Wasn’t living with a soul supposed to stop the pain? Wasn’t I supposed to be free of the burden of feeling this sense of loss? Yet I felt it, right down to my black soulless core. I felt the loss as if it had already unfolded.
“You’re in my bed, woman,” a thick voice purred, and then a shadow filled my line of sight as I pried my eyes open to peer up at him. I gazed longingly into the dark exquisiteness of endless desire that offered infinite salvation, an escape from the debilitating pain of my thoughts.
“So I am,” I uttered softly as I continually watched him, unwilling to close my eyes for a moment as he stared back. Slowly, he began to undo the cuffs of his suit jacket, his darkened stare daring me to argue as he began to strip bare.
Only Lucian Blackstone would wear a suit in the middle of an honest-to-Gods fucking apocalypse. He looked as if he’d just stepped right out of the pages of a GQ Magazine and right into the shithole of a mess we called home. He turned, dismissing me as he folded his jacket onto a vacant chair before he turned back, leaning against the wall as if he was trying to figure out how to handle me, or how to proceed.
“Your people are out tonight, scouring the streets and yet here you are, in my bed sulking. Not that I don’t mind you waiting in my bed, but you don’t seem like the wait-around type, little lady,” he chuckled softly, his eyes turning into liquid pools of heat. His fingers lifted, slowly undoing the buttons on his crisp white shirt as he continued to stare at me.
“I’m not sulking, and I wasn’t waiting for you either,” I lied. I was waiting, not that I’d ever admit it. He didn’t need me to boost his ego or add to the cockiness he already had in spades. Not that he hadn’t earned the right to be cocky, or use that ego, I mean, he did. But I wasn’t building onto it tonight.
“You’re sulking, and you are waiting for me, in my bed.” He slipped the shirt from his body, and my gaze slid down the coils of tense muscles that were covered in delicious tattoos and runes. I licked my lips and let my eyes drift to the V of his body that dipped below the suit pants he wore. He knew what I needed, what I’d come here for, and yet he didn’t demand shit as he watched me with heat banked in those darkened depths.
“I can’t lose her, Lucian. Not now, not after everything we’ve been through.”
“And if you can’t save her? Because it’s not something I can stop from happening. Humans are not meant to bear Nephilims, Lena. Not even I can stop death when he reaches for a human; witch or not, she’s his if he comes for her.”
“I told you to prove it to me, to earn me back. I’m asking you to save her, to use whatever you are to save her life!”
“And I’m telling you that I cannot,” he muttered as he placed the guns on the sideboard and sat beside me, his leg brushing against mine with his close proximity. “I can destroy worlds for you, slaughter millions, but I cannot save her. If it were that easy, she’d be safe from the cold grasp of death, and you’d have never died. I can’t fight the natural order, no one can. If you are planning on me saving her, we’re fucked.”
“Then how do I save her?” I demanded as I stood up, putting distance between us.
“Come with me,” he said, offering me his hand.
I stared at it as if it would bite me, and then slowly, very slowly, I placed my hand into his and let him tug my body closer to his. He started out of the room, and I followed him, allowing him to lead me towards wherever it was he was taking me.
We passed several doorways in silence. The sound of couples laughing or otherwise engaged met my ears as we moved towards a winding staircase that led upwards at the end of the hall. I followed him up the stairs; silence seemed to follow us as if those in the rooms had paused to listen as we moved higher into the Guild.
Eventually, we met with a guard, a giant Fae with burning green eyes that skimmed over Lucian before letting that eerie gaze land on my face.
“Yum,” he said with such intensity that I swallowed audibly.
“She’s mine.”
“I wasn’t interested in her, just her pain,” he elaborated as those eyes seemed to see beyond me to what burned in my center: Pain and anguish that almost buckled my knees.
“Asrian,” Lucian acknowledged softly with a nod of his dark head towards the door.
“It’s not pretty,” the Fae said, his eyes still focused on me, as a new sensation started around us. “I can take it from you. But only if you want me to.”
“Take what?” I asked hesitantly.
“The pain, you have so much of it. Too much for someone so young, but you do wear it so beautifully if I may be so bold to say.”
I stared into his multicolored eyes and winced, knowing he was taking it from me already. I felt the subtle pull of it, the offer for oblivion he could give me and yet I pulled it back to me, like armor. He was almost seven feet in height; his copper red hair was striking against his pale complexion. Eyes the color of lime surrounded by a darker grass green watched me, beckoning me to let him feed from my pain until the weightless oblivion of it took over.
“I need it still,” I informed him coolly, as if it didn’t debilitate and obliterate me from inside as surely as if it was a wrecking ball slamming into my heart over and over again. “Maybe another time, Asrian,” I offered.
“I look forward to it, creature,” he smirked as he reached for the door, pulling it open to let us pass through.
Outside was bathed in nothing, no lights covered the city. It was bathed in darkness, minus a few fires that burned here or there. A few blocks away from us, smoke billowed up through a building, which if I wasn’t mistaken was where I’d once met a girl who had helped me. I wondered if she had gotten out of here, or if she was among the dead.
There were a lot of people I’d once worried about when the world had first begun to unravel, and even now, I hadn’t figured out what had befallen them.
Across town the lights burned at Nightshade, a bar I now knew Vlad ran, which was currently doubling as a hold-up for those who needed sanctuary but weren’t allowed to be around the humans whom the Guild housed.
“That is our reality right now,” he pointed out as he stood behind me.
“I get it,” I stated, not turning to look at him. I could feel his heat, soothing the chill in my bones that the sight created. “But she’s my sister.”
“And that means what in the larger picture?” he asked, his breath fanning against my ear as I stared out of the darkened city. “She may survive it; she’s stronger than you think. When everyone else broke apart at your funeral, she rose. She remained brave even though she was breaking apart just like everyone else. Yet Kendra kept them together. You’re a lot more alike than I thought you were. I couldn’t stand to look at her, and yet I watched her hold the coven together, stepping in to keep them heading towards the larger picture. She knew what having this child would cost her, and yet she soldiered onward. She’s been aware that she is growing weaker, and never once has she asked anyone for help. She intends to hand her child to Lucifer because she fears what it could become, and she is right to.”
“Children are not born evil,” I said, turning my head to glare at him over my shoulder. “Evil isn’t born, it’s learned. You choose to become evil even as you choose to be good. Life isn’t black or white; it’s lived in the grey areas. You make choices, and those choices decide what you will become, but you make them.”
“Did you see him?” he asked, and I didn’t need to ask who the he was that he asked about.
“Yes,” I whispered as a shiver rushed up my spine. “He had midnight eyes and black hair. He looked like his father.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, placing a soft kiss against the back of my head.
“I know. I know you are. So am I,” I admitted as I turned, staring into his dark gaze. “I need you to teach me how to control my urges, because I have to be able to be close to her in case… In case her tim
e comes, and it’s her end.”
“I’ll teach you control, but more than that, I’ll teach you how to take over the world, Lena. How to make it tremble at your feet so that we can close the portals between ours and theirs,” he said as he kissed my forehead. “I’ll show you everything.”
Chapter 24
The room was utterly silent; only his eyes spoke as he slowly pulled the silk that wrapped around the post of the bed down. I didn’t need words to hear what he was asking of me. I wanted this from him. For him to teach me what only he could, to learn to control my emotions around Kendra, to harness the monster I’d become in her presence. Lucian was my teacher, but more than that, he was a monster who was unafraid of what I’d become.
“I will not stop once I begin, so you need to decide if you really want this from me. After watching you with him, I need to punish you, but more than that, I need to know you’re really mine,” he growled, the vibration of it sliding through me with the force of his words.
“I want this,” I admitted as I stared into the heat that lingered in his darkened gaze. I swallowed hard, staring at him as I forced the words out through the thickness of my throat. “I want what you can give me, what you can teach me. So no, I won’t ask you to stop. Not tonight, and I need this too. I need you to erase him from my flesh, from my mouth.”
“Strip, slowly,” he ordered as he wrapped the silk fabric around his hands, sitting in the chair that was mere inches away from the bed. I faced him as I slowly lifted my shirt over my head, discarding it on the floor as I stared at him. I hooked my fingers through the skirt, slowly preparing to remove it when his growl forced me to hesitate. “Leave that on, but remove your panties and hand them to me. Then I want you to turn around and show me what belongs to me. Make me need it, Lena.”
“It isn’t yours, yet. You have not earned it.” My words were an open challenge; the fire that lit in his eyes only encouraged me to push it further, taunting this monster to take what he wanted. “This is just another lesson.” That reminder seemed to darken those inky depths as he shook his head with a wolfish grin flitting onto his sensual mouth.
“Careful, that sounded like a challenge,” he uttered with a guttural tone as lust pooled in his stare. That tone hit every nerve ending, firing neurons that triggered my body’s response to him. Heat pooled in my apex, and the ache began to throb where I needed him the most. I hooked my fingers through the thin lace thong I wore and turned, bending at the waist as I pushed them to my ankles, stepping out of them before I brought my hand back up, testing the wetness that his heady stare created in my pussy. Once I’d teased him purposely, I deposited my wet panties in his hand and waited. “Are you wet?” he asked, already knowing I was from what I’d just shown him. The liquid pool of midnight that stared back at me made my knees weak, threatening to leave me at his feet, on my knees.
“You know I am,” I replied hoarsely, my voice escaping my lips like the most skilled siren as she called to her prey from the depths of their grave. My back arched, hips flaring to spread for his viewing pleasure. “Why don’t you touch me and see for yourself what you do to me?” I asked, needing his hands to explore my needy sex. I turned to face the bed, giving him my back as I placed my palms flat against the floor, showing him my needy pussy as I clenched with need for him. My legs spread apart, and I waited there, anticipation spiking as his heated stare greedily took in my flesh.
I wanted him, needed him, even if I wasn’t ready to forgive him. I still wanted him to prove he wanted me, to prove he felt something for the loss of our child, instead of the coldness that seemed to enter his gaze when I spoke of our son. I should deny him this, the pleasure of my body and yet I also had my own selfish needs. The need to figure out how to control my emotions around Kendra, the deadliness of the wings that seemed to flare when my emotions ran high scared and terrified me around her. She had little time left, and I needed to be there when her time came without fearing what I may do to her.
The silence stretched in the room, and I tensed as I waited for him. I began to wonder if he’d just leave me there, standing exposed before his heated stare. I could feel the need of my sex pulsing, clenching with the urgency he awoke in my body, which was wet, dripping with anticipation for the man who drove me mindless with pleasure. This creature could send me to the highest peak, and then send me to the darkest, deepest depths with words alone, but his touch? His ability to control and wring out every single ounce of pleasure my body experienced was unmatched. I wanted what he could give me, no matter how bipolar it made me feel or sound.
His heated kiss touched my flesh, and I jumped as a scream bubbled up from my throat, escaping before I could contain it. His hands gripped my hips, holding me there as his tongue pushed through the folds of my sex, sending pleasure ripping me apart as he tasted what I’d so freely offered to him. My knees wobbled, and if he hadn’t held me, I’d have taken an ungraceful swan-dive into the floor.
“You taste like heaven,” he mumbled, the vibration of his words graced my flesh, and I rocked my ass against his face as throaty laughter purred from his chest. I whined as the heat of his mouth left my pussy, his body rising to stand behind me. “Such a greedy little thing, aren’t you?” he asked as his hand slapped against my ass, biting into the flesh as pain replaced need, and then his fingers pushed through the slickened heat of my pussy, replacing it.
His other hand dug into my hair, pulling me up until I was leaning against his naked chest. My nipples hardened, needing his mouth to taste them. His subtle act of dominance turned me on, it made my body react violently with such subtle acts that I felt heat flushing my cheeks as I swallowed back the need to beg him to fuck me. He tugged my hair, aware of the reaction I had to it; his other hand left the wetness he created as they slowly trailed up my spine. I felt the stirring of my wings, the overwhelming panic that they’d hurt him took control of my mind, and I started to pull away from him, from the harm they could render to his person if I lost control as I was.
“They won’t hurt me, Lena. You won’t let them,” he promised as if he trusted me enough to think I held some control over my wings, which I didn’t. I felt my eyes watering at his words. The calmness they created was soothing. “You control them, they don’t control you.”
They unfurled, and I swallowed hard as I felt him release my hair as he dragged a finger over the tip of one wing. The sensation was intense, erotic. His touch upon them was pleasurable on a level I hadn’t expected, and a moan ripped from my lungs, pushing past my lips as he leisurely explored them without fear.
“They’re beautiful, just like the woman they belong to. But I don’t want to play with them right now; I want to play with you. Put them away, force them to retreat,” he ordered thickly, and I winced, unsure how to accomplish it.
“Normally they go away when they want to,” I admitted sheepishly. “I’ve yet to master how to force them to go. They tend to leave when they want to.”
“They’re ruled by emotions and the need to protect you. They react when you are overwhelmed, so send the emotions away, and they will go with it. You don’t need them, make them feel it. Make them sense that you’re safe, protected,” he explained huskily, yet he didn’t slow or stop his fingers as they danced on the extended wings. My body trembled from his touch, what he was doing to them as they shivered against the pleasure he created.
My mind slowly replayed what he had just told me; his explanation made sense. He repeated it, and I listened to the order in his tone, his cool control which seemed to ring in my ears. Nothing happened. I turned, facing him. Holding his inky stare as he smiled softly, the tips of his mouth the only indication he wasn’t upset with my inability to control this extension of myself. Hell, I was frustrated by lack of my control over them, and he seemed immune to my faults.
“Kiss me,” he ordered, his tone a mixture of lust and command. He didn’t wait for me to agree or disagree. Instead, his hand cup
ped the back of my neck as his mouth crushed against mine. His tongue delved into my heat, twirling in an ageless dance of time as he took control until I was helpless to anything but hold onto him as he turned my bones to liquid. His hand slid down my back, and I gasped as I pulled away to stare at him in wonder. He pressed his forehead against mine, struggling to reel in his breathing even though I was pretty sure he didn’t need air to live. Once I could think, I pulled away, sucking my lip between my teeth.
“How?”
“You were in control of your emotions the moment my mouth touched yours. Your body sensed your needs, your wants. As I said, you’re in control of what your body does. They’re reactive to what you want, need, and crave.” He backed away from me, staring at my perky breasts before he bent down to retrieve the silk he’d dropped when my wings had expanded. He straightened, staring down at my body which was bare minus the short, mini skirt of black ruffles I still wore. He flicked a finger, and candles leapt to life around us, bathing the room and me in a soft glow. “Get on your knees, and submit,” he demanded. “From this moment on, I am Master or sir, and you do nothing unless I tell you or you ask permission for it. Do you understand?”
“You and I both know there isn’t a submissive bone in my entire body.” Pointing it out didn’t seem to get the point across as he stared at me, demanding I follow his command.
“I know what you are, Lena. I also know every bone in that tight little body and what it craves. That’s not what this is about. This is about learning to control it, to become immune to the emotions that draw those beautiful wings to you. You’re going to submit so that I can teach you how physical and emotional responses stimulate them. If you can control your body’s response to pleasure and need, you will control them easily. The most basic need you have it to react to pleasure, or pain. I’m going to use both to push you to your limits, and I’m also going to force you to ignore them. I can only do it if you submit and let me teach you.”
Becoming his Monster Page 18