Hate

by K. A Knight

  “Griff—” I gasp and he growls, biting down on my lip and drawing blood. “Yes, more,” I demand, pulling my lip free and tearing the plump flesh until more blood flows.

  He groans at the sight and drags me closer, kissing me with desperate, open-mouthed kisses, the taste of blood and need filling our mouths, and when I pull back, I see my blood coating his chin and lips.

  Derrin stops sputtering and I look down to see his eyes are vacant, his mouth open, his lips coated in blood. His neck has started to stitch back together, but his body clearly gave out. I can’t feel him or his power anymore.

  He’s dead.

  “Huh, he died quickly, shame.” I turn to Griffin. “Guess you will have to entertain me,” I purr, and then dive for him. He rolls us backwards and throws me. I spin and land on all fours on the rug, watching him with black eyes as I grin. His wings are out, his chest heaving, his leather pants slung low and bulging at the front.

  He wants this.

  He needs this.

  A fight to prove he is in control. To prove to himself the strength of his power. I’ll do it gladly, I’ll be his whipping boy for all time, whatever he needs. Even if it’s my death, that’s the dance of me and my fallen. Always.

  I love it.

  He comes straight for me and I meet him mid-air. He throws me into the ceiling and I fall downwards, grunting as he catches me mid-flight and flies us up, slamming me back into the ceiling next to the chandelier, which shakes from the impact, the twinkling of diamonds filling the air as cracks fracture around it. Laughing, I grip Griffin’s hand which is clutching my throat as he snarls at me.

  Darting my head forward, I smash mine into his, and he growls as he falls backwards, blood blooming from a cut on his head as I plummet. I crash into the floor, my stomach flipping, and he’s on me in a second.

  He grabs my hair and slams my head into the floor. It rings for a moment as I groan, pain flashing through me, meeting the lust in my stomach and igniting. “Stop fighting me,” he demands.

  “Make me,” I taunt, as I crawl forward and grab a decorative vase next to the wall. Turning, I smash it into his skull and roll away laughing as he rears back, clutching his head.

  “Dawn,” he warns, his voice deadly. I hear my death in it, his anger...and his need. His need for this, to fight, to get it all out, even if he doesn’t know it.

  “Scared, fallen?” I gibe.

  He flies at me, cutting through the air with a yell. I roll away from where he lands, but his hand catches my hair and drags me back to him. My spine smashes against his chest as his hand slides around my throat to try and still my thrashing body. “Behave,” he shouts.

  “Or what?” I laugh and then I let myself fall forward. He releases my neck to try and stop the fall, and I wiggle from beneath him, grinning even as I pant. This fighting is turning me on like nothing else, and I can feel his desire as well, mounting, wanting. “You will have to catch me if you want to fuck me, Griff.”

  He lifts his head, crouched on the floor with his wings behind him, his eyes alight with power. He looks like a god and I catch my breath. “Then you better run, Vasculo,” he advises, his tone low and gravelly.

  I stare at him for a moment longer before leaping up and racing towards the door, my feet slipping on the polished wood. I’m moving quickly, but it still isn’t fast enough. I hear the beat of his wings, the air crashing into me before he’s there.

  I’m thrown into the door and it closes with a bang as he rips up my dress and presses my face to the gold surface. He kicks my legs apart while I laugh, his hands rough and mean. I hear the hiss of his zipper, loud in the room, as he frees his cock and I start to struggle—I need this too. I need to forget about my fear of what is to come, the dive into the unknown and the odds we’re taking on in just a few hours.

  I need him, I need him to control me. To force me, to make me into nothing but a living, breathing pleasure vessel, his to do with as he wishes. This started all about him, but I guess what one needs...the other needs too.

  We are twisted together that way.

  I push back, using my hands on the door, my muscles straining, and he slams me forward again, making my breath whoosh from me as his mouth meets my ear. “Stop,” he snarls.

  “Never,” I pant, and push back again, this time adding some power to it. He goes flying backwards, and I turn with a grin to see him getting to his feet. “That all you got, fallen? Going to let one little girl beat you?”

  Sauntering towards him, I run my hand down my thigh, and he watches the movement. “Can’t even dominate your own mate?”

  It unleashes something inside him. I see the moment he stops being Griffin, stops being worried about hurting me. He lets everything go until he’s just a feral fallen, his madness leaking into the room and infecting everything. It even sends a spike of fear through me for just a moment. He senses it, his nostrils flaring as he smirks—it only seems to spur him on.

  I don’t see him move, he turns to mist and is gone. Turning, I gaze around the room, but I can’t see him.

  “Boo,” he whispers in my ear, and when I spin he’s gone again.

  Suddenly, I’m launched at the bed. I fly through the air and land on the soft edge of the silk and slip to the floor. I grunt as I’m pressed to the flooring, mist covering my entire body, and in that mist I spot his eyes. Moaning, I look down to see almost ghostly fingers tracing up my thighs and pushing them apart.

  He wrenches them wide, sending pain through me as those ghostly fingers glide across my wet pussy, making me still as I stare into those floating orbs. “What were you saying?” he asks, his voice coming from everywhere and nowhere.

  “That you can’t even—” I end on a scream as those fingers suddenly turn corporeal and plunge into my pussy, stretching me around them as he fucks me with them with sharp, mean thrusts. He twists them, which has me bucking and lifting my hips. Needing more, needing him.

  “Still, can’t,” I pant, mocking him.

  He snarls and then his weight comes down on me, his body turning solid as those lips I love turn up into a snarl and he yanks his fingers free, wrapping them around my throat. He squeezes, harder than he ever has before, and for a moment, I see the flash of death written in his eyes—he will kill me.

  He keeps me on that edge, my vision blurring, my ears ringing as my chest screams for air. I can’t even fight him, the energy is sucked from my body as he grabs my leg and throws it over his shoulder, and with one hard thrust, spears my pussy.

  My mouth opens on a wordless scream as he stretches my channel, the pain and pleasure of him filling me mixing with my body’s natural panic at feeling myself slip away. He fucks me through it, pulls out and slams back inside me, filling me, fucking me, each thrust painful and oh so fucking good.

  Leaning down, he grins against my lips. “Like I said, I could kill you and still make you come as you die,” he utters, his voice flat, emotionless, and so opposite to the harsh, angry hand around my throat as his hard cock slips through my clenching pussy. He’s right, my own cream is dripping down my thighs, even as I feel myself die.

  I bring my hand up and scratch at his, trying to loosen his grip, but he just laughs. It’s a cruel sound, all while those powerful thrusts jerk my body beneath him as he drags on my nerves, setting off fireworks through my body, ones I can see as my eyes go black. Bright orange and red lights flash before me, my body clenching and tightening, already on the brink of release as I ride the knife’s edge of death.

  He keeps me there, controls it, showing me exactly who is in charge. Just how much he has been holding back. This isn’t Griffin, this is his madness. This is the monster who hides so deep within he doesn’t even know it, the one that craves death and blood, pain and pleasure, who needs it to survive.

  I feel my body slump, the pounding of my blood in my ears as my heartbeat slows, turning sluggish even as he fucks me. Then, suddenly, I don’t feel him anymore. I’m floating in the dark. Ropes surround me, twisting
me, keeping me attached, dragging me back, and abruptly with a snap I’m back in my body.

  I rear up, sucking in lungfuls of air, my eyes wide and locked on Griffin’s smirking face as he pushes me down and continues to fuck me, even though my body won’t respond. My throat aches, my lungs scream, and my eyes are dry and yet, yet with one press of his finger to my clit, I come with a silent, ragged, raw scream, my pussy clenching around him and milking his cock. He roars, filling me with his cum just as the door smashes open behind him. I peer over his shoulder, still panting and shaking from the most intense orgasm I’ve ever had.

  There, in the doorway, is my forest god. Dume and Jair are behind him, but all I can see is Nos. His head is covered in his skull, his eyes black in those sockets, his body tall, almost touching the ceiling, and I feel his panic, his utter hopelessness, but when he sees me alive he stills, staring at me from those black holes as that panic recedes and a burst of relief and love flow to me.

  “You have been busy, Little Monster.”

  Griffin rolls from me as I sit up, staring at Nos as tears well in my eyes. All this time I’ve been so strong, but looking at my first mate now, I’m weak, needing his embrace even though I was just in Griffin’s. It’s been too long, too fucking long without him.

  Griffin brushes a kiss across my cheek, tasting my tears. “Go to him, Vasculo,” he says softly, his voice filled with love.

  He might have just killed me—well, partly—and then brought me back, but he knows I need Nos right now.

  A cry slips from my throat and then I’m on my feet. I stumble, my body still recovering from almost dying, and fly across the room. Nos storms towards me and meets me halfway, scooping me into his arms and pressing his skull to mine, those black eyes flickering white for a second as I shiver in his grasp.

  This is home.

  With them, all of them.

  “I missed you,” I whisper raggedly.

  “I missed you so much, Little Monster, so very much. I felt you—I thought you had died,” he rasps, the end filled with pain, and I shake my head.

  “You know me, no one can kill me,” I tease, even as I bring my lips to his, my nose crashing against the skull. His big hand comes up and covers the back of my head, holding me softly as he brushes sweet kisses along my fumbling lips.

  “Shh, I’m here, Little Monster. I promised, did I not? I will always come for you, no one will ever stop that. Not death itself,” he reminds me, lending me his strength.

  I nod, shivering and shaking in his arms. With him, I always feel so small, so weak, but when he holds me, I feel his strength bolstering me, his love filling me up. I didn’t even notice the hole where he should have been, but now that he’s here, I feel it and it hurts until it’s replete, like a piece clicking back into place so I can breathe again.

  “Where have you been?” I question.

  “Here. I spoke to a fate and gathered others, they are outside waiting for orders. And you, Little Monster, you’ve been busy.” He lifts his head and looks around, noting the bodies and destruction.

  “Yes, so much has happened I don’t even know where to—”

  “Shh,” he hushes me, and the skull melts to reveal his human face, his eyes white and hair flowing over his shoulder. “Show me if you wish. Just reach for my mind and I will look.”

  I nod and close my eyes, focusing on his link, his pull. I follow that line and throw open the door to my mind. I feel him rush in, his warmth and the fragrance of nature that follows him filling my head and relaxing me. He flickers through everything, I can almost see it, and then pulls back, leaving a trace of his love in its wake.

  Opening my eyes, I meet his gaze as he smiles sadly. “Do not believe him, my little monster. They might have made you, but you are so much more. You choose what you are and what you will become. You are the strongest of us all, and not because of magic or science, but because it was willed. You are special, not just to the world, but to us. To me.”

  I shiver. How did he know I needed that? I was so worried about what I could be, what they might have made me, that I didn’t even think about asking for reassurance, yet he knew. He always does.

  Just then a pop sounds and we all turn just as a panting Aska skids to the doorway, his eyes going to me as he slumps in relief. My wolf trots behind him with a snarl on his lips as he growls at the others, coming towards me and only stopping when I reach down and pet his silky fur on his head.

  Together, we are all together.

  It feels so right, I feel so full that I could burst.

  But a voice interrupts my happy thoughts, a low, velvety, rough one. Like whisky on rocks that flows through me with a promise of pain and chaos.

  “Well, that was interesting. Got to say, you are a lot crazier than I thought you would be. Do you enjoy being killed, walker? I’d be happy to oblige those fantasies.”

  We all turn to the voice, and Aska groans as he hesitates in the doorway. “Dawn, meet...Lucifer.”

  The man smirks at me, his full, plump lips curling up dangerously. His red eyes flare, his cheekbones are high and arched, and a shadow of horns on his head interrupts the rich darkness of his black hair. He bows, his eyes still on me, ancient and knowing, which sends my heart pounding for some reason. “A pleasure, I can assure you.”

  Lucifer…as in the devil?

  Oh fuck.

  I can’t take my eyes off the magnificent creature held in a forest god’s arms. I scan the others and note I am the strongest...apart from her. Her power feels wild, uncontrolled, and unknown. I can see a link between them as power flows between her and the men, and I don’t think she even realises she is pulling it. Interesting.

  I straighten and she watches me, her teeth digging into her plump lower lip. The skinwalker likes what she sees, good, this body was created to tempt weak mortals and supernaturals alike. It is good she is attracted to it, it will make stealing her and taking her for my own that much easier.

  “Lucifer?” she repeats, and turns her head, seeming to communicate telepathically with the man holding her before she kisses him and he puts her down. I almost feel the buzz of their minds as they speak. Interesting, that will make it more difficult, but not impossible.

  I watch her walk forward, unafraid of me even as I relax against the wall, not worried even when faced with all her monsters...mates. Indeed, she must be powerful to call all of these creatures.

  After growing tired of watching the council prepare for yet another pompous meeting, I had been unable to help myself. I had hoped to find her, following that pull she seems to have over me. Only when I did, she had been dying at the hands of a fallen, but she enjoyed it. I had watched, ready to intervene. He doesn’t get to kill her, only I do when I have had enough of her. But then she came back, snapped right back like she was unable to die, and screamed with release.

  Oh yes, the little skinwalker is perfect. Craving power, blood, and death, she will crave what I offer. Will beg at my feet for it, and for scraps of my attention.

  They did not know I was here of course. I had blended in, waiting, watching, and learning, but I couldn’t handle it anymore, I had to introduce myself. I had to meet her.

  “In the flesh, walker.” I grin and she shivers as my power hits her, washing through her. Hmm, she’s so responsive. I wonder if she will be the same when she is on her knees sucking my cock, chains around her neck and ankles.

  Her eyes narrow like she heard the thought—impossible.

  “Well, that won’t work for me. I’m not calling you that stupid name. How about Lucy?” she suggests, hands on her hips, her eyes spitting venom at me. Oh yes, she heard my thoughts.

  “Lucy?” I echo, scoffing. “Snake, Serpent, Oh Great One. Take your pick, walker, but remember who you are talking to.”

  “Oh, and who is that?” she taunts, eyebrow raised. I can see the others looking between us, no doubt they know who and what I am, yet they don’t try to stop her, don’t try to control her as she angers me, so instead, I
laugh.

  “Your little dragon fetched me, precious. I am the sleeping council,” I inform her, and she just stares, the declaration falling flat. Normally people cower, cry, or beg for forgiveness, some even scream.

  “So?” is what she says, unimpressed.

  “I am the big bad, precious, so watch your tone. I am here to right the wrongs, after all, and you wouldn’t want to be caught in the crossfire,” I snap, my voice leaking power. How dare she question me.

  “See, that’s where you’re wrong. Aska woke you, brought you here to stop me from being killed when I—as you call it—get caught in the crossfire.” She steps closer then, her eyes leaking to black, and my cock jerks in my pants, wanting to be buried in her warm, wet heat like the fallen was as she screams for me, her nails clawing through my back, flaying me open. “‘Cause, Lucy? I’m the crossfire. You might be some big bad, but I’m the fucking worst. Nobody’s walking out of that council alive, with or without you there. Kill me if you want, kill us all, but it won’t stop what’s happening, what’s started. We have had enough, and a price has to be paid. A blood debt is owed for what they have done. You can either be a part of it or against it.” She shrugs, as if everything is that easy.

  How dare she.

  One little woman questioning me? Telling me, me, what to do?

  Attraction or not, pull or not, she does not get to speak to me like that. I have killed for less, and she will be no exception. She will fear me, she will obey me. Or she will die.

  Anger flows through me as I start to change. I shall show this little skinwalker exactly why I am on the sleeping council. Why the world fears me, why they locked me away to keep themselves safe, and why they barely breathe my name at night in case it calls to me.