godforsaken compound in the arse crack of The Netherlands. My only plan to head straight towards France where the Red Order’s jet awaits.
Next stop: Italy.
Then I’m taking Cal to experience the world.
Calliah
I’m quiet and reserved for our first few days at the vineyard. I’ve lost my place here.
When we initially arrived, I felt a sense of peace, and it was almost euphoric in its discovery, but now I feel detached.
Faye has been greedily learning all about this place, how it runs, the therapies they implement, the skills the residents learn, and how many decide to leave and build new lives away from here.
Marianne even introduces us to a few who live in other parts of the world via Skype, and they tell us how being at the vineyard helped them to find the strength to start anew.
Many have young families, partners or jobs not linked to James Cooper or his organisation. These are the people who are truly making their own lives. They remain a part of what Marianne likes to call the ‘Vineyard family’ and keep in touch or visit for holidays.
It’s remarkable what they have achieved here, but I feel almost abandoned.
The loss of Damaris completely has my grief even more potent this time around because mixed in with it is jealousy.
All these people survived to have lives and children and hope.
Why isn’t she one of them? Why did she die for a stranger to get to choose her name? Why is this life so cruel? Why wasn’t it me instead of her?
Why, why, why?
I’m fighting against all these thoughts and struggling to control my turbulent emotions. On the outside, I appear cold and indifferent, but inside me, a fire rages.
I’m unable to sleep, and because I can’t, I don’t get to see her. For the first time since we were separated, I feel utterly alone.
Abandoned.
Weak.
Forsaken.
“It’s Friday,” Faye announces from the open doorway of the room in which I stay.
I turn to face her from my place at the small window, a place where I’ve been sitting for the last hour, maybe more.
“And?” I enquire, unaware of any plans made for today, or maybe I was too self-absorbed to remember them.
She steps into the small room and sits on the only place left available at the foot of my single bed.
“The Kingdom falls tonight. By tomorrow it will no longer exist. Marianne has asked if we’d like to stay on here and help with the new arrivals.”
I turn back to my place facing the sun without answering.
“I’ve told her I’d leave when Cole arrives, as we’ve got a lot to do at Hunter Lodge, but you could stay if you want, the offer was made to you too,” she hedges, choosing her words carefully. She’s aware of how badly the roller-coaster ride of finding Damaris again, only to lose her completely, has affected me. I’ve barely spoken a dozen words since.
For the first time, since the woman who took my sister’s name held me while I cried myself to sleep in her arms, I think of Grim. Before coming here, he was all I could think of, but now, I want him to stay away and never return. It’s because of him that I’m not with my sister. If he’d left me to die that day a few months ago, I wouldn’t be living in this world where pain chases away my dreams. I would be running free through the long grass, my eyes wide and alert, spending eternity with my sister’s hand in mine.
Instead, I’m here. Finally broken beyond repair and I despise him for it.
“You can leave me,” I reply eventually. She can take that as she will for it means both leave me now and leave me here when you go.
“Cal,” she starts, as she stands and makes her way towards me. “I can feel you are giving up, but you’re stronger than that. You’ve shown, every day since the first moment Grim brought you to us, your resilience.” She’s quiet for a moment before admitting, “The doctor told us that he didn’t think you’d pull through. Did you know that? He said your internal injuries combined with your malnutrition meant you were too weak to heal. Yet every day I visited you, and each one you got stronger. You’re a fighter, Cal. Going back into The Kingdom to become a part of their downfall shows just how tough you are, even if you don’t feel that way right now.”
“I wish he’d left me there,” I confess, spite lacing every word.
“I wish I’d died on that filth-ridden floor.”
Faye comes a few steps closer and sets her hand gently on my shoulder. Her touch aches but I don’t have the mental fortitude to shake her off.
“But you didn’t, Cal. You lived. Don’t throw that away when so many others didn’t get that opportunity. You, more than most, know what loss is, don’t let yourself become another of The Kingdom’s victims. Not when they are so close to getting destroyed.”
She leaves then, taking the air of sadness that clung to her skin, with her. Without that cloak of sorrow, my room feels empty.
I haven’t accompanied her to meals or helped with her duties around the vineyard. Food gets brought to me, but I leave it to go cold and stale.
Eventually, when the heat of the day’s sun fades, I feel weary enough to climb into my small bed. Someone must hear my pleas because I beg for sleep and it finally claims me.
“Can you see me now, Cal? – It’s a miracle,” she giggles as I chase her through grassy fields, yellow flowers peppering the greenest of grass, the hot summer sun beating down on our heads, insects buzzing around our shoulders tickling our skin and birds singing songs of freedom way up high.
It always begins this way. Each time we meet starts and ends the same, it’s the middle that I hunger for, the part of the dream where we just are. Just Calliah and Damaris.
“Why are you so sad?” she asks me when we take a tumble and sprawl hand in hand in the warm grass. I look over to her smiling face, her eyes wide and blue, her dark hair shining in the sun and her skin healthy and golden.
“Because I’ve missed you,” I admit with tears coating my lashes, the image of her perfect face blurring before me.
She smiles at me sadly, her bluest of blue eyes wet and magnified, her full, pink lips turned down at the corners.
“You cannot miss what is always here,” she sighs, placing our joined hands flat against my chest, my heart beating beneath the surface, our fingers linking to make our hands look like one.
“I know,” I admit, sadness washing over me. “But I need more.”
“You have so much more
, Cal,” she breathes out. “You have a man who worships you, has killed for you and would die for you. You have the chance to start anew. Do not wish for the end when you’ve just found your beginning.”
Tears roll down my cheeks and disappear into the grass beneath my head. She squeezes my fingers lightly, her face breaking out into a glorious smile.
“I have to go. He’s coming.”
And then she’s gone. I reach out my hand to the long grass, but she’s not there. I want to scream for her, to beg her to take me with her, but even in my dream, I’m aware this cannot happen. So, I close my eyes to sleep.
Strong arms wrap around me, and I snuggle into the warmth of a broad chest. Softness pillows my body, cocooning me in heat and comfort. I burrow deeper, and something warm is gently placed over me, followed by a hand running over my cheek, up into my hair. Strong fingers comb lightly through the strands. Then tenderly, oh so tenderly, I feel the whisper of lips on mine.
I wake with a start, my heart pounding in my chest, my lungs frantic with their need for oxygen.
“Shh, Cal. I’ve got you. I’ve always got you.”
He pulls me to his chest, my head above the steady beat of his heart, and rubs soothing circles across my bare shoulders.
“Is it over?” I ask as my senses begin to dull just before sleep claims me once more.
“Yes, it’s over,” he whispers into the hair at my crown before inhaling deeply.
“But you and me, Cal, we’ve only just begun.”
Grim
She sleeps like the dead.
There is no twitching of her muscles, and no twisting or turning. She sleeps like she hasn’t slept for days.
The feel of her in my arms, and how she trusts me to protect her when she’s at her most vulnerable, is powerful and intoxicating. I like it, it feels right, and even my Devil calms enough for me to close my eyes and rest awhile with the constant weight of her across my chest, and the scent of her on my every breath.
Bright shafts of sunlight pierce the thin skin of my eyelids, and I reach up my arm to shield my eyes before twisting my head to glare at the open blinds.
Cal stirs for the first time all night, her soft curves pressing into the hard planes of my body, her small fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt. Her leg climbs higher over mine until her knee nudges my morning wood and I can’t help the groan that escapes my lips.
I haven’t shot my load for so fucking long, that I swear it’s backed up and is now clogging my brain, because all I can think about with her knee pressing up against my cock, is flipping her over and sinking in deep before she’s even opened her eyes.
She comes awake slowly, awareness washing over her in waves. Her fingers slowly release their hold on my shirt, and her knee briefly moves higher, rubbing against my hard on before the smooth skin of her leg drags back down over my thighs.
“Morning, sunshine,” I rasp, twisting my head to look down at her. The skin on the side of my face is pulling against the stitches that Faye insisted I get when I first arrived here last night.
Her head burrows deeper into my chest, and she lets out a little sigh before admitting, “I think I slept like the dead. I don’t think I can move. You’re more comfortable than you look.”
A chuckle bubbles up in my chest and rumbles from my lips, “You can use me as a mattress anytime.”
She presses herself even closer, and I feel the heat at the apex of her legs burn into the bare skin of my thigh.
“Cal,” I groan, shifting away from her slightly. “You can’t rub against me like that. It feels too fucking good.”
“Let me make you feel good,” she whispers, head lifting so her lips can find my neck. “Show me how to make you feel what you gave to me the night before you left.”
Fuck.
“Bite me,” I growl, pushing her head into my neck, urging her to mark me.
She complies without hesitating, her mouth open, her teeth nipping at my flesh.
“Harder,” I instruct until I feel her teeth sink in and break my skin. She moans around the bite before lapping at the punctures her teeth made with her warm, wet tongue.
I tear my shirt over my head, Cal pulling back just enough for me to do so before she moves to the other side of my neck, and without an order, sinks her teeth straight into my soft skin.
“Fuck, sunshine,” I rasp. “More. Bite my chest.”
Her head lifts and her face turns to mine, allowing me to see the desire in her features and my blood that paints her mouth. She’s so fucking beautiful it hurts and it hurts so good.
Her fingers trail over my collarbones, followed by her mouth, she nips at the flesh covered bones before making her way to my pecs. She rubs her cheek against the strip of short hair at the centre, using my body as a full sensory experience, and fuck if that doesn’t make me harder. Her exploring fingers find first one nipple, and then then other, and she pinches them experimentally earning another moan from my lips. Liking the sound, she replaces her fingers with her teeth, her bites increasing in strength before she lifts her mouth slightly and lowers it to the skin right above my heart. Then she sinks her teeth into the muscle and locks her jaw.
Ecstasy rolls over me in throbbing pulses, my cock leaking against my belly. Each puncture of her teeth sends bolts of electricity zapping down my spine to land in my tight balls.
With a preternatural growl, I grab her shoulders and flip her over, pinning her to the small bed with the full weight of my body. My cock slips between her thighs, seeking the wet warmth it knows is there.
“Right now, Sunshine, I’m about close to losing my goddamned mind. If I don’t sink inside you soon, I will fucking explode.”
Her legs part, opening herself up to me, and telling me with her body that she’s mine for the taking.
“I can’t go gently, Cal,” I warn her.
“I don’t want you to,” she replies, her greedy fingers still exploring my chest, rubbing the blood from her bites into my skin.
“You got the all clear from the Doc I checked your files, and I’m as clean as a whistle, so I’m taking you with nothing between us, you got that?” I declare while rubbing my rock-hard shaft through the needy and wet lips of her pussy.
Her reply is to open her legs wider, and with one punishing thrust, I bury myself inside her body to the hilt, bottoming out into fucking heaven.
She gasps long and loud, her back arching from the mattress, her small but perfect tits presented like a fucking feast for my mouth. I withdraw and plough back into her with bruising force, sucking her entire tit greedily into my mouth, before biting her rosy pink nipple.
Over and over again, I thrust inside her sweet body, my Devil wanting me to lean over and tear out her throat with my teeth.
I leash him, the heavenly warmth of her tight cunt all I can think about, and all I can feel. I lift one hand to her clit and circle it with my fingers, her juices slick on my skin, the pads of my fingertips sliding round and round and round over the tiny bud before I pinch it hard.
Her cunt tightens around me, the ripples of her inner muscles sucking at my cock and locking it inside her. I release her clit and allow the blood to rush back, before slapping it with my fingers to the rhythm of my thrusts. Each smack earning me a delicious moan from the back of her throat, as her pussy squeezes and contracts around my ready to blow dick. My pace is unrelenting as I fuck her into the mattress, likely leaving the imprint of her body there forever, and like a good girl, she takes everything I give her. Mewling and moaning and lifting her hips to seek more. My balls draw up tighter, a tingle at the base of my spine telling me I’m about to fucking blow. So, I bend down to bite her other tit and pinch the lips at the top of her pussy between two fingers, rubbing the sensitive bundle between them and then squeezing until she screams and her cunt spasms around my length. Before she’s finished riding out her orgasmic high, I lift her head to my neck and place her mouth on the hard muscle between it and my shoulder.
She doesn’
t hesitate, her mouth opens wide, and with a final thrust that is so hard it hurts, she clamps down and bites, hard.
My cum floods her cunt with scolding hot, never ending spurts, while my blood runs from her open mouth and down my chest.
We are one; my seed painting her inside while our blood paints our skin. It’s filthy, it’s primal, it’s raw and it’s total perfection.
Sex before Cal was a necessary release.
Sex with Cal calls to my baser needs and feeds them, yet it’s also transcendent; filling the crack in my chest that I never knew was there.
She’s pure, clean and untainted; a feat I don’t know how she accomplished given the life she was forced to live.
“Did I hurt you,” I ask softly, slowly coming down from my high, my cock still hard and throbbing and spilling its last remnants deep inside her.
She lifts her head from my shoulder, her breath coming out of her mouth in short, sharp pants and replies with a sated and bloody smile on her face, “No. You didn’t hurt me. You freed me.”
You freed me.
“Give me your mouth,” I demand, my tone harsh. I’m unable to offer soft words of the heart but I can and will devour her, showing her again, that I own her, and she possesses me.
The taste of her blood mixed with mine fills me up and soothes my Devil. He rejoices in the flavour and licks at her mouth until every drop is consumed.
Afterwards, when she’s lying across me, her naked body draped fully over mine, I tell her of my plans not to return to Hunter Lodge with the others.
“I want to explore the entire world with you,” she replies. “If we never return I will be content. I only ask for one thing.”
I lift her face, and she reaches out to gently touch my freshly stitched wound, a look of worry pinching her brow.
“Anything. You can ask me anything, and I will give it to you,” I vow. My promise unbreakable because there is nothing I wouldn’t do for the woman in my arms.
“All I ask is a promise from you to never leave me again.”
