Pinned beneath him, I felt fiery pleasure coursing through my belly.
I craned my neck down, giving him more access. His lips pressed where his teeth had been, and his kiss sent more heat coursing through my body.
Ahh, the euphoric, ecstatic kiss of a fallen angel.
His sensual magic pulsed over me, like little phantom flames licking at my body, stroking between my legs. My body moved a little, back and forth, my breasts brushing against the sheets. I could feel every glorious inch of him as he leaned over me, pressing against me. I wanted him inside.
Everything, everything felt like a slow, erotic torture right now. His tongue on my throat, his chest against my back, the feel of his lips on me—all of it was a sinful pleasure that could rob me of sanity.
With his teeth at my throat, a primal gesture, I was his—all his.
As he pulled away from my neck, I turned my head to look into his fiery eyes. The sensible, controlled Samael wasn’t there anymore. This primal version of Samael was pure fire, and a little rush of fear trembled through me. But then he closed his eyes, and his lips met mine.
He kissed me deeply, his mouth claiming me. The sweep of his tongue against mine made me moan into his mouth, aroused beyond measure. This wasn’t like the torture in my dream. I felt something in his kiss—something more than lust.
He pulled away from the kiss again with a nip to my lower lip and sat up. Now I felt constrained. I wanted my hands free so I could run them all over him.
“Lila.” His voice was husky as he threaded his fingers into my hair. “Are you ready to admit the truth?”
Desire was robbing my mind; I could hardly remember what he was talking about. “What truth?”
“You don’t think I’m mediocre.”
If I hadn’t been so uncontrollably aroused, I would have burst out laughing at how much I’d gotten to him. Instead, my breath hitched as I said, “You first.”
He let out a low growl, then pulled my underwear down.
With one hand gripping my hair, keeping me in place, he brushed his fingertips along the inside of my thigh, then slowly, slowly up higher. Oh, God, he needed to move higher.
I knew he could see exactly how turned on I was right now. Pretending I didn’t find him wildly sexy was ridiculous. And yet, I’d committed to the game. I was going to see this through.
Just when he was about to touch me right where I needed it, his hand went still again. I could feel its warmth, just an inch from where I wanted it.
“Samael,” I groaned. “Come on.”
“Was there something you wanted to tell me?”
“You’re nice looking,” I breathed into the pillow.
Up and down, up and down he stroked inside my thigh, never quite reaching the apex …
“Samael, come on,” I whispered.
“Admit your dream wasn’t about another angel.”
I gritted my teeth, grunting, unable to focus on his words.
At last, his finger moved up, grazing so lightly between my thighs I nearly screamed. Slick with desire, I was on the verge of madness.
Then, his finger went completely still. I ached for more, for him to touch me harder. Tied up in the position I was in, I could hardly move—I could only buck my hips a little, trying to satiate myself against his hand. Even if I wouldn’t say it out loud, my body was making it clear to him exactly how much I wanted him.
He took his hand away again, and I groaned.
“Tell me,” he said.
As if from a distance, I heard myself whisper that I needed him. Somewhere under the haze of lust, I was vaguely aware that I was losing some sort of game, but I could no longer remember what the game was, or what the rules were. All I knew was that I needed him to fuck me hard.
“Whatever you want me to say … I said it,” I whispered. “Can you fuck me now?”
31
Samael
Even though I’d known all along that she was lying, that there was no other angel she’d been dreaming of, some idiotic, primal part of me felt wild with jealousy anyway. I’d needed her to admit it. That was all I’d wanted at the start, or so I told myself.
But now, I could no longer control myself.
I wasn’t sure if she’d said what I’d wanted her to say, but I could no longer remember what I’d wanted her to say anyway. There was a reason I should stop myself, but words were like smoke in my mind, flitting away. Meaningless. Only Lila had meaning, and the sounds of her excitement, the look of her perfect body—submissive and aroused before me.
When she looked over her shoulder at me, her dark eyes heavy-lidded, something in me snapped.
The taste of her lips had been intoxicating. I wanted her near me always.
I gripped her hips, pulling them up toward me.
Dimly, warning bells rang in my mind, telling me to stop. But they were quickly quieted again in the haze of desire. The Fallen were slaves to lust, and I was no different. Not anymore. I needed her and only her.
Sliding in, I filled her, my mind going completely blank. She was perfect for me, made for me; I’d never experienced anything like this. As I moved behind her, the sounds of her pleasure brought me to an ecstasy I never knew I could feel. This was the beginning and the end. The reason why the Fallen risked everything, why so many had descended from the heavens. And I had never understood before why it was worth it, why civilizations would rise and fall for this pleasure.
I ripped the tie off her wrists.
This wasn’t supposed to happen, but …
She was moaning, shuddering beneath me, her cries growing louder.
Intense pleasure rushed through my body as relief gripped me at last.
I leaned over her while her body spasmed. Then, glowing, she rolled over and touched the side of my face.
I folded my arms around her, pulling her in close to my chest, and she breathed against me. Her body and muscles totally pliant and relaxed.
“Just so we're clear,” I whispered into her hair, “you aren't just any woman strutting around half naked, and I wouldn't have risked my life for anyone but you.”
“Just so we’re clear,” she said, “you are absolutely not mediocre, and I would never let anyone else tie me up like that.”
She nestled into the crook of my neck, and her breathing started to slow. “You never told me what the ring says,” she murmured. “Our engagement rings.”
“They say I am yours and you are mine.”
“Perfect.” She wrapped her legs around mine. “Why have you kept her room preserved all this time?”
“I needed a reminder of what would happen if I let my guard down for the wrong person. Luckily for me, you’re not the wrong person.”
My own breathing started to slow, and I drifted off into the deepest sleep of my long life.
I woke only when I felt a strange magic thrumming over my skin—a dark, invasive magic that should not be here. I glanced at Lila, sleeping beside me, the sheets curled up under her chin, hair falling in front of her face.
She was safe by my side, but unease built within me. In fact, it was rising to a sense of dread. I sat up straight in bed. Moonlight was spilling in through the windows, and the air felt strangely cold. My breath misted before my face. Rubbing my eyes, I felt a chill rush over me. Something was wrong …
When I glanced at Lila again, my heart skipped a beat. The faintest wisps of magic glowed on her skin—pale silver symbols, slowly growing brighter. Sensing a threat, my hand shot out for the hilt of my sword, but it was nowhere near me. And what was I going to do with the sword anyway? Cut the magic off Lila?
As I stared at her, ice slid through my veins.
Was this another trick from Lilith’s ghost?
Lila stirred, and when she turned to look at me, panic slammed into me. Her eyes were black as voids—demon black.
Not Lila anymore. I recognized her in those inky eyes—Lilith.
She shot up straight in bed. Her movements were completely different. My
Lila was gone.
A monster sat in the bed beside me. My mind whirled, trying to make the calculations. I always knew exactly what to do, what my next move needed to be. And yet right now my thoughts were a blank canvas of horror.
As a demon, she could kill me now. I’d just turned myself temporarily mortal with what I’d done. And for the first time ever, I could be killed.
Naked and glaring at me, Lilith’s hair floated around her head as though she were under water.
Had the Free Men done this with the Mysterium Liber? All along I’d thought they’d be raising her from the earth, not in a living person.
Where the fuck was my sword?
Her head turned—sharply. My stomach dropped with horror at the empty look in her eyes.
Lila. “What have you done with my Lila?” I stumbled back off the bed. I started stepping backward to the window.
“Your Lila? How sweet. But I am Lila. She’s always been me, reincarnated. Maybe that’s why you liked her.” She smiled at me, cold and mocking. “Well, her memories are gone now. The Free Men helped me with that. And now I’m back. All my memories. Like that time you murdered me. Isn’t it wonderful? I did try to tell you. You didn’t believe me, my beloved. That’s unfortunate for you, really. I don’t think this will end well for you, my husband.”
My thoughts churned like storm clouds. Hot violence coursed through my blood, an instinct to hurt her. To kill her. Even as a mortal, I’d be stronger than her. I could carve her heart out and throw her out the window a second time. But my heart was fracturing, because this was the one enemy I could never kill. “Is Lila still in there? Underneath Lilith, is she still there?”
She shrugged. “Who cares?”
Grief split me open. I needed this reversed. I needed Lila back—the one without the dark, twisted memories Lilith had.
I couldn’t bring myself to kill her. Not if there was a chance I could get the real Lila back. Not if I could exorcise this demonic version of her.
Except she was going to try to kill me.
“What happened to Lila?” My voice boomed over the room.
She smiled at me. “She was just the sad, pathetic, mortal version of me. We have the same soul. I’m Lila with strength, power. I’m Lila with all the memories of every terrible thing the mortals did to me. Torturing me. Burning me. Over and over. That changed me. Lila didn’t remember, but I do. And I’m not going to let you kill me again.”
I knew I needed to act, but my brain was still struggling to keep up. For the first time in my life, I felt frozen with indecision. “How has this happened?”
She was still flashing me that horrific smile that made my blood run cold. “I was buried in Lila’s consciousness. The Free Men found a way to summon me through magic. So, we made a bargain. They’d free me, and I’d kill some people for them.”
“Kill some people.”
“Mortals. Angels. I don’t exactly like any of them anyway. Lila felt my magic all along, flowing under the city streets. Mine and the Raven King’s. We created this city from dirt. And if she really needed it, Lila could use the power buried within her. Making plants grow, using them like weapons. That’s my magic, my soul.”
I recoiled from her, taking another step back. “You don't have a soul.”
“That's where you're wrong,” she shot back. “You were just too blind to realize. For centuries, my soul has been dreaming of the moment when I’d cut your heart out.”
She lunged off the bed, snatching Lila’s knife off the bedside table. It glinted in the silver light.
It could all be over so fast. I could snap her neck in an instant, have the knife in my hand. I could die, but I was as strong as ever. It would only take seconds.
It was, of course, what I had to do. For my own sake, for Dovren. I had to rip her heart out right now.
But I couldn’t bring myself to move. She looked so much like Lila.
And maybe Lila was still in there …
“I grew stronger under the ground,” she whispered. “I got to know the dead, the discarded. The sinners outside the church cemeteries, outside the city walls. And now, I’m back.”
I had to believe Lila was still in there. “Lila.”
Her lip curled. “That's not my name anymore.” I thought I saw a flicker of confusion in her eyes, but then they were dead again, black and cold as the night. “Don’t worry, my love. They don’t want you dead just yet. They plan to torture you first.”
She moved around the bed, faster than I could have imagined possible, a blur of movement.
When she reached me, I grabbed her by the wrists. She fought against me, a million times stronger than Lila had been.
But could I end this?
My mind was a churning ocean of horror. Why the fuck hadn’t I believed Lila when she told me?
It was only that she’d seemed nothing like Lilith. Nothing whatsoever. But I supposed memories, experiences, could change a person completely.
She was snarling and trying to stab me in the side, but I had a good grip on her wrists.
“Lila,” I pleaded. I wanted her back.
Her dark eyes shone with rage. “Your mortal is gone,” she hissed. “But clearly you love your women as weak as possible. Submissive. I have a vague and disturbing memory of being tied up.”
She broke free of my grip, and brought the knife down into my side.
Pain ripped through me, blinding. I’d never felt agony like this before. I’d never been mortal before, close to death.
As I stared down at the blood dripping from me, Lilith darted behind me and shoved me with such a powerful force that I felt myself falling forward, shattering the window.
Icy wind whipped over my lacerated skin. It took me a moment to register that I was about to die. As an eternal immortal, my survival instincts weren't what they should be.
I couldn’t remember my fall from Heaven, but it must have been like this—that slowness, that feeling of being lost beyond all hope. The intense pain of being abandoned.
Vaguely, I was aware now that Lila—Lilith—must have missed any important organs. I wasn’t dead, yet.
Primal dread hit me all at once—the hollowing of my chest that others felt when they saw my true face.
Glass had sliced through my skin. Under the night sky, I plummeted through the air. Time stretched out, and I dropped in slow motion. Blood streamed from the cuts, from the gash in my side.
We were supposed to be married tomorrow, but she was gone now. This was what it meant to fall: it meant losing your reason for existing.
The drop seemed eternal, all sense of fear dulled under cotton wool. My engagement ring glinted in the night, a little sliver of sunlight in the darkness.
As I fell closer to the moat, the certainty of death pierced me like a blade. This was the end of everything. Panic bloomed in my mind—the fear of things unfinished and questions unanswered.
At last, I slammed down hard into the murky moat, my back arching with the pain, bones breaking with the force of the fall. Sharp cracks shot through my legs, my spine. Agony sank into my brain like thorns, robbing me of coherent thought. I thought I needed to swim to the surface, but my body was too broken to move properly. In the dark, I didn’t know up from down.
Sinking, I drifted under the gloom. Dark water enveloped me, claiming me.
A flash of gold gleamed in the dark. Under the surface of the water, my ring glinted—a bright spark in the murk. I wanted to pull the cursed thing off, but that was a waste of energy.
This had happened before. This had all happened before.
Streaks of crimson mingled with the dark water.
I was still alive, and that meant I could still find a way out of this. Just as soon as I could figure out up from down, as soon as I could command my broken limbs to move again.
Air. Air.
My lungs were ready to explode. I couldn’t breathe, and my throat was starting to spasm. Desperate, I tried to kick my shattered legs.
C
ould I drag myself, fingers clawing in the dirt, from the moat before I drowned? No matter what had happened in the past, I’d always found a way out.
At last, I realized silver rays of light were piercing the surface. That way was up. I could make it if I blocked out the pain in my body. Shockingly, I was still alive.
But as I swam higher, dread unfurled in my chest. From under the water, I caught a glimpse of pale blond hair over a black shirt. Alice stood above me, flanked by a line of the Free Men.
How had she managed to get here?
As soon as I came up for air, they’d drag me out. A world of pain awaited me.
But I couldn’t stay under the surface any longer.
My lungs burned, and the need to breathe forced me up. As soon as my shoulders breached the surface, the Free Men lunged for me like wolves. Rough hands gripped my arms, dragging me out over the muddy bank of the moat.
I lay broken in the hands of the enemy.
It was Alice who’d done this—she’d escaped somehow, turned off the magical barriers from within. She had let the Free Men in.
All I knew now was that I would be tortured. And when they finished ripping me apart, they would kill me.
32
Lilith
Little pieces of glass glittered on the floor like jewels. I crossed to the window, shocked at the sharp feeling in the soles of my feet. Too sharp, strangely lacerating.
I wasn’t used to feeling pain, and it disturbed me. Only partially conscious in Lila’s mind, I hadn’t felt a thing. Just flickers of awareness until the Free Men started summoning me through their magic.
Cold wind whipped in through the shattered window as I peered down to see Samael. The Free Men were dragging him out, just as they’d told me they would.
There it was … the revenge I’d been craving. I wished he could have stayed in the moat longer. I’d been there for at least a day before someone dragged my bloated body out. The indignity of it had been horrifying.
I hadn’t died right away. I had felt the leaves and cold water filling my throat, felt the emptiness of a heart ripped out. I supposed he didn’t know that, nor had he thought about it at all after he killed me.
Rapture (Hades Castle Trilogy Book 2) Page 16
