I unclasped her cloak and gripped the hem of her shirt and pulled it up over her shoulders, her arms going up limply to let me.
My eyes fell back to her near-naked torso. Like a dagger to my fucking heart, I froze. Unable to move. Unable to think. Unable to do anything but stare. She blinked swiftly, looking down at herself then up at me. Immediately, her arms went up to cover what she could, but it was too late.
“Oh, God.” She grabbed her shirt off the floor and pressed it to her chest, her head hanging in shame. “Get out, Uriel. Please.”
The searing rage pumping through my blood threatened to explode if I said a word or stayed another minute. She needed space. I needed time to regain my self-control. All I wanted to do was fly straight to Ivangorod and rip off his fucking head. Cut him into a thousand pieces. Bash him into nonexistence. But if it had been that easy, I’d have done it a long time ago. Still, the urge to crush him hard pushed at every nerve in my body, burning for action.
Quietly, slowly, I stepped outside and closed the door, exhaling a ragged, shaky breath. But if she thought she was going to avoid and hide from this––she was so fucking wrong. I’d be waiting for her when she exited this door. And then she’d tell me everything. Everything.
Chapter Twenty-One
Nadya
I curled into a ball and let the hot water beat down on me for I don’t know how long. Uriel had only seen part of the scars marking my whole body, and I felt so dirty and sick. I stayed there under the painfully hot water, letting it seep through my skin, working slowly through the shock that not only was my sister still alive, but she still wanted to give me back to Vladek.
What was I thinking? Of course she did. He was her master. She worshipped him. She’d do anything to get back into his good graces. Apparently, he’d not healed her scars. He was either angry that she’d let Uriel get away or angry that she’d not helped in finding me or both. Either way, her vanity knew no bounds. She’d do anything to regain his favor and her flawless beauty. Even give up her only sister to the devil himself.
She’d never find me here in Erzgebirge. This was one of the stops Grandmother and I had made on my eighteenth birthday trip. It had spoken to me then in a way no other place had. So quiet. So tranquil. I didn’t even tell Grandmother how special it was to me. So when Axel and Skaal had helped me escape, I knew this was a place no one would know to search for me. It was removed from the demon world and far too close to Vladek for anyone to suspect I’d be right under their nose.
I’d been able to hide here in my own little sanctuary for this long. But then Uriel had come into my life, and I’d gone willingly back into the world that had left brutal scars all over my body.
No. That’s not true. He’d come into my life the moment I saw him being beaten unconscious by a sister I’d once loved back in her infernal playhouse in Estonia. He’d marked me with those pain-filled eyes. He’d caught me way back then. That was why I’d felt true terror when Anya and Dommiel showed up on my doorstep with him. I knew it was only a matter of time before I’d have to face my fears, and my past, again. He was meant for me, just as I was meant for him. But he didn’t bear the ugliness of his time in Estonia. He didn’t bear the physical reminders of the shame and humiliation. I wasn’t sure he even still bore scars on the inside. He was so strong. So confident. While I…wasn’t.
Finally calm, the trembling gone, I stood and turned off the water, drying myself slowly with a towel before slipping on my cotton robe. I washed out my mouth, brushed my teeth, and combed my hair, delaying as long as I could. I opened the door, still tying the robe closed, not expecting him to be sitting on my bed. Wing armor removed and barefoot, his shoulders were hunched forward which arched his wings in a soft way that made my heart ache. He looked sad and vulnerable. His elbows on his knees, hands clasped loosely together, he watched me with some unfathomable emotion. I couldn’t move. I didn’t know what to say.
“Come to me, Nadya.” He sat up straighter, hands on his thighs. I stayed put and stared. “Don’t be afraid.”
I swallowed a laugh and licked my lips, terrified, but walked to him anyway. I stopped an arm’s length away, but he took me by the waist and brought me closer between his legs, his hands smoothing over the thin fabric down my thighs to my knees then gliding back up to my waist.
“This is what you were afraid of the other night. To let me see what’s under here.”
A lump swelling in my throat, I nodded.
“Tell me,” he commanded gently.
Fisting my hands, I frowned, asking, “Tell you what?”
“Tell me how you got them.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “You’re joking.”
In his typically calm, serene manner, he said, “You saw how Lisabette beat me. Gave me my own personal scars. I want you to tell me how you got yours.”
Swallowing against my anger at him wanting to know the sordid details, especially when his perfectly unmarred skin didn’t bear the physical signs of what she’d done to him, I clenched my jaw. But then he started running his hands in soothing strokes down the sides of my thighs then back up again, gripping firmly at my waist where he squeezed gently.
“Tell me, Nadya.”
“He…” I closed my eyes. “He liked to watch me bleed.” I paused, gathering my nerves.
“Go on.”
His voice was soft but laced with an iciness I didn’t want to see in his eyes, so I kept my own closed. I remembered, and then I told him.
“He liked to do it in private, because he didn’t want anyone to enjoy my pain. Only the few guards he allowed to whip me when he wasn’t doing it himself. I liked when he let the guards do it. They were gentler. The act of causing me pain made him so…hungry.”
He exhaled a shaky breath, his hands tight on my waist. I kept my eyes closed and went on.
“If I cried out, he would whip me harder. If I refused to go to his bed, he’d whip me into unconsciousness. Sometimes I preferred that. Sometimes it was easier to go to his bed. He thought this was giving me a choice to choose him. He fooled himself into believing I wanted him. I let him believe it because he would ease up on the beatings. For a while.” The shame mounted, swelling up my chest and thickening my throat, my voice coming out a hoarse whisper. “He liked having my face pretty and unscarred, so he never damaged it. But my body.” I finally opened my eyes. “It’s a minefield of hate, Uriel. You don’t want to—”
“Enough.” He put his fingertips on my lips, stopping me. “I hope that’s all, because I feel like I’m going to lose my fucking mind if I hear another word.” He blew out a shaky breath. “But…is that all?”
Most of it. I dipped my chin as a yes.
“How do you feel?”
I chuckled to myself. “Angry but…better. Somehow.”
It was true. Voicing what he’d done, for I hadn’t confessed it to another soul, not even to those who knew like Skaal, had somehow eased the pain of it. The shame of it. I didn’t know how or why. While the scars were still there, saying what he’d done had removed some of its power. His power.
“Come here,” he urged me closer.
I let him draw me in, his head even with mine since he was sitting on the bed. His gaze and fingers went to the tie as he slowly pulled to loosen the bow.
“No.” I grabbed his fingers, blood rushing fast.
He stopped, but kept his hands there, piercing me with a patient but determined expression.
“I won’t if you don’t want me to. But know this, Nadya. I bore the same scars. And there is absolutely nothing under here that will make me love you less.”
What? Love?
I blinked, afraid I heard wrong. “What?”
His expression, tight with the heady emotion bouncing between us, intensified as he said in a low murmur, “You know this, Nadya. You know it already.” He started to untie my robe again in slow
sweeping movements. My hands dropped away. “My light.” He held my gaze. “My love.”
The robe opened. His fingers skated along the inside between the robe and my shoulders, pushing the material, then it slithered to the floor. His gaze fell immediately to the branded “V” above my hip bone. The only thing I failed to admit in my confession. Uriel stared, clamping his jaw tight, brushing his thumb over the mark, then he lowered his head and swept his lips over the puckered flesh.
“He owns no part of you. Not anymore.”
He whispered something. Those old words I’d heard him rattle off when reinforcing the wards. His breath was cool against my skin, and a sharp sting prickled along the brand. I gripped his bare shoulders, clenching my nails.
“He is no one,” he said to me before returning to his chant, the prickling of needles stitching along my skin. “He’s nothing.”
Another whispered word, then he planted his mouth where the brand was. I gasped and pulled away, not wanting his lips on something so wretched. But it was gone. He grazed his thumb over the smooth patch of skin.
“Uriel,” I whispered, noticing the ethereal glow gleaming under his skin from using his power.
I swallowed hard, so overwhelmed, so overcome with want and need for him I couldn’t breathe. Then I was on my back on the bed, his body over me, his wings spread wide, and his lips were on my skin, trailing beneath my collarbone. His whispered chant electrified the air, sizzling along my flesh like kisses of firelight.
I fisted my hand into his long hair. “Uriel,” I breathed out on a sigh, not knowing why all I could do was say his name.
If I meant to stop him, he obviously had no intention of doing so. His mouth was making a sinuous trek over the top of my breast where a particularly ugly scar curved, then he was moving on, speaking to my body, speaking to my soul, bewitching the very essence that was me to rise up and pay attention. To listen and meet him on some invisible plane where my past meant nothing. Only the attentive angel with sweeping hands and a commanding voice and worshipping lips existed there.
And so I did, heeding those whispered words I couldn’t understand but knowing they were breaths of the kind of love I’d never known. He trailed down over my navel, completing his attentions over my entire torso, I marveled at the way my skin smoothed, the marks vanishing, the ugliness of my horrific past sweeping away with his lips, his stroking hands, his gentle spirit in the form of whispered words.
Abruptly, he flipped me to my stomach and mapped my back with his mouth, his capable fingers brushing every mark. The pleasure building was a kind of agony I’d never known. Even before Vladek, my lovers had conjured mild feelings. Tender feelings.
Not like this. This wasn’t tender even though his movements were. It was an odd juxtaposition, a bow of tenderness nocking an arrow of fierce desire, pulling the string too tight.
My need for Uriel was a violent thing. And with every warm sweep of his mouth and hands, I wanted him hard and rough against me. Inside me. Buried deep.
“Relax,” he said, before resuming his chanting, the sizzling stings freeing me of my shame.
Once he’d finished along the backs of my thighs, he flipped me again and eased to kneel between my legs. His skin glowed golden, making him painfully beautiful, shining from the inside out. He lifted my right leg and kissed the nicks and welts along my calf, my inner knee, my inner thigh. Every brush of his lips vibrated heat straight to the apex between my legs.
I sucked in a breath. He lowered and lifted my other leg, holding me with those supernatural eyes. He didn’t whisper anything but simply pressed his lips to the other scars and they vanished at his will. He settled between my legs, pressing his mouth to that five-inch gash on the fleshiest part of my inner thigh. I remembered that night when the whip had gotten caught between my legs, wrapping tight, and when Vladek gave a harsh pull, it cut deep, leaving a gash instead of a puckered scar.
Uriel lingered there, tracing with his tongue until it had vanished with his magic, a sharper sting rolling with pleasure in its wake. But it wasn’t his archangel power that was healing me now, it was the man himself. The one who understood where I’d been and who shared that pain with me before making it all go away.
“Thank you,” I whispered, voice shaking, body vibrating with need.
But he wasn’t done. He curled one arm, splaying his hand over my now-smooth stomach. He covered my mound with his other, his thumb stroking down the center of my slit.
“Tell me now, Nadya. Does he have any claim on any part of you?”
“No.” I shook my head vehemently, watching him, his mouth so close to that intimate part of me I trembled.
“I want you.” He slid his index finger down, splitting down my lips, but his eyes were still on mine. “I want all of you.” He slid the tip of his finger inside. “Tell me you want me, Nadya.”
“Yes.” No hesitation. “I do. So much.”
Then his tongue replaced his finger, gliding with agonizing slowness up then back down my slit, circling my clit with too much care.
I clutched the covers, sure that my nails would dig right through the material. I rocked my hips up toward his mouth on a whimper. He pressed his hand harder on my stomach to keep me still, smiling as his tongue kept flicking me toward madness.
“God, Uriel,” I panted, that euphoric build heating my blood.
When I rocked up again, craving more pressure, Uriel eased back, starting with torturous slowness again.
“Please, please, please,” I begged, my words running together.
I needed that erotic release. I needed his pleasure to take away all the pain. My thighs trembled where I was trying to hold my legs up. He spread his hands on my inner thighs and pressed my legs wide open flat to the mattress, opening his mouth on my clit and sucking just right. He slid a finger deep inside me and I arched off the bed, the steady wave that had been building finally breaking through me. So fast. Too fast.
“Yes,” I breathed out on a sigh, the throbbing pulse rippling around his finger, his tongue still working me with perfect pressure.
The pleasure was too good, too much after so much pain and so much…nothing. I reached down to brush my fingers through his hair, my eyes closed, but he pulled away, his weight leaving the bed.
I was too wrung out from the orgasm to even open my eyes, but a moment later I felt his weight easing on top of me.
“God, you’re beautiful,” was all I could say as he peered down at me, widening my legs again with his body.
He shook his head, his hair falling around my face like a curtain. “You’ve got it backward, domina.”
His hand wrapped under one knee and bent it high as he slid his thick cock along the slickness we’d already made together. He notched the head at my entrance and pressed his lips to mine.
I arched up toward him, pressing my breasts to his hard chest. “Domina?”
He smiled on a shaky exhale. “Fuck yes.” He slid his pelvis forward, easing barely inside on a hiss. “I think you’ve owned me for a long time now. Since that day back in Estonia when you saved me from her for one night.” He bit my plump bottom lip. “Any commands for your slave?”
I slid my ankles to his back and gripped his nape with both my hands. “Wipe it all away, Uriel. Make me yours.”
He thrust forward till he was fully embedded, grinding against me on a throaty groan. I arched my neck on a small cry, the invasion stinging with a twinge of pain. He sucked a line down my throat, letting my body stretch around his thickness.
“My God, Nadya,” he whispered against my skin and started to move. “Fuck, you feel so good.”
Slow rolls of his pelvis, pulling out till I whimpered and clawed my nails into his shoulders, before he’d thrust all the way back in. Then again. I moved with him, meeting him on each downward thrust, needing it hard, needing it rough to blot out whatever came before. As if
he knew, he leveraged up and pulled my arms from around his neck, lacing his fingers with mine, and pinned them to the bed. His hooded eyes and tight jaw promised he was about to give me what I craved. His sinuous glide became a deep pounding, my wetness making it a heavenly ride.
“Harder,” I begged.
I strained up to try and kiss him, but he lifted away, not letting me. Watching me. Then he gave me what I asked for. Grunting on each deep drive, he rocked my body on each thrust. I glimpsed the fire behind his eyes. The ice melted with his chaotic rhythm and burning desire.
“Harder,” I ground out.
He coughed out a laugh that was more determination than humor, sliding out of me and flipping me onto all fours. He gripped my wrists and planted my hands on the wall above the short headboard.
“Brace yourself,” he growled, his mouth at my ear.
Wrapping one arm around my midriff, the other splayed outside mine on the wall, he pressed his body flush to mine until I felt him from shoulder to thighs. Then he thrust back inside me, over and over. I stiffened my arms, trying to push back and hold my body up against his relentless rhythm. I’d asked for it, and he gave it. And it was glorious. Widening my stance with his right knee, he kept driving himself deep and then slipped one hand down to my sex, sliding his middle finger over and around my clit.
“Is this what you wanted, domina?” he asked.
I turned my head sideways, feeling his warm breath against my neck.
“Yes.”
“Come for me, Nadya.” He circled my clit, pressing harder, pistoning faster. “Come for me. Let me feel your pleasure.”
Then he opened his mouth over the slope where my shoulder met my neck, clamping down with his teeth while sucking hard. I came, screaming his name, throwing my head back and arching my spine to take him even deeper.
He groaned, holding himself deep while I pulsed and milked him, shudders trembling down my thighs. Gasping for breath, he eased me back from the wall and slid his palm up my spine until he wrapped my nape and pressed me down to the mattress. I went easily, my limbs loose, thinking I couldn’t feel any better. But he proved me wrong, angling deep and gliding his cock inside me in long, smooth strokes. My orgasm was still pulsing, little aftershocks rippling around him.
Coldest Fire (Dominion series) Page 18