Текст книги "Darkest distiny"

Автор книги: Pepper winters

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Chapter Fifty

“LUCIEN?” I INCHED MY WAY AROUND HIS door, entering the sprawling quarters that he hardly ever left. “Lucien?” No signs of him as I drifted forward, glancing at all his usual spots. Not on the window seat, in the courtyard, in the wingback by the fireplace—

“You’re late.”

“God, stop doing that!” I jumped backward as he popped up from the couch. Pressing a hand to my racing heart, I scowled. “You have got to give me a heads-up from now on.”

“Why should I? When it’s so easy to scare you?” Swinging his legs to the floor from where he’d been reclining, he stood and prowled toward me. “I like having the power to make you react.”

I stilled.

Something about the way he said that hinted he wasn’t talking about making me jump.

My mouth went dry as my body sparked alive.

I’d dreamed about him last night.

Of him touching me when I was actually awake. Of touching him back—

“You’re looking at me again,” he clipped, his tone sharp.

“I am.” I nodded, blatantly drinking my fill.

Black trousers, black shirt, but no black coat today. His thick black hair fell rebelliously over his forehead, his cheekbones stark as if he didn’t have enough to eat or was being eaten alive by pain.

The silver disc glinted through the open neckline of his shirt, making him seem both dangerous and trapped, restrained by a leash and feral because of it.

No one had the right to be that good looking. No one should affect my entire soul just by existing.

“If you’re done,” he muttered. “You have a busy day ahead of you.”

“I do?”

He nodded.

“You know...working me so hard might make me sick.” I did my best to stop being so infatuated by him. “And then where will you be? You’ll have to look after me instead of me looking after you.”

“You want me to look after you?”

My hackles rose at how offensive he seemed to find that thought. “Calm down. I’m not asking you to be responsible for me.”

“Responsible for you.” He scowled and leaned forward. “You do know what a loaded phrase that is in my culture, right?”

“No.” I swallowed hard. “What does it mean?”

He smirked just a little. “Asking me to be responsible for you is as blatant as offering yourself to me...for life.”

“I-It is?”

“It’s a clear emotional plea saying I’ve ruined you for all others and you can’t survive unless I claim you.”

“But...” My headache broke through the miraculous properties of his blood and throbbed. “I didn’t ask you to be responsible for me.”

“Pity.” He exhaled. “I might have said yes.”

I almost dropped dead on the carpet. “Wait. You would?”

He flinched as if only just realising where this conversation had gone. Shutters came down over his eyes as he stepped back and cleared his throat. “I don’t have time for this. We need to—”

“Thank you, by the way.” I cut him off, not willing to let the magic of this moment fade. “Thank you for saving me yesterday. Thank you for taking away my pain. And thank you for putting me in a different pavilion so I wouldn’t have to see the aftermath.”

His jaw tightened as if uneasy with my gratitude. “You’re welcome.” His gaze held mine before straying over my mouth, neck, and settling on my breasts.

Fire flooded me, arrowing between my legs.

God, how did he do it?

How was he the only man in the entire world able to turn me on with a single look?

Trembling a little, my hand went to what he stared at, resting over the swell above my heart. “Did you...did you do anything else while healing me?”

He froze.

Every muscle in his body locked as if I’d struck him. “Excuse me?”

The tendons in his throat stood out as if he choked on guilt and denial. His jaw worked, refusing to confess.

The air between us burned.

I wanted to tell him what Laura had seen. I wanted to see his reaction if I told him I knew he’d kissed me, fondled me...that he could do it again if he wanted.

But my frustrating condition broke through the numbing quality of his blood, steadily building a migraine.

The air continued to smoulder and smoke, becoming unbearably tense—

“You were unconscious.” Staggering backward, he sucked in a tattered breath. “I helped you, that’s all.” Sweat glimmered on his hairline. “I didn’t—”

A soft beep.

A flash of red.

He clutched his chest as his system activated awful punishment, just because he’d felt something. His hand landed over his heart, clawing at the piece of metal.

I dashed forward—

He flung up his other hand, snarling like Whisper. “Stay away from me. I can’t be close—” He broke off with a hiss, crashing against the back of the couch as pain arced through him.

Completely ignoring him, I closed the distance between us and planted my palm over his on that nasty device. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’ve got you.”

He froze.

Our eyes locked.

The way he stared at me—as if he wanted to kill me and kiss me all at once. The way his teeth ground together and chest rose and fell beneath my hand.

For a moment, the world felt far, far too small.

Just him and me and nothing else.

But then he slid his hand from beneath mine and pushed me back.

Something wrenched inside me, but I didn’t fight him.

Awkwardness fell as he cleared his throat. “I feel better.”

I didn’t know if it was from me touching him or if his pulse had calmed far quicker than mine, but I’d already asked far too much of my stress-phobic system to tolerate.

I grew a little dizzy.

Meagre sunlight came through the windows, glinting on a faint scar across his chin. I latched onto it, doing my best to stay upright.

“How did you get that scar?”

His eyebrows shot up. “What?”

I blushed and dropped my gaze. “Sorry, I-I wasn’t studying you. I just...I’m feeling a little unstable and trying to distract myself.”

He didn’t move for the longest time before he cleared his throat and ran his finger over the silvery line. “I think it was from one of the first times the vitalsync core knocked me out. I bashed into a table on the way down.”

My heart fisted that he’d given me a tiny piece of his past. “Was anyone there to patch you up?”

“What do you think?”

I think he’d lived an incredibly lonely, tragically horrible life and even with all the blood staining his hands, I couldn’t find it in me to judge.

“How old were you?”

“Who cares?” He shrugged and broke into a walk. I accepted that was the end of his willingness, but he added quietly, “Ten, eleven? It’s not important. Come. We’ve wasted enough time as it is.”

I followed him, full of pity for the young boy he’d been and the savage man he’d become.

“What do you need me to clean today?”

“You’re not cleaning.”

“I’m not?”

He didn’t reply.

“Where are we going?” I went despite my questions, rather well trained at this point to fulfil his commands.

He didn’t speak until he’d led me into his bedroom and turned to face me. “It’s time for another lesson.”

My stomach dropped. “What lesson?”

Crossing his arms, he ignored me. “Did you bring the knife I gave you?”

My temples throbbed with sharper pain. “No.”

“Where is it?”

“Back in my—” I cut myself off. “In the pavilion I used to live in.”

“Ah.” He nodded, both of us remembering the corpses and blood.

I braced myself for him to tell me to go collect it. To step over the bodies and bring back a dagger I had no intention of using, but he merely reached into his back waistband and pulled out the very knife he’d used to kill yesterday.

White noise roared in my ears.

Holding it flat on his palm, he offered it to me. “Take it.”

I backed up instead. “I’m good. Thanks.”

He exhaled, slow and frustrated. “I said, take it.”

“Why?”

“Because I told you to.”

“But...” I swallowed hard as my anxiety ramped up. “You’ve already shown me where the best places are to strike someone. That’s enough.”

His hand shook a little, offering up the dagger. “Once is not enough. I doubt you’ve obeyed me and practiced so...you’re practicing. Right now.”

“But—”

He shot forward, grabbed my wrist, and slapped the wooden hilt into my grip. His large, hot hand wrapped around mine, folding my fingers tight around it, not letting go.

His closeness, his harshness—it made the air spark and blood burn.

I shivered, unable to hide my reaction.

“Stop shaking,” he growled, his voice slipping beneath the black dress I’d borrowed from Evelyn’s wardrobe.

Goosebumps shot down my spine because apparently, I was crazy and infected with need I could no longer control.

Trying to get free, I forced a laugh. “I get it. I get it. I know how to hold a knife.”

His jaw clenched as he held me tighter.

I held my breath, needing him to let me go before I did something stupid.

With a soft groan, he moved before I could react.

His other hand landed on my hipbone, pivoting me and yanking me back so my spine slammed to his front. The spin left the world lopsided—his body steadying mine as firmly as a brick wall.

Lydia flashed into my head.

This was how he’d grabbed her yesterday. How he’d held her as he killed her.

“W-Wait—” I strained in his hold as his arm snaked around my middle, jerking me harder against him, ensuring I felt every inch of him. Every powerful, masculine, hard as rock inch.

I went absolutely still.

He...was affected.

Same as me.

I wasn’t alone in this madness.

Wasn’t drowning in a sea of need alone.

His chest moved against my back, his nose dropping to nuzzle my hair, and his hips...they twitched against my lower back, pressing unmistakable arousal against me.

My heart went berserk.

My pulse drenched my sensitive system with nervousness and need and pain.

I needed to run.

To get far, far away from him before I either collapsed or did something that would probably get me killed.

His hand flexed around mine on the knife as his hips rocked again, his arm slipping down my waist to lock at the base of my belly, holding me rigid. His fingers spread over my hipbone, trapping me as if he couldn’t bear the thought of letting me go.

A soft moan escaped me as his nose pushed my loose hair aside, grazing along my neck.

His bicep bunched against the side of my breast as he pulled me even tighter, fusing us together. The closeness knocked the air from my lungs. His breath on my skin, tattered and shallow.

My knees went weak as Whisper suddenly appeared through the door. The panther froze mid-step, his ears flattening as he glowered at both of us plastered into one. Prowling forward, he sniffed us, sneezed at whatever pheromones we were releasing, then stalked to Lucien’s bed and flopped down.

His arrival helped break the spell just enough for me to squeak. “W-What are you doing?”

Lucien’s fingers wrapped tighter over mine, bruising my palm on the dagger’s hilt.

“Teaching you valuable life lessons,” he breathed, rough and guttural.

Lessons in carnal pleasures?

Yes, please.

My mind exploded with images of him slamming me against a wall and spinning me around. Of him pressing his hips against my front instead of my back. Of him hoisting me up so I could wrap my legs around him and rock against that impressive—

“I told you the other day,” he groaned, his voice rough and intimate in my ear. “If you’re going to kill someone...the throat is the easiest and most certain.” His mouth slid across the shell of my ear, sending an electrical shock right down my spine.

Guiding the knife and my hand, he pressed the tip against my larynx.

I shuddered, ridiculously turned on considering the subject matter.

“You don’t need much strength. You can cause enough damage for them to bleed out even if you don’t manage to kill them outright.” His body curved over mine, his hips pressing against my back again.

The quick hitch of his inhale made his lips brush my ear. The scent of him—clean and sharp, faintly citrus and that lingering bite of metal.

A recipe that shouldn’t affect me yet filled me with impossible longing.

His voice turned thick as he guided my hand and the dagger down the hollow of my throat, down and down, following the swell of my left breast.

The tip pressed against the fabric of my dress but didn’t puncture it. Didn’t do anything apart from deliver the softest, wickedest kiss, following the rapid rise and fall of my breath.

I turned hot. Dizzy. Achy.

Part fear, part pain, part something else that left me raw and trembly and very, very hungry.

My fingers squirmed beneath his, trying to get free. The knife thrummed between us, a conduit for all our desire.

“Stop,” I whispered, needing air, needing my heart back. “You’ve already shown me. Let me go.”

His hand twitched as if to obey but then his arm swept up the length of my body. His palm skated over my skin, deliberately, possessively cupping my breast.

I jolted in his hold.

My eyes snapped closed.

He grunted as if touching that part of me—straying past his rules never to touch a woman—physically hurt him.

The softest beep from the piece of metal on his chest. A hiss of air between his teeth as his pain magnified. But his hand didn’t loosen, it tightened. Kneading me as if he couldn’t stop himself.

“You want me to admit it?” he murmured against my ear. “Admit that I touched you here last night?” His thumb brushed over my nipple, slow and deliberate. “I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t touch you now. But if this all goes spectacularly wrong then...I don’t want to die without knowing what you feel like.” His hand flexed, possessive and hot. “Are you shaking because you’re afraid or...” His mouth brushed my ear again. “Because you’re as fucked up as I am?”

He was going to knock me unconscious again.

He was going to murder me with a—

“If you’re not going to talk, then I’m going to take what I want,” he groaned. “Your silence is my permission unless you say otherwise.”

A full body shudder volted through me as his hand dropped from my breast and trailed like fireworks down my body. Down and down. Lower and lower.

I arched on my tiptoes, pressing into him, giving him all my balance as my world turned shadowy and shivery and sinful.

I tried to speak.

To ask what he planned on doing, but I lost the ability of speech as his fingers landed over my core and gathered the fabric of my dress.

Each rock of his wrist as he bunched it higher and higher threatened to brush against the very place I needed, needed, needed.

I moaned as the heel of his palm pressed down, gathering the final hem and dipping his hand beneath.

“Fuck, you’re as hot as I am under here.” I didn’t recognise his voice anymore. Gruff and smoky, black as the devil.

I didn’t just tremble, I quaked.

I clutched the knife he forced me to hold—his hand still tight around mine, anchoring us together as he sucked in a breath. He brought my hand with his, wrapping his arm around me and binding me at the same time, the knife glinting in our grip.

His shoulder dipped down. He curled over me. A soft curse caressed my ear as he groaned, “I’d ask you to teach me what to do but...we’re running out of time.” Pressing his forehead to my temple, he added, “If we survive past today, we’ll practice.”

And then his hand cupped between my legs.

Firmly. Fiercely. Hot and heavy and claiming.

I convulsed.

His hips rocked into my back, grinding his arousal against me. “Fuck.”

His unnatural body heat soaked into me as a soft beep came from his chest. He staggered a little but spread his legs, binding me to him as if I could take away his pain.

My mouth dropped wide as his fingers feathered to my clit and pressed down.

Three of them. Flat and determined and strong. He rubbed me. Once, twice. His touch slipped a little lower, giving me the entire length of his fingers while the tips strayed mind-breakingly close to slipping inside me.

If only I wasn’t wearing underwear.

If only I’d known he’d choose today to break and—

“Oh God.” I clenched as he found that perfect, perfect spot.

He breathed heavily against my ear, not speaking, entirely focused on where his fingers were.

He rubbed me. Rhythmically. Punishingly.

All those days, all those weeks—I didn’t stand a chance.

I detonated.

The sharpest, quickest orgasm tore through my body, releasing in savagely clenching waves.

His teeth sank into my neck from behind as he hooked his fingers around me, almost pulling me off the floor as if he wanted to feel every wave, every throb, every quiver, quake, and shudder.

I cried out as it kept going, bands after bands of pure, piercing pleasure, soaking into his hand.

He captured all of it, not letting me go.

And when it was finally over, he released me slowly, softly, far more gently than I thought he was capable of. Removing his hand, my dress tumbled down, and he pressed his slightly damp palm against my lower belly, pulling me back so I could feel every ridge, every throbbing inch of him.

I waited for his command to return the favour.

I burned to return the favour, but the same hand that’d shattered me slowly skated up my body, over my breasts, and settled around my neck.

He squeezed just a little, his voice torn and tattered. “Have you paid attention how to kill or...” He pressed his forehead to my shoulder for a moment, riding out whatever agony or lust still haunted him. “Do I need to teach you again?”

He expected me to talk after this?

To pretend like he hadn’t just had sex with me without taking my clothes off?

He was lucky I was still conscious. Lucky that the intensity of what he made me feel was stronger than the headache pounding at my skull.

“Well?” His fingers loosened a little, his thumb caressing me gently.

He sent yet more heat skittering through my blood.

Another drop and I’d spontaneously combust or come again...both were as likely as the other at this point.

Licking my lips, I begged my body to behave as I shoved my free hand behind me, burrowing it between our tightly pressed bodies.

He went rigid. “Wait...what are you—ghh.”

He jackknifed into me as I pressed my palm against his throbbing length.

My heart almost flew out of my chest as my vision danced with rainbows.

I’d never touched a man like this before.

Never known how hard he’d be or how ridiculously hot.

The position was awkward, my technique inexperienced, but I just copied what he’d given me. I learned his lesson because I was a diligent little student and squeezed him firmly, possessively, no hesitation or second guessing.

I delivered the sort of mind-stealing pressure I’d wanted.

I must’ve gotten it right because he almost dropped to the ground.

“Fuck,” he grunted. “Fuck me, that feels—”

His legs buckled as I fisted him the best I could.

He marched me forward until I slammed against the wall. He didn’t bother spinning me around. Didn’t stop me as his hips drove into my hand. The dagger clattered to the floor as his hand spasmed around mine, letting me go to wrap both arms around me, burrowing his forehead into my shoulder.

I had no control as he thrust against my palm.

No way to stop him as he used me for a release.

I relished in the loss of his control as he broke.

I flushed with power and pride and a dangerous amount of desperation.

And when he came, he roared as loud as Whisper.

He shuddered and jerked. His entire body wracking with convulsions as if he didn’t just come but was reborn.

Neither of us said a word as we stayed panting and plastered together against the wall.

I lost track of time as we fought our own agonies, suffering the aftershocks of pleasure.

Finally, sharpness turned to heaviness and the aftermath of our storm settled over us.

With a guttural groan, he pushed away, unwinding his arms from around me and raking both hands through his glossy black hair.

My knees pretended they were water, threatening to fold me to the floor as I turned to face him.

I choked on a breath as I met his stare.

All the air I couldn’t breathe before slammed into my lungs, making my vision grey, and the room spin. I needed to sit down. To put my head between my legs.

Never.

No one had ever made me feel the way he did.

I didn’t think it was even possible for someone to have such power over someone else’s nervous system. To conjure such pleasure. To annihilate my entire existence.

I froze as my mind latched onto that idea.

Wait.

Was that how I could help his pain and his blood helped mine?

Was it true that everyone had their perfect puzzle piece and once you found each other you became whole? Were we that fated that his body could cure mine and vice versa?

His throat worked as he swallowed hard. Wiping a hand over his mouth, he shook his head as if he couldn’t quite believe what we’d done.

With a soft growl, Whisper unwound from his spot and padded toward his master. Nudging Lucien gently, he sensed things I couldn’t see.

Lucien rested his hand on the giant cat, his shoulders sagging.

Were his pain levels unbearable again?

Was I wrong?

Had I made him worse instead of better?

“Go and clean up.” He arched his chin at the door. “We’re running out of time.”

He’d said that before.

What did he mean, we were running out of time?

Trapped in here we had nothing but time.

But before I could ask, he bared his teeth and ordered, “Go. I won’t ask again. Meet me in the blood-harvesting room.”

Before I could refuse, he stalked through his bedroom and vanished into his private bathroom.