Still, he teased her—and himself—by rubbing the head of his cock against her until she let out desperate, breathy whimpers and slid against him in a primal rhythm. Only then did he pull her down onto him, sinking his cock deep within her body.
A shudder wracked her as she sighed. She restrained herself, allowing little noise to escape, but her body responded voraciously, her channel pulsing around him as it sucked him deeper.
Her fingers dug into his forearm.
“Don’t hold back,” she whispered. “Help me feel alive.”
A low growl erupted from him as he surged forward. He couldn’t have restrained himself even if he wanted to. His hips quivered beneath her ass as he braced her against his chest, his body pumping into her with quick, hard thrusts. Her keening cries were muffled around the fist that she’d bitten down upon.
The cage began to rattle but he no longer cared. He thrust with urgency, needing them to both find the pinnacle of their pleasure and mingle their beings. Her breathy sighs and the warm slide of her cunt on him drove him on, his hips beating a rhythm against her bottom. Meredith gasped and twisted in his arms, her body rippling around his in continuous pleasure, a wet rush flowing around him, dripping down his thighs.
A grunt escaped him as his cock swelled, a tingle rushing through him like an electrical storm. She twitched in his arms, a shriek escaping her as she found her release, her channel slamming around him, milking him. With a bellow he erupted inside his mate, allowing his essence to find her and mingle. For that moment, they were one.
He dropped her back into his arms, drawing his legs up at an angle so to not dislodge her until he was good and ready to slide free from her body. Tightening the blankets around her, he felt her drift back to sleep as he watched the world around them with deadly intent.
Chapter 21
The weather turned warm the further south they traveled, much to Meredith’s relief. By her reckoning, October was nearly over, yet California looked characteristically untouched by mid-autumn. The nights were still a bit cool, but the days were comfortable.
She’d lost track of how many times she and Charu made love in the damn cage. They’d taken to doing it several times a day ever since they passed into a warmer climate. She’d now memorized the slopes of his muscles, the taste of him and the deep growls of his lust. She kept those memories close to her and had no doubt he was doing the same.
Their time was coming to an end.
It wasn’t just because they’d passed into California, or anything that any of the assholes hauling them along said—they’d been mercifully absent except to care minimally for her bodily needs—no, it was the terrain that’d tipped her off. It seemed to harbor an increasing foulness the further into the state they traveled.
Charu said nothing of them; he just stared at them, his entire body vibrating with hostility and then need to crush them beneath his command. And they in turn seemed to swarm the wagon as if mocking his current impotence against them.
The trees were covered in a twisted parody of buzzards, harpies weighing down the branches, their mouths full of sharp teeth that dripped saliva as they leered down from their perches. Every so often, a small acila would burst from the ground, caving in a small section of ground around them as they surfaced, their thin tentacles waving in the air as if trying to get a taste of them. Even the trees didn’t look right. They seemed gnarled and ghostly, moaning and reaching their limbs out to the cart as they passed.
It toyed with her fragile mind, and she was no longer certain when she was seeing things that were there or imagining things that were not. Her episodes were getting more frequent, sometimes bleeding together as one nightmare piggybacked on another just as Charu’s lamp managed to banish it. She knew she would have been worse off by now had she not absorbed those small amounts of the lantern’s light.
Meredith pressed firmer into Charu’s side, scanning the landscape around them.
“What is all this?”
“Beings of Aites, denizens of the wailing forests that torture lost souls. They are rising where the lauchume sits gathering his power.”
“Even the trees?”
His eyes darted to a gray tree that loomed over their cage. Pulling back his arm, he struck at the roof of the cage ineffectually. His chains rattled in the silence, but the threat had done enough. The tree growled but ceased looming over them as they passed through.
“Even the trees,” he affirmed. “They delight in stirring confusion and madness in souls lost among them. They consume the terror that they inspire among the humans caught within their groves.”
“But they aren’t hurting Kessler or his gang,” Meredith observed.
Charu inclined his head in agreement. “They recognize them as one of the lauchume’s creatures, so they obey any orders to let them pass unmolested.”
Meredith sank into her thoughts but then jerked against him when a wyrm burst from the earth, its serpentine body coiling into the air, radiating darkness. Its gaping mouth was full of sharp teeth, dripping foul saliva as it struck its head toward the roof of the cage, its enormous jaws appearing more than strong enough to rip through the bars.
Screaming, she pulled her arms above her head, but was immediately captured in Charu’s iron grip.
“There is nothing, Meredith.”
The lamp flared, the light sweeping before her eyes, feeding the spark inside of her, burning away the terrible vision. She slumped against Charu, her entire body shivering from the release of endorphins.
“Fuck,” she choked. “I’m not going to survive this shit.”
His huge hand stroked her back and she felt him press his lips against the top of her head.
“You will,” he murmured against her hair.
She wasn’t so confident. She lay there against him, taking comfort in his arms around her as the gloom around them steadily increased. She watched as they passed the ruin of a massive city. She wondered idly which city the wulkwos were using to feed upon. There were a number of places that would likely attract them. Perhaps it was San Francisco, or Los Angeles. She missed seeing the city sign. Clearly, they did not dwell there, or at least the lauchume didn’t.
Her breath caught when she spotted some people near the road, their bodies near withered, their eyes staring vacantly until they saw her. Their mouths gaped open in horror and they reached forward as if to stop the wagon, and then scattered as guns discharged, firing bullets close enough to inspire fear.
Xavier’s maddening laugh was joined by other men in the group.
“Damn infected. They give me the creeps,” one of the men snarled, setting off another round of laughter.
“That would be all of us if not for the protection of the benefactor,” another rejoined as it made a crude sound and spat in the direction the strangers departed. “Them who don’t want to conform, who refuse to do what they’re told, deserve what they get. Ravager feed, every one of them.”
Charu made a low sound of distress and Meredith followed his gaze to the road. The people were gathering behind the wagon, their hopeless eyes staring at them. Her eyes teared as she watched the crowd grow larger. Men, women, and children of all ages gathered, their skin graying and hanging off their stick-like limbs. That would have been her by now if it hadn’t been for Charu and the lamp. Her eyes burned and then her vision blurred with her tears.
Charu jerked roughly against his chains and Meredith ran a comforting hand down his arm. His pained gaze met her eyes. She understood. His arms bound away from his lamp; he couldn’t even offer them peace. But she could.
Pressing a kiss against his cheek, she stood and took hold of the chain that looped around the lamp, lifting the lamp so it shone on the infected. Its glow reflected off their eyes.
“Find the spark within yourself and follow it to the lamp,” Charu whispered.
Closing her eyes, she focused on the light within herself. It became easier every time she did it. Within seconds she roused it, drawing the energy thro
ugh her. It shone so bright through her skin that it lit up the back of her eyes. This time, she could see the pattern of the magic within her, leading like a thread through her being. Latching onto it, she followed it, linking to the burning source of the lamp.
The heat flared through her at contact, and she opened her eyes, the world bursting into a prism of color despite the darkness. The auras of the people were dampened and turning darker by the minute. Their souls suffering.
“They suffer. Give them peace.” His words were pained. She nodded her understanding. “Sever through the bonds of life to their flesh.”
She saw it then: threaded through the auras were golden ties binding the soul to its body, filaments that issued from the bright centers where their souls rested. Meredith felt the heat of the lamp gather through as she swept her hand as she’d seen Charu do, sending the lamplight to cut through them.
A sigh released from the crowd, rippling through the air as they fell into the dust. A mother smiled as she clutched her children close, her eyes closing in bliss as they left their bodies. Men and women grasped each other and their little ones in comfort as they crumpled together. From the remains burst a radiant light, stained with darkness but growing brighter rose up into the air, glowing like beacons.
Wraithlike women materialized from the ether, their ghostly hair twisting around their heads as they lifted their glowing torches high. Hundreds of these women, the vanth, appeared. A crooning sound rose up from the street that echoed through Meredith. A sweet, maternal song of homecoming. They stretched out their hands and the souls gathered to them. Gradually they winked out of sight. One vanth paused, holding several bright souls close to her, her eyes trained on Meredith. The eyes of the vanth glowed the palest blue, like a spring morning, as they lingered on Charu and then her in turn. The spirit offered a bright smile and then she was gone.
Meredith watched, her vision blurry and her cheeks wet until the wagon turned down a long drive, and the remains of the dead became obscured from her sight. She felt the weight of Charu’s arms around her, and his fingertips pressed against her cheek, turning her face toward his. Blinking to clear her vision of her tears, she met his gaze and gave him a watery smile.
“I did it.”
His gaze softened and he nodded, his horns sweeping through the air adding more force behind his affirmation.
“You did. You gave them the peace they deserve. Now they return to their ancestors in the next world.”
“All of those children...”
“Will heal and rest and then return again to a better future.”
“If we stop the lauchume,” she muttered miserably.
His hand stilled on her shoulder and he stared through the bars as an estate steadily grew closer. His jaw hardened.
“We will.”
The mansion they pulled up in front of was huge. It did not surprise her that not one of the men had stopped to attend to the dead. She wondered if anyone would, or if the bodies would just be left to rot there since it was outside of the beautiful estate stretched out in front of her. A high wall separated it from the rest of the world.
The cart jerked, the cage rattling as it pulled to a stop. Several men... no, wulkwos possessing human flesh filed out of the house. Their eerie glowing eyes fastened on the cart.
Meredith clung to Charu, determined not to be separated from him, but it didn’t help. Claws erupted from the pairs of hands that reached inside for her. She ducked into his chest, clinging to him. Charu jerked forward to fend them off, but someone had stepped behind the cage and yanked on his chains, holding him immobile against the bars.
Two of the males stepped into the cage, too-wide smiles on their face as they stalked toward her. Meredith dug her fingernails into Charu’s arms, but it did no good. Her nails rent bloody paths as they pulled her off of him, their own claws biting into her flesh causing blood to soak through her clothes. Charu roared and whipped himself from side to side until he hung panting from the chain.
“Meredith, do not fight them. You give them reason to hurt you. Leave me.”
She sobbed and allowed her arms to drop to her sides as they herded her out of the cage. Charu’s agonized roar at her absence bit into her heart. Kessler stood off to the side, his arms tucked behind his back. He smiled at her in a grandfatherly way that made her want to claw his face into ribbons.
“Smart decision,” he said jovially. “Now let’s get you somewhere where you can freshen up a bit before the lauchume sees you. I daresay your current state of filth, between the dirt and semen of that creature all over you, will not impress him. Come along.”
The wulkwos holding her smirked, speaking amongst themselves words she didn’t understand. She was herded through the grand doors of the house and up a set of stairs and a long hallway that eventually led to an opulent bedroom. Swaths of ruby red fabric draped the windows and hung from a four-poster bed. Even the blankets were of the same hue, contrasting against ebony furnishings and golden brass fixtures.
She shivered as she was deposited in the bedroom. The wulkwos turned and left. Kessler puffed out his chest and looked at the room, whistling low.
“The house bestowed on me is impressive, but nothing compares even to the luxury of this room they’ve offered you. You are a lucky young woman to have been chosen. There are many who would happily kill for the opportunity.”
He winked at her, giving her a bow and a smile better suited to a salesman’s pitch.
“Make yourself comfortable, although I’d refrain from sitting on anything you can soil just yet... maybe wait in the bathroom. Yes, that’s good,” he said as she stepped over the linoleum of the adjoining bath. “The maid will be up to attend to you shortly.”
He stepped out of the room, still whistling to himself.
The moment the door closed, Meredith glared mutinously at it and stepped back into the bedroom, plopping on the lush bedding, grinding her bottom into it for emphasis. Her rebellion at this moment was limited, but that wouldn’t stop her from doing whatever little things she could get away with to throw a kink into their plans.
With a smirk, she lay back on the bed and waited for the maid to arrive.
Chapter 22
Charu paced the length of his new cell. The chain still secured him, and rattled with his every pass, but he had plenty of lead to move around in the room. Their soft glow illuminated the room, as did the spell script glowing on the walls, magnifying the effect on the chains. They kept him weak and docile, and it infuriated him.
It was clear that the cell had been custom-built for him in the most reinforced room in the building, the wine cellar. Outside of his cell, wine racks lined the walls filled with dusty bottles. He glared at them, wishing for the satisfaction of cracking each and every one of them and watching the broken glass scatter as the liquid splashed over the floor.
The door at the top of the stairs at the other end of the room slid open, letting in a beam of artificial light. A tall man in elegantly cut clothes stepped down the stairs, his long blond curls reflecting the light of the lantern he carried. The handle of the lamp was wrapped in cloth to protect his hand as he entered the room with it and set it on a table outside of Charu’s cell. The light had dimmed, whether because of Charu’s weakening or the distance from Meredith he couldn’t be certain, but it pulsed the deepest crimson.
The male stepped away from the table and raised a hand, brushing a lock of hair behind his ear, his amethyst eyes glowing in the dim room. His lips quirked, parting to reveal his jagged teeth. Charu narrowed his eyes. He knew exactly who he was facing. Though they had never met before, the male in front of him wearing golden embroidered clothes couldn’t be anyone other than the lauchume.
“Well, well, well,” the male said as he glided over to the cage. “So you are the gatekeeper, the feared lord Charu. Fascinating.” His eyes skimmed over Charu with a venomous glint. His smile widened as he took another step closer. “I must say I expected something more...” he waved a hand t
hrough the air, “grand. You are practically an upright beast in leather.”
He laughed, the terrible high-pitched whine of wulkwos laughter even more obvious. “I’m sorry. Forgive my ill-placed sense of humor, but it is funny. All the higher beings of Aites consider me and mine little more than beasts, carrion-eaters, yet look at the difference between us.”
Charu smirked humorlessly.
“Step out of your human vessel and we will see how pretty you truly are.”
The lauchume’s smile slipped into a flat, tightlipped expression.
“Ah, yes, there is that, isn’t there? The difference is that I have the good taste to choose a vessel worthy of me. You could have done so when you arrived. You would have blended in better and would have been much more difficult for me to find if you had. But you wouldn’t, would you? Too much pride to lower yourself to slipping inside a human.”
He giggled again.
“Oh dear, but you did slip inside a human, didn’t you? Sully yourself with a female. How was it, gatekeeper? Everything you hoped for?”
Charu clenched his jaw, refusing to play the wulkwos’s games. The male pouted boyishly at his refusal to cooperate.
“You really are no fun. But never mind, I have more pressing things to see to than toying with you all night, as amusing as it may be. I just wanted to thank you for bringing the female to me... the lovely Meredith.” The lauchume tipped his head to the side and seemed to savor her name on his tongue, letting out a sigh of pleasure.
His eyes glowed brighter, the planes of his face sharpening as his grin widened.
“She is perfect. When I first heard of her, a female capable of hosting our females, I was naturally excited... hopefully for a future in which both wulkwos males and females could enjoy the pleasures and freedoms of this flesh form during the day. Yet something became apparent to me just hours after her escape... she was the only one compatible. Now why do you suppose that is?”
Charu stubbornly kept silent. Although he was curious about the lauchume’s motivation, he didn’t want to give the male any sort of satisfaction from his incarceration. It didn’t matter anyway, as the male continued.
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