Текст книги "Horns of Wicked Ebony"
Автор книги: Lacey Lehotzky
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Текущая страница: 39 (всего у книги 43 страниц)
“We’ll make the trade.” He gritted out each word like it was physically painful for him.
Victory warmed my veins and hardened my cock. Zaph shouted against his own gag, while the Padisa cried tears of joy. Dark satisfaction swept down Assyria and I’s bond.
Ishim snapped his fingers, and the two males who had hauled Zaph gathered the Padisa in their arms. Zurronar and Uzadaan swept forward and dragged Zaph away from the rest of the Angels, lest they attempt to grab him and run too.
“It was a pleasure as always, Ishim,” I growled, using his given name rather than his title.
Instead of anger flashing in his eyes, triumph shone.
So this was what he’d predicted happening…
Ice slithered down my spine. Kiira’s visions were always stronger and I trusted her over whatever this icy-eyed female saw. Still, I’d convey every detail to her, Rapp, and Trol when we debriefed later.
“I’ll enjoy killing you,” Ishim replied, grinning, as he flapped his white feather wings. Around him, his companions did the same, keeping their faces to us as they descended back to their mounts and ground support. Only Vaeron lingered, gaze searing into me, as if he weighed judgement like his Goddess.
Then, he turned and followed the rest of the Angels.
I stalked to the edge of the wall, finger digging into the balustrade. Assyria and the Parancsok joined me. Together, we looked down upon the overexcited Angels as they gathered their horses and disappeared into the trees.
“That went better than I expected,” Assyria muttered under her breath. “Especially after the caws.”
“Aye,” I said, a sick, sour feeling clawing in my gut.
Another crossroads had shoved into our path. Darkness loomed down each one, foreboding and ominous. If Kiira’s guess that the three crows were a symbol for moments where we’d be able to change the outcome of the war, I wasn’t sure if I’d chosen the right direction.
“How long until that poison works?” Banand asked as the last flits of white vanished.
“Maybe another hour?” Zurronar guessed, a dark chuckle rumbling in his chest. “By the time they return to their camp, she’ll be closing in on death and there isn’t anything they’ll be able to do about it.”
“You’ve earned your title as Parancsok now, Banand,” I announced, turning away and finding the male who’d ambushed me and started the fucking war in the first place.
“Your first responsibility will be to clean all this up and ensure they aren’t circling back for an attack.” I took a step toward Zaph, whose eyes widened in fear. “The Szélhámos and I have other business to attend to.”
Let the Angels hunt visions of their victory. Assyria and I would carve ours in blood.
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59
Metal clanked as Rokath dragged Zaph into a dark, dank cell. His thrashing limbs, his unrelenting fear, his utter helplessness, coiled dark desire low in my belly. Once, he’d had me in a similar, vulnerable state.
I’d lived beyond it.
He would not.
The promise of violence rolling off Rokath was a heady wine, an intoxicating rose, a decadent dessert.
I’d thought we’d have to capture Zaph on the battlefield and give him a quick death. This was far, far better.
The heavy metal door slammed shut behind us, ringing finality into our ears. A window, cut high in the damp stone, offered the barest hint of light.
“Find a lantern,” Rokath instructed me, his focus still entirely on the male who had caused us so much pain. Gripping the chains in the center, he tossed Zaph against the far wall.
Teeth dug into my lower lip, I grasped the metal and stuck a lit match inside it. The embers grew until they cast haunting shadows around the room, an omen of what was to come.
Rokath peeled his helmet over his head, his eyes never leaving Zaph. The moment it was off his head, he gripped it by a horn and stalked forward. Zaph shoved his feet into the ground in a futile attempt to put space between him and my mate.
Removing my own, I savored the delicious fear radiating from the Angel. A nearby table offered the perfect perch to witness Rokath’s torture. What he would do simply because someone dared harm me.
I hopped onto it, setting my armor to the side.
My mate leaned close, his face mere inches from Zaph’s. Lips curling back from teeth, he growled, “No one touches my mate and lives. Not only that, but they die slow, excruciatingly painful deaths. I needed a skull to finish her throne. Yours will do.”
The stench of urine assaulted my senses, and I wrinkled my nose. “It’s really pathetic. All his bravado to piss himself at the penultimate moment?”
Rokath let out a dark chuckle. “It truly is. But he’s never been more than an annoying pest. It’s time to squash him.”
Obsidian ecstasy heated my veins.
Rokath’s hand snapped out and closed around his throat. With the barest bit of strength, he lifted Zaph and threw him onto a table in the middle of the room. A crack sounded as his back hit the wood. I felt more sorry for the furniture that had to take Rokath’s abuse.
Perhaps I should have felt shame. After all, I’d been beaten. I knew the fear that accompanied each oncoming strike.
Yet I couldn’t find it within me. My soul had turned to pitch long before this moment. Possibly even before I accidentally killed Vagach.
Rokath bore witness to it and did not retreat. Instead, he dragged me deeper into the abyss with him.
Flattening his palms over Zaph’s chest, Rokath pinned him in place. Then, his burgundy eyes dragged to mine. “I’m about to show you, mate, just how much I love you. Everything I’d do to protect you. Everything I’d do to avenge the wrongs done to you.”
My tongue danced over my lips before I offered him a devious smile. “Maybe you’ll win me over for more than one day based on your demonstration.”
“To earn that, I will ensure the show is one that pleases you greatly,” he growled, the double meaning in his tone clear. That only served to dampen my thighs.
Rokath grabbed Zaph’s hands and yanked them overhead. Fishing a chain from beneath the table, he secured them in place before rounding it and doing the same with his feet. Still gagged, his cries were muffled along with his thrashes against the binds.
With more care than he’d shown Zaph, Rokath placed his helmet and chest plate beside my own. Threading his fingers through my hair, he knocked my legs open and settled between them. His gaze drifted to my lips. The moment hung, air frozen between us.
His mouth collided with mine, bruising, demanding, aching. Teeth and tongue battled, only twisting the tension on our bond. Excitement thrummed in my veins, and I gripped his tunic, calling my magic to the surface of my skin.
Onyx smoke shoved my mate away. “Don’t forget these,” I said, leaping from my position and finding the silver stakes I’d stored in sheaths on my thighs. The very same ones Zaph had used to pin Rokath in place.
I wanted them on me should we ever cross paths with the offender. It was fitting they accompanied our vengeance. They’d found their place in Zaph’s death ritual long ago.
The metal clicked as I dropped them into Rokath’s hands. “Get to it.”
His eyes turned to molten ebony. “With pleasure.”
Our mouths seared one final time before he stepped away, leaving me breathless. Every strike of his foot against stone imbued his frame with power. To me, Rokath was more than a male. More than the leader of the Demon army. More than the Halálhívó.
He was death made flesh. The solemn assurance of savagery. The final midnight of life.
Even the Reaper should tremble beneath his wrath.
Zaph’s eyes bulged as Rokath grabbed a thick-headed hammer. I seated myself again, tucking my legs beneath me like we were lounging rather than torturing.
The Angel clenched his hands. My laugh—wicked and hair-raising—reverberated in the room. “That won’t save you.”
Rokath shoved the sharp silver tip between Zaph’s fingers. His body jerked against the binds.
A heartbeat passed, then another, as Rokath prolonged the moment. Without warning, he swung. Zaph’s hands flew open as the first stake lodged itself between his bones. The second clawed a tear down his cheek.
It was a glorious sight.
Rokath’s destruction didn’t end. He didn’t allot a second for the Angel to adjust to his new decorations. From a sheath at his hip, he drew a bronze dagger. The tip dragged down Zaph’s middle, only deep enough to strip open his tunic. Tufts of white hair appeared, heaving against the musky air. His fearful focus never left the sharp point slicing open the fabric covering his entire frame, until he was bare before us.
“How fitting that I carved an H into his forehead the first time he defied me, and I’ll carve your entire honorific into his chest before I kill him?” Rokath murmured, pressing the blade to the skin above his waistband.
“It’s entirely fitting,” I told him, my tone breathy.
A scream shredded his throat as Rokath carved a jagged S. In the dim light, the A he’d allowed me to cut into his wrists danced. Like the H he’d put into me.
Our mutual claim on one another. The symbol of how we’d looked into one another’s souls and found a mirror. His fractured edges slotted perfectly with mine.
Zaph though? He wouldn’t have time to scar. No, before this day was finished, he’d be broken beyond repair. Our vengeance would be complete. All that would remain was burning Sivy to the ground.
Rokath stepped back and admired his handiwork. “Would you like a turn?”
“I much prefer to watch your violence,” I purred, my thighs growing slicker with each slice of his blade. Our bond hummed with wicked desire.
“Good. I didn’t really feel like sharing.” He proceeded to carve the E. Another muffled cry surged from Zaph at the same time a laugh bubbled from me. Rokath finished carving my honorific with jagged lines, arrogating the entire expanse of the Angel’s torso.
“Don’t forget, he wanted to rape me,” I reminded Rokath. Fury, white hot and violent, blistered from within him.
“That will be the last thing I take from him,” Rokath snarled. Tears leaked out of Zaph’s eyes. “But he dared touch you in the first place, and that demands penance.”
From a smattering of rusting devices, he picked up an axe. Flipping it in his hand, he tested the weight. It hissed through the air before embedding itself in the wood, a hair’s breadth from Zaph’s wrists. The sobs that wracked him sent a cascade of crimson down his ribs.
A smile curved up the corners of my mouth as Rokath pulled it free and raised it again. His miss had been entirely intentional.
How many times would he swing before he finally removed the offending limbs?
I received the answer to my question moments later.
Three in total.
Blood gushed from the stumps, but before Zaph could yank his arms to his body, Rokath pinned them each with a dagger through the forearm. The thick vein that would have had him bleeding out all over the table throbbed against it, unpunctured.
“You are nothing compared to me,” Rokath snarled, leaning his face close to the Angel’s. Lips curling back from his severely pointed teeth, rage burning in his eyes, body vibrating with coiled restraint, my mate had never been more intimidating than in that moment.
And I’d never wanted him more.
“I should have killed you rather than carving up your face and letting you live. You’ve bothered me far too long.” The low, deliberate way he spoke raised the hairs on my arms.
Zaph whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut. Rokath’s hands snapped out and forced them open again. “Do you know what happens to insects who bite and linger?”
He gave the barest shake of his head.
“They get swatted.” Rokath reared back and delivered a resounding blow to his face. Blood sprayed as Zaph’s head whipped to the side. A tooth clattered to the wood beside his shoulder.
Rokath grabbed his jaw and forced his face forward again. Another dagger, pulled from the myriad of places he always kept them on his person, removed his eyelids. I twisted my mother’s ring around my finger as he opened up Zaph’s lower legs and ripped out the bones of his shins.
Each time, my mate knelt at my feet and proffered them to me, like I was the Kralovna and he was presenting me with royal gifts. I accepted them time and time again, until I had a nice pile at my side.
Zaph was barely conscious by the time Rokath was finished. He gave him a few slaps to the face to rouse him. Head lolling, he looked up at the male he’d attempted to best time and time again. Unsurprisingly, he’d fallen short.
No one compared to my mate.
It was like trying to defy one the Fates themselves.
“The time for the finale has come. You’re going to enjoy it,” Rokath sneered at Zaph. Then, he tilted his head over his shoulder, meeting my gaze as he spoke his next words. “You are mine, Assyria. No male will ever touch you again.”
A bronze dagger flashed in the low light, and then, the metallic scent of fresh blood filled the air again as Rokath sliced Zaph’s dick and balls from his groin.
Those lidless eyes went glassy and lifeless a moment later.
Rokath’s hands shook, but not from fear. The carnal need to destroy burned in him. Engulfed our bond. Scorched my veins.
“Rokath,” I whispered, my voice like a boom in the silence.
Yet the thread of his control continued to fray. He was a hound whose bloodlust had overtaken all reason. The only thing he wanted was more.
“Rokath,” I snapped, trying to draw his attention. “You killed him. You avenged me. Avenged us.”
Awareness returned to my mate in slow blinks. His peace was a fragile, tenuous thing. The beast beneath the surface, the one that harbored vast rage, unrelenting fury, was poised to strike again. My voice was his only tether to sanity.
“You didn’t slaughter him for vengeance alone. You did it for undying love.”
He plopped the offending organs on Zaph’s carved-up stomach. Chest heaving, he whirled on me. In two strides, he knocked my knees apart again. Garnet dusted his face, coated his hands, and yet, when his gaze crashed into mine, only aching, arduous adoration remained.
The riot of burgundy captivated me like nothing else ever had. Those orbs called to me, the same as the male who owned them. Every line of ink on his powerful frame was indescribable devotion. One no crown, no vow could command.
Only love. Only me.
Because both of us were grown from seeds of hate. Somehow in that unforgiving garden, we’d bloomed with sharp thorns. My mate wielded his on the battlefield, protecting us all. I wove mine into my words, into my undying will to free the females of the realm.
Together, we were devious ruin, wicked victory.
Together, we were unstoppable.
“Have I won you over today?” he murmured darkly, his tone like rocks rolling down the side of the mountains that surrounded us.
The heat pooling between my thighs offered a resounding yes.
“Not only for today. But always.” I reached out and ran my nails through his beard. “Thank you.”
Those two words shattered the glass behind which he imprisoned his self-control. He captured my waist, pressing his sweat-soaked body against mine. His grip was with the ferocity of a male starved. He claimed my mouth with hot passion. I kissed him back, nipping his lower lip with my teeth, twisting my tongue with his, inhaling the spicy, masculine scent of him.
“Take me here,” I begged him down our mental connection. Breaking apart from him, even for a second, would destroy me.
Shadows exploded from his hands, weaving beneath our clothes and ripping them from our bodies. Before my ass hit the wood again, Rokath dragged me to the edge of it. In one powerful thrust, he seated himself to the hilt.
The thick, hard length of him touched every nerve inside me. Our bodies one, we moved together. Eyes locked, we became a singular being. Minds wide open, the place where I began and Rokath ended disappeared.
The world around us was no more.
All time, all words, all of everything disappeared until it was only he and I.
One infinite loop.
One perfect circle.
One endless moment.
He slid against that spot deep inside me, eased by how thoroughly I soaked his cock. My lashes fluttered against my cheekbones before a wordless nudge had me opening my eyes.
My mate loved to see the pleasure he delivered me.
Our breaths became a single tide, rising and retreating with each relentless thrust. My mouth popped open as he buried himself to the hilt. Ragged air dragged against my lungs, the sound matched by his own jagged breathing.
The tattoos decorating the hard muscles of his torso danced as we did, the blooming roses digging into the skulls nestled between them. I gripped his shoulders, trying to find a semblance of balance as his thrusts grew more forceful. Blood-soaked bones scattered as the table smacked against the wall. The sound was nothing more than a distant echo of what no longer existed.
“Mine.”
“Yours.”
His arms caged me against his body. The heavy pound of his heart matched the pace of my own. I flattened my palm over his chest, desperate to feel the full force of the organ that beat only for me.
Rokath shifted his grip to mirror my position. Dark, smoky shadows leaked from beneath our palms. Ghosting across our skin, they wrapped us in a veiled shroud. Hiding us from what lay beyond. Disavowing any intrusion on this divine moment.
The two magics tangled, undulating together like they were meant to be a singular entity.
Rokath groaned, long, low, deep, primal, as my core clenched over his cock. “Come for me, mate. Shatter into a thousand tiny shards only I can piece back together.”
My breath stuttered as ecstasy flooded my veins. I was so, so close.
“Show me how much you appreciate me killing him. The way I tortured him for you.”
I gripped him harder, arching my back into him. “The way you protected me.”
“I will always protect you, mate. You are the most precious thing in all the worlds to me. Nothing can ever replace you. You are the only person who understands me. The only person who sees me. The only person I want to see me. I do not have to hide from you. I am in constant awe of you and the powerful leader you have blossomed into being.”
Tears welled in my eyes. Carved a love-guided path down my cheeks.
“You and I are anything but ordinary. Together? We’re legendary. Infinite. They’ll speak of us long after we have moved onto new worlds together.”
Our hearts pounded into the scars we’d carved into one another’s wrists, the constant reminder of who we were and who we belonged to.
“I love you, Rokath.”
He throbbed inside me, dragging me closer to the edge of bliss.
“I love you, Assyria.”
The vehemence to his profession fractured me into a thousand shimmering splinters. A whimper tore from my lips as my orgasm blazed through me. Rokath’s hand slipped from my heart to the back of my head. He pulled my forehead against his, forcing me to focus only on him. “My mate. My perfect mate.”
His hips worked faster, harder, lifting me from the table with the force of his thrusts. My pleasure tumbled on and on, and I was utterly lost to it, lost in the burgundy swirls of his eyes.
“Made perfectly for me,” he rasped, movements becoming jerky. “Made just for me.”
“All yours,” I whimpered. Ecstasy crackled under my skin.
“All mine,” he growled, spearing deep inside me. I cried out, sensitive from how hard I’d shattered. But he only gripped me harder, muscles trembling as he spilled himself deep inside me. His groan—low, longing—made me want to come again.
The inky strands around us ceased their frantic swirl as we relinquished our stolen moment. Covered in sweat and blood that didn’t belong to us. Joined in the very threads of our beings.
Rokath captured my mouth in a bruising kiss. I fell into it, drowning in bliss. My center ached as he removed himself from me. My breath hitched as his fingers replaced his cock. “Sorry, I couldn’t pull out.” With a swipe through my center, he flung out combined arousal away. “Let’s get back to our room, and I’ll wash you.”
My body was boneless, limp, and utterly wrung out from the intensity of my orgasm. All I could do was nod. He brushed a kiss to my salty forehead, then handed me my clothes. I tugged them on, each movement a protest when sleep begged me to surrender to it.
“Do you want to walk?” he asked me, studying me with a smug, masculine smirk.
“I will forgo my independence this once if you can fly me,” I sighed, my legs trembling as I put weight on them.
He snorted, then threw me over his shoulder like a sack of grain. “Hey!” I protested, smacking his back. He grabbed our discarded armor, completely ignoring me as he walked us back through the dungeon, leaving Zaph’s body to rot.
The males on guard startled at the sight of us. A possessive growl vibrated in Rokath’s throat, and they quickly averted their gazes.
The moment we emerged into the late afternoon sun, his mighty wings sprung from his back. Not wanting to die, I shuffled around so I clung to his torso like a child. And then we were airborne, soaring toward the top of the primary building.
I let him carry me all the way to our room, into the bathing chamber, and strip me again, savoring the feeling of utter surrender, utter trust, in my mate.
One day, they’d sing of us. Our victory. Our love. They’d worship us like the Fates themselves.
As they should. Because we were transcendent.
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