“How do you know that?”
“Because death is never the end to our kind, only the beginning,” she frowned and then dropped her eyes with a faraway, haunted look in them. “Unlike you and the others I brought back, of course. Your deaths meant something, something bigger than you will ever understand. How you can hold three Furies inside of you is impressive, which makes you one of a kind, Lena. Don’t fuck it up. None who held them before you ever retained their memories of who they were, and yet you do it beautifully. You’re one of a kind, rare, very rare indeed. Don’t break her, Lucian. I have big plans for this one. Big plans indeed,” she chuckled right before she vanished.
I stared into midnight eyes who watched me with a heat banked in their depths, and anticipation etched on his face.
“I may enjoy this a lot more than you will,” he growled with blue flames burning in his eyes.
“It doesn’t mean I’m going to continue after we’ve finished training, Lucian. I told you before, earn it. You didn’t just fuck me over or screw me. You placed my life in the middle of a fucking war with your crazy ex, and she was only crazy because you continually fucking murdered her over and over again. I can almost understand her trust issues and her motives. You’re enough to drive any sane woman insane.”
“I told you a million times before, Lena. I’m not your fucking prince charming, I’m your nightmare. Now follow me.”
I glared at his back and then I winked at Spyder, who watched us. I knew he hurt, and I knew he out of everyone here knew I was still me, but I refused to let them see it. He saw me, inside of me; through the darkness and ugly bits, he saw that I was still me, just that I’d buried myself so fucking deep into the darkness I wasn’t sure I’d ever come back out.
Chapter 17
I followed Lucian’s stiff back as we made our way down the vacant hallway towards his suite. Synthia had offered us a more private location and neutral ground for what was sure to be a mind-fuck of a lay. I’d almost agreed, but something in Lucian’s demeanor had stopped me cold. His dark, sinful gaze had warned me to remain silent, and so I had. Not because I’d felt threatened, but because I wanted to use his bathtub to wash off the filth of the battle that had just gone down outside.
“Bathe; the only blood I want to see upon your flesh is the blood I put there,” he growled as he shook out of his suit jacket, folding it before he carefully set it on top of the large dresser. My eyes remained locked on his large hands, so adept and skilled. He loosened the tie he wore, placing it atop the jacket. Next, he rolled the sleeves up past his elbow and then paused, staring back at me.
“Do you plan to torture me, then?” I asked, locking gazes as I waited for his answer.
“Nothing you can’t handle, witch.”
“I’m no longer a witch, Lucian. That part of me died with my soul. I am no longer human, nor do I crave anything. Including you,” I warned as my lips drooped into a frown that marred my mouth. I expelled a shaky breath, knowing it wasn’t true.
I craved him more than I craved anything. As if he was an extension of my soul and through him, I held onto some form of myself. It was why I’d wanted to let him go, to not feel that urge or tug of humanity that had once held me down.
“Bathe, use the salt in the cabinet,” he uttered. “It’s going to be a long night for you.”
“They didn’t say sex, they said you needed to train me. To teach me control,” I offered, extending a way out of this.
“Do you know what the body’s most basic need is?” he asked, as he watched me through cold, detached eyes.
“No.”
“Pleasure, and the need to succumb to it,” he explained. “When you first experience it, it feels wrong because it’s new. It’s exciting, and everything in this world tells you how wrong it is. Once you’ve tasted it, once you’ve admitted that it’s normal, it becomes the one thing you need. The hardest thing you can do after that is deny it when it’s right there, offered so freely. I’m going to bring you to the edge of pleasure, and you’re going to deny the urge to jump off that cliff. You won’t come unless I allow it, because once you can force pleasure away, you can control everything else easily. Your wings are under your control, ruled by emotions. When you’re pissed, they extend, right?” he waited for me to nod and then continued. “Yet you can’t prevent them from unfurling. Once you can control your most basic need, they will easily be controlled. So yes, Lena, I’m going to fuck you. We’re going to have sex because there’s no fucking way in hell I can do this without being with you. I’m going to teach you to control your basic needs, to be in control of how you react, and that means fucking you. I could do it without entering your body, but I’ve yet to touch another woman since you entered my life, and I’m positive that no matter who I fucked, she’d be lacking and she sure as fuck wouldn’t be you.”
“Tell me how it works, how you teach me to control my body’s response.” I lifted the blood-soaked shirt over my head, tossing it aside as I slipped out of the shoes that had pruned my feet, sloshing blood onto the floor. His eyes lowered, taking in the splatter of if it where I walked towards the tub. “Well?”
“I’m going to dominate you.”
“And you think you can?” I chuckled, the taunt lying heavily between us. I smell it then, the atavistically acute scent that is exclusively his. It’s something ancient, something forgotten, and yet it unravels me to my baser needs, the most basic thing inside of me that is unquestionably woman.
Lucian is a temptation; one that doesn’t just sneak up on you and slowly removes your inhibition. No, there’s no subtlety about him. He weighs on you, the scent, the midnight eyes that consume and devour. He stares at me like I’m some precious fucking gift, and yet he fucks me like a savage. Lucian is everything dark, and yet the moment he touches me, it’s not the darkness I fear, but rather the flame that threatens to destroy and consume me. He’s a fucking monster, and I’m about to show him his match. The tit to his tat, his motherfucking downfall, I’m about to show him the monster within.
I slipped out of the jeans, tossing them aside as I turned to throw an angry glare in his direction, but I didn’t make it that far. I was slammed against the wall on my stomach, his touch burning me as pain shot up through me. I growled low in my chest, letting the noise build up and then escape from between my lips.
Lips touched the back of my neck, softly before his teeth grazed the delicate flesh as his naked, smooth chest pushed against my spine. He wasn’t afraid of the deadly wings that had razor-sharp edges, but then I was sure not much terrified this man. His mouth sent heat pooling low in my belly, my sex tightened with anticipation as his hot breath fanned my ear.
“I think you want to be dominated by me,” he uttered as his nose ran down the flesh behind my ear. “I think that one man and one man alone can dominate you. Not because you’re weak, but because I’m the only man you’d ever allow to dominate you. You’re fierce, Lena, a fucking beautiful, chaotic storm that cannot be contained, and shouldn’t. This world underestimated you, hell, even I did. I won’t do it twice.” He pushed away from me, his heat still sliding against my flesh as I turned to glare up at him. “Now bathe, because I’m about to show you what real control looks like.”
“Are you planning to watch me bathe?” I murmured as I reached for the bath salts, knowing his eyes watched the curvature of my spine as my hips flared. I knew he scented the arousal he’d created, but the thing was, he thought he could so easily dominate me. That I was going to bend to his will, but it wouldn’t be that easy.
“I’ll give you some privacy,” he said softly, and yet he remained there, staring at me as I set the scented salt aside and stepped into the tub, turning on the water to rinse the first coat of blood off my flesh. Once it wasn’t as thick, I used the soap, purposely covering my body in a thick lather before I rinsed that off as well.
After I’d ensured the bathwater wouldn’
t be blood red, I dropped some of the salt into the freshly-run bathwater and slowly sat down, feeling the heated weight of his gaze.
“If you’re going to stand there, you can help me wash,” I offered, unable to stop the smirk that lifted my lips as he growled, warning me he wasn’t enjoying having to wait for me to finish my bath. He deserved it.
Once I finished, I towel-dried my hair and then braided it neatly before wrapping the towel around my body and moving to lean against the doorframe, staring into the dark room beyond. Lucian’s shadow was there, lit only from a single candle whose flame danced in the room.
“Setting the mood, are we? The mood is pissed off, and slightly over this shit,” I informed as I stepped deeper in the abyss, hating that my body grew heated, ready for this creature. I hated it for betraying me; I mean, couldn’t it understand what had happened? The events that made it into what it was were huge, cataclysmic shit that had literally left me without a soul. Okay, so I had a fucking sliver of one. Wasn’t that what Hades had mentioned? Someone else’s soul resided inside my body to retain some semblance of my mind.
“Is that so?” he chuckled; his deep baritone voice slithering over my heated flesh, unfurling need to the pit of my being. “Kneel,” he ordered.
“I’m not a sub, and you’re not a Dom,” I growled as I stood clothed only in a towel in the middle of the bedroom. “I will not kneel to you,” I warned.
“You’ll kneel,” he replied huskily as he stepped out of the shadows wearing only a pair of faded jeans that hung loosely from his hips. I swallowed hard, hating the fire that burned from deep in my belly as every nerve ending came alive with the sheer magnitude of perfection that was Lucian Blackstone. “Not because I demand it, but because in order to train you to contain what you are, I have to tear you down to nothing but a blank canvas. You will yield so that I don’t have to murder Styx after I’ve just managed to forgive him for his last trespass.”
“He may be safer for this, you know, self-preservation and all that jazz,” I argued beneath my breath.
“He enjoys breaking pretty things,” he warned as his hand snaked out, stealing the towel I’d used as a shield against him. I swallowed the scream that threatened to bubble up and escape the pout I wore on my lips. “He’d ruin you, and I assure you, sweet girl, you wouldn’t enjoy his touch. You know you enjoy mine, no matter how much you want it to be otherwise.”
“Still not kneeling to you,” I warned. “I will never bow before you.”
“Is that a challenge?” he laughed huskily as he knelt on the floor, staring up at me with his midnight, heated gaze. His lips moved, hovering against the inside of my thigh as his tongue snaked out, licking before his teeth grazed the flesh. My body almost buckled from the subtle motion alone, threatening to not support my weight.
“If I challenged you, you’d know it,” I admitted as I threaded my fingers through his silken hair, grabbing a handful before I pulled his head back as I lowered to my knees in front of him. He allowed it, watching me as I let my mouth hover just inches from his. “You want control, fucking take it from me. That is a direct challenge…” I was pushed down with my hands held in a viselike grip above my head; my wings unfurled, and yet he slammed me hard against the floor, rendering them useless. I grunted as his knees trapped my legs as his other hand circled my throat, closing it off to the useless oxygen I no longer needed.
“No matter what you’ve become, I’m still stronger,” he growled against my ear as his teeth pulled the delicate flesh, nipping at it until it released it. His hungry lips moved to my shoulder, kissing the scar from his claim that had forged a bond that had followed me, even in death. “You’re mine, you’ve always been mine, and you will always be mine. Not even death could take you from me, Lena. I’m glad you’re stronger, harder to break now. It means I no longer have to hold back. I don’t have to fear breaking this pretty little neck of yours. You will kneel, and you’ll beg me to fuck you. Those things are certain, because I know what your body craves, and I enjoy watching you struggle.”
I couldn’t speak, not because I lacked the oxygen to do so; more because he was crushing my throat. I bucked my hips as his teeth sank into my flesh, mirroring the exact scar he’d given me on my inner thigh. My body responded in a blaze of fire that ignited in my belly and unfurled until I was dripping with sweat and the anticipation of what it promised.
His hand left my throat, sliding between our bodies until they danced on my pussy, gliding through the sleek mess that his touch created. They trailed through it, his thumb stalling against the peaked flesh to roll over it as my hips lifted, the moan exploding from my lips before I could prevent it from escaping.
“That’s right,” he laughed huskily against my ear. “You feel me; your body needs what I can give it. So you will kneel, and I’ll fuck this tight flesh so you can reach your most basic fucking need.” He rolled from the floor, standing up to stare down at the mess he’d left laying on it. I trembled from the loss of his touch, but I didn’t beg. Instead, I replaced his hand with my own as his darkened gaze watched me.
I felt nothing. Nada. My fingers pushed through my flesh, and I swallowed hard as I sat up, peering up at him as worry sank into my mind. “The fuck,” I exclaimed as I tried again as the panic turned into a vise around my newly regrown heart.
I rose from the floor, moving towards him and grabbing his hand, pushing against my sex and moaning as the sensation came rushing back.
“Motherfucker!” I seethed as I backed away from him as if he was the vilest, uncouth fucking creature I’d ever encountered. “What did you do to me?”
“Lena, what is happening?” he demanded.
“I can’t feel it,” I admitted as I reached for his dress shirt, pushing my arms through the sleeves as he stared at me in confusion.
“Can’t feel what?” he asked carefully, his eyes darkening as they slowly lowered to where my hand was stroking my flesh as my heart raced against my chest. Slowly, they lifted to hold mine as I raged.
“My fucking hand! It’s like it doesn’t even register that I’m touching me!” I moved to the door, throwing it open as I raced down the hallway, ignoring the sound of his bare feet as they followed me. I rushed into the main room of the Guild, sliding on the smooth floor as I searched through the heads that turned at my sudden entrance. “Motherfucking bitch,” I fumed as I didn’t see Spyder, but then he was there, moving across the floor as he took in my disheveled appearance.
“Problem?” he asked, and I swallowed hard as I took in his heated gaze that slowly traveled down my body to where the shirt covered me past my thighs. “Kitty, you seem to be in a compromising position here. Something we can help you with?” he asked.
“Touch me,” I demanded and his eyes lifted to mine, then briefly moved to Lucian who stood directly behind me. “Spyder, I’m not asking!” I hissed when he continued to stand mere feet away from me.
I felt Lucian’s nod more than I saw it and watched as Spyder stepped closer, his hands slowly moving to my waist, holding me. I gripped one, peeling it off my hip to press it against my breast, feeling the heat of his palm but nothing else. A terrified groan left my lips as I stepped on tiptoes, pulling his mouth down to mine. My tongue darted in, claiming his and then tears begin to fall in earnest. I was fucking broken.
I released him and watched the heat pool in his glacier stare that could have melted the icebergs in the Bering Sea. I shook my head, confusion marring my mind and face as I turned to stare at Lucian as it hit me.
“Motherfucker, Hades!” I seethed, the scream turning into a growl as it exploded from my lungs. “This is fucked up, even for you!”
“Is there a problem?” Synthia asked as she and Ryder started across the floor to stand close to us.
“A problem? Yes, a huge fucking problem,” I seethed as it exploded from my lips, dripping in sarcasm. “I can’t feel pleasure unless Lucian is givin
g it to me. I’d call that a huge fucking problem!” I swung around, glaring at Lucian, whose eyes seemed to burn with the newly found knowledge that we’d just learned.
“Awkward,” she uttered with a frown tipping her lips as she stared at me, helpless to offer anything that would take away the panic growing inside of me. “I mean, you liked being with him before, so this isn’t so bad, right? You can still…”
“Not the fucking point!” I argued. “I can’t orgasm unless he is touching me; it’s a massive fucking problem. I can’t even get myself off! I’m broken.”
“You’re not broken, Lena. You’re adjusting. Maybe it’s something that just needs time,” she offered.
“No, she was his gift. There’s only a few men she can touch and feel, the others didn’t need to be able to give her pleasure,” Hades said as he appeared from thin air and leaned against the stone column. He shrugged when I gave him a seething glare. “You have a sliver of a soul, Magdalena. Beggars can’t be choosy. I did what I could, and I put everything I could into retaining who you were, and your mind. You had enough left for three lovers. You can choose me, Lucian, or Lucifer, but I’m hoping you don’t go for the latter one. I didn’t bring you back to leave him, or to run to the arms of your enemy. You can, however, feel others if he is touching you, or he allows it.” He shrugged again as if he didn’t care which I choose.
“I get Lucian being on the list, but why are you on it?”
“I tasted that pussy once,” he smirked as his violet eyes glowed and power erupted around us, slithering over my flesh. “My wife doesn’t respond to my touch, but you did. If things don’t work out, I left you only one option.”
Becoming his Monster Page 13