Chapter 49

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

ZEVANDER

I n the Great Hall, Zevander patted Ravezio on the shoulder, as the other Letalisz headed toward the door to leave, but when the distant clamor of screams reached his ear, both of them froze and gave a quick glance to one another, before racing up the staircase.

They followed the sound down the corridor, coming to a stop before Maevyth’s room.

Zevander listened for a moment, and at the sound of another scream, he opened the door, just as Rykaia swung a pillow at Maevyth. She failed to connect, and Rykaia tottered backward before falling over the edge of the bed with a hard thunk .

His muscles lurched, but both women let out a laugh so intense, they wheezed.

“What in the gods’ shriveled balls is this?” Ravezio chuckled beside him, not bothering to hide his amusement when Zevander glanced his way.

Frowning, Zevander stepped inside the room. Objects drifted in front of his face, and he held out his hand to catch them in his palm. Feathers.

Maevyth fell to her knees on the mattress and peered over the edge at Rykaia. “Are you okay down there?”

Both girls screamed with laughter again and lazily rolled around, seemingly unaware of them standing at the doorway.

“Seems somebody got into something.” Ravezio pointed to the dresser, where a bottle of liquor sat.

Zevander strode toward it, swiped it up, and one sniff confirmed it was Ambrozhyr. The gods’ nectar. He dragged a hand down his face as he held it up to the light. The bottle was completely empty. “Fuck.” He’d enchanted the cork to keep Rykaia, in particular, away from the potent liquor that had a tendency to make her sneak away to the brothel.

Rykaia craned her neck back, and the moment she seemed to notice him, she snorted another obnoxious laugh. “We’re doomed, Maevyth. The fun governor has arrived, and he is not happy.”

Across from him, Ravezio snorted, then quickly cleared his throat, clearly desperate to keep from laughing. Thankfully, Zevander wore his mask to hide the biting of his tongue.

“I’m so tired now, Ry.” Maevyth squirmed and writhed on the bed. “These sheets are so … soft.” She lifted the hem of her dress, exposing long, slender legs that she rubbed against the sheets.

Fucking hells, the sight of her and that natural scent which drifted across the room tightened his muscles.

“She is going to be hurting soon,” Ravezio said. “If she’s never had Ambrozhyr, the first time is always the worst, and who in fucking hells knows what it’ll be like for a mortal. Someone will have to stay with her. Perhaps give her relief.”

The drink was known for its very enticing flavor, but that enticing flavor happened to be a powerful herb and aphrodisiac. For most Aethyrians, it elicited a strong attraction toward someone, or an urge to touch, or fuck, something. In a mortal? Zevander couldn’t even imagine what it’d do to her.

“She just needs sleep,” he said, wondering if her skin felt as soft and smooth as it looked, like the dreamy silk of the sheets crumpled around her legs. “She’ll be fine.”

Higher, her dress lifted, until her bare thighs were exposed, and Zevander felt the first twinge of need shoot straight to his groin.

Alongside him, Ravezio licked his lips, and the sight of his arousal for her had Zevander’s hands curling into tight fists at his sides. “Merciful gods, let me give her relief, if you refuse.”

“She’s mortal. Aren’t you afraid of whatever diseases she harbors?” he asked in a mocking tone.

“No.”

Zevander frowned back at him. “You so much as breathe across her neck, and I will take pleasure in skewering your skull before I set it aflame.”

Brows tight, Ravezio gave him a sidelong glance. “Easy, there. You skewer my skull, and you will suffer tremendous guilt for having murdered your only loyal friend.”

“That is a pathetic assumption.”

“If only it weren’t true.”

Rykaia let out a moan, and Zevander jerked his head toward her. “Help her to her room, and so help me gods, if you touch her–”

“You’ll skewer me. Yes, I’m aware.” The other Letalisz strode across the room and lifted Zevander’s sister into his arms. Despite the threat, Zevander knew Ravezio wouldn’t dare touch Rykaia, because if Zevander didn’t kill him, Torryn surely would.

Rykaia wrapped her arms around Ravezio’s neck and moaned again. “I think … I drank too much.”

“I think you’re right.” Ravezio said, as he carried her out of the room.

Zevander took in the state of the room. The feathers everywhere, the bed in total disarray. It occurred to him then that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard his sister laugh. A true laugh. Not in mocking, or anger, but genuine.

His gaze fell on Maevyth.

She rubbed the silky sheets against her thigh, her senses probably so intensely chaotic right then. He could feel the hunger, craving and desperation rolling off her like a wild tempest. A beautiful and dangerous storm that he longed to wind himself inside.

Eyes riveted on her, he closed the door and strode past the bed for the chair in the corner of the room, where he planned to sit and keep an eye on her. For selfish reasons, of course.

Still lost to her body’s needs, she didn’t seem to notice him at first, until her gaze lifted to his, and beneath the carnal lust swirled a pained plea. A cry for help.

His knees damned near buckled from that look.

He sank into the plush chair, his cock pushing against his trousers, as her long, slender legs tangled in the folds of black silk. Zevander gripped the arms of the chair, his body hard as iron, muscles tight and aching. Desperate to give her the release that would have her sleeping like a milk-glutted kitten through the night.

“Zevander?” The sound of his name on her lips in that pained, breathy tone had his fingers gouging the arms of the chair. “Please. Something’s wrong.”

Entirely wrong.

“It aches.” She swiped one of the pillows and pushed it between her legs. “It aches so badly.”

“It’ll pass,” he pathetically assuaged. It’d take hours to pass, unless she gave in to what her body wanted most right then.

She let out another moan, that needy, mewling sound slowly chipping away at his restraint.

A long, slumbering hunger stirred to life inside of him, a clawing in his guts that rejoiced in her suffering. The same vile creature that yearned to tie her to the bed, to deny her any relief, just as he’d been made to suffer. To show her just how utterly depraved he could be.

Take her . She belongs to no one else.

“Zevander?” Her voice, that sweet, angelic tone strummed the nerves in his brain, and he squeezed his eyes shut, forcing the unbidden thoughts back into their shadowy corner. “Please.”

A sweat had broken across her body, and she tugged at her bottom lip with her teeth.

He could’ve helped her. Could’ve easily made her climax, and some of the pain would’ve subsided as a result, but he refused to touch her in that state. He’d have much preferred her lucid and sober, hating him for the agony he longed to inflict on her. The sweet torment that would have her nails digging into his back, her teeth sinking into his flesh.

Enough of this, you masochistic bastard.

Still, his head tormented him with the visuals. Relentless images of her obnoxiously wet cunt welcoming every rung of his piercings. Warm and tight, squeezing them with each lazy thrust. The scratching and biting and pulling his hair. The greedy appetite for blood and sweat and the salt of her skin.

Fucking hell, the mere fantasy was enough to break him.

It was going to be a long and painful night. For both of them.

She rolled her hips against the padding wedged between her thighs, and gods be damned, Zevander had to look away. His body was so tight and coiled, it felt like he’d snap any moment. Damn Rykaia. Damn her for doing this.

Even with his head turned from her, he could hear Maevyth shifting against the sheets, the quiet agony vibrating in her throat. The need. So much need, his cock damned near punched through the laces of his trousers.

The first time he’d been given the liquor, during his first moon cycle, he was sixteen and at the mercy of General Loyce. He recalled the deep, cramping ache, and the intense need to fuck something. She’d bound his hands and legs, then tortured him for hours, teasing him while he writhed in pain. He’d have taken a whipping to his back over the agony of too much Ambrozhyr.

He screwed his eyes shut and willed those thoughts away, for fear of what they’d dredge inside him, before opening them on the girl.

In brisk and jerky snaps of movement, entirely unnatural, she managed to turn herself on the bed until her head was at the headboard. In the supine position, her body rose up from the mattress, somehow lifted into the air, and the sheets that covered her fell away, onto the bed below her.

Frowning, Zevander pushed up from his chair and slowly stalked toward the edge of the bed to find her eyes had rolled back, her body stiff as a plank and trembling, as if every muscle were contracted. Possessed by something. He circled around her, curious as to what powers had caused her to levitate. Certainly nothing he’d yet taught her.

At the foot of the bed, he watched her toes twitch, her thighs shiver. Her arms shook, stiff at her side, fingers curled and twisted, as if in pain. Soft whispers carried on the air, spoken in a language he recognized, one she’d claimed not to speak.

“ Da’haj mihirit voluptasz. ” Give me pleasure .

Eyes still an unsettling white, she sat up while remaining elevated above the mattress, and she crawled toward him across the air. “ Da’haj mihirit voluptasz. ” The soft kitten voice from before had grown husky, raspy. Enrapturing.

What was this exquisite creature? This peculiar little enchantress who stirred his soul?

He stared in awe, mesmerized by her bewitching darkness. Magnificent.

“ Da’haj mihirit voluptasz. ”

The request sent a shiver coiling down his spine, his body wanting nothing more than to appease it. Lazy, black curls that he so badly wanted to capture in his fist, spilled over her shoulders and lay plastered to her forehead against the dewy shine of her skin. Her body writhed with a hypnotic sensuality that had Zevander grinding his teeth, desperate to keep from tearing into her.

“Da’haj mihirit voluptasz,” she beseeched.

Body lowering back to the mattress, she squirmed and writhed and mindlessly pulled down her undergarments. The sight of them banded at her thighs watered his mouth for what he knew hid beneath her skirt.

Thighs apart, she arched her back. “Da’haj mihirit voluptasz.”

He reached down and stroked her hair, his appetite stirred at the mere touch of her. Gods, he’d have sacrificed his next breath to be the bastard who made her scream in ecstasy right then.

He raised his hand to a black flame that hovered above his palm. “ Revelah’ret te mej. ” Reveal yourself to me .

Her eyes rolled forward, but the black of her pupils swallowed the usual foggy gray irises, indicating something still possessed her. She giggled and lifted the hem of her skirt higher, not yet exposing herself.

“ Revelah’ret te mej, ” he repeated.

She licked her lips and raised her hand. The flame shot from his palm to hers without his command. As if she’d summoned it herself.

He watched in rapt fascination as the flame dissipated to smoke and traveled across her arm as a pulsing onyx vein to her hands, turning her fingertips black. No one had ever been capable enough to snatch his power that way and Zevander couldn’t tell if he was troubled or turned on by it.

“ Da’haj mihirit voluptasz et da’minha vitatej.” Give me pleasure and I will give you life . Eyes shuttering, she tipped her head back at the same time she reached beneath the hiked hem of her skirt, and the moment her fingertips made contact, Zevander felt the glide of warm silk across his own fingertips, as if he were touching her himself.

His body shuddered. Spread your legs .

Her legs parted for him, and the tight seam widened for what he imagined to be a deliciously pink shell within. Gods’ teeth, what he wouldn’t have given to yank back her coverings and behold what was doubtlessly the most revoltingly beautiful flesh he’d ever lay eyes on. In a feather-light stroke, she slid her middle finger down between her lips, and he took in the warm silky folds that enveloped the digit.

Mouth parted, she let out a shaky breath, and he could feel the flinch of her stomach muscles. Her thighs that shook at either side, while she toyed with her seam. When she drew her finger back upward, she found the small bundle of nerves and brought her thighs together on a moan.

Fuck me.

Zevander planted a fist against the bed, his muscles weak.

She circled her clit that, had he been pleasuring her himself, would’ve suffered the torment of his tongue, but he didn’t dare lower his face there. Every fiber of his willpower resisted.

When she slid her fingers back down, over her mound, and found the small entrance, slick with her arousal, he let out a groan. The sticky juices coated her fingers, and damn her to Nethyria, she had the fucking audacity to shove her fingers into her mouth, her tongue enveloping the flesh, sucking it away.

His tongue prickled with her sweet flavor.

She lay back on the pillow and closed her eyes, curving her fingers up inside her again.

Zevander fell to his knees beside the bed, the height of it at his chest, offering a view so intimate, he could smell that delectable orange flavor mingling with the heady scent of arousal. Mouth watering, he gnashed his teeth, as the need inside him clawed at his spine.

Touch her. Taste her. Fuck her.

Soft moans leaked past her lips, as she plunged wet fingers in and out of her tight cunt, titillating that electric ball of nerves up inside of her. The wet squelch of her fingers working up her arousal goaded him to reach down into his trousers and take hold of the beast that begged to plow into her. To spear through that swollen flesh without mercy.

Her body twitched, her other hand curled into a fist, as if she felt him, as well. Breaths turned staccato, she plunged faster, soaking her fingers, moaning and writhing in pleasure. Muscles tight, he could feel the climax building inside of her.

“ Veni’adj meh, Lunamiszka .” Come for me, my little moon witch .

Thighs shaking, she convulsed, breath held as her body climbed. Higher. Higher.

A distant growl echoed in his ear, and he glanced around to see shadows slipping in and out of the walls. The curtains across the room shivered, as if a gust of wind had ruffled them, though the windows remained locked. A rattling sound drew his attention to the candelabra overhead that trembled, the flames flickering, casting shadows across the underside of the canopy. At a cracking sound, he turned to where the mirror on the wall fractured, splitting down the middle–one half showing her lying on the bed, the other showing him at her side, his hands shoved down his trousers. He stared at the obscure reflection of her, only making out the pale silhouette of her hand furiously driving in and out of her. The tension in her muscles mirrored his own, winding like a band stretched too tight.

Zevander marveled at her unfurling darkness, like peeling back the petals of a black rose.

She let out a tearful sob of release at the same time the walls of her cunt pulsed around her fingers. Another spasm, and her walls clamped harder–a second orgasm.

Jaw tight, he let out a moan, his fist banded around his rigid cock, pinching the metal along the pierced underside. He bent forward, his stomach flexed with a cramping ache that tightened his balls. “Fuck!” Warm jets of cum sprang forth, coating the top of his hand. Pulse after pulse had him clenching his teeth with how fucking good it felt.

Without so much as a single stroke of his flesh. It’d been years since he’d felt that level of release.

She arched upward on an outcry that sent another surge of his release across her thighs.

The black smoke drifted upward, rising up from her hand, and slipped back beneath his skin on a pleasurable jolt that had him groaning.

Her hand fell to her side.

Her eyes rolled back to white again, then shuttered closed.

She turned limp.

His muscles lurched, and he lowered his head to her face. On feeling the faint panting breaths against his cheek, he let out a sigh of relief and stroked his clean hand down her face, brushing away the damp hair that clung to her skin. A slight vibration hummed across his fingertips and shot straight to his groin as a satisfying throb. He stared at her lips, wanting so badly to kiss them.

She was a vision of perfection.

How greedily he desired her. His little moon witch.

Tomorrow, she would travel with Dolion to Calyxar with the stones, where she would be safe and protected. Far from the mages who hunted her.

Away from harm.

And most importantly, away from him.