“He can’t take your power after you’re crushed?” the troll who claimed to be Timothy’s friend asked.
I shivered at the line of our questions, but I did them the honor of really thinking about it before answering. “It’s my blood. My power is in my blood. He has to drink every last drop while I’m alive.”
“There are one hundred and thirty-six of us—too many to surround one of you.”
“My plan isn’t to have one of me… I’m talking about having four of me.”
The negotiations with the trolls took another couple of hours, and they still weren’t sure their leader would go for it. Eventually, they told us that they would return with an answer and walked into the forest. If the leader didn’t agree to our plan, they promised to at least bring enough trolls to carry us back through the forest, though they weren’t sure if the trees would climb up their bodies to get to us. The trees had tried to do that with Timothy.
All we could do was wait and try to get some rest. We took turns stripping down and washing off in the trickle of water that flowed out of the cavern wall. I drank some of the water and spit it out as it tasted sour. Standing there, as I scrubbed my body with my hands in the freezing spray, I realized for the first time that I hadn’t eaten or used the bathroom since I left Nightendale, and I hadn’t even thought about it. I also hadn’t drunk anything but blood since the bottles I shared with my brothers on our initial flight.
After dressing in our filthy clothing, we sat against the stone, each of us staring out into the haunting, carnivorous forest. I rubbed the face of Timothy’s coin and stared into their branches, considering the pieces of what I knew. “The trees drink blood and steal souls…” I muttered, repeating what the warriors had just said. “I wonder how much one tree can drink… and if the trees keep the blood for themselves. Ruin, you said that the tavern you were in was serving blood on tap and you could see roots in the wall.”
Ruin’s blue eyes met mine, and he sucked on a tooth, clearly considering. “You think Ravage is using his tree to harvest humans?”
“Yeah.” I rubbed out the wrinkles on my forehead. “He didn’t take over Portland because he wanted to rule it. Ravage wanted the humans. I think he wanted a long-term blood supply without actually having to deal with humans—yeah, that’s what I’m beginning to think.”
“Would it truly be long-term, though?” Ruin asked. “A system where the Tree of Life drains humans and delivers the blood to vampires through its roots wouldn’t last very long.”
I chewed on the tip of my tongue, considering. “I didn’t die when the tree consumed me. What if that tree… brings humans down into its root system somehow, sucking on our blood, but keeping us alive while imprisoning our souls…” I shook my head. “It sounds ridiculous.”
If I followed that chain of thoughts, it brought me to the nauseating image of thousands of humans tangled in the Tree of Life’s root system, being sipped on slowly. A flash of images rose in my mind. Mira stared at me as the ivory root system snaked over a pile of corpses. Genevieve’s arm reached out of the bone white trunk as she was slowly consumed. The wood rolled over my eyes, and then darkness. If the humans were under the tree, they would eventually starve… unless the Tree of Life could keep them alive somehow.
I shook my head, trying to dislodge the images there.
“It doesn’t sound ridiculous to me,” Death said from where he sat close beside me. “If Ravage’s goal is to rule all of the vampire kingdoms, all he has to do is take control of the blood supply.”
“I wish I could say that most vampires wouldn’t be attracted to the idea of a limitless blood supply without having to pay or seduce a human.” Ruin sighed. “Back when we were enforcers for Queen Hell, we saw how common forced feedings were, often ones that killed the humans involved.”
“I have absolutely no doubt in my fucking mind that the only thing that holds some vampires back is that if you’re caught forcing a feeding, there are steep consequences in Seattle as well as Portland before the fall,” Ash growled. “But we all know that King Razor was lax on transgressors. Courtesans were treated as precious, and they were still killed.”
“Free blood wouldn’t convince the vampire royals. They’re only interested in blood mage blood,” Ruin said as he scratched his chin. “Maybe he’ll leave the blood mages out of it so he can continue to control the royals.”
I doubted it, but I didn’t say anything. I remembered now that Ravage killed all of the blood mages when he took over Portland. He collected all of the blood mage powers, save Tempus. He was in most ways invincible, but a large enough group of vampires with blood mage powers could work together to destroy him. It was how Ravage thought, and the only logical conclusion was to kill the blood mages. Blood mages were humans, and therefore, they’d be easy to kill. The most dangerous blood mages were already bound, meaning, we were practically gift-wrapped.
I ran my fingers over the edges of Timothy’s coin. It was warm in my fingers. “Was the Queen of Seattle planning to come to Ravage and my wedding?” I asked as I kept my gaze pointedly down. “Were the royals and courtesans invited?”
“Yeah,” Ruin said as he leaned in closer. “What are you thinking?”
“Nothing… just wondering,” I said, even though my insides were roiling. I didn’t even know why I was keeping things from these men. Maybe it was just force of habit, or maybe I didn’t want them to get their hopes up that the rest of my memories would return.
“I think you might be onto something here, Kori,” Ruin rubbed the top of his head.
“And if it’s true, only us three know it. More than likely, us three are going to die and Kori’s mind will be wiped again. For all we know, Kori figured this shit out the first time around.”
Death reached over and clapped Ash on the shoulder. If the trolls agree to our plan, you’re going to need your strength.”
Ash muttered a few words that didn’t sound altogether pleasant, and then he closed his eyes.
“I’ll take first watch,” Death said to Ruin and me, but we both knew he was only talking to Ruin. There was no way that they’d have me take a watch when I might plop over dead at any second.
Ruin sighed and curled up around me, practically pulling me on his lap. Even though the position was comfortable, I couldn’t fall asleep, and as Ruin began to softly snore, I extricated myself.
“Can’t sleep?” Death rumbled as I retook my seat beside him.
“I could probably sleep, but I’m worried about the dreams that wait for me if I do.” I scratched my hair, feeling the layer of dirt on my skull. “Wow, I’m disgusting.”
“No, you’re not,” Death said, as if he was simply stating a fact.
I inhaled a shaky breath and let it out slowly, bracing myself for what I knew I had to say. “We haven’t talked about what happened.”
His dark gaze met mine, and I could see his immediate understanding of what I was referring to. “Do you need to talk about it?”
“I don’t know… maybe.” I chewed on my lip. “I guess I’m worried that I was experiencing pleasure while being chained to the bed obviously upset or hurt you.”
“I think we were both experiencing pleasure and pain in that room. As for being chained, that wasn’t creating new wounds, it was opening old ones.” He fisted a hand under his chin. “We might have both agreed to be on that bed, but once we climbed on, neither of us had any control of what happened there—Ravage made sure of that.”
Death was right, but it still didn’t make me any less uneasy with the fact that I participated in a sex act that made him at all uncomfortable.
“I need to confess something.” I put a hand to my chest, feeling the reassuring beat of my heart through my grimy jumpsuit. “I wanted to be there… up until I saw the pain in your expression, I wanted all of it. I wanted to be with you so much, I would have done almost anything at that point. And… I had a fascination with Ravage that I wanted to let run its course, I suppose.”
Death turned over
his palm, and I placed my hand in his. He wrapped his fingers around mine, and they almost felt too hot, but at the same time, soothing. “Kori, it was something I chose to do because I would do anything on this fucking world to have you and I be free of Ravage. The only thing I regret about my decision—and I mean the only thing—is that you don’t remember the times before with us, so in your memory, Ravage was there for our first time.” Death’s thumb brushed over the back of my hand. “But, for the record, I’d rather not be manacled during sex again.”
“I would never want that.”
“I’m not sure if Ash is threatened by what you shared with Ravage—but I’m not. I know that surrendering to evil can be very seductive, and that’s what Ravage is. He’s nothing more than death and destruction—that’s all that’s left in him, and even I was drawn to him while we three were together on that bed. But I also know that you and I were together for a different reason—a stronger one. What happened in that bed happened. It’s something we shared, and I don’t regret anything about it.”
I squeezed his fingers. “Then I won’t either.”
Death raised his arm, signaling for me to get closer, so I scooted in against him and laid my head on his chest. Even after weeks on the run, he still smelled like soap.
“It’s my turn to feed you,” he said.
My head came up. “What if you drank from me, too. Then you’ll be able to predict what’s coming.”
He was already shaking his head. “Kori… it’s too risky. Last time--”
“I died,” I rolled my eyes up to the darkness above. “Do you think that maybe I’m dying for a reason. Maybe it’s going to happen no matter what.”
“Perhaps.” He paused with his hand next to his mouth. “But I’m not helping that along.”
“Death, before you do that… drinking blood wakes me up, and I mean wide awake. Can I get a little sleep first?”
He watched me, not lowering his arm from before his mouth. “Are you saying this because you truly want to sleep or because you’re hoping to talk to your brother?”
Death valued honesty above all else. I didn’t know if it was a memory or a realization, but I knew it with a certainty.
“Maybe a little bit of both, because I need to coordinate with my brother, but it’s also true.”
“How about this, I’ll hold my finger against your pulse while you go to sleep, but if I feel so much as a flutter, I’m going to feed you blood.”
“Death, if you’re touching me, my heart is going to be fluttering,” I said.
A rare smile flitted at the corner of his lips, and I had an intense and sudden impulse to kiss him right there.
“What if I changed my mind about wanting to sleep…?” I asked as I leaned in and caught his dark gaze, silently asking him for permission to close the distance. “What if I want a do-over?”
“A do-over?” he asked.
“Our first time in my memories, but this time with just us… where you mark me as your mate. Not as part of some escape plot, but because you choose me.”
“That’s what you want?” he asked it as if he truly doubted that I wanted to be with him.
“You guys still don’t get it.” I shook my head. “That letter I sent to you, I wrote so Ravage would deliver another letter to my brother, a letter with plans for an escape. Ravage unscrambled my code in a matter of seconds, and I knew that I wasn’t going to escape any time soon. I knew how I felt about you, but I didn’t know how you three felt about me. Letting you out of any obligation to me felt like the only option at the time, but I never for one single moment stopped wanting you. Letting you go broke my heart.”
“That’s all I needed to hear.” Death’s hand ran over my hair, and his blood-red lips slanted over mine, and a tingling jolt spread through my whole body. I opened my mouth for him, and his tongue slipped in. Even after days of travel, our mouths tasted delicious together as we savored one another. Our kiss deepened, and Death wrapped a hand around my back and lowered me to the dirt.
I reached for the hem of his shirt and tugged it up. Death hesitated a moment before helping me. Tattooed skulls decorated his arms and chest, and I knew that on his back he had an angel of death tattoo in mourning of the years he was forced to be Queen Hell’s executioner.
I knew it, but my mouth was tangling with his, and my heart was soaring, and I didn’t want to stop kissing him for a moment.
Death slid over me, separating my legs with his. His fingers pinched the top of my zipper, and he broke away long enough to say, “I’m going to unzip you.”
The zipper glided over my skin, and Death lifted my leg in order to move it down to my ankle, freeing one of my legs. I was mostly naked with my chest and sex bare. Only my arms and one of my legs was still in my jumpsuit.
Death’s hand cupped my sex and ran a finger over my slick heat. I gasped onto his lips as two of his thick fingers plunged into my channel and his thumb rolled over my bud.
I reached down for Death’s fly when he pulled back. “Patience, Kori. How about you sit on your hands and widen your legs for me.”
His calm and commanding tone had my breath catching, and I did exactly as he told me to.
“Perfect,” he whispered as the fingers inside me curled back and forth.
Pleasure built inside me, and I covered my mouth with my hand as a moan threatened to escape me.
“I’ll do that,” Death said, raising a hand to cover my mouth. “If you want me to stop, you tap my arm. Otherwise, I want your hands under your ass.”
I knew I shouldn’t have felt aroused by having Death’s hand cover my mouth, but his calloused and warm fingers felt so good there. This was complete surrender, and I wanted to give it to him.
Death paused to unbutton himself, and then he was pushing my jumpsuit aside and entering me. His thick cock felt so familiar and right.
His thumb held my mouth gently and firmly shut as his shaft slid in deep and back out again. He had me caged, and I felt as if the pleasure building inside me would explode and burst out at any second.
His dark eyes drilled into mine as he filled me in long possessive strokes. With every thrust I felt like he was saying, “Mine. My mate, my Kori.”
The explosion came in an eruption of sensation, starting at my core and spreading through my whole body like electricity crackling through my entire being. It was good that Death was covering my mouth, because otherwise, I would have given our position away in a heartbeat. Aftershocks of my orgasm flowed through me, and Death pressed down on my hips and sped up his pace. Before I was finished with one orgasm, Death’s thick cock was driving me relentlessly to another one.
He pumped deep and long as he pinned me there.
“I’m going to bite down then cum inside you,” he said through a shuddering breath. His eyes stayed on mine, and I knew he was giving me a chance to tap him and say no, but I nodded.
Death’s fangs sliced deep into my neck as he kept up his pace, and mingled pleasure and pain crashed over me. My eyes rolled back, and I might have lost consciousness for a second as my core clenched around his cock. He licked my wounds as he pulled out. Death lifted my leg and zipped me up. After he replaced his shirt, he rolled me on top of him, so he was the one lying in the dirt. I sprawled across his chest, feeling suddenly very sleepy.
“I expected that you and I were going to have to start fresh after Ravage stole your memories,” Death said as he brushed his fingers over my hair. “I didn’t want to push things too fast.”
“I really meant it when I said that my feelings didn’t change,” I said through a yawn.
“If we had to start over, we would have, but I’m glad we didn’t have to. You’re my mate—it’s always been as simple as that to me.”
“My mate,” I muttered into his chest. “I like the sound of that.” The world faded away, and what felt like moments later, I opened my eyes to a troll standing over us, telling us they would go along with our plan.
Chapter Twenty-One
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br /> Ruin
I lifted another handful of moist soil and rubbed it down Kori’s naked back. After getting the chance to wash herself for the first time in weeks, Kori had willingly volunteered to bathe in mud. Death sat against the wall, dozing from their feeding while I generously volunteered for the task of making sure every inch of Kori’s naked body was covered.
Kori hummed as I rubbed a grainy paste up her neck and into her dark hair. I leaned in and whispered in her ear. “Do you want me to put an extra coat over your front?” I ran my fingers over her shoulder. “The mud covering your breasts looks a little thin.”
She chuckled. “You definitely can’t see my breasts from there.”
Oh, yes, I could. I could see straight over Kori’s shoulder and down to the pink nipple poking out of the white mud.
“Oh.” Kori glanced down, and then spun to face me. “Damn it, you’re right.” She lifted her arms over her head, exposing more spots she missed. “Go ahead.”
I scooped a handful of mud and spread a layer over her soft nipples.
She inhaled sharply and then smiled. “Cold.”
Fuck. I had to lock my knees so I wouldn’t scoop her up and pin her to the nearest surface. Damn if I didn’t wake to her and Death fucking inches from me. I did my best to give them the privacy they deserved, but my dick had been hard ever since, and that was hours ago. Watching her drink from Death while his eyes rolled back in pleasure did not help soften the state of affairs in my pants.
I kept reminding myself that we needed to enact our plan as soon as Death recovered. There was no time for distractions. So, I focused on spreading the mud evenly until the last inch of Kori’s skin was gone, covered in an ashy white.
Ash slipped back in from the tunnels and came to stand beside me. “Ravage has his soldiers amassed on the bridge. ”
“I think we’re ready here. Can you see any skin?” Kori asked with her gaze on Ash.
Ash inspected my work and scowled. “You look good.”
Kori smirked, and it was devastating. “What does that mean?”
Ash (Fire & Blood Book 2) Page 16
