Page 127 of Serpentine

BRAXTON

Aella is sobbing and fighting me the entire way down to the basement. I saw red when she walked into the shop on her own two feet, not injured, unaware of what had been going on in my world. Unaffected.

“Braxton!” she shrieks when I drop her onto the bench. I flip her onto her stomach and begin tying her down. But when I get to her hands, bending over to where my face is so near hers, too close to hers, I pause. I can’t help it. I can’t help but feel the pull she has over me.

It’s as if I’ve been living in hell for days, and she’s Persephone, who has come to bring new life to my underworld. She’s come to release me from misery, and I want to let her. I want to give over to her, sink into her.

But I can’t. She left me. She abandoned me when it mattered most; I can’t overlook that.

“Brax,” she whines as I hover near her face, my cock hardening by the second. “I’m so sorry.” Her whispered words have me closing my eyes, letting them sink into me.

But they’re not enough.

“I love you,” she says, her breath fanning over me as she leans as close as possible.

My logical brain says someone who loved me wouldn’t have done what she did. Wouldn’t have left me alone in that doctor’s office. Wouldn’t have had Miles on his bike in the pouring rain to plead with her to return. We fucking need her.

She’s become the goddamn sun we rotate around, and part of me wonders if she’s realized the same. Suppose she’s coming into her power and is learning how to wield it. The other half of me wonders if she’s been lying this entire time.

If she’s been a wolf in sheep’s clothing, luring us to our eventual doom with her pretty words and chaste touches.

“You don’t love either of us,” I grit out. When my eyes open, I take in the pain etched into her face. It’s true and deep, and I can’t turn away. “You wouldn’t have left me if you did.”

“I can explain. Please,” she begs, and I straighten up, moving behind her to rip open her leggings to let her supple ass fall out of them.

For a moment, I pretend the world is right. That she hadn’t done me wrong. Leaning down, I press my cheek into her ass, rubbing over the planes of her silky skin with my face, breathing her in. I can smell her arousal as one can smell the rain on the thickening air before a storm, and it makes me painfully hard behind my jeans.

Turning my face, I open my mouth wide and let my teeth sink into the flesh of her right ass cheek. Deep. Until I taste blood filling my mouth.

Her cry is half pained and half a moan. This is the part of her that makes her think she loves us. The part who comes alive when she’s with us. But she wouldn’t have left me. I keep reminding myself to stay grounded because as she presses back into my face, her cloth-covered pussy brushes my face, and I nearly lose all self-control. My hand itches to reach up and shove her thong aside, and my tongue aches to taste her.

Because one taste of her will make the world right again.

Unfortunately, she can’t be given a reward. So instead, I angle my head to the side and let my teeth sink through the cloth surrounding her cunt, my bite eliciting noises from her I’ve never heard from another human being before. It feeds the dark side of me.

When I stand back up, I can’t help but watch her writhe. Even when there’s nothing to grind against for friction, she still moves back and forth, praying I’ll give her what she needs.

But I won’t.

Because she left me wanton.

“You left me. I needed you.” I get out, my hand gripping my cock and tugging. I’m incapable of stopping, either. I need it. I have to.

“I didn’t mean to. I forgot about the appointment, Brax. Please, I’m so sorry. It was too much. It was all too fucking much!”

That stops my tugs, and my arms fall to my sides. “We told you that this life wasn’t for everyone. We fucking warned you! You made us think you wanted this. Wanted us!”

I lose myself, stepping forward and connecting my hand with her ass as hard as I can. The ripples of her cry and the sting on my hand move through me like a Band-Aid to my fucking battered soul. It dampens the overstimulation writhing beneath my skin. Because pain overrides all else, it always has been that way for me. It’s why I crave it when I’m lost.

Now, I’m surely and truly lost.

“I want you! Fuck, I want you both so much,” she whimpers, and the tone of her voice makes me close my eyes and moan. Her words have so much truth; I don’t feel otherwise. But yet, it makes little sense. Why did she fucking leave? Why did she stay away?

Even though I tried to stay calm for Miles, I knew deep down something was wrong. I just thought she needed time, as any sane person would after being thrust into the world where Miles and I lived.

“Then why?” I ask, backhanding her left ass cheek and watching the flesh dance for me as the sting invades my body from the strike.

“Your mother is alive!” she screams out, and I hear when she breaks into tears.