Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

Tarek

Present Day

“Well, this is great, just great.” It’s been an hour since Danu visited, and while Lilith is doing a stellar job of avoiding the need she has to both have sex with me and drink me dry, I don’t really have high hopes. “So, can you at least tell me your story before you murder me?”

“No,” she whispers, hanging her head in her hands. “You probably know all the gory details anyway. I’m one of the goddesses she controls to keep Discord,”—she uses air quotes—”from being released again. Balance has to remain the same. One slip of the scale to the wrong side, and disaster strikes. I’m sure Anubis knows all about it.”

I’m instantly annoyed. “Disaster always teeters toward us, every second of every day. Why is now different?”

She smiles down at her hands. “You don’t know your origins, do you?”

“Well, I clearly don’t have a really attractive werewolf to feed off of and gain power from, so I can remember. All I know is that I came to live in Scotland when I was around eight. Everything before that is somewhat of a blur, a nice dream, maybe a nightmare. There was fire, darkness, and a small girl. And then Mason, my brother. That’s all I remember. Maybe that’s for a reason.”

She nods as if she understands. How could anyone possibly? “Maybe it’s best that way before you die—to not remember the things you should.”

“I mean…” I try to laugh it off. “I’d like to at least remember all the sex we’re going to have, but I’m leaning more toward I’ll enjoy it in the moment, then go night night.”

She smiles. It’s so pretty, I really do want to lean in. But I wait for her to make the move first.

I’m no hero.

Maybe this is why I never saw my end. Ha, laughable that my end would come at the hands of the woman who started it all.

Lilith.

I should have done better math on that one and figured it out, but all I saw were her injuries, and all I felt was the need to save. I should have known someone that pretty, who fed off an immortal, was bad news.

Being saved isn’t something to take lightly. I was saved as a child. Protected. And I swore I would always do the same, no matter what.

I wonder what Mason will do without me?

Timber, Cassius, Alex, Stephanie, Genesis…Horus, so many family members. And now this is how I go.

I sit up as best I can while being chained. The crazy goddess is gone but probably not too far away since she’s extremely eager to get some blood in her.

“Let me guess…” I clear my throat. “Something about my blood mixed with what’s inside you will give her a supercharge, and the more she does it over the years, the more powerful she gets. The more she’s able to break her curse of having to look after the Fallen Goddesses—aka you—and the closer she gets to taking over all the divine power the Creator so generously stripped from her to limit her control of Their Creation… Am I close?”

“You’re practically on fire.” She folds her hands.

“And have you ever resisted?” I ask.

Slowly, she shakes her head. “No. I don’t remember ever saying no to temptation, not in the last thousands of years. It is, after all, what I’m known for.”

“And I think my life is hard sometimes.” I try to smile, but it falls flat. I never really had to face my death, never really even thought about it. “Will I at least orgasm? Because if I get no orgasm, I feel like that’s a no on this deal.”

She actually laughs and covers her mouth with her hand. “Don’t be funny right now. This sucks.”

“Me thinks you do all the sucking.”

“Me thinks you do all the moaning,” she snaps right back. Our eyes meet, and I understand why she never says no. Because I don’t want to say no either.

I want to say yes a million times. I want to consume her. I’m so hard from looking at her, I don’t understand what’s going on with my own body.

Her eyes swirl with gold around her pupils.

She leans down, then jerks back the minute I strain toward her, my mouth so eager for hers that it’s all-consuming.

I have no choice but to allow it to happen, and she has no choice but to do it. This is the part of the story where the hero normally explains to the villain that everyone always has a choice, but I don’t really see a way out of this. And because of my weakened state, all I can do is watch as she leans over my body with red eyes.

“Remember,” I point out, straining toward her scent. God, it smells good. Like fresh rain and apples—like the earth. Like the Garden itself. “Orgasm or no deal.”

She leans down and licks my neck, her tongue searing hot before she whispers in my ear.

“I was prideful to think I could ever resist you.”

“I was prideful to assume I would want you to,” I say honestly, body shuddering under her touch. She jumps on me and then straddles me. In one instant, she jerks my jeans completely down my body, moving so she can pull them off, all before straddling me again. I wince at the glorious pain of need, the wanting.

“Do it now. Do it,” I whisper. I can’t see straight, but I can feel. Hell, I can feel everything down to my core. My fangs elongate, my body telling me I want to mark her with my blood and scent, too. Maybe she’d enjoy the werewolf bite. But we typically don’t just go around biting people who aren’t our mates, just in case we accidentally make a mistake and claim out of lust.

I will claim her before I die.

Then again, it’s like she’s claiming me—she is claiming me.

She bites down on my neck. I let out a roar, my body bucking under hers. “Lilith!”

“Yours.” She pulls back. My blood drips down her chin before she kisses me. I taste myself on her, I also taste her and lose control as my hips jerk. She’s not giving me what I want. And it might kill me.

Lilith shakes her head and pulls back as if she’s trying to regain some semblance of control. “If you keep moving, this will be over.”

“If I don’t, I might die,” I say through clenched teeth. “Grab me.”

Her eyes glaze over and turn so dark red they’re nearly black. “Tarek—”

“Take what you need.” I‘m sweating now. “And give me what I’m owed for being tied to a fucking bed, getting fucked to death. At least give me—”

She reaches for my cock and squeezes. “This? Is this what you need?”

“More.” I bite down on my lip, tasting my own blood. “More!”

She leans back and releases me with a scream before jumping off me and jerking off every inch of clothing she still has on, tossing them to the floor. She gets back on top of me and, without any warning whatsoever…

We’re joined.

Mating.

One.

She moves against me so painfully slow that when I meet her thrust for thrust, it’s all I can do to continue slowly. I didn’t know you could be tortured this way.

“I need to be deeper.” My voice is already going hoarse.

A low chuckle slips past her lips as she moves over me. “Silly werewolf, did you think it would only be one time?”

She slams her mouth back down on mine, and our tongues tangle, fighting for dominance. I’m so used to having that, but she owns me. She uses me in a way I welcome being used.

Fangs clash, and blood mixes on skin as she grips my biceps for leverage and pushes her body so hard onto mine that I get exactly what I ask for.

A scream bursts past her lips as she takes more blood, and then I see it. I see it all: the beginning of the Earth, her running through the Garden with a man by her side. I see her need to be free of the restraints of being the first, and her thirst as she walks up to the forbidden and stares.

“Why not us?”

“We don’t ask those questions,” he said, reaching for her hand. “We have our purpose, just like the trees, like the apples. We have our will. But we do not ask what we should not know, Lilith. Come.”

He pulled her back against another tree and started kissing her, but the minute she tried to take control, he wouldn’t allow it. He wanted to cater to her, serve her, but I felt her thoughts.

What about what I want? What about me catering to you? Why can we not be equals? Why are we created differently?

“I hear your thoughts.” He shook his head. “They are not necessary.”

Rage filled her. She didn’t understand what it was until it was too late. Until she walked away from him and hid in the shadows. Then she looked up and said, “I think you made me wrong.”

A whisper descended from the air. “I made you right, and you always have a choice in whether you stay or go. Know I will never keep you where you do not want to be. I love my Creations too much.”

A tear slid down her cheek. “I’m broken. I want things I should not want.”

“So, you will leave him? The first of them? You will leave perfection because you want?” the voice asked.

“What other choice do I really have?” She sighed and stood. “I’m not good enough for this. I question too much.” She walked over to the tree, grabbed an apple, and took a bite. It was gold and massive. And then she saw too much.

“They forbade it.” A man walked up to her. He was in golden armor and had a sword in his hand, ready to strike. “Take it with you. Take your curse and roam the Earth created so freely for you. When the time comes, you’ll be given a choice again. This time, I hope it isn’t a curse you choose…but life. And a future.

“Two days every year, you’ll awaken. The rest of the time, you’ll think things are normal. I see Discord in you, Lilith. And because you are the first to choose, you owe what is due and must pay for it in blood.”

He sliced a symbol into her skin with his fingernail. “Now. Walk.”

Panting, I look up at her. I’m still stuck in a sex-starved fever dream as she moves wildly over me, the pain of no release hitting me deeply, down to the bone.

“I saw—”

“Ignore that,” she rasps and digs her fingernails into my chest. “And serve me.”

So, I do.

I ignore it all.

And I fully give in to the feeling of being inside her, of truly knowing her. And in that moment...my future is even more clear.

It’s her.

My mate.

And I will die before I ever get to claim her.

I scream as my release hits, over and over again. She jumps off me, high off immortal blood, then comes back, chest heaving. Her breasts are so perfect I jerk against the handcuffs, but I’m too weak and about to get weaker.

She climbs back onto me again and lowers herself. “Now, I’ll take you rougher.”

My eyes roll to the back of my head as I stupidly think to myself, so much for a break for round two .

The rest of the day flies by in a flash.

I lose track of how many times she says, “again.” I’m bleeding everywhere, but all I can think is, wow, she’s really pretty .