Black Briar

by Avett, Sophie

  Was this asshole really laughing right now?

  “Oh, fuck you!”

  Sybille swatted his thigh, swearing to hell and high heavens, and he chuckled, but it was low and mirthless and she was barely given a chance to react before he fisted a rough hand in her hair and forcefully guided her face down to his cock. “Suck.”

  Lips opening around his length leisurely, she flicked her tongue and suckled him into mouth. He sought deeper and lifted his hips, flexing between her lips. Holding her hair while he did it, tendrils spilling from his vise grip like yellow gnarled flowers and vines.

  Wet noises and soft moans.

  “Sybille.” His voice was rough, deep. On the edge of needy. “Harder.”

  She lost it.

  Sucking him hard and fast. Taking as much of him into her mouth as she could. And it wasn’t a lot. Her gargoyle was blessed. Thick and long. Sometimes, she couldn’t even take all of him at the same time. Not while he was in this form. Right now, she’d take as much as she could get though. She’d take whatever he was willing to give her, this star.

  Fluid leaked from the tip, coating her tongue in more copper. It took time, patience. Her jaw was aching. Sometimes he gagged her on it a little, a quiet mischievous growl of pleasure slipping from his lips, like the sight was too good not to bask. Other times, he lay perfectly still, combing his index finger through her weak waves, watching them tumble and fall around her face while she sucked his cock like a piece of candy. Like it would give her peace if she let it.

  When she couldn’t suck anymore, her jaw nearly locked with pain, he fisted her hair and guided her away. Used the tendrils as a leash to guide her back to where he could soothe the ache with sweet kisses. Rolling her around, he held her, with her back against his chest. Two dragons spooning in the stars, he cuddled her in the safety of his wings, and kissed and sucked on her nipples. Lavishing attention on them even though she didn’t quite think they were worthy of his adoration.

  He sucked until they were swollen and she was rubbing her ass against his cock, length slipping between her cheeks, legs splayed open, completely and utterly naked beneath a blessing of moonlight. Relaxed and wanton in his arms. Inhibitions gone. And then, when he’d simply had enough, when he had to fuck her or else, he hoisted her tangled limbs off the bed and flung her into the swing.

  It was no gentle, calm scene setting. One minute she was rolling around like a dragonling with a belly full of cream and blood. The next, she had nothing but the ceiling for a guide. The butt support strapped below her glutes, another strapped across her hamstrings, and a few others braced in a ladder up her back. She hung with her legs open, bent at the knee, in a leather hammock. The gargouille stood between her legs, balanced on the mattress as if the clouds painted on the sheets really were the heavens.

  He caught her garters—all that was left of her clothing—his knuckles leaving impressions in her thighs. He steadied her. Wings unfolded into proud mastery over his shoulders and cast his glowing marble blue eyes in darkness. Her pussy was so wet, so ready for him. Please. Anything. Now.

  She’d never be sure, but she’d swear he’d smiled in that darkness. She could barely make it out. Never had she seen him smile. Never. But for a moment, hanging in his stars, she witnessed the curve. The way it bent and quirked. A tidal wave. Slow and shy one minute. Hot and hard the next. Nova.

  His cock pushed against her entrance, her swollen lips splitting around him. She could almost feel his pulse beat. And then, he used the frilled wrapped around her thighs to haul her into one sure, deep thrust. Pleasure. Blinding, whole body throbbing pleasure. It felt like being impaled on eight thick inches of warm marble.

  God. Yes.

  She squeezed weeping thick tears around his length as he eased her off and hauled her back down his cock. Precision, control. He’d often showed so much restraint she couldn’t help but feel completely and utterly unwanted. Like she wasn’t a creature capable of making him shake. Tonight, however…

  Her gargoyle’s face was devoid of exertion, but his expression was a mask of fury. Of holy hellfire. And the kind of need no man ever willingly showed a woman.

  “Sybille,” he growled. Another thrust. And another. One right after another. Steady, deep, filling her nearly to the point of bursting.

  Pussy rippling with selfish-pleasure, Sybille sank back. It felt like flying. The world was abandoned beneath her. She was…free. She didn’t even have to control her limbs. They were his to maneuver however he wanted. Her muscles were tense, but her mind relaxed, Nova allowed for nothing else. She could have bone-numbing pleasure or retina-scarring pain. Either way, she would have him. And her head fell back and she uncurled her fingers from the sides of the swing one by one. Flying…free.

  Smack, smack, smack.

  The sound of his balls smacking between her thighs as he hammered, hauling her into every single thrust echoed throughout the room. Passion fueled his thrusts as if he was determined to chisel his name on her soul, guaranteeing no other would be able to touch her without feeling the word left behind. Mine.

  Sybille lurched, gushing around him. “Nova!”

  Her gargoyle didn’t even pause, didn’t give her inch. He continued pounding into her soft flesh as if she existed simply to slake his hunger. He had a purpose, and as always, he’d given himself to it willingly. Regret and mercy flung away with abandon, and when he finally doubled over and growled above her, it was a low, ringing sound. Like a white bell in the night.

  But the gargouille was far from done with her. His brutal claiming lasted the night. Like dragons, they rolled across the star sheets, loving one another just a little too much. Saint and sinner doomed to want one another for an eternity, because light was nothing without the darkness. It lasted until she couldn’t take anymore. Until she was pleading for him to stop. Her pussy was sore, her throat horse from cries, and when he finally relented, she was a broken, shaking heap. She wasn’t even sure when she’d fallen, unaware of being plunged into a deep, mercifully dreamless sleep.

  But that was okay. She could rest easy knowing he would protect her through the night. She had the daytime completely under control and her nightmares couldn’t get her here. Not in his arms. He wouldn’t allow it. In his arms, she could disappear. In his arms, she would rest in peace at last.

  Amen.

  * * * *

  When Sybille awoke, the sun had already set and her gargoyle was gone. Swaddled in Japanese silk, she rose holding the sheet to her breasts, shielding her from the chill of the coming midnight hour. The room was bare and quiet, save the hellhound puppy snoring peacefully at the foot of the bed. “Nova…?”

  “Get up! Get up, Sybille! The gargoyle said he had to get to work, and you’re late for Baga Yaga’s again!” Socrates’ massive brown owl wings flapped into existence as he settled down on the footboard. Big, yellow, slitted eyes swept over her bedraggled hair, the bruises and bite marks screaming against her pale skin. “So…?” His eyes gleamed with intrigue. “Rough night?”

  The pillow toppled him. Feathers everywhere.

  “Blast, you!” Socrates molted, pinned beneath the downy cushion, and mice scurried from all four corners of the house to harass with glee. “They’re here!” The owl crowed. “Sybille! Quick! Attack!”

  The spindle witch lounging amongst the stars barely heard him, her attention absorbed by the rose resting neatly on the pillow next her. A single stemmed rose with three blooms. Dew droplets clung to the velvet petals. It was gorgeous. Rare. Nearly impossible to find outside the Veil.

  A promise, perhaps.

  A sinister and sweet smile curved at the corners of her chapped and bruised lips. She pressed the flower to her heart, heedless of the thorns biting into her chest and the blood oozing between the valley of her breasts. “Tonight,” she whispered. “In a dream…”

  * * * *

  With time, the lonely gothic relic waiting on the end of the corner of Perrault and Grendel changed. Pink cherry blossoms and blac
k spider lilies filled vases to overflowing. The attic was turned into a weaving room and Socrates was even fashioned a very comfortable perch next to the stone bed—not that he was overly thrilled with the view.

  There was love and there was pain. Unfortunately, no tale could see the light of day without darkness and when the witching hour finally came and went, Sybille’s elderly sleeping body was found clinging to her long dead gargouille for dear life. She died in the middle of her rose garden on a Tuesday morning, her face turned against his stone wings. Forever in love.

  A storymaven named Mrs. Potts found her, cast and molded her into stone, and placed her in the arms of her prince atop New Gotham’s clock tower some years later, so she and her gargoyle could gaze at the red horizon, the stars, and the wonders to come, loving one another in and out of dreams for all time.

  Epilogue

  Before their tale came to end, and just a year after the battle that had seen Maleficent kicked from Sybille’s sphere of control, the dragon wandered back to the Dorn Turm out of her own volition and she did not come flying back alone. With her, she brought….dragons. The tiny, infant, slobbering kind.

  Goddamn her.

  “Son of a bitch.” Sybille pinched the bridge of her nose and smacked the dragonling drooling on her head with a giant blue toothbrush. “Will you close your trap?”

  Anubis, the black heraldic dragonling, offered her little more than a shit eating grin and flapped his wings happily. They were still tiny worthless appendages, but he would grow in time.

  “Now, listen here,” she swatted his smoking snout with her toothbrush, “I need to brush your teeth.” He snapped said teeth around the brush’s bristles and she heaved, “Maleficent! Come get your son!” Only when her arm sockets were burning did the dragonling release, and Sybille flew back and fell back on her ass. “Socrates! Quick! Attack!”

  “Not now.” Perched between a lounging Maleficent’s eyes with a teacup, he waved his crumpet and snorted behind the NY Times. “Can’t be buggered.”

  Gaping up at the clouds spun from lullabies and hellish festoons, she rolled her eyes. “Why, oh, why do I keep any of you…?”

  The world rippled with the arrival of something new.

  And delicious.

  Sybille snapped up like a corpse, glittered twigs and leaves snarled in her hair. “He’s here.”

  She hastened onto her feet and heaved the toothbrush into nonexistence. “Maleficent, quick!” She spirited by a bemused dragon into the tower for a quick wardrobe change. “The dress!”

  She’d meant to be ready earlier, but the damn dragons…

  It was supposed to be a sinful surprise. This morning when she’d woken, she’d found a black box with gold string on her bed with a three-bloomed rose lying neatly on top if it like a ribbon. It was her birthday. He never forgot her birthday, nor did he ever disappoint.

  The elegant black velvet dress was a Sinister Stitches original. Only after the seemingly endless nagging did he confess to saving his paychecks for two weeks just to have it made.

  Scrambling behind her Arabian awning, she threw it up in the air like a bucket of confetti and tendrils of velvet split like a score of spectral dragons binding her lithesome body in a flowing, black halter dress.

  Straps were fashioned from twine adorned with black briar thorns. The dive was severe, baring the rungs of her chest and ribcage like a ladder. It was almost a leotard, with two pieces of sheer light material cascading down her thighs offering a delicious of view of her legs. Golden hair washed down her back as she twirled around in a dragontamer’s evening gown, twin black panels swishing about her like tattered back wings.

  Okay, okay. Enough, enough…

  She dabbed her lips with poison apple red lipstick and flew out the doors like a wind wraith. Hair wild and snarled, fluttering at her back like a cape. “What do you think?”

  A snort from the darkling, and a heavy sigh and equally severe eye roll from Maleficent the dragon.

  “Shut up,” she hummed, searching the horizon.

  The gargouille appeared from a storm of black mist, gliding down to her in human form save the ribbed grey wings spanning over his shoulders. “Sybille.”

  Her heart fluttered, but she frowned and seated her hands on her hips. “Nova.”

  Nothing else was said. He touched down on the soft earth, dust and soil sweeping into the sky like spectral dust. And then he was there. Banding an arm around her so he could sink his fingers into her hair and claim her sanity in a kiss.

  They stood amongst the stars, amongst dragons and firelight, and collided. And just when she thought the kiss could be no sweeter, he closed his hands around her hips and hauled her into a spin. Around and around. Her legs limp like wings as she clung to him in bouquet of black flowers and black skirts.

  When he finally drew her world to a stop, he broke the kiss, holding her close, “I have someone I would like you to meet…”

  Feet barely on solid ground, Sybille blinked at him and scowled. “Who?”

  The gargouille’s eyes glimmered with rare humor, “Such thorns…”

  “Listen here, asshole,” Sybille jabbed her nail into his chest. “We have enough dragons, thanks.”

  “Trust me.” He caught her hand and laced their fingers together. “Come walk with me…”

  “Where have I heard this shit before?” Sybille lifted an eyebrow but allowed him to guide her from the safety of The Dorn Turm. Together they spun a trail of sprawling lush mountains and sultry wet lagoons. They traveled through Neverland, Avalon, and finally emerged in a secluded pocket of time and space. Nearly inaccessible, nearly lost in its obscurity.

  It usually took time and effort to gain entrance into someone else’s sphere of control, but as Nova guided her through the curtain of vines shrouding the opening’s threshold with a sweep of his hand, she had the sudden impression he’d been there before. When she asked about it, all he had to offer was, “I only found it with a storymaven’s help….”

  Roses. Roses everywhere.

  Long ago, Enid the Hag explained that a rose was a rose no matter the name, because no matter where it lie, no matter how crumbled the grave, how red the pool of blood—it was gorgeous. Pristine. Lush, green, jagged leaves. Velvet petals cradling sparking, sweet dew droplets. And the tower rising through the clearing in the shape of dragon’s head was covered in eternities of red roses.

  As she and Nova walked through a rolling meadow, she couldn’t help but feel like she’d been there before, too. But the memory was buried. Half-forgotten in some rusted withering chest of childhood memories. When they came upon the tall cathedral door, it simply opened.

  There was no darkness, no shadows, and no spine-chilling hymn to aid her climb up a twisted staircase. Just the faint tweeting and warbling of birds and the sultry grind of a wheel turning. Sybille looked over her shoulder, requesting confirmation from the gargouille. He’d opened wings and nurtured the distance between them, eventually landing to stand watch her from a hill, where he could gaze upon her from beneath an ancient cherry blossom tree with a laurel trunk. Her samurai forever.

  Star-shaped petals rained on his shoulders and he braced his arms behind his back, and nodded, wordlessly urging her toward the door.

  “You still never answer my questions,” she muttered under her breath, gathering her skirt and sweeping through the threshold, half expecting the doors to clang shut behind her, seal her in an early tomb. Nope. The staircase morphed before her eyes, mirage fading.

  She took a few steps across the warm oak floors, scanning the cottage’s humble décor. Nothing about the withered old rocking chair or swaying gentle dust pink curtains said menacing. There were butterflies fluttering in jars, all of them different and unique, lining the shelves above the small hearth. Flowers. Cotton candy dandelions, exotic leopard lilies. The occasional beer tankard resting beside a basket of raw almonds.

  Certainly, they weren’t worthy of fear, but she halted in her tracks and tossed another
look over her shoulder anyways. You know, just in case.

  Nova was distracted, busy frowning at the seventy pound hellhound wiggling in his grip. “How did Sasha get here?”

  Socrates the Darkling peeked from around the samurai’s leg and waved a crumpet. “Happy birthday, Sybille!”

  Oh, piss off. She snorted and made it two more steps before she halted in her tracks all together, frozen mid step.

  The sound. Humming. Sweet and gentle. It filtered through the sheer curtained alcove on her right, each note drawing Sybille’s footsteps nearer. One step. Two. She fisted the heavy fabric, knuckles white. And when she pulled it back…

  Beauty.

  The woman was haloed in sunshine, warm rays infusing the Golden Fleece curls spilling down her shoulders. Wine red robes were patrician, a gold band cinched beneath her breasts, the sleeves were mahogany wings spilling down her bronzed arms. She was seated on short stool, guiding black wool into the majestic, black onyx spinning wheel’s Nordic spindle. Sunlight consumed the black rungs until to watch her spin was to watch Saule the sun goddess blister her way through an eclipse on her hellish chariot. Valkyrie princess.