'Twas the Darkest Night

by Sophie Avett

  Gently cradling her chin, he smeared his thumb across her bloody and swollen mouth with the pad of his thumb, painting her lips with metallic crimson shining blue in the moonlight. “I’m not sure I understand, Ms. Karr.”

  “From now on, I want complete control over what happens. I want you to respect that control. You will show me deference, vampire. I have a plan to capture the fey and you will do everything—and I mean everything, that I tell you to until she is caught, understood?”

  Marshall raised his eyebrows. “What makes you think I would ever leave the success of this endeavor solely to—”

  “Hush, vampire,” she interrupted. “If you agree to my terms, I will give you…everything else.”

  He almost laughed. “You would offer yourself to me to have any way I see fit?”

  Lunacy. They’d gone mad—both of them. That was the only explanation.

  She tugged at the front of his shirt. “Yes.” Her breath warm and moist against his finger.

  Their gazes locked. Tension braided time to a standstill. Crazy was okay. Crazy he could deal with. She was quickly approaching certifiable. What could she possibly want with him? Only a creature more pathetic than he would solicit more sex after what he’d done. If she wanted to kill him, she could’ve done so many times over by now. So exactly how damaged was this woman? Had he been fooled? Was she just as twisted as he? Was she worse?

  Marshall deliberately lowered his eyes in lecherous study. “That is unwise, witch.”

  “You took your liberties and now this is what I require.” Elsa stared up at him, her gaze unwavering. Seeing what he did not, as per usual. No, she was not crazy and she was not broken. That much was clear. “Outside of the bedroom, you will submit to my judgment without question. Inside of the bedroom, I will submit to you in everything. Though, naturally, I will decide when and where and how long. Those are my terms, vampire.”

  Like burning fingertips caressing his skin beneath the fabric of his clothing, she leveled her study from the collar of his wine button-up to the gleaming steel belt buckle. “What say you, vampire?”

  It was the softest of whispers and it resonated like a gauntlet. Now what, Marshall? No answer came. None. He couldn’t read this witch. Not enough to predict her. It was like shooting blind. What exactly was she playing at? She wanted him to be submissive to her, that much was clear, but in ways that were not sexual. That hardly made sense. Did she have an agenda? Was she using him for her own ends? Is that all this had ever been about?

  The shadows went still at his back, tiny curling tendrils groveling at his heels. He was vampire and demon—he would have no witch as a master. He refused to be cowed or manipulated by a woman—any woman. He would not and could not be made to kneel before his food. She would understand that and know her place.

  “And if I say no?” He wound his hand in a lock of hair like a linen bandage. “If I simply choose to walk away…”

  “You may walk out that door, or you might not make it two steps. Time and your next words will tell,” she promised with a blank expression.

  Bitter amusement at her arrogance shot through his desire like an arrow and he peeled back her plump bottom lip, checking for fangs. Surely, she had some. And if not, he’d soon rip out her dull canines in place. “What makes you think—”

  She surged up and crushed their lips together in a terrible kiss. Mouth on mouth, they warred. Lips, teeth, and tongue mating wildly. Fire and ice crashing until every smoldering suckle and sigh was nothing more than the grandeur one would expect when two forces of nature collided. Kismet.

  And yet, when he tried to open the doors to her desire, to see for himself—he couldn’t. The doors were sealed. Something was wrong—he knew it in his bones. His instincts piqued and the shadows circled closer like insistent buzzards. Her hand—it was moving, fingers abandoning his mouth for the amulet. Stained with his blood, matching the ruby. It smeared against the shiny gem. Was his fate sealed now? Was her spell complete? Was he completely bewitched now?

  Water and oil drenched his shirt as he hauled her closer, gave himself over to the demon within. Very well, little witch, but when this is over you will have no one to blame but yourself.

  He knew.

  The truth of it shone in his eyes. Red flecks of fury stood out amongst the sapphire desire enclosing the snowy blue orbs in shards of vibrant color.

  It didn’t matter. The spell was sealed. The amulet in her hand pulsed against her palm, sizzling with the unnatural connection to the petrified shadows hissing with contempt at her back. To be charmed was not the equivalent of mind control, but it did give her a significant amount of control over his source of power—the darkness. It was hers now. The vampire peering through the steam at her, breathing with her, kissing her, hating her—this vampire would be hers too. And he would be punished. He belonged to her now. Hers to pleasure and punish as she saw fit. But first things first.

  She broke the kiss with a heated gulp for air. “Do we have a deal, vampire?”

  Marshall caressed her mouth and the thin, raw skin smarted. “We have a deal, Ms. Karr.”

  His smooth thumb left a stinging wake. That was okay. Touch me, tiny vampire. You will reap your sins soon enough. She wet her lips in anticipation. “Strip, vampire.”

  He set her on her feet. “Shall I make it a show, Elsa?”

  He surprised her—she’d expected him to be far more reticent.

  Her sense net was open, feeling. Roving across her immediate surroundings like shining blue strings. Spider setae absorbing every pulse and change in the atmosphere. He would never catch her unaware again.

  “No show,” she said. “I have little patience for antics, vampire. Just strip.”

  She raked her teeth across her bruised lip, her mouth watering with the metallic taste of blood. It was tangy, salty, sharp—how she imaged the satin against his skin tasted.

  Marshall purposely brushed her nipples with the backs of his hands as he started on the line of shiny onyx buttons. Her little pearls tightened into peaks at his touch and she held herself away from the pleasure. “Do you normally play Dominant at the games in the Dungeon?”

  His eyes sparkled with bitter amusement and he cocked his head like a curious raven. “Do I really need to state the obvious?”

  It was very obvious. It had always been obvious. The man slowly peeling the shirt from his shoulders did not know how to kneel—but she had to be sure. She needed to know the depth of his twisted preferences, if only to find the source. “They have always been just games to you, haven’t they?”

  “Indeed, witch. I put on my bat-cowl when I walk into the club, and I take it off when I leave. I find the idea of anything else taxing and unnecessary. Though, it has been a very long time since I played at Club Brimstone.” His mouth curved into a faint smirk. “Four hundred forty-one moons have passed, in fact.”

  Thor’s lightning cut the starless sky and she dropped her eyes to the flesh being bared. One painful button at a time. “I am not the first woman you’ve taken.” It was a statement—not a question, and his fingers stilled.

  Lust and cruel intentions wafted between them in thick pockets, almost palpable between them. It was three long minutes before he offered anything beyond a piercing glare. “They all capitulated by the end…much like you did.” He spoke with little to no emotion and she stifled an uncharacteristic urge to laugh at him.

  Capitulate? Surrender? Much like she had? How abhorrent. If that was what submission tasted like to him, it was cause for great sadness. What a foolish little boy.

  “Aye, vampire,” she whispered. “I’m sure they did.”

  Elsa slid her hand within the folds of his shirt. Mesmerized by the outline of her knuckles beneath the starched wine fabric as her timid, calloused palm scratched across his supple skin. His skin was taut, firm, and sculpted like ice—nearly as cold. So cold it seared. His pulse was steady and strong. Stronger than a true vampire’s would be. It was beating. Fast. How could they be so a
like and so different?

  She curled her toes in the plush red carpet as he shucked out of his garment, slowly enough for the show she’d deliberately asked him not give, but that was fine. She would indulge herself and punish him later. She had wanted him for so very long. Letting the garment drift back off his shoulders, he exposed a broad frame and toned, muscled arms.

  As with all vampires, he was hairless below the neck. His pectorals were tight and his dark nipples pebbled in the steam, drawing her hungry eyes. Hunger that had been building since the first time she’d stood in his cool shadow that chilly spring night. The aroma of orange blossoms was still lingering in the air when he’d appeared in her shop doorway, swathed in darkness and Armani—a tall, dark apparition inquiring about her cheap ad in the back of a monster rag. She had wanted him then. She’d wanted him every day since then, and he had always belonged to another—but not tonight. Tonight he was all hers.

  His simple silver belt clasp popped in the silence, his zipper whining open in its wake. His stomach was sleek, toned. She fingered the six chiseled squares outlined on his abdominal muscles. The vampire offered her a low breathy chuckle and flexed, and she delighted in every contraction. His pelvis was his most attractive feature. A lover’s muscle. It was sleek, two diagonal lines meeting to create a “V” that beckoned her to press her lips to the slope in the middle. Drag her cheek against it—have it flex against her open mouth.

  The rest was demonic perfection. His sex hung thick and lightly veined. Smooth shaven, velvet rosy skin drawn over a marble shaft. Her tongue tingled as moisture dotted the mushroom tip. Marshall toed off his shoes and stepped out of his slacks. His legs were long, lean and sinewy like a dancer’s—his entire body symmetrical, as if he spent quite a bit of time working every muscle group at once. He plucked his socks off and dropped them in a ball on top of the neat stack of folded clothes on the toilet.

  For a while, he simply stood and allowed her to look her fill. When she expected him to break the silence, to hurry her—he didn’t. He stood nude, absorbing her as she devoured him. Her eyes finally found his face again and he offered his hand, his voice thick with anticipation. “Come here, witch.”

  “No, vampire.” Magic lifted its head like a serpent in the mist. “You come here.”

  Ebony coils sprang from the wall of darkness closing in on them and manacled the vampire’s wrists. Snowy blue eyes flew open and flashed bright and hot like a rising sun. He let out a riddled curse and heaved at the black wire. “You did bewitch me.” His voice held a note of mild amusement.

  “Charm is a more accurate term.” The ruby amulet sizzled, and for the first time since she’d put on that first miserable dress, she took a full, cleansing breath. Centered, she narrowed her eyes at a lingering shadowy tendril inching toward its former master.

  It skittered back to the rest of the black shade watching from the corner of the ceiling with aberrant interest as the vampire was lifted into the air. Agony or even muted pain could not be found in his gaze, but his muscles spasmed. Quivering as he was held buoyant, the shadows stringing him a hairsbreadth from rending him in half. He flashed his fangs at the observing darkness as if it had abandoned him time and time again.

  “They can’t help you now, vampire.” Her hand was drawn by the arch of his elegant cheekbone. “I’m your only salvation tonight.”

  “Release me, little witch.” He sank, going gaunt as his innate glamour fell away to unveil the demon. He snapped his teeth viciously. An alpha’s promise for revenge. “Now, Elsa.” It was a low snarl and it barely fazed her as she plucked the towel from the edge of the tub. “I thought you said you would submit to me in everything.”

  “Yes, I did. However, this has naught to do with sex and everything to do with punishment.” With one word of power from her lips, a taut band of shadow struck the center of his back like a righteous hand. Marshall arched and his mouth fell open as a riddled little growl slipped between two ivory sharp points.

  “You will command nothing from me, vampire, until I decide you’ve earned it.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Pain smarted across his skin in a hot, white line sizzling across his back. Head thrown back, Marshall clung to his binds as he cursed Heaven and all of its miserable angels.

  He did not fight the bondage anymore. That was pointless and only served to weaken him further. He hung limp in pretended submission. As if they’d registered the change as permission, the shining tentacles holding him buoyant contorted tighter and crucified him in the steam.

  Snatching up her dress, Elsa sent a pulse of magic through it, deactivating it into wispy textile, and left him there to hang nude in his own shadows. Fine, she could have the darkness. He hardly wanted it on a good day. But she would never have his mind. On a whim, he wondered how far he would allow her to push him, to try his patience with her antics, before he made the irrevocable decision to outright kill her the moment she released him. Had her thoughts taken the very same track barely an hour ago? He would not be as forgiving as she seemed to be—he would tear her fucking head off her shoulders. Perhaps very, very soon.

  A raspy incantation teased his ears and the tentacles stripped from the walls and carted him into the suite in a symphony of smoke. Held in a writhing mass of shade with nothing else to do, he stalked her from his chains.

  Elsa tossed the Sinister Stitches’ dress in the general direction of the carpet bag and snatched a weary lavender frock from the floor. Threadbare textile with a few fraying embroidered beads around the collar and a moth-eaten hem, she drew it overhead. It was softer than the monk robe she normally wore, hanging somewhat loosely over her curves. Complimenting her plum toenails. She pulled her damp hair from the top of the wide collar, letting the titian bounty tumble down her arms to rest against her back.

  His groin muscles flexed involuntarily and he was strung even higher in the air, his length bobbing between his legs. Thick, full with blood and longing.

  Lust was irrelevant. All of it was blissfully irrelevant right now.

  The desire that had drawn him to her like a shimmering hook and line, the heat her blistering body had imprinted on his skin even through clothing—none of it mattered anymore. She’d turned on him like he’d suspected she would. Now, he would simply abide the slight until she either killed him or lowered her guard.

  Elsa came to stand a few feet before him. Palming her charm, she scratched her scraggy thumbnail against the ruby. “Do you have anything to say for yourself, little vampire?”

  The moonlight paled the hell-fire in her glowing eyes. They touched him. Everywhere. Like her hands, her eyes reached out and learned every slope and curve—every line, from the slope of his nose, to the flanks of his thighs, the arch of his soles. Her study was unhurried, relentless. Possession. It felt like possession.

  He narrowed his eyes, but held still beneath her scrutiny, clinging to the grim hope that she would make the mistake of leaning forward close enough for him to rip her fucking throat out with his teeth.

  “Are you going to punish me, witch, or not?”

  “Of course.” The corners of her mouth curved. His first visage of a smile and it was a hideous, vicious thing—a red scalpel splitting her face from ear to ear. He blinked and it was gone, her expression blank. Like the wake of a wave meeting its end on the sand, it disappeared and he wondered whether he’d imagined it all together.

  A flat, smooth, supple square collided with his ass and left a mild sting. He rolled his eyes and opened his mouth only to be silenced by a new brand of pain. A long, cylindrical rod—banging across his ass like a cane. Fire sizzled like fireworks behind his eyes and he hissed a curse instead. One smooth lash snapped across his back like rope. Another lash split into nine stinging tongues, striking like tiny knives.

  Ignoring the smattering of pain, he let out an incredulous laugh. “You’re experimenting?”

  She turned from him and faced the ocean. “As you well know, your conduct was unbecoming of a gentleman. I
will teach you manners, sir vampire.”

  Marshall strained in his binds, leaning toward the damp curls laying limp mere inches from the tip of his nose. “Will you, witch?”

  Snap! A whip belted between his shoulder blades in answer. One white stripe of smarting pain ripped his flesh. He didn’t gift her with so much as a twitch. “That was insulting.”

  The ebony whip sang. Another snap. And another. And then another. She flayed him one strike after another. Shadows bit into his back with as much gusto as any leather cat-tail. Snap! Snap! Searing. Hot. White. Pain riddled his nerve endings as each strike rattled him in the chains.

  “How many have you taken? How many have suffered your cruel intentions, little vampire?”

  Snap! Snap! Fangs pierced his bottom lip as sweat beaded on his skin, rolling in thick droplets. Making it glisten, the sheen acting as a conduit for the whip to infuse even more hellfire into his skin. He blinked, ruthlessly blocking out it. He knew pain. Especially this one. This was not the first time he’d been whipped by shadows, abandoned by them. Tormented by them.

  “How many, Marshall?”

  She almost never used his name. Ever. He used her voice to figure out which way was up and she, an immovable statue, became his only point of focus through the symphony of lashes. Webbed black strands laid waste to the stinging, shredded mess she’d made of his back. Crimson tracks of blood trickled down his ass and the backs of his thighs. It dripped from his toes and splattered across the midnight blue oak floors as the vampire hung in darkness, dancing. Dancing for her. Every stinging coil and burst of pain was a shot in the night and Elsa—Elsa was bulletproof. She stood…unmoved.

  “Look at me, witch.” His face contracted with the effort to keep his voice steady, clear of the blows wracking his body. “Look at me.”

  Snap! Snap! One strike. Two. Six. Twelve. He lost count, dragging oxygen into his lungs even as it burned. Every masterful stroke, every slant of the whip on his back a mark. Was she tattooing his sins on him, he wondered in the deep, dark recesses of his mind. Or maybe it was her name.