by RuNyx .
He pressed against her back, kissing her neck in a way the beak of his mask fit into the V of her dress. From a distance, it probably looked like she was standing there alone, the man behind her all in black in the shadows, his mask a part of her costume.
Her nipples pebbled hard, her breathing growing rapid.
“Did you like the music?” he asked her, his hand falling to her thigh, right over the slit of her dress.
“Yes,” she replied, her heart pounding, eyes checking to see no one was looking. More people were busy pairing off, some in multiples, all in various stages of undress, uncaring about anything as long as their identities remained hidden.
“Last Black Ball,” he whispered in her ear. “Ajax and I shared Zoe right under that chandelier,” his hand caressed her slit. “I never cared if she had his cock in her pussy when I fucked her mouth.”
Corvina was turned on by the picture he painted while hating that it was him in it.
“But you,” he told her softly as she watched a girl fall to her knees in a corner and take a guy out, taking her deep in her mouth. “I won’t ever share. Not your body, not your sounds, not your expressions. You can watch them all but they don’t get to see you. Understand?”
The possession in his voice ratcheted up the heat all over her body.
His hand ventured in from the slit, finding the line of her pussy. With the panty line on this dress, she had chosen to go without one for the night, hoping he would find it hot.
“Did you remember when I fucked this pussy on the piano in this very building?” he kissed her shoulder, his fingers probing her wetness. After weeks of being fucked twice every day, then going without for a week, her pussy was weeping at the familiar touch of his hand, at the beloved heat of his body, and at the scene around her.
“Yes,” she breathed, barely able to form the word.
He slapped her pussy once and she bit her yelp back, her heart throbbing everywhere in her body.
“If you make a sound,” he told her, his deep voice laced with sex, “someone will turn. They will look and see you getting finger-fucked by a stranger in the shadows. Do you want that? Do you want them knowing I have access to this pussy anywhere, anytime I want, however I want?”
She was breathing hard by the time he finished speaking the words, her legs slightly spread to accommodate his large hand as he pushed two fingers inside her aching walls, her body on fire at the words, the visual he was depicting.
She didn’t want anyone to turn around and see her. Neither did he. But the threat that they could, that she was doing something so forbidden right where anyone could just turn their heads and see, sent liquid heat through her veins.
She was turned on, more turned on than she’d ever been in her life, and he knew it, the devil. He knew the depth of her desires, how to play them, how to deliver them and leave her satiated.
She bit her lip as he pressed his palm into her clit, inserting another finger inside her, stretching her wide open.
“Look at you, so wanton, standing in the middle of a hall, drenching my hand under your dress,” he licked her neck. “It gets so wet for me, just for me. You missed me so much, didn’t you?”
“So much,” she groaned at the pressure, her legs quivering. She locked her knees, gripping the side of the pillar for support with one hand, the other holding her glass tight, as he wreaked havoc with his hand.
Erica looked at her in the middle of dancing with some guy and waved, and Corvina clenched hard around his fingers. She somehow managed to smile and lift her glass to Erica, relieved when the girl turned back around.
“Mine,” he growled against her neck, scoring his teeth over her fading hickey under the dress.
“Please,” she begged shamelessly as a fine sheen of sweat broke out over her skin, knowing she couldn’t take the buildup much longer with the silence. “Make me come. Please, Vad.”
Thankfully, he took mercy on her, increasing the pressure of his palm on her clit, rotating it while squelching his fingers in and out in a rhythm her body loved, her inner walls holding him tight as he pulled out and accepting him deep as he pushed in, his other arm wrapping around her waist for support, to keep her upright.
It climbed and climbed and climbed, and all of a sudden, her mind blacked out.
In a hot flash that started to shake her body, she came, biting her tongue hard to keep from screaming out, somehow muffling the sound down to a groan, her heart beating so hard in her chest she could feel it pounding in her ears, her limbs jittery. The glass broke in her hand silently, cutting it open as her blood dripped to the floor, shards falling amidst them.
“Fuck!” he turned her around, taking a look at her hand. A jagged edge of a small piece of glass was lodged in the middle of her palm, dark red blood covering her fingers and dripping.
Corvina winced as he took the piece out, freeing a small gush of new blood.
He tore the edge of his cape, and wrapped it around her hand tightly, stemming the flow.
“The glass could have slit your wrist,” he said gruffly, his jaw clenching.
Corvina gave him a little smile through the pain. “Then I would have died in your arms while coming, and what a beautiful death it would’ve been.”
He gave her a glare as he finished wrapping her hand. “The night will get wilder here. You want to stay and see the show? Or get out of here for a bit?”
Corvina glanced back at hall, her friends all busy either dancing or making out with someone, more and more people around the hall finding dark corners to engage in.
“Take me somewhere else.”
“Meet me outside.”
Corvina entered the throng to find Jade standing alone in a corner, watching her approach. She told her she was going for a walk with someone, and a fleeting look crossed her face before Jade smiled.
“Come back soon.”
Corvina left the hall and went downstairs, slowly making her way through the crowd towards the front entrance, dodging a few hands that tried to grab her, finally emerging out into the night to her silver-eyed man in the crow mask.
He swung her up in his arms with a yelp from her. “What are you doing?”
“Taking you to my lair,” he gave her a roguish grin, a mysterious man in a dark cape, carrying her into the woods on the night of the Black Ball.
She recognized the path he took her down immediately.
“Did you repair the piano?” she asked him, wrapping her arms around his neck as he sturdily took her down the incline towards the ruins.
“It’s a work in progress,” he commented wryly. “I was more focused on getting the thesis done in time.”
“Have you ever wanted to go out, teach somewhere else?” Corvina mused.
He gave her a questioning look in the moonlight. “Why would I? Verenmore is mine. I want to slowly fix it and make it a safe haven for people like us, the ones with troubled pasts.”
“What if someone disappears tonight?” she worried her lip.
“Let’s cross that bridge when we get there, Corvina,” he sighed, settling her higher in his arms.
Soon, a familiar crumbling wall came into view under the gorgeous moonlight, the eerie gargoyle-like sculptures, and the one-eyed tree their audience as he headed to their spot.
“This is what you call your lair?” Corvina chuckled, looking around the ruins and the empty gravestones under the moon.
Vad deposited her on the now mostly-repaired piano, and she leaned back on her hands, watching him as he took his mask off, revealing that sculpted face and the streak of hair she loved. He took off her mask and put it on the side, going to his knees in front of her, his hands trapping her on the piano. Pulling her leg over his shoulder, he kissed her inner thigh.
“Show me your mother’s bracelet,” he told her, pressing light kisses to the soft skin.
Puzzled, Corvina showed him her left hand where the multi-crystal bracelet gleamed in the moonlight, warm against her skin.
He took
her hand and placed something in her palm.
A ring.
Corvina’s heart stopped. She’d read too many romances not to recognize the similarities, and they scared the hell out of her.
“Are you… are you proposing?” she whispered, her anxiety climbing.
Vad chuckled. “No, little crow. Not yet.”
The relief inside her was immediate. She wasn’t ready yet, neither was he. They were just discovering each other, discovering themselves, and while she hoped they would get there one day, it wasn’t the day yet.
“But I saw this ring when I was getting your dress,” he ran a thumb over it. “And while we’re not ready yet, one day we will be. And that day, I’ll give you another ring. This one is simply from me to you, so you have something of me on you always, like with your mother’s bracelet. I want you to look at it in moments of stress and know that I’m here.”
“And it had nothing to do with shooing off other men?”
A side of his lips twitched. “You should’ve known my motives could never be completely selfless. I am selfish, and I want everyone who looks at you knowing you belong to a very selfish man.”
Corvina blinked back her tears, looking down at the ring.
It was an exquisite high-quality teardrop amethyst – she knew because of the way it refracted the moonlight – the same shade as her eyes, set in silver metal, the same shade as his eyes. The ring was both of them together in substance.
“Thank you,” she whispered, looking into his eyes.
He pressed a kiss to her knee. “There’s an inscription.”
She turned the ring.
‘I will not let you go into the unknown alone.’
“Dracula,” she breathed, recognizing the quote from the book they’d studied.
She turned her hand for him silently, and he slid the ring on her finger, tying another knot into the threads of their bond, making it stronger, more enduring for the tests of time.
He stood upright and she held his face, looking at him with all the love she felt in her heart, thanking the universe with the whole fiber of her being for this man.
“You’re the mountain I build my castle on, brick by brick,” she whispered to him, her eyes stinging. “You stand, I soar. You crack, I crumble.”
He crushed his lips to hers, kissing her with the fierceness she would never be able to tame, that she never wanted to tame, and she kissed him back, in middle of ruins that had witnessed unspeakable horrors, the girl with the soul of the moon – blemished, darkened, ephemeral – finally finding a man with the soul of the night to shine with.
CHAPTER 27
Corvina
He’d wanted to fuck her in the ruins, but after knowing everything that had happened there, she wasn’t keen. So he took her back to the castle and into the Vault, locking them in, sating her and himself, over and over again, while a sexy masquerade Ball took place right upstairs.
“Will we always be sneaking around?” she asked him, their clothes on one of the armchairs, the one with the lion heads, as she lay on top of him on the couch.
He played with her fingers, constantly rubbing her new ring, obsessed with seeing it on her.
“If nothing happens tonight,” he rumbled after a few minutes, “there won’t be any reason for it. I’ll come out as a Board member. Of course, I won’t be teaching any of your classes after that. But I will bend the rules for us.”
“I hope nothing happens tonight,” she murmured, watching the darkened fireplace, listening to the calm beating of his heart as he stroked the naked line of her spine, mindlessly pausing to play some melody with his fingers.
While her feeling of something wrong hadn’t entirely left her, she hadn’t heard or seen anything since finding the body in the shack.
“Has Ajax found anything yet?” she rested her chin on his chest. “Any update?”
“If he has, he’s not telling me,” he continued playing with her back. “I’m a suspect in his investigation.”
Indignation roiled over her. “You didn’t do it.”
A side of his mouth tipped up. “No, I didn’t.” He looked into her eyes seriously. “But never doubt I’m not capable of it, Corvina.” He pushed a strand of her hair back from her face. “If someone even touched the hair on your head, I would do much worse to them without any remorse. And I’m smart enough and rich enough to never get caught.”
Corvina ignored the flutter in her belly and asked the question that had been bothering her for a long time. “Exactly how rich are you?”
He shrugged. “Rich enough. It took me some time getting used to having money,” he looked into the black fireplace. “The home I was in wasn’t a good place. If they had money, it never got to us. I had three pairs of clothes I had to wash and wear, and no money of my own to get anything. One time my friend was injured and I couldn’t even buy a bandage for him.”
Corvina’s heart ached hearing him talk about his past, but she stayed quiet, listening.
“That’s why a lot of kids turned to… not good shit,” he muttered. “I was getting used to that way of life. And then suddenly this old rich guy came out of nowhere, took me to what seemed like a mansion, and told me all of it and more was mine. It was… disconcerting.”
He went silent for a bit.
“Tell me about your friend,” she lay her head down on him. “The one you were looking for when you found mama. Did you find him?”
“No,” he exhaled. “He died in a fire that happened in the home soon after I left.” Suddenly he chuckled. “Old Zelda had been right about him too. He ended up eating flames.”
Corvina had no clue what that meant but she didn’t ask.
The sound of shouts from upstairs suddenly infiltrated their cozy bubble. They both straightened, looking up towards the door.
“What’s going on?” Corvina wondered as they dressed up in haste.
His tone was grim. “I hope it’s not what I’m thinking it is.”
Someone missing. God, she hoped not.
They went up the stairs within minutes, emerging into some kind of commotion, completely unnoticed. She headed to the side, separating from him as he went up to one of the professors to inquire what was happening.
Erica came out of nowhere, her eyes wild. “Where were you?! We’ve been looking all over the place!”
Corvina blinked. “What’s going on?”
“We thought you and Jade had gone missing,” Ethan told her in a grave voice, running his hands through his hair. “She’s not with you?”
Corvina shook her head, her heart pounding. “You haven’t seen her?”
Ethan and Erica shook their heads.
Jax stood by their side, his eyes narrowed on Corvina. “You were gone for hours. Where did you go?”
Corvina felt a hot wave of anger flood through her at the demand in his tone. “That’s none of your business, Jax. The priority is finding Jade.”
Corvina watched Kaylin walk into the middle of the entryway, clapping her hands for attention. Everyone fell silent.
“It’s with a very heavy heart that I need to inform you,” she began, and Erica gripped Corvina’s hand for support. “There have been two disappearances tonight.”
A murmur went through the crowd, and Corvina stood stunned.
Two?
After a century of single disappearances, suddenly there were two? What the fuck?
“First-year undergraduate student, Jade Prescott,” Kaylin looked distressed, “and master’s student, Roy Kingston have both been missing for over three hours. The castle premises have been searched for them and given the recent discoveries, the Board has ordered an immediate search of the woods and the surrounding grounds. I advise all students to return to their towers. Those who wish to join the search party, meet at the Main Hall entrance in ten minutes in more suitable attire.”
Students hurried out of the area, some to change and return, some to stay back.
Corvina exchanged a worried look with Vad an
d he gave her a nod.
She took off her heels and ran across the grass on naked feet to her tower, climbing up as fast as she could and getting to her room. Quickly stripping and putting on her one pair of pants and sneakers, she left her room, halting in a corridor for a second.
It was a clear full moon night, which meant the entire area would be bathed in light. If there was any movement happening, it would be visible from the top of the tower. It was worth the few minutes to risk going up.
Decision made, she ran up the stairs to the attic room, pushing the door open and hurrying to the window, panting as she looked down from the height, trying to spot anything out of place. Students gathered on the cobblestoned path, the woods looking as they did beyond that, the lake even further.
Corvina squinted, trying to see anything unusual when she spotted the smoke. Coming up from the left part of the woods, big plumes of smoke curled up towards the sky.
She knew exactly what was in the direction.
Running out from the room, she went down the tower and sprinted to the people gathered for the search, stopping breathlessly as Kaylin spoke about going in groups of three.
“The ruins,” Corvina panted. “There’s smoke coming from the ruins. I saw it from the window.”
“What ruins?” someone asked.
“Slayers Ruins,” Vad spoke, already jogging into the woods. “Rest of you, search the grounds. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
Corvina ran after him, aware of Ajax on her tail.
They ran down the incline for a few minutes, and soon the familiar crumbling wall came into view, the ruins she had been in just hours ago puking smoke into the air.
She saw Vad stop at the beginning of the wall, extending his arm out to stop her. She collided into his arm with the momentum, and stopped, watching the scene before her in horror.
The piano she had been sitting on just hours ago, having one of the most beautiful moments of her life, the piano Vad had spent days repairing, was up in flames, completely destroyed as the fire ate it alive. Nothing else in the ruin was touched except the piano.