I closed my eyes, unable to hear more as sleep took hold and memories replayed in my mind. He was there, through everything, and yet he’d failed to help me. He’d always chosen duty to the cross above all else. I inhaled the lavender as my mind wandered to another time, where every instance he’d told me of us replayed, but so many more.
Callaghan had spent my entire life protecting me. He’d healed me without telling me. I remembered him in the woods, but it hadn’t been him. It had been a winged creature, one who promised me that I was his and that one day, everything that happened to me would fade away as he loved me again. Callaghan had huge leathery wings that had welcomed me into them, and his mouth had brushed across mine, and I’d felt the truth he’d offered. The issue was the promises he had made me were of a darker world, one devoid of life or humans, only other creatures that I didn’t know or understand: A world where he and I ruled side by side, in the land of the damned that had long ago died off. A race that hadn’t made sense, and yet I’d craved to be among them. To know their world, and their story because somehow, I knew I belonged in it with them.
Chapter 26
His hands touched me, holding me as if I was a shattered, broken thing that his touch could heal. As if he held onto me tight enough, he could hold my broken pieces together. It hurt, knowing that he’d always been close to me, protecting me, and that I’d failed to ever notice him there; that every time I fell, he picked me back up.
I could have been honest and told him I had full access to my brain, but I didn’t. I lay there in his arms, replaying the memories of him that I’d forgotten as he slept, unaware of the turmoil rushing through my mind. Escape was a must, but I wouldn’t leave without Fred.
I exhaled as he pulled me closer, cradling me into the comfort of his body that smelled like heaven. The rich scent of masculinity and earth and wood, as if he was created of the world itself, and no matter how much I tried to ignore it, I drank it in like an addict, unable to get enough. My eyes closed as my body pushed against his on instinct.
His growl resonated deep from his chest and escaped his lips. Callaghan’s fingers dragged over my hip, dancing over my flesh as I pretended to be incoherent. He rose, placing kisses against my shoulder as he slowly pulled away, leaving the bed silently. I listened, hearing the door close behind him as he left the room. I continued to pretend to be asleep as arguing ensued from the other room.
I knew the voices, knew his father was demanding he finish the job or he’d find another Knight willing to mount my incapacitated body. Callaghan shouted back, his tone murderous as he defended me for what his father had done. It lessened the blow to realize he wasn’t willing to mount me in my current state and that unless they wanted a fight, they’d back off.
Doors slammed, and then Callaghan was in the room, his scent drifting to me. He paced the floor, only stopping to touch my face as he pulled the blankets over my shoulder. It was an intimate gesture that offered comfort as he moved to his closet, shuffling through it for clothes before he entered his bathroom, leaving the door open as he turned on the water.
Music started, and I opened my eyes, listening as the water flow was disturbed by his body. KALEO’s Way Down We Go played from within. My eyes closed once more, imagining his hands as he ran them over his flesh with heady soap, creating his scent that I craved.
There was also the familiar scent of lavender that clung to my flesh. I swallowed the memories of another time, another place that I’d been broken.
He’d held me, singing the hymns of the Celtic people as I’d lain in his arms, a broken shell of the budding woman I’d been growing into. He’d held me as my innocence had been shattered. As my mind slowly worked to piece back what had been broken. This man who gave me freedom, but also took it away, terrified me.
How had I missed the familiarity of his touch? Forgotten the heady scent of his body that I’d once craved as an adolescent girl who had felt his arousal without knowing what it was. Back then, I’d been old enough to become his wife at that tender age of fifteen; in fact, I’d been older than most wives, and yet he hadn’t taken what I’d offered him.
I remembered it now. My clumsy kisses as I’d tried to coax him into hurting me. I’d needed to feel his hands while he’d punished me for what I was. I’d craved the darkness of him, begging him as I climbed his body, naked with a crazed need to be hurt by him.
His hands had bitten into my hips, growling with raw hunger as I’d begged him to make me a woman. He’d refused. He’d told me he would never take me like that, in my current state. I’d ripped my clothes off in front of that man, climbing him until he pulled me off of him. He’d stared at me as if I was crazed, but his hand had cupped my face as he’d fought against his baser need to do as I had asked of him.
Those fingers had drifted to my tits, touching them as he’d stared me in the eyes, and then the look of disgust on his face had been a brutal slap in the face. It had told me the truth of what he’d thought of me. He’d pushed me away from him and stormed from the room as if the hellhounds had broken free of the underworld and were chasing him. I’d cried myself to sleep in the bed we’d shared, dejected, and ashamed of myself and who I was.
Still, he’d returned that night and held me, whispering into my ear of what I would become, and how I’d understand when I was older. I didn’t. I didn’t understand any of it, other than the rejection. I’d thought the beating I had earned might have been my fault, which my ugliness might have brought that boy to me. I was bad, everything inside of me so vile and ugly that not even the Knight who fought to bring me back would touch me.
The water turned off, and I sat up, staring at the door as he exited with a towel wrapped around his hips. His eyes locked with mine as the music continued to play. I let the blanket drop as he moved deeper into the room.
“Erie,” he whispered softly as he moved towards me.
I pushed the covers from the bed, staring at him as he watched me. He stopped at the edge of the bed, staring down at me with an unspoken question in his turbulent turquoise depths. I watched as he ran his hand over his mouth, staring at me as I decided the next step.
“I’m not a child anymore, Mason,” I whispered huskily.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said, watching me as if I was an apparition that would disappear if he blinked.
I stood up slowly, knowing I wasn’t fully healed, but I was healed enough to decide I wanted this. The room filled with his magic, and I stifled a moan as I pulled the towel from his hips. His mouth brushed against mine, and he lifted me, kissing me as if he could put every emotion he felt into it. It was brutal and beautiful. Chaos filled us as I captured his tongue, sucking against it while he slowly lowered us to the bed.
“Mason,” I whimpered as he pushed against my opening.
“God save us, woman,” he muttered as he pushed into the wetness and slowly drove his need inside my welcoming heat. He stretched me until I moaned against his hungry mouth, lifting my hips to take him into my body. He was raised up on his arm, pulling his mouth from mine as he stared into my eyes.
He was slow, careful with me as he took me over the edge, watching as I arched off of the bed and exploded into a million pieces of broken glass. I rolled him, staring down into his glowing eyes as he watched me. My hips lifted, rocking against the massive cock that throbbed against my insides. His hands lowered, settling on my hips as he let me set the pace, watching, I stared at where we joined.
He didn’t speak, not even as I rode him until I threw my head back, screaming to the saints as I came undone around him. His hands lifted me, slamming my body down on his too thick, too large cock that only forced another orgasm to shatter me around him. He worked my body, watching my face as wonder and chaos pushed through me, and I couldn’t seem to escape the pleasure that coursed through me. The moment I thought I would die from the bliss he gave me, he rolled us, slamming his mouth against min
e while he pushed into my body with utter slowness that drove me mad.
His hands captured mine, pinning them above my head. He continued to kiss me, his tongue slowly devouring me as it followed the rhythmic tempo of his cock, and the music seemed to grow louder. That same song played in the room, filling it as he fucked me until we both screamed, our bodies releasing together.
He stared down at me with a look I’d never seen in his eyes before. I swallowed a sob as he leaned over, placing soft kisses over my face and he grew hard inside my body. He didn’t stop taking me until we were both boneless, unable to go on. When we lay there in the silence of the room, I curled into his heat, tracing my hand over his chest.
“I’m sorry I bit you,” I whispered huskily. “I thought it was another shot to create a child,” I admitted. “I thought you betrayed me.”
“Erie, I can’t say that I won’t make a child with you, or that I will stop trying to save my people. I sacrificed what I loved most in this word to achieve this goal. I won’t ever stop.”
I nodded. “I won’t ever stop fighting you, either.”
“I never expected you to,” he admitted.
“Why didn’t you tell me you saved me before?”
“I didn’t want you to think you owed me. I didn’t want you to ever feel as if you owed me for that, because you don’t. I failed you, and that is why you were there in the first place.”
“I tried to be with you then, but you rejected me. I need to know why.”
“Because you weren’t ready for me,” he uttered as his fingers drifted over my shoulder.
“I knew what I wanted,” I whispered.
“No, you wanted to feel loved. You wouldn’t have felt loved if I had fucked you. You’d have felt used. I wanted you that day; I wanted you so fucking bad. You weren’t ready for me, not really. I’d have broken you with how much I needed you, and you were so fucking frail already. I wanted to write my name on your soul, but you didn’t have one yet. I knew the look that filled your eyes, swimming in your vision. The need to destroy everything that could save you, which right then was me. You wanted pain, to be hurt because it was what you knew. I wouldn’t let you add me to the list of people you wanted to hurt. You would have, Erie. You were self-destructing, and you couldn’t see it, but I could. That was why I remained close, watching as you murdered those boys. I found you in the woods, naked, bathing in their blood, and there was nothing human left in you. You don’t remember it, but I took you from those woods and locked you up. I brought the human inside of you back into this world.”
“I remember,” I stated as I lifted and stared down at him, letting my hand drift over his chiseled, hard chest, touching over the tattoos I’d once found different and vile, that I now found appealing. “What I don’t understand is why you named me Erie Callaghan, if you knew my parents and who they were.”
“It seemed right,” he uttered as his fingers trailed over the curve of my breast, skimming over the nipple before he lifted his head, claiming one. I moaned as he lifted me, pushing me down on his cock, and a throaty groan escaped past my lips. “I don’t know why, Erie, but I know that even then, I knew you were mine. I felt it as I stared into your eyes as if everything in the world had just fallen into place, and you were created for me.” He lifted me, slowly directing me down until he was buried within the heat of my body. “You are mine, that much I do promise you.” I heard the lie in his words, but I wasn’t sure what, or which it had been. I didn’t much care at this moment either.
“Is that so?” I asked, staring down into his eyes.
“Does this not feel right to you?” he asked as he lifted me only to slam me back down hard against his length.
“Just because I fucked you, doesn’t mean I agree to be yours,” I warned softly as I let him control the speed with which he took me.
“Mmm, there she is,” he chuckled as I screamed and he slammed into me punishingly. “I wouldn’t assume anything with you,” he whispered hoarsely. “But I do expect you to come on my cock, again. How many times would the next one make, sweet Erie? How many times has this tight cunt come for me tonight?”
“I lost count,” I moaned through the beginning of an orgasm.
“Start counting,” he urged as he rolled us and started moving with purpose. I exploded and whispered his name, over and over again as he took me soaring to the clouds. “Good girl, now do it again for me.”
Chapter 27
“What am I supposed to wear?” I asked as we climbed out of the shower. I was sore from his insatiable appetite to have me at his mercy, screaming his name. But I wanted normalcy, whatever that was. I needed to leave his little room and get fresh air, feel the sun on my face, and just live. Not remain camped out in his bedroom for the rest of my days.
In fact, if he had his way, I was sure I’d never leave the bed, and neither would he. It had been endless days of us doing the same routine: bathing, eating, sex, and more sex. Not that I was complaining; if there was one thing I liked about him, it was what he did to me in his bed for endless hours. The soreness between my legs was a small price to pay for that.
“You don’t need clothes, Erie,” he chuckled as he picked me up and set me onto the smooth countertop of the bathroom. His thick cock slid through the heated folds of my flesh, finding it already wet and needy to be filled by him.
“I want clothes; you cannot just expect me to sit in bed and wait for you,” I countered as I pushed him away with my foot, letting my knee drop to the side so he could see just how wet and needy my pussy was for him. “No clothes, no sex, Callaghan,” I moaned as I pushed my finger through my pussy, sliding it into the heat of my body.
“You think you can stop? Half of the time we fuck, you’re the one who instigates it,” he mused as his eyes watched my finger with smoldering heat. His hand stroked his cock as he waited for me to concede and cave to my baser needs.
“I want clothes, but I also want Fred brought up here. After you’ve done that, you can fuck me all you want, Paladin.”
“No,” he said as his hand stalled, ceasing his endless stroking that I’d been watching with a hunger I couldn’t hide in my gaze. My eyes lifted to his, finding them narrowed with anger as he shook his head. “Fred, as you prefer to call him, is a High Prince of Hell, Erie. He is a fucking head demon in Hell’s army. That isn’t fucking happening, ever. You have no reason to be dressed. I prefer you naked and waiting for me when I return to this room.”
“So, I’m still your prisoner?” I whispered as my hand lifted to the edge of the counter, and I jumped off. I watched all the emotion flee from his face as coldness replaced the lust.
He turned, striding from the bathroom as I followed behind him, unwilling to let him avoid the issue. He moved into the closet, grabbing clothes that he brought out and placed on the bed. I swallowed the anger that pulsed through me, red-hot and violent as he ignored me.
“You’re not leaving here. End of discussion,” he growled as he began dressing.
“So, I am your prisoner, to have and to fuck whenever you desire it?” I asked carefully.
“Erie, I wouldn’t do that,” he snarled as he watched me move towards the door, intending to leave the room stark ass naked.
“I’m your whore!” I screamed as everything came crashing down on me. I spun on my heel, heading out of the room as I growled from deep in my chest, entering the outer room without warning; his men’s sharp intake of air told me they’d seen everything he refused to allow me to cover.
“Get the fuck back in there,” he demanded angrily. “Look away, assholes,” he snapped, following me until he was inches away.
I opened the cupboards, slamming them closed as I searched for the coffee. My breathing was chaotic as I realized I was to him, and it played through my head. I’d given myself to him, it was something only I could give, and he’d taken it, yet I was nothing more than willing fl
esh for him to use when he wanted? Oh, hell no. Let’s not forget his main goal to put his child in my womb.
“Don’t fucking move, Erie,” Callaghan warned thickly, his voice strangled as he gave warning.
I had just started to turn around to tell him right where he could shove his order when the air around me grew thicker, turning deadly as I was picked up and bent over the counter with my ass in the air. Claws slid over my flesh, and I groaned as my hips slammed against the marble. I was unable to touch the floor with my toes as I remained there, knowing that whatever was behind me was deadly and powerful. It slithered over my flesh with magic as claws bit into my skin without pushing through. A whimper of fear left my throat as something leaned against my back, kissing its way up my spine until it whispered huskily against my ear as heat skimmed my flesh.
“Hello, pretty,” he hissed as he kissed my ear and dragged his heated lips over my neck.
Hands slid to mine, slipping through as I watched. Black claws longer than my fingers slid over my flesh, pushing against my hands that lay flat on the countertop.
“You shouldn’t have tried me,” he warned. “Now you will be punished, sweet girl,” he laughed huskily, his voice altered as he kissed the back of my head. “It’s time you learned who you really belong to.”
His hands left mine, twisting my head until I looked into glowing blue eyes that I knew intimately. His eyes were familiar, which told me that Callaghan was a part of this thing, but that was where the familiarity ended. His skin was black as night, covered in glowing blue tattoos that matched the markings of my face. I swallowed a sob as he watched me take him in, from the leathery black wings that expanded behind him to the fact that he was well over seven feet tall. He stared down at me with a wicked grin, enjoying the fear that exuded from me. He released my hair as his hand slowly pushed against my spine, watching me tremble at what was happening. Magic slithered over me, raw and electrical as it created an ache deep in my center.
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