He stopped at the foot of the stairs. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t bear to see the pity on his face when he turned around. I’d let him know I’d fallen for him as if I were a modern schoolgirl texting him all the details about my crush. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I’d well proven the saying that there was no fool like an old fool.
“Dammit,” I sighed, sinking down to sit on the stairs. “Can we both pretend the last five minutes didn’t happen?”
“No.” His tone was so sharp, it made my eyes snap open. He’d turned around and was now staring at me with the oddest mixture of amusement and dangerous intensity on his face.
“Care to elaborate?” I said in a tone as sharp as his. I might be wrecked inside, but I’d be damned if I’d show him more of that than I already had. “I can’t tell from your expression if you’re about to laugh at me or rip my throat out.”
Suddenly, he was in front of me, pulling me up with a roughness that tore my jacket. “Neither. I’m going to fuck you until both of us scream.”
Chapter 34
Ian kissed me so hard, all the feelings I’d failed to suppress transformed into desire. I kissed him back while a new frenzy of emotions exploded inside me. I didn’t care if this was stupid or too soon or dangerous or would leave me heartbroken. I needed him like I’d never needed anything before.
We fell onto the stairs so roughly, the breath I’d gasped in was knocked out of me. Then I ripped at his clothes until his bare skin touched mine. I had to feel him to prove I hadn’t lost him yet. My hands raced around his back and shoulders, reveling in the muscles beneath his silky skin. Then I buried them in his sunset-colored hair to press him closer.
His mouth was bruising, as were his hands as they tore my clothes from me. Then his mouth went to my neck. I cried out as his fangs sank in deep. Heat burst inside me as the juice from his fangs entered my bloodstream. Then his slow, strong suctions increased the pleasure, stunning me with their intensity.
He gripped me tighter, his fangs sinking in again to send more of those incredible surges through me. Good gods, I hadn’t known it could feel like this! It had hurt when Tenoch bit me to turn me into a vampire. I’d never let another vampire bite me since. I couldn’t. My blood would’ve outed me for what I was.
Ian propelled my mouth to his neck. I hesitated. I’d never drunk from a vampire, either, since I couldn’t offer reciprocity. Then his new, deeper bite knocked the hesitation out of me. I sank my fangs into him, moaning when his blood slid down my throat. With the brands, his blood was now the most potent of wines. Every swallow sent delicious fire through my veins.
Desire maddened me. Each rub of his skin made my flesh oversensitized, and every new bite between us had me shuddering with pleasure. Finally, I tore my mouth away to shout “Please!” in whatever language came to mind first.
His mouth left my neck to sear over mine. Then he slid between my legs and I felt the glorious burn of a silver-studded thrust. Even as he started to pull out, I gripped him with arms and legs to force him deeper, crying out when that roughly buried him all the way inside me.
The sound he made was worth the ache. With his size, I would’ve needed more gentleness for it not to hurt, but I didn’t care. I arched against him and he began to move as if the passion boiling over in me was spilling out into him, too. That ache increased, but so did the pleasure, until both made me scream so loud, he paused and tore his mouth from mine.
“Don’t stop!” I said raggedly.
Concern creased his features. “Felt you tensing. This is hurting you.”
“I don’t care.”
Everything I felt was bared in my gaze, but I didn’t look away. All I did was tighten my legs around him to tell him in another way that I wanted more of those hard, deep thrusts despite the slivers of pain. They were an outlet for everything I couldn’t bring myself to say out loud.
“I care,” he said vehemently.
He kissed me, but he didn’t move the way I wanted. He stayed buried deep while he began to undulate his hips, his pelvis rubbing against my clitoris with an erotic caress.
That fullness combined with the instant starbursts had me crying out against his mouth. He continued those sensual rubs while his hands moved over me until the rest of my nerve endings felt raw from pleasure. It was all too much. I came with a cry his mouth couldn’t completely muffle.
Ian reared up and his hands left my hips. Oddly, he fluttered his fingers in the air as if counting something I couldn’t see. Then he touched his mouth before reaching down to glide his fingers over my clitoris.
“Say yes,” he rasped. “You have to accept this spell for it to work.”
“What spell?” I murmured, still tingling from the orgasm and the feel of his fingers.
“Say yes,” his voice deepened, “and I’ll show you.”
“Yes . . .”
I glimpsed his smile before his head dipped. Then I let out a shocked gasp as I felt his mouth in two places at once. His tongue tangled with mine while at the same time, I felt it twisting over my clitoris. He was still inside me, and the combination of incredible fullness plus sinuous laves had me shuddering.
I moved against him, wanting him to feel the same pleasure that was cascading through me. He let out a low chuckle as he stopped caressing me to hold my hips immobile. Those magically mirrored flicks and delves turned post-climax tingles into new throbs of arousal as he kissed me until I couldn’t remember anything except his taste. He still wasn’t moving inside me, but the undulations I couldn’t stop myself from making stretched and stroked my inner walls while every phantom lick sent more shards of pleasure into me.
“Gods, I love this spell,” I moaned against his lips.
His laugh was wickedness at its most tempting. “Agreed. The only real crime is that it’s illegal,” he teased before his mouth once again slanted over mine.
I could barely think through the ecstasy. I ran my hands over his back and ass, loving the feel of his sleek skin over those hard slopes and ridges. Then I raked my nails deep, feeling his shudder all through me. I glided my breasts against his chest before pinching his nipples hard enough to elicit a moan. Hearing it made my loins clench almost as much as those endlessly erotic licks, so I did it again, harder. With a throaty chuckle, he stopped kissing me to bend his head to my breast.
I cried out when his fangs pierced the tip. With the spell, I felt it in my nipple as well as in the throbbing apex between my legs. A long moan tore from me as the juice in his fangs bathed my breast and my loins with the sweetest of heats. He sank his fangs into the tip of my other breast next, pinching my bitten nipple at the same time. Merciless pleasure slammed into me.
My skin felt too tight, my nipples burned, and I was now so wet, I could feel it on my inner thighs. When I was crying out in near sobs, he finally began to move with all the unrestrained passion I’d demanded from him.
Pleasure razed me from the inside out. This time, his roughness had me begging for more in ways I’d be embarrassed about later, if any part of me could still think. I came with a climax that left me shaking. I was still in its throes when he flipped us and slid down to bury his head between my legs for real this time.
The stairs crumbled beneath my grip. He yanked me closer, tongue swirling, flicking and delving so deep, I felt dizzy. His fingers were busy elsewhere, doing things I hadn’t known I liked until that moment. Then he sucked on my clit until I thought I’d go insane, but that was nothing compared to when his fangs sank in and stabbed even more incredible rapture right through me.
I came so hard I must have actually blacked out. The next thing I knew, he was on top of me, moving in a way that had my back arching with lingering rapture. I felt worn out, but I wanted him to feel the same incredible sensations I had, so I mustered my energy and tightened my inner muscles with all my strength.
He gave a shout, and I gloried in every one of the deep spasms that came next. After the last shudder left him, he fell against me as if his own body weight was suddenly too muc
h for him to support.
Chapter 35
After several moments, I realized I was breathing every so often; a vampire’s version of hyperventilating. My blood felt like it was tingling, so if my heart was still capable of beating, it would have been hammering. That wasn’t all I felt. From the various things jabbing me in the back and legs, we must have broken this section of the staircase, too.
Gods, sex with him was going to cost a fortune, if I didn’t want to leave a trail of ripped-off people behind me. But I didn’t move. No amount of splinters could compare to the warm, residual sensations from that climax. It felt as if thousands of little sparklers were still softly going off beneath my skin.
Ian finally lifted his head and balanced his weight on his arms. He smiled before lowering his mouth to mine. His kiss was lingering, as if he was savoring the taste of me. The spell must have worn off, because I only felt it on my mouth this time. He stopped when he felt the tears that had started to slide out my eyes.
“What’s this?” he asked, touching one of the trails. Then concern drew his brows together. “Still too rough?”
I let out a low, barely audible laugh. “Not at all. You’re going to make a world-class masochist out of me, it seems.”
The briefest smile touched his mouth before his expression turned serious again. “What, then?”
I stroked his face, fingers running over his dark red brows, high cheekbones, chiseled jaw, and full, firm lips. He was so beautiful. If I stared at him too long, I’d be overcome and not say what I had to say. That’s why I dropped my hand. I’d intended to hold on to this last secret forever, but it was time, too, for this one to fall.
“You asked who betrayed me. Her name was Ereshki.”
I felt him tense, but his tone was light when he said, “Another former lover?”
How much easier this would be if that’s all she had been. “No. She was my friend . . . or so I believed for a long time.”
He rolled over until he was lying next to me instead of pressing me against the broken stairs. “Why did she betray you?”
I took in a deep breath. “To get free from her soul bargain . . . with Dagon.”
His irises had softened back to turquoise after his climax, but at that, they blazed bright green. “Tell me everything.”
To distract myself from the pain these memories would cause, I started toying with the plywood pieces bursting out from the broken part of the stairs.
“Fenkir and Rani are the demons who burned my village and first murdered me. They did it because Dagon had tasked them with convincing people to give up their gods in favor of worshipping him. If the village refused, Fenkir and Rani could get nasty. Back then, Dagon was trying to make a name for himself as a deity because he can draw energy from people if their devotion is radical enough. Did you know that?”
“He told me something of the sort once,” Ian said. “Didn’t believe him because he’s a lying, self-glorifying sod.”
“That he is,” I agreed. “But he wasn’t lying about that. From the little I know of demon rules, they’re allowed to influence humans, but they’re not supposed to use their powers on them to inspire worship. So, Dagon couldn’t freeze time, teleport, or use his other tricks to get human populaces to think he was a god. That’s why he was so delighted when Fenkir and Rani brought him an unkillable toddler. Now he had a great prop for his ‘I’m a god’ act that got around the rules.”
Ian scoffed. “How did your abilities help him get worship?”
“He claimed credit for them. Fenkir and Rani would take me from village to village to sacrifice me. Then, Dagon would say he’s the one who resurrected me after I rose from the ashes.”
Not a muscle moved, but the scent of Ian’s fury enveloped me. “Where was your terrifying biological father in all this?”
“At first, he didn’t know I existed. Children between his kind and humans are rare, he said, and his affair with my mother was very brief. But people only see the Warden of the Gatekeeper to the Netherworld when there’s bad news about their afterlives. So, when my father kept catching glimpses of me between my murders and my resurrections, he knew I had to be his. Our shared blood was the only reason a child would ever be drawn to his part of the underworld.”
Ian’s body felt as if it had turned to marble. “He knew what was happening to you, yet he didn’t save you and Tenoch did. Glad to hear the damned see your father after they die. Gives me a chance to tell him what an utter bastard he is.”
“He couldn’t find me on his own,” I began.
“Rot,” Ian said curtly. “He’s Aken the Ferryman to Mencheres, and Mencheres summoned him to find Kira when she was in danger for the express reason that he sees everyone.”
“Not me.” My voice was grim. “His kind is ‘blind to their blood,’ as he put it. He also couldn’t get help from his fellow whatevers because fathering a child with a human is apparently a no-no. He needed someone else to find me, but not a human, since humans aren’t strong enough to go against demons. Couldn’t be a demon, since then Dagon would probably hear about it. That left vampires and ghouls, but my father didn’t have any friends among their kind. It took him a while before he settled on Tenoch and learned enough about him to trust sending him after me.”
“How long?” Ian asked, his tone edged with steel.
I sighed. “Seasons aren’t as distinct in that part of the world. I also don’t know exactly how young I was when Dagon took me. You’ve seen what I look like without my glamour. I was probably in my early twenties by the time Tenoch rescued me.”
“Two. Decades.” The air around him actually began to crackle, reminding me of the buildup to what happened when Mencheres was in a fury. “You were slaughtered over and over for two decades, but you said before that you’re not trying to kill Dagon for your own vengeance. Why the bloody hell not?”
I closed my eyes. This part is what haunted me no matter how much time had passed. “I wasn’t the only one who was murdered. Dagon channeled the most energy when his worshippers made human sacrifices. In every new village, Fenkir and Rani would tell the people what a great god Dagon was and how they could prove it because Dagon could raise the dead. Then, they’d kill me in whatever way they thought would impress the villagers most. When I rose from the dead . . . the villagers usually believed in Dagon, and they celebrated their new god by doing what he commanded, which was to sacrifice some of their people to him.”
I opened my eyes, not wiping away the tears that now streamed through them. “The worst part was, for many years, I believed in Dagon, too. Oh, I hated him because my life was horrible. I also feared him since I knew he could make it worse. But I was too young to remember that Dagon hadn’t been there the first time I came back from the dead. Dagon told me he was the one who kept resurrecting me, and he could do things no one else could, so I really thought he was a god. That’s why,” my voice broke and for several moments, I couldn’t speak. “That’s why I backed his claims,” I finally whispered. “I told the people he was a god and that they . . . they should do what he said.”
Saying it out loud made all the memories come flooding back, crushing me beneath their weight. I covered my face in my hands and cried in a way I hadn’t let myself cry for centuries. So many innocent people, murdered. So many families, broken when their loved ones didn’t return from the dead the way I had. Then worse, Fenkir, Rani, and Dagon would tell the families it was their lack of faith that prevented the resurrections, and what would be required to push their faith to the necessary level? More sacrifices.
“Don’t you dare blame yourself.” Ian’s voice cut through the guilt that, as always, felt as if it would destroy me. “Dagon brutalized an innocent child into aiding his deception, but it was his deception. Not yours. What you went through is so horrifying, I’m amazed you’re not still broken from it. Don’t you dare shoulder any of his guilt. He deserves all of it.”
“He does deserve to pay,” I said, swiping at my eyes. I didn’t agr
ee that I was guilt free, but I knew that much, at least. “That’s why I don’t care how many more lifetimes I could live if I leave Dagon alone. I won’t do it. Those people deserve their justice. They’ve waited too long as it is.”
He reached over, taking my hand and lacing his fingers through mine. Such a simple gesture, especially considering the far more graphic things we’d done. But in that moment, it felt more intimate than everything that had come before it.
“You won’t fail.” His voice vibrated from his intensity. “People like you have the rarest form of bravery. Friends and lovers might be willing to die for each other, but that’s partly selfish. Risking everything for people you don’t know is real bravery. You made all those people Dagon killed yours to avenge when you didn’t have to. Then you became a Law Guardian so you could funnel more persecuted people to safety while also punishing those who abuse others. All this puts you right under the council’s nose, but you did it anyway. You are awash in that rarest of braveries, Veritas. Dagon doesn’t know it, but he doesn’t stand a chance against you.”
Chapter 36
I squeezed his hand, new tears spilling out that weren’t from anguish this time. Oh, how I had needed to hear out loud that I could beat Dagon! Even more, to have someone other than me believe it was possible.
“Thank you,” I said softly. “You have that bravery, too, you know. Oh, you’ll say it’s selfish because you care about Mencheres and the rest of your friends. But you’d rather risk death than risk them in this fight. That’s bravery and loyalty at its most unselfish.”
He squeezed back, though he refused to acknowledge any nobility in his actions, of course. Then he let me go. “You never said how Ereshki fits into all this.”
The breath that escaped me was too bitter to be a laugh. “Even with how brainwashed I was, it did occur to me to question why I was the only person who came back from the dead. Eventually, I questioned it enough to tell the villages not to listen to Dagon. Fenkir, Rani, and Dagon tried every torture imaginable to make me stop, but I refused. Between that and word traveling about other villages deeply regretting their brief stint at Dagon worship, converts and sacrifices were way down. Then one day, Dagon brought Ereshki to my cage.”
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