"My Storm Dragon," I breathed and he smiled darkly before driving his cock deep inside me.
"La mia Vampira," he replied passionately, leaning down to claim a kiss laced with mud and blood from me biting his lip and crackling with electricity as he began a torturous rhythm with his hips, fucking me hard and dirty until all I could do was cling onto him and scream his name into the storm.
This time when I came hard enough for my vision to falter, he came with me, spilling himself deep inside me with a final, punishing thrust that left me gasping for air.
Lightning crashed into the ground all around us, over and over, sending shockwaves of electricity through both of our bodies which only intensified our pleasure as his gifts kept us safe from any real harm.
Dante fell over me with a groan of satisfaction, his body weighing me down in that delicious way that let me know he was thoroughly spent. I kissed him hungrily, his body still possessing mine as we remained joined for a few minutes longer.
"Ti amo, Dante," I murmured against his swollen lips and I could feel him smiling as he held me close.
"Ti amo, Elise," he replied softly, his mouth dropping to my neck as he nuzzled against me. "Non ti lascerò mai andare."
I sat at my desk in my room, crumbling some lavrin bark into the simmering cauldron in front of me. It solidified in an instant and I placed the lid on top of it. It would need to sit there for seventeen hours before it would liquify again so I pushed out of my seat and turned to my bed. Light was still filtering in through my window and laughter carried from out there. I'd learned a new spell in Cardinal Magic which meant I could make my glass one way and didn't have to shut the blinds all the time. Now, I could look outside and see everyone while they couldn't see me in return. It was useful, but also meant my attention was often drawn to any fucker who wandered past it on their way out this Friday evening, all dressed up, laughing and joking with their friends.
I tidied my room then worked out for a while, showering too and finding I'd only killed fifty eight minutes. I grunted in irritation, checking my Atlas for any messages from Scarlett. Nothing.
I growled, shooting her a message.
Ryder:
Salvatore?
I stared at my Atlas as I waited for her to reply and a few minutes later, she did.
Scarlett:
Nothing yet, boss.
I hesitated on replying. Nothing more needed to be said, though a part of me wondered if it was worth heading to The Rusty Nail tonight. But even as I thought it, I dismissed the idea. If I showed up, they'd all get weird or desperate to please me. I wasn't sure which I hated more...
A few seconds ticked by as I decided.
The asslickers, I definitely hated them more. There was a certain way to impress your boss and trying to please me in any way imaginable right down to offering to hold my dick while I pissed was not one of them. Ethan Shadowbrook knew how to get in my good books. He didn't linger around long enough to irritate me and his deeds were completed with a swift, brutal ease that made working with him simple. I asked for something to be done, he did it. No theatrics, no bitching, no gloating. That was the mark of a respectable gang member.
My Atlas buzzed and I picked it up again and expected to find a message from Scarlett, but instead it was from Gabriel.
Big Bird:
Coming to the roof tonight? Jupiter's in my chart so maybe I'll get lucky with the right vision today...
I grinned then immediately wiped that stupid smile off of my face as I tapped out a reply.
Ryder:
You’d better, I'm getting pretty sick of your company.
Big Bird:
Ditto.
Fuck it, I was smiling again. I forced my lips into a flat line and headed to the window. The trail of people was slowing and I waited a while longer until the path was clear then pushed it open and climbed out. I shut it tight behind me and slipped up onto the fire escape stairs, using a concealment spell to shroud myself in thick shadow as I moved. I couldn't have anyone figuring out that I was spending time with Gabriel Nox. People were going to start talking. I mean, it wasn't like he was a fucking Oscura, but I didn't need anyone looking too closely at my personal life. Not that this was personal. Or a life. But whatever, I still needed to keep it quiet.
I made it to the roof and found Gabriel sitting on the wall in his favourite spot with his chest bare but his wings away, a box of beers beside him on the bricks. The view of the academy with the sun setting over it was pretty nice I supposed.
I walked over to him, sitting down and letting my legs hang over the edge. The air was cold now as winter set in, the bare branches on the trees below crisp and icy. It wouldn’t be long before the snow came and froze the world solid. It didn’t matter to me either way, the cold was as familiar as breathing to me. But I wondered why Gabriel was weathering it out before I saw the glow of a fire crystal in his pocket.
"Want a beer?" he offered, turning his head to look at me.
I was about to refuse when I remembered I could switch my Order gifts off and allow myself to drink like a normal teenager. I guessed that had been sort of okay when I'd done it with Elise and Leon so I shrugged and held out my hand for one.
Frost spread out over the bottle as he passed me it, cooling it with his water magic and I grunted something that could have been thanks, but also definitely wasn't.
I twisted the cap off and drank a deep gulp, the refreshing liquid running down my throat and sending a chill through me that I liked. It immediately turned to a burn in my stomach and I liked that even more. For fuck's sake.
"Did you hear about what Elise and Dante did?" Gabriel asked after a while.
I frowned, annoyance running through me at the fact that they'd done anything together.
"No, what?"
He smirked at me, sipping his beer. "She flew on his back out to King's new Killblaze lab and Dante destroyed the whole fucking place with a lightning storm. I saw it in a vision, it was badass."
"Oh," I exhaled, drinking a long swig of my beer. I guessed that was kind of funny. And not that I'd ever admit it to anyone, but storm powers were pretty fucking enviable sometimes. "So, I guess that means King will have to put off another ritual?" I smirked and Gabriel nodded.
"Yeah, it gives us more time to figure out who the bastard is while King is chasing his tail trying to work out how someone found his new Killblaze lab and burned it to the ground," he growled determinedly.
"I bet it's some sad fuck with a small dick," I said and Gabriel barked a laugh, the sound making my heart move upwards a little.
I finished my beer and Gabriel handed me another one before opening a new one of his own.
"So," I started, clearing my throat. "Maybe it's time I told you some things about Mariella."
"Sure," he said easily, but darkness entered his eyes like he knew at least a part of this story already.
"I'm guessing you know what everyone else does." I drained my beer fast and Gabriel automatically handed me another one and my tongue loosened on this subject a bit more. "That she took me, kept me in her house, tortured me."
"Yeah, man," he murmured. "I heard about that shit. It's fucked up."
I despised pity from people which was a small part of the reason why I never talked to anyone about Mariella, the other ninety nine percent of the reason being I didn't trust a soul on this earth. Not until Elise anyway. But here with Gabriel, it didn't feel too hard...
I cast a silencing bubble as a precaution then took in a long breath. "Well...there was this one night I remember before she got her claws in me too deep. She kept me in this room, this fucking cell with no windows and one door which was always locked. But not this time. I still don't know if she'd forgotten to lock it or maybe it was all a test, but anyway, I got out of that room. I was fucking naked and frozen to the bone. She'd cast frost on the walls and let the temperature plummet with her magic. I wasn't even Awakened, so there was fuck all I could do to protect myself."
&nbs
p; Gabriel gave me an intent look, waiting for me to go on.
I sighed, looking out at the sun as it bled into the horizon. "I made it to the living room and she was there, looking right at me. I remember she was wearing this fucking silk nightdress, and she started touching herself, panting as she just stared. She offered me a choice of punishment..." I tried to swallow the hard lump in my throat as my skin crawled. I didn't know why I'd chosen to tell him this particular story, it was one of the most shameful points of my life. I despised myself for it. I couldn't forgive it even though I knew I'd been desperate, abused, my head so fucked that I'd struggled to make connections with other Fae ever again because of it.
Gabriel remained quiet and I was thankful for that as I sat drinking a minute longer before I managed to get the words out. "She said I could lick her pussy until she came or she'd string me up in the cellar and make me bleed all night long." I cleared my throat, keeping my gaze set on the sky which had turned dusky red in the wake of the sun's descent. "I already had plenty of scars from her and at that moment, one choice seemed easier than the other. I was only fifteen so I hadn't been with a girl before then, but I just got on my fucking knees in front of her and licked that bitch's cunt until she screamed. Five minutes of that seemed like a decent price to pay over the alternative. But I was wrong. Because that was just the start of it. And the worst thing was...that I...I got fucking hard for her. And when she took me back to my cell and locked me in, I started jerking off. But my head was messed up and a part of me knew how wrong it was. I still hated her, I didn't want her. And I hated myself for reacting like that. So I bit down on my hand until blood poured, punishing myself to get me through that release and ever since then I just can’t fucking finish without that slice of pain." I knew it was messed up to tell him this. It was something that I felt uncomfortable sharing. But Gabriel was a guy and maybe he could understand in some fucking way. When it came to Elise, I felt so ashamed that Mariella had held that power over me, that she still did, that I feared voicing this to her. That even to this day, I needed pain to come.
"She brainwashed you, it was manipulation," Gabriel said, his voice raspy like he was angry. "You shouldn't blame yourself or be ashamed. It's her who's responsible."
I flexed my knuckles, staring down at the words branded there. Pain and lust. Mariella's punishments, the only two things I'd known during my time with her. And the only two things I thought I could know since. Sex wasn’t simple like I'd thought that day. Sex was what she used to get in my head. To gain the deepest kind of control over me. To make me lust for my abuser. It made me sick to my stomach and hate coiled in my chest at those memories, desperate to be unleashed on her.
I swiped a hand over my face then finished my next beer, taking the one immediately handed over by Gabriel and swallowing that all down too.
"I'm sorry you went through all of that," he said seriously. "No one deserves that."
"Yeah, well...shit happens." I took another large mouthful of my beer, absorbing the pinch of pain in my heart at reliving that day. But as I sat there with him, a weight lifted from my chest. I knew he was just putting up with my shit to help me out, but I didn't really get why. I didn't question it though, in case he questioned it too and decided it was better to stop hanging out with the asshole Lunar King who everyone feared.
"Do you want to play a game?" Gabriel asked after a while and I frowned, snorting something that could have been a laugh.
"Why would I wanna play a game?" I asked.
"For fun, obviously." He stood up on the wall. "You don't have to play, but I'm going to. So you can watch."
I shrugged, eyeing him curiously as he spun his finger through the air and cast a slim plank of wood not wider than his foot from the edge of the roof, extending it out twenty yards then glancing down at me with a grin. "The game is to walk to the end of that without falling. Blindfolded."
Now that’s my kind of game. So fuck it.
"I'm in." I jumped to my feet, the alcohol making my head spin and I stumbled backwards. My stomach swooped as my foot slipped off the edge and Gabriel snatched hold of my arm and yanked me forward before I fell off the damn roof.
I laughed heavily and he cracked up too. Shit, I’d almost fallen already and I hadn't even started the game.
"You wanna watch me go first?" Gabriel asked and I shook my head cockily, rolling my shoulders back.
I cast a silken blindfold out of leaves in my hand and Gabriel took it, tying it in place for me and helping me line up in front of the plank extending from the wall and anchoring it there with vines.
"If you die, I'm one percent concerned the entirety of the Lunar Brotherhood will come for me," Gabriel mused and I chuckled.
"I won't die, I've got to kill Mariella and marry Elise before that happens." I stepped blindly out onto the plank.
"Marry her?" he called mockingly. "Can't see you in a tux, Ryder."
"I'd wear a clown suit and a fucking cowboy hat to make that girl mine, Big Bird." The plank wobbled precariously and I swore as I almost didn't land my next step. My heart lurched and my stomach swooped and I found myself laughing again as I played with death. I mean sure, I could cast a net of vines to catch myself, but that wasn't the point. This was actually...fun.
"So you're just okay with sharing Elise with Leon and Dante now?" Gabriel asked, more curiously than angrily.
"I’ll never be okay with her fucking Inferno," I muttered. "But so long as she's mine too, then I've stopped thinking about it."
"How's that working out for you?" he asked.
"Great. Just so long as I never have to be in the same room with her and Inferno again, I can pretty much pretend he doesn't lay a finger on her." My heart jolted as I wobbled precariously and the plank groaned under my weight.
"That's gonna be a problem long term. What if your gangs find out you're both dating the same girl?" Gabriel questioned like he actually gave a fuck.
"They won't," I hissed.
"But-"
"They. Won't. End of story," I growled, then my foot met air and I yelled in surprise as I walked right off the end of the plank. "Fuck!"
I threw out my hands, my mind slow to react through the haze of alcohol, but a vine latched around my arm that wasn't mine and I was dragged back onto the roof so I smashed into the concrete. I tore off the blindfold, finding Gabriel there laughing his head off as I lay on my back beneath him. I swung my legs around, knocking him off his feet and he smacked onto the roof beside me, making me laugh this time.
Several more beers and plenty of plummets off the plank later, I was not my fucking self. I crawled along the edge of the wall towards the plank with a smile plastered to my face.
"I'm gonna hang from it this time," I told Gabriel as he lay on the wall, using his water magic to make his beer travel from his bottle right into his mouth where it sat beside him. He gargled it then sat up as I reached for the plank dizzyingly and missed.
"You're gonna fall." He snorted a laugh, twizzling his finger though the air and spiralling it down to his legs while he whistled. "You'll go weeeeeee - splat."
I swung for him, trying to punch him but my fist sailed through the air and hit nothing. "I won't fall. I'm the Lana - Laynar - Loo-naar King."
His eyes glazed as he got a vision from the stars and my heart jolted. I grabbed his shoulders, shaking him.
"Open your eyes, what is it?" I asked. "Open Sesame Street."
He blinked and looked at me with his lips parting. "We have to go!" He rolled and fell off the wall onto the roof, immediately scrambling to his knees. "To the fire escape! Come on, it's important."
"Is it Mariella?" I snarled, getting up and jogging after him to the stairs.
"No, not her," he said. "Hurry."
He raced downstairs and I had to brace myself on his back more than once to stop myself from falling over. I tried to cast a shadow to conceal us, but instead I blasted a lump of concrete out the side of the building so figured it was best not to risk it agai
n.
Gabriel made it to the ground floor, hurrying along the grass to my window and pushing it open.
I ran after him with my heart hammering. "Wait!" I barked, throwing out a hand to disarm the magical trip wire that would electrocute any asshole who tried to break into my room if I hadn’t given them access.
Gabriel yelled in pain, tumbling into my room and I shouted out in panic because that shit was powerful enough to kill.
I stuck my head through the window in alarm and found him laughing his ass off on the floor.
"I have The Sight, dipshit," he laughed harder. "I disabled it. Good to know you care about me though." He shoved himself upright and I tried to be angry at him, but I couldn't manage it as I slid into the room and punched him in the arm.
"What's so important then?" I demanded as he strode over to my desk and pulled the top drawer open. He took out my tattoo kit and turned to me with a wild gleam in his eyes.
"I saw you getting a tattoo of the Scorpio star sign. I think it's important. It was on the inside of your left wrist. He offered me the kit and I staggered toward him.
"What's it important for?" I slurred and he pushed me down into the chair at the desk.
"Dunno, man. But you can't fight the stars, they'll get all angry and shit."
"Yeah," I grunted. "That's true." Don’t wanna piss off the stars…
I set up the gun and started doing the tattoo freehand on my wrist. I went for a scorpion with the Scorpio symbol worked into its body. I may have been drunk, but I did that shit good. Gabriel watched intently, as silent as a bird of prey. It took a while and I drank in the pain of it while I worked, frowning in concentration.
When I was finished, Gabriel leaned forward and healed it so it set into my skin like it had always been there.
"What do you think it's for?" I asked him curiously. "What did the vision show you exactly?" I looked up at him, finding him practically crying with silent laughter as his whole body shook.
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