Page 71 of Nocte

“You’re here,” she says, pulling herself upright slowly, as if afraid to shatter the moment. Wake up in a nightmare, back in that cold, dank crypt. Warily, she stretches out her limbs. Looks back at me.

Smiles.

I glare. She smiles. I glower. She smiles. Nothing I do can shake that expression: pink plump lips, upturned, bringing light to those fucking dark eyes. At least until I snatch her wrist. Pull her down to me where she belongs. Beneath me where she belongs.

Her body is healed, so when she shudders as I grip her waist it isn’t out of pain. When she bites her lower lip to trap a sound low in her throat, it isn’t one of agony.

Fuck her. I’ve thought about killing her with these very hands. I will kill her…

In spite of that fact, she lurches into these fingertips. Greedily, she chases my touch. Lets me peel the clothing from her flesh and gape and stare.

Because I own it, every inch. I own her, I do…

I don’t.

She inhales and I go still, hand on her thigh, mouth near her throat. I know that sound. That noise.

Uncertainty. Regret.

“I gave you what you wanted,” she says, her voice small. Pathetic. Sad? “I know you owe me nothing. I don’t have anything else to bargain with. But…”

She lets that word hang in the air. But. But. It seems as though she has nothing left, yet she’s willing to ask for more. To get me to stay. Desperation is evident in those dark eyes—desperation I created.

In spite of myself, I grind my teeth. Drive my fangs into my own flesh. Curse her.

Damn her. Fuck her.

Grabbing her hair, I make her face me to better interpret the look in those eyes.

Shame. She paid me her due. She gave me all she had. There is nothing left for me to take. She thinks the debt incurred is hers alone.

Stupid fae. Silly, stupid fae.

I press my fangs into her throat, almost biting. Not quite.

“I want more,” I tell her. More. More of my mouth on her skin. More of her heat at my fingertips. “You haven’t given me everything. Not yet.”

Another valuable prize is locked inside that pretty head. In search of it, my hand ghosts over that slender belly, plunging between those thighs. She’s bare there, with nothing to shield her from the finger I slip inside her. As she quakes at the intrusion, I add another. Another.

Yet I still want more.

A sound rips from her throat, in between a moan and a gasp. She doesn’t understand. Considers the sex a one-time affair. Satisfied with having had her once, I should demand her blood next. Make her pay me day by day. Her body. Then her skin. Then her eyes. Blood. Bones. Soul.

I’ll chew all of her up and swallow every last bit whole.

However, I’m not interested in sex alone. I need the one power she possesses—the ability to dispel Cassius. I can hear him still, gnawing away on my psyche.

Come back to me, Caspian! Caspian! COME TO ME?—

“Say my name,” I tell her, once she’s wet. A slavish, stupid fool, I’ve given her more than I’ve taken already. Using my thumb, I tap the bundle of nerves relied on by women to find pleasure. Her lips are bitten and her eyes are wild as she writhes. Her arousal is evident, dripping onto my fingers and the sheets beneath. “Say my name. Say it!”

She inhales raggedly, her gaze unfocused.

More convincing is necessary to entice her to make this trade. So I free my cock and thrust inside her.There.Her head falls back and her fingers fly to my shoulders, pulling tight. Pulling me close. Closer still. She’s begging for destruction, grinding her hips into mine.

But she lied, the stupid, devious little fae.

She has what I want, but she refuses to give it. Not until I fuck her hard. Pin her body to the thin mattress as if I aim to shove her through it. Push us both through it.