Together, we painted death.
Blue fire struck me across the midsection, and for a moment, I went down to a knee. Ryker was right there, covering me in seconds until I was able to stand and continue.
A bull whip cracked in the air close to my head, and I saw the black haired witch at the end of it.
“Let me fight her,” I growled to Ryker, knowing he would want to help. “This bitch has it coming so stay out of it.”
Was I going to tell him I wanted to kill her for touching what was mine? No. Was I going to tell him that I had flared up with jealousy at seeing another woman’s hands on him? Also, no.
For a moment the witch did some fancy whip waving moves, looking like a gothic Indiana Jones. I stood watching, bored, while she hissed and did her best to look scary. The poor dear did her best, but I was too old and too battle hardened for her bullshit.
Giving up on actually having a good fist fight, I took one of the blades from my inside pocket and sent it slicing through the air into the middle of her forehead.
It wasn’t the battle I had been hoping for… but the bitch was dead, so I wasn’t going to complain.
When I rejoined the fight, Ryker had taken down the blonde witch, leaving us with only one left. The old woman, though, she didn’t want to go down without a fight.
“Take this.” I pushed a new blade into Ryker’s chest. It had been cursed and bound with powerful magic and would take down the old witch. “While I keep her attention here, sneak behind her and slit her throat. Can you do that?”
It was our only chance, and I was taking a risk by relying on him. But, besides sitting here in a shoot out until one of us died, I couldn’t think of anything else to do.
Ryker didn’t make a sound, just took the blade, nodded, and immediately began to belly crawl around the tombstones until I saw him safely behind her.
Now, all I had to do was keep enough of her attention focused on me that she didn’t hear him coming.
I emptied my entire magazine at her, even allowing her to strike me once in order for him to get directly behind her.
The black lightning was everywhere, its crack deafening, the shards of light coming off of it, almost blinding.
Looking at me across the grounds with dark eyes, he moved quickly and with precision, cutting that bitch’s throat like a slice of cake.
I couldn’t have been more proud of my man.
Rushing forward, I kissed Ryker hard. I wasn’t sure why I had done it, but something inside me was overjoyed at the victory. And somehow, along the way, that equated to a need to kiss him.
His arms locked around me automatically almost as if he had been thinking right along the same lines.
The victory in battle is what’s making us this way, I told myself. That’s all it really is, nothing more, I lied to myself.
It didn’t matter what it really was. That was a problem for another day. Today’s problems had been rescuing him from witches and then killing those witches. Today’s problems had been solved and needed no further investigation. If I wanted to reward myself with sex with a hot guy after a hard day’s work, then that was my prerogative.
If I was bullshitting myself – and deep down I knew that there was absolutely more to this than I was willing to admit at the current moment – then that was also my prerogative and also a problem for another day.
I let him hold me tight; I let him pull me close. My instincts conflicted, half of me feeling like I was letting my guard down and showing weakness, the other half knowing that this was my mate and this is what I should be doing. It wouldn’t be our first time together, but each time we kissed, each time we so much as touched, it pulled at my heart and made the bond between us grow stronger.
Soon, that bond would swallow me whole.
Fuck it, that’s tomorrow’s problem, girl, I reminded myself sternly.
One of his hands cupped my face while the other took a firm grip on my ass. I took two fistfuls of his jeans and slammed his body against mine.
His chest was bloody from where they had started to cut him, carving their symbols into him and marking his skin. Pulling away from our kiss, I slid my tongue across the wound on his chest, tracing it. Blood followed my tongue and slid down my throat. My boy tasted sweet.
Gripping my hair, he moaned deeply into the night. I knew something that would make him moan even louder.
I didn’t bother being coy or slowly unzipping his pants to tease him. We both knew what we needed, so the games were unnecessary.
His cock was raging hard as I pulled it out and immediately began to suck him into my throat. Blood wasn’t the only thing of his that tasted sweet. He gripped my hair harder, holding onto me to keep himself from falling over.
Pulling my head up, I took another good lick of his blood, staring him in the eyes as I did it. His gaze was intense, the heat of it burning my face, but I couldn’t look away as I took another long, delicious lick of his blood.
Tightening his grip on my hair, he let out a hiss, and I felt his body shiver. Humans weren’t normally turned on by blood, but the gods gave this one to me, and they chose wisely.
I went back to that thick cock of his that nearly choked me with its girth. It stretched my jaw in a way that turned me on and made me suck him harder.
His moaning egged me on. I shouldn’t be this turned on by a human, by pleasuring a human, but goddamn it I was. I wanted him turned on by me. I wanted him as hot and hungry for my body as I was for his.
I shrugged my jacket off because it was too restricting and threw it to the ground. Ryker pulled me up and spun me around.
The gravestone in front of me became a base of support as he bent me over and violently ripped my pants down. I thought he was going to slide his cock in, but instead, he gripped two handfuls of my ass, and I felt his hot tongue melting me.
Fuck, this boy knew how to work it. My moans were guttural and raw as he gripped my body like a wild man, like he needed my taste to keep going.
Crows cawed overhead, and for a moment, I was aware again that we were in a graveyard. It didn’t feel disturbing or like something from a gothic horror story; it felt peaceful – the cool night air, the soft dark sky, the absolute quiet around us except for the soft cawing of the crows, and the deep moans coming from my throat.
“More,” I demanded, knowing we didn’t have much time. We couldn’t stay here all night. These witches were a small group from a large coven, and the others would come for revenge on their dead.
He pulled back his mouth and bit my inner thighs, then my cheeks, before positioning his cock just over my waiting pussy.
“Hurry,” I urged, partly because I needed it now and partly because I knew what was coming for us.
I didn’t have to ask him twice. At the sound of the urgency in my voice, he filled me full of that thick, hard cock. He had been right. This was exactly what I needed, and he somehow knew that without me ever having to say a word.
No, I still wasn’t ready to admit what this man looked like he was shaping up to be. No, not even to myself. But the thoughts and feelings were close in the back of my mind, and that was enough for the time being.
He was so thick it was almost painful. I wasn’t a virgin, not by a mile, but it had been decades since I’d been with a man, and things were a lot tighter than they used to be. Not for long though, not with the way he was getting it.
Hard and fast, he took me over the cold marble of the gravestone. He was aggressive, primal, but not without reason. He wasn’t jamming his cock into me; he still kept a rhythm, one so sweet it kept me on my toes.
Moaning hard, I pushed back, finding my own rhythm so our bodies slammed together, me on my tiptoes matching him; him over me, claiming my body like an animal.
This wasn’t romantic sex. It wasn’t meant to be. This was adrenaline filled, rough, emotionless sex. This was ‘we nearly died together, but we fucking made it, so fuck me’ sex.
I felt myself starting to go over first. Damn him,
he got me first again. I couldn’t fight it though. I was already clenching, already gritting my teeth, trying not to scream out too loudly.
Over me, I felt him bite into my shoulder and then felt the hot spurts of his own orgasm inside me. That was something I never thought I would miss, but something about it made me feel closer to him. Normally, I did not let men cum inside me, but I didn’t even hesitate to let him. In fact, I enjoyed it.
Those thoughts were for another day too, so once again, I put them in a mental box, strapped duct tape over it, and shoved it into a deep corner. I pushed him off me quickly and shimmied my pants up.
Looking over, I saw a look of worry cross his features. And though a part of me wanted to be an asshole and leave him to wonder, a bigger part of me persuaded me to lean over, kiss him firmly, and remind him we were leaving now because of the witches, not because the sex wasn’t great.
A smile lit up his features at my small reassurance, and I had to stop myself from smiling back. Now was not the time. Not the time. Not the time.
He snagged my hand, and we began zig zagging through the tombs before I stopped dead.
Ryker turned to look at me, nervous that the witches had caught up to us.
“There’s another door.” I pointed out a door that was well concealed behind ivy and moss. Only the dulled silver handle stood out, and even that was easily missed.
“You think they could have my friend in there?” he asked, his voice hushed as he scanned the perimeter.
I knew the witches had to have back up. I knew they had alarms that would go off and alert others. I knew we had wasted too much time out here already, but I just couldn’t tell him no. Something about those blue eyes looking at me with so much trust and loyalty… I couldn’t lie to him, and I couldn’t hurt him. If his friend was down there, we had to check it out.
“Could be.” I nodded quickly, and before he even asked, I used all of my strength to land a heavy kick on the door and knock it open.
“You’re the hottest woman I’ve ever met in my life.” He stared at me wide-eyed before I snatched him by the belt buckle and dragged him into the pitch black corridor.
“Save the compliments for later when you go for round two on this pussy,” I whispered, leading him through the dark, knowing there was no way he would be able to see on his own.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, and I could feel him grinning even through the darkness.
Later tonight though, I was expecting all sorts of dick ‘thank yous.’
This set of stone hallways was different than the last in that it wasn’t lit in the slightest. And, while it didn’t smell like death and decay, the smell of blood and sweat was overwhelming. If there weren’t humans in here now, there definitely had been at one point.
While the other stone maze had many hallways all connecting and was truly a labyrinth, this one seemed to be moving in a circle with only one way in or out of it. If the witch reinforcements met us here, it would be a hard battle to win.
After what felt like nearly a mile of walking with Ryker behind me trying to cover up his heavy breathing and pretend like he wasn’t winded, I began to hear a second then a third steady set of breathing. Others were down here.
Grabbing his belt buckle harder, I yanked Ryker on faster. The blood from the cuts on his chest trickled down over my hand, and I was proud of him for not complaining about the amount of pain he must be in.
“Is it T? Is he here?” he asked, knowing that the quickening of my pace meant that we must be onto something.
“Whatever it is, it’s breathing. No idea if it’s your friend though.” I frowned, hoping for his sake that it was his buddy.
A small sliver of moon light appeared, and I could make out barred windows ahead. At least we’d be able to see something when we finally got to the end.
It was another prison cell, similar to the one Ryker had been in before. This one, however, held the stone altars inside of it, so the witches must keep these men and come down to have sex with them whenever they wish.
“That’s him,” Ryker rushed forward, making his way towards the bruised and bloodied face of his friend.
The other human in the room was a tall, slim, Indian man, his face as equally battered as Terrance’s, and both of them seemed to be in a deep sleep.
As we approached their holding cell, I could make out more of their situation. Both men wore identical, deep scars across their chests. They were the symbols that the witches had begun to carve into Ryker’s chest. From the looks of it, they had to carve the symbols into the flesh every time they began the ritual, which meant these men must have been cut into hundreds of times. Each time their bodies were allowed to heal, they were cut into again.
Both men were bone thin, their faces gaunt, their muscles emaciated. Being down here certainly hadn’t been a vacation for them.
The iron lock holding the men in their room was nothing extreme though certainly too strong for the humans to have broken. I pulled a thin, nail file sized knife from my belt and jimmied the lock. We could have shot it off easier, but that would have let any potential enemies know exactly where we were.
Ryker breathed erratically behind me, and I could feel the excitement and adrenaline he felt at finally finding his childhood friend.
The lock finally snapped, and in we went, rushing like water eager to reach the shore.
Both men woke and looked up at the sound of the heavy iron bars sliding open. It was probably something that haunted their sleep every night, nightmares of witches coming to slash and rape them in the night.
“T, we don’t have time to explain. You’ve gotta come with us.” Ryker charged in, and the moment his friend recognized his face, he wobbled to his feet and headed to the door.
It was clear he had been severely abused and neglected. His body struggled to keep up with the task of simply walking, but his eyes told a different story. There was still light in his eyes; madness hadn’t taken him yet, which was evident by the fact that he kept trudging forward, no matter how difficult it was.
“You coming?” I snapped at the other man in the room, annoyed that he hadn’t gotten up for this rescue mission. This wasn’t a daycare, and I wasn’t a babysitter.
The man’s shrunken eyes narrowed at me in anger, and he began to berate us for leaving the sacred temple of his witch queens.
“I’ll take that as a fuck no,” Ryker retorted and looked over at me with a shrug.
“I’m gonna carry you,” I told Terrance, not really caring how he felt about it. Men always had an issue with me being stronger than they were, but we literally had zero time to argue about that right now.
Thankfully, poor T seemed to have no energy left in him to argue, so instead he easily fell into my arms, and I began running down the long hallway with him in a princess hold.
Ryker did his best behind us to keep up. I knew he was wounded and struggling, but if the witch back up was here, I would have to start to fight them on my own and leave T in the tunnels to keep covered.
I reached the exit a few minutes ahead of Ryker and breathed a deep sigh of relief to see that the auxiliary hadn’t arrived. Once he caught up to me, I led him out of the cemetery and a half a mile down the road to where I had parked my motorcycle.
After dumping Terrance into the bitch car I had originally attached tonight for Ryker as a bit of a jab to him at getting kidnapped, we both hopped on, and he gripped me about the waist as we shot out of there. I was fairly impressed that he didn’t complain about being on the back of the motorcycle. Maybe having his friend safe with him made him want to cut out some of his normal sarcasm.
A few miles down the road, he finally yelled over the roar of my engine, “You hooked that thing up for me, didn’t you?”
“Oh yeah.” I smiled to myself. “I was gonna make you ride in it to make fun of you for being kidnapped.”
“You know I was almost murdered, right?” he replied dryly.
“Only because you’re a smartass,�
� I shot back. “They’ve kept your friend here for God knows how long because he knows how to keep his mouth shut. They were only going to kill you tonight because you were annoying them.”
“I can’t believe you’re victim shaming me,” he gasped out.
“Well, I can’t believe you’re complaining when I just saved your ass from the devil and his wives.” I wanted to laugh but didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.
“You know I love you, right?” He kissed the side of my neck, and I shivered.
“Who wouldn’t?” I shot back and revved my engine hard, causing him to slide back on the seat and hold on a little tighter.
~
I woke up to harsh florescent lights in my eyes, and from the looks of it, I was in some sort of hospital room. Next to me in an identical bed was my childhood best friend T.
Instant relief washed over me to see him even though he was hooked up to tubes and had several bags of fluids in place. I was ecstatic that it wasn’t all a dream. Onyx had come through for me in more ways than one.
She had literally saved my life last night, and on top of that, she had saved my best friend and, in turn, completed the mission I had set out on.
The girl was the literal embodiment of amazing.
I remembered telling her I loved her in my euphoric high from our escape and remembered her response to me. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at it; it was exactly what I would have said to her.
They always said that opposites attract, but in our case, I think we might have been two halves of the same. Always sarcastic, always giving the other one shit, always trying to be a badass. Yeah, I could definitely see a lot of myself in my girl.
My girl. I repeated the words in my head a few times.
I still didn’t know if she accepted me. Hell, for all I did know, she could have dumped me off in this hospital and split. I had faith though. I was brought to this girl for a reason. I was her mate for a reason, and I had loved her hard from the moment I saw her on that dark street corner.
Forever Onyx (Vampire Brides) Page 6