by KC Kingmaker
“It’s not enough, baby. Plea—”
Her voice cut out on a gasp when I slammed forward with a harsh, fleshy clap. My cock plowed into her, breaching her entry easily. Her pussy tightened around me as I fed myself into her and tried to dig in to the hilt.
I grabbed fistfuls of her fleshy ass cheeks and pumped my hips back and forth, not giving her any chance to breathe.
Her legs trembled as I had my way with her. Her forehead landed on the bed to try and make herself more comfortable, so her shaking arms didn’t have to hold her up.
Face down, ass up for me to devour, just how I liked her.
My first thrusts were slow and strong, making sure she got a feel for what I had to offer. When her pussy started to loosen as she became used to my girth and length, I sped up the pace, keeping her on her toes.
She moaned like a bitch in heat, her voice staccato jabs of pleasure.
As I got more into it, I spanked her.
She yelped. “Yes daddy, more! Harder!”
I leaned forward and fisted her dark hair in my palm, then yanked her head back toward me. Her voice cut out on a choke. “Quiet, you little slut.”
Vivi’s moans became whimpers, her dark eyes staring aimlessly up at the ceiling as I roughly fucked her, bringing her ass back to clap against my hard hips with every thrust.
I closed my eyes, finding my rhythm, and when I opened them I was no longer staring down at Genevieve Jade, my prey.
Her ass was fatter, her body fleshier, curvier, and softer. My eyes roamed up the pale skin of her backside and I found I was clutching at black hair streaked with red.
I stifled a gasp.
My cock pulsed, throbbing inside her.
Vivi yelled and tightened her snatch against my shaft, warm wetness flowing around my length as she trembled and came.
My eyes widened, realizing what was happening, and I desperately pulled out of her just as I shot hot, sticky ropes of cum across her ass and lower back.
I let out a ragged breath when I was finished, then a deep sigh. Vivi stood there like a trembling mannequin, legs spread far apart, my seed dripping down the curve of her buttocks.
She rolled onto her back and kept her legs apart for me to see how red and raw I’d made her pussy. She let out a contented purr and gave me a tired smile. “Mmm, that was hot, daddy.”
I blinked at her then retreated to my chair across the way. I sat, dumbfounded, in disbelief that a vision of the woman I despised had caused me to explode so quickly.
Coralia Hargrave. The replacement sister. The girl who shows up out of nowhere and steals the attention of all of Hudson’s Glove, like she owns us. Like we are putty she can mold to her liking.
Damn it all. I won’t allow it!
“Is something wrong, Sunny?” Vivi asked. “Did it not feel good?”
I raised my head, slack-jawed, and shook the thoughts from my mind. “No, it was fine. You have to go.”
Her eyebrows knitted together. “I . . . I can’t stay?”
“No.”
“But I-I always stay,” she said hopefully. The hope quickly turned to anger, her face contorting. “Who else are you fucking?”
I cocked my head. “What?”
“I said—”
“It’s none of your concern, Genevieve. I could ask the same of you, couldn’t I?”
Something like guilt crossed her face. She quickly dashed it away, resuming her angry glare. “So you don’t deny it?”
“I don’t owe you anything, Vivi.”
Her mouth fell open. “I sucked your cock for half an hour and let you rail me doggystyle and you don’t owe me anything?”
“No.”
The scoff she let out was a well-perfected sound that could have put the pettiest people on the planet to shame. “Asshole. You’ve got some fucking nerve—”
“I need a night to myself, Vivi,” I said. “To recharge.”
She grumbled and shot up, flattening her miniskirt over her toned legs. She hadn’t even cleaned herself off, but I didn’t want to stop her rampage out the door. “You sound like a big fucking pussy, you know that?”
I said nothing.
She gathered her purse and rolled her eyes. “Now I have to put up with that soggy ass Ghost staying in my room. She’s fucking annoying. Worse than that Coralia bitch, if that’s possible—”
“Don’t,” I growled.
She cocked her head. “What, call her a bitch? Are you kidding me?”
“You don’t need to call everyone names, Vivi.”
“You’re one to talk, big guy.” She let out another bothered scoff. Then her eyes narrowed. “Wait a sec. You can’t be serious.”
“What?”
“You’re fucking her? The replacement?!”
I put my head in my hands, sighing. “No, Vivi. That’s not happening.”
She let out a sound of contempt. I didn’t care if she didn’t believe me. “You’re a self-righteous asshole, Sunny Conway.”
With that, she stormed out of the room.
“Takes one to no one,” I muttered to myself after she slammed the door closed. It was true—I’d been hanging out with Genevieve too much recently, letting her shitty attitude rub off on me. Which wasn’t good when I already had a pretty grim attitude to begin with.
I frowned. You know you’re in pretty bad shape when Genevieve fucking Jade calls you a self-righteous asshole. Shit, man.
I AWOKE NEXT DAY IN the late afternoon, and felt more pissed off than when I’d gone to sleep in the early hours. I cursed myself for my momentary weakness—my lapse of judgment that had caused me to anger Genevieve.
I needed to stay on her good side. As manipulative as it was, the ends justified the means.
She had answers I needed to pry from her. So now I need to go through the effort of winning her back. Spirits shackle me, I’d rather drag my balls through glass.
Out my window, I saw the sun was beginning to set. I usually woke in the later hours of day—vampires were, by default, night owls. I could be out in the sunlight, but not for too long before I started feeling like shit. If I sunbathed, it meant the infirmary. If I stayed out all day, it meant an ashy death.
I needed a walk to clear my head. The rigorous fucking from the night before hadn’t done the trick.
I need to feed. The lack of blood in my system was starting to make me feel more ornery than usual, and that was saying something.
I left the dormitory in a hurry, wrapping my red cloak around my body in case the sun became too overbearing. I didn’t give a shit what people thought about my cloak. It’s not my fault everyone else is a fashionless peasant.
Once I was on ground level, I headed toward the park. I knew I could find some unsuspecting Ghost there, probably a female, who wouldn’t bat an eye when I took her blood. I was arrogant, but there was a reason for it: I drew men and women to me like flames to a moth. If it meant getting closer to an upperclassman, especially one of my stature, and feeling like they had “made it” and that I “owed them one,” then they would do anything for me.
It was just my shitty luck that, before I reached the park, I spotted Coralia and her little friend Charli leaving the mess hall together, headed in my direction. They were chatting and chuckling and getting along like a couple of old housewives.
For some reason it sent my rage to new heights. I curled my hands into fists at my sides. If I was being honest, I knew why I was so enraged: Coralia had invaded my mind mid-fuck and nearly cost me everything the night before.
I needed to teach the little cuss not to get in between me and my plans. Though her “invasion” might have been inadvertent, I couldn’t abide that. She might not have known it, but she was ruining everything.
Coralia had my brothers by the balls and acted like the whole Academy was a walk in the park. Like the world is her oyster. Just how my damn ancestors thought.
Gritting my teeth, I blurted out, “Coralia Hargrave!” We were easily fifty feet apart, yet my v
oice carried on the wind.
Her head shot up like a meerkat, alarm written plainly on her pretty face. When she glanced over and saw it was me, she blanched. She turned on her heels, Charli joining her, and started beelining in the opposite direction of me.
I gritted my teeth harder, until it felt like they’d crack. Bitch thinks she can avoid me? That she can just run away from her problems? I’m not a problem you can run away from.
I took a few steps toward her. She picked up her pace.
Sighing, I shook my head. You want to play games? I’ll show you a fun one.
I spotted a shadow near me—a long one cast by a nearby tree on the edge of the park. Narrowing my eyes, I noticed Coralia and Charli were heading into a sea of murky umbrage the setting sun created.
Flicking my wrist, I made a jerking motion with my right hand.
Coralia stepped onto a shadow—
And disappeared into it like a spaceship going through a black hole. As she was swallowed up by the shadow, only the tail-end of a gasp gave any inclination that she had once stood there.
Charli screeched, looking frantically around her. She put her hands to her head in alarm.
I smirked and stopped walking, eyeing the tree’s shadow next to me. “I can do this all day,” I said to myself, feeling smug.
I waited. Blinked.
Charli came charging over, her tiny face scrunched with pure wrath.
My brow furrowed as the seconds passed. I eyed the tree’s shadow again.
“You big freaking butthead!” she cried, throwing fists in the air as she reached me. “I’d never say this to anyone, but you’re a big . . .” she trailed off, no doubt trying to think of her meanest, most vulgar quip. “. . . animal! An atrocious, rotten, self-absorbed beast!”
I looked down at the little spitfire.
“Why are you so mean to her?” Charli wailed. “What has she ever done to you?!”
My eyes veered back to the shadow. It had been way too long. “She’s . . . supposed to appear out of this shadow.”
Charli’s fury simmered. Tears welled in her eyes. “S-She what? Where is she then?”
It was supposed to be a joke. A mean-spirited one, sure, to rope Coralia and bring her to me so I didn’t have to chase after her. “It was a shadowgate,” I explained, panic starting to burst inside me.
“Yeah? Well you must suck at it, tough guy, because I don’t see her. Where’s my bestie, Sunny?!”
“. . . Fuck.”
Chapter 21
Coralia
I FELL INTO ABSOLUTE darkness. My body felt weightless, yet there was a familiar sensation surrounding me, like I had been here before.
It was too bad I had no idea where here was.
My eyes worked. I could see. I had no frame of reference and the pitch blackness scared me. It enveloped me like a blanket, not giving an inch.
Seconds passed in the void. I wanted to scream out but no sounds left my mouth when I opened it.
Then my feet hit something concrete. Solid.
I gasped and started running—no, that wasn’t right. I wasn’t running at all. Some invisible force was pulling me in a direction.
The darkness around me faded to a deep, shimmery, purple hue. Black shapes appeared against the purple “sky,” smudged silhouettes all around me.
A whispering voice came to my ears, unintelligible and pinched, like a muffled radio speaker talking through a vacuum. The voices flowed in and out of my ears. It frustrated me not being able to understand what they said.
The pull was drawing me closer to them.
I squinted and noticed two black figures, nearly formless, where the voices were coming from. Though their faces were blotted and unreadable, my eyes bulged when I recognized their physiques: one small, one tall. Their body language told me they were arguing—or at least the small one was yelling, arms flying all over.
Charli and Sunny!
With new understanding, my head reeled, eyes scanning the purple horizon. The black shapes I’d seen at first were buildings and trees and everything that had been around me in Shadowblade Academy, near the edge of the park.
I blinked and stared ahead, where the shadow was pulling me . . . toward another black hole.
I had just fallen through one black hole. I did not want to go through another. I had no idea where I’d end up.
The world had twisted into dark, filmic tracing paper over everything I knew to be real—a heat-seeking pattern I could focus on, except in hues of purple and black instead of red, orange, and yellow.
Heart racing, I tried to calm myself. I attempted to do what my professors had taught me: clear my mind. With the nerve-wracking pull drawing me closer to the black hole, it was difficult.
When I was mere feet from it, something snapped. The hold on me loosened. I took the opportunity to step left, out of the trajectory of the invisible force.
The world broke and I stumbled into more blackness—another downward freefall through nothing.
This time when I screamed into the void, I could hear it in my own ears.
MY SENSES WERE ALL there, in working order, but I was confused. I blinked a couple times to acclimate myself to my new surroundings.
Which didn’t seem new at all. Again, familiarity struck me.
I sat on a velvety red couch, my eyebrows scrunched. Biting my lip, I looked around the vague room. The murky darkness around me started to dissipate like fog, until it became clear I was in an actual place, not a vague limbo where I didn’t know which way was up or down.
Why does this room give me such déjà vu?
The antique wallpaper, the couch, the floor—I recognized it all.
That’s when the door opposite me opened and a familiar man stepped through. Tall, ruggedly handsome, with shaggy black hair sweeping his shoulders.
“You!” I yelled, pointing a finger as I jumped up from the couch.
His eyebrows arched in surprise. “Oh my, you’re back.” He stepped toward me, scratching the dark stubble at his chin. “Two times in . . . how long has it been? Well, it’s no matter. I don’t get visitors often.”
“Visitors? What the hell is this place?” I threw my arms out wide. “Last time I was here, I was dreaming. You’re made up,” I accused. “You’re not real.”
He closed the gap between us with a long stride. “Would you like to touch me to see if I’m real?”
You look sexy as sin, but I don’t exactly trust apparitions. “No,” I said flatly, crossing my arms over my chest. “I just want to know what’s going on.”
“You must have Slipped again.” His voice was like honeyed wine, bringing a pulse of warmth just below my skin.
“Slipped? With a capital S?”
“Quite right.”
I raised my chin defiantly. “At least I know what that means this time.”
“Do you?” he asked, cocking his head. “Why do you look so confused then?”
My face fell. “I’m not confused! I’m just . . . okay, I’m a little confused. Are you evil?”
“Depends who you ask.”
“Who are you?”
“No one. Just a lost soul. Does it matter?”
“You have no name?”
He tapped his chin in thought. “Let’s see, you can call me . . . Moonwalker.”
I barked a quick laugh, snorting. “Um, absolutely not.”
“Why not?” The slight pout of disappointment on his chiseled face was a bit endearing.
“Because that title belongs to only one man. And you’re not him.”
“Who does it belong to?”
I couldn’t believe I was entertaining this guy. “Never mind. Tell me you’re not human without telling me you’re not human.”
“I don’t understand. What makes you think I’m not human?”
“Because you don’t know who Michael Jackson is, man. The King of Pop?” I shrugged away his discerning glare. “No, I’ll call you . . . Dreamwatcher.”
His head cante
d, giving him an alien expression. “Well, that’s not exactly what’s going on, but if it floats your boat—”
I cut him off with a hand. “Just tell me what I’m doing here.”
He crossed his muscled arms over his chest. “I was hoping you’d do the same, lass. It’s not very often I see the same person twice in the Spectral Realm.”
My heart stuttered. “The Spectral Realm?”
“The realm of lost souls? I thought we just went over this.”
“Please, tell me more,” I begged. “Is that different than where I just was?”
“You mean your material plane? Yes. Or do you mean the Shadow Realm? Also yes.”
I groaned and tipped my head back in frustration. “Oh, God save me and choke me.”
“God can’t save you here, lass.”
My head snapped forward, more déjà vu rocking me.
That’s what Professor Avery told me, verbatim, in Shadowwalking class. I tried to rack my brain to recall what else she’d told me. Tethers between worlds . . . roads . . . jeez, she said so much in such a short amount of time.
At that moment, I wished I was a better student. I asked, “Why can’t God save me, Dreamwatcher?”
He thrust a stern finger in my direction. “You believe in Him?”
I bit my lip, shrinking. “Let’s assume I do.”
“We’re going to workshop that ‘Dreamwatcher’ name, by the way, missy. God can’t save you because we’re all stuck here. Most likely, you were traveling between two shadows in the Shadow Realm—”
The purple-and-black blanket over the world?
“—and you Slipped. Which brought you here.”
My stomach dropped to my shoes. “Does that mean I’m . . . stuck here? Like you? Can I ever get back?”
He gave me a tiny smile. “Only time will tell.”
“Fuck. No! I need to get back. This isn’t how it was supposed to go. I was just finding my powers, finally!”
He gestured vaguely at the room, which looked rather pedestrian and boring. “You’ve been here twice, girl. Not many can say that. I have a feeling your purpose is bigger than all of this . . . nonsense.”