CHAPTER 14

Silas

For hours, the beautifulnymph didn't let me go. Not that I was complaining. I was bewitched by the purple-haired imp who brazenly chased her pleasure and lost herself to the intimate merging of our bodies.

I'd never met a woman like her who rolled and rocked her tantalizing waist like a bloody succubus. In six hundred years, I'd never felt more like a school boy trying to keep up than I did with Nika; how in the hours we'd spent together I was left scrambling to match her pace and expert sexual prowess.

Bloody hell, I worshipped the woman.

The same way the lethal Fae fought was the way she fucked, and I was addicted to every damn second of it. I'd let her wring me dry before I ever uttered one bloody word of complaint.

I had her twice in the shower, once on the way out of it, and again before we reached the bed by bending the gorgeous Fae over a chair. After that, I had the vixen countless times on the mattress. First on her back, her body pinned beneath my weight, seductively arching and writhing. Then with her on top, her body swaying and slithering to an erotic melody, subjugating me to its sensuous rhythm.

Lilith's sultry circle of Hell, I'd surrender my body, my heart—fuck it—my soul to satisfy this woman. I'd bleed or die to taste her mouth again, and whatever she desired, I'd give to her. I was the poor bastard who'd do whatever it took to make myself useful to her, and I didn't give a fuck what a damn noddy that made me. I was proper obsessed with my little rebel, and I'd take whatever I could get from Nika. I was her faithful muppet. The blubbering troll at her beck and call.

Nika's gasps and moans motivated every move I made. Set in motion every touch, every kiss, every thrust. I couldn't get enough of her body. Her skin melted like margarine under my kiss. Her moon-white flesh flushed an elusive pink, brightening to a cherry-red when I'd suck and lick and bite. My name in her husky, desire-laced tenor riled up the beast in me. Brought long-buried primal urges to the surface. Demanded that I mark, taste, nip, worship, and own every part of her.

And I did.

I marked between her feather-soft thighs, along her taut stomach, over the curve of her perfect breasts, down the tantalizing length of her neck, over her shifting shoulders, in the seductive dip of her lower back, and speckled across her plump bum. I marked every bleeding part of her. And the way she carried my marks, I carried hers. My back was scored twice-over by her demanding fingernails, from the top of my shoulders to the small of my back. My arms were raked like my back. My chest a sea of red lines, and I was bleeding chuffed to wear them.

I was enslaved. A willing captive. A lucky bastard just happy to be alive and connected to a goddess like her.

Some may say too fast, too soon, a blind obsession, but it didn't matter what anyone else thought when I had the powerful Fae here in my arms, her breath tickling across my naked chest, her eyelashes painted across her cheeks, fast asleep after hours of fucking like animals.

She'd succumbed our last go around, and the stress, the pain, the anxiety of being on the run with a power unknown faded from her expression with every deep breath. She relaxed and permitted me to hold her.

At first, I didn't move or really even breathe out of fear of waking her and losing this moment I was sure was as rare as her smiles. But then I enjoyed it. I touched her and ran my fingers through her silky hair. I watched her face, counted her breaths, brought her slender body closer, traced her side tattoo and its delicate flowers, smelled her fragrant fruit scent, and imprinted the beauty of her face and body into my memory.

The intense desire to protect her from everything that sought to hurt her crept into my throat and spread through my chest. Because after spending hours worshipping her body, I'd noticed the scars, the burns, the markings of magic, all evidence of a long life of torture.

Tattoos covered some, an intentional mark to replace the ones forced upon her. But I could see them even under the ink. She might convince someone else they were from training, but I knew the marks of torture—knew the glaring signs of brutality and hours suffered in agony at the hands of others. I was painfully familiar with the fade of time on some, suggesting they were done years and years ago, perhaps from childhood. And they were all over her fucking body.

In the very marrow of her bones, I was confident.

Nika had suffered abuse greater than most, and once I was able to get it out of her—the names and the physical descriptions of each bastard—I'd make a list in silver. I'd repay each one of them for every second of torment the stoic princess was subjected to.

In fairness, the supposed foretold fate Lev went on about, the doomed ending of their Dark Fae Society at the hands of Nika, might not be because of the Fae in question. It was more likely to be because of me if every bastard in that society deserved punishment for their transgressions against her.

I'd be the first to say I was grateful for the sordid life I'd led that ensured I had the ability to hold every bastard accountable for what they did to the stone-cold princess. Though I vowed never to harm another innocent life, none of them were innocent if they played a part in her torture. And that was where my control ended. That was where my desire to destroy was born.

Releasing a shaky breath, I gently fingered purple locks away from the slumbering beauty's face. I traced the subtle curve of her jaw, closing my eyes and calming the rage boiling in my chest with the mere thought of Nika alone and in pain.

Had Bane known? Did he subject his precious daughter to their cruel, completely unwarranted punishments? Or was this entire event caused by it? The way she talked about her father left me with doubts that he would ever allow it, but Bane was incredibly clever and wouldn't miss the signs of torture.

Several decades ago, he'd let me escape with my life, but not until I promised to leave my sorry existence and become a man who could save his daughter one day. Like Nika, Bane completely altered my way of thinking and showed me the true depth of darkness lurking nearby—the darkness that would consume me if I didn't smarten up. What he told me that day would inevitably lead to my own brother's death, changing my life like he warned me it would.

My eyes drifted over to the window. The one city I promised never to return to was only a ten-minute drive from this motel. The dark stain of my past—the city I abandoned after I was forced to kill my own twin brother, Rilas.

Bile came into my throat as I saw flashes of my brother's shock-stricken eyes full of betrayal and confusion staring at me, asking questions his voice couldn't. My mind filled with the memory of how the blood sputtered from the sides of his mouth, then his luminous silver irises contaminated with specks of red faded to a familiar gold before the life left him and he expelled his last breath.

His face had been the mirror of my own, a reflection of me in every curve and line, but it was hauntingly different with our father's dagger buried in his chest and my hand firmly wrapped around its handle. It'd found its home in his heart, and I'd never forget the moment I heard its last, suffering beat.

I swallowed, grief swift and unforgiving, and then I looked down at the woman in my arms whose father had saved me from my own dark fate. The woman whose path I was destined to cross. The goddess who beguiled me so quickly and so effortlessly I could only follow her lead and surrender whatever I had at her feet.

I'd do whatever it took to protect the little rebel lying on my chest, even if it meant revisiting the dark past I left behind.