Chapter 17

OCTAVIA

B y the time Red appears in the doorway, Drax is looking worse for wear. I've beaten him hard enough that his vampire healing is failing. His face is swollen and bruised. His nose is broken and definitely not repairing. He's lost a finger, has a busted kneecap and has fallen unconscious more than once.

I'm rather pleased with myself. I drank the goblet of despair-infused blood, of course. It was a delightful accompaniment to torture. And I wafted the hope under his nose every break in the beating I gave him.

Red leans against the doorway and I melt. Drax just became boring. Red must be able to tell seeing her has an effect on me because she tuts.

"What? You don't like being appreciated?" I say.

"From a liar and a betrayer? Not really."

My nostrils flare. "Come on, I thought we were going to try to work past this. I thought the tunnel?—"

"I told you in the carriage, memories or nothing. Who is this sorry ass motherfucker, anyway?"

"This is the fool who attacked you on my castle grounds."

Red's eyes widen. "A gift?"

"A gift, for my love." She ignores the last bit, so I continue. "He was just telling me that he doesn't know who he's employed by. But that his contact comes from Castle St Clair."

"So, there's a mole?"

I nod. "With a very obvious suspect."

She prods the vampire, who groans at her. His head rolls up and lolls back down on his other shoulder.

"Gods, Octavia, he's still alive."

"That can be rectified," I say, selecting a stake from the pile of tools and torture devices Erin scrounged up for me.

"Octavia. For Blood's sake. You can't gift me a half-dead vampire and a stake and think it's an apology."

"Well, it seemed like a good idea. He hurt you. I hurt him. That's how it works."

Red pulls her hand over her eyes. "That is not how it works. If you mean your apology, if you truly want me to forgive you, then you have to give my memories back."

My throat constricts. I can't. That's the problem. I can't give them back to her because I promised I wouldn't.

She was the one who made me swear I'd never return them. But I'm beginning to wonder whether I can keep the oath if it means losing her, especially now we're bonded.

If I give them back, if I tell her everything else that happened the night Amelia was turned, she'll hate me more and then I really will lose her for good. She'll blame me for everything that's happened.

I can't do it.

I can't give them back knowing that withholding them is the only way I might get to keep her. I'm on a knife's edge. Either way, I may lose her, but at least this way there's a chance. If I return them, I know she will leave.

I won't take that risk. She will have to continue hating me, and I will continue praying that she'll come around.

"Consider it a make-up gift. I thought you'd like to torture him. Perhaps I should have gone one step further…"

I lean down, grab his arm, and wrench it until the slick squelching of flesh rings through the air and his arm detaches from his torso.

Red and I are immediately sprayed with arterial blood. Our clothes, bodies and faces are smothered in the liquid.

I lay the arm flat across both my hands and present it to her like a dog with a bone.

"Mother of Blood," Red says, exasperated.

"What? Those hands hurt you. Bruised you and marked your skin. And I swore I would hunt him down and tear him limb from limb. Or something similar. I'm following up on my promise."

"Following up with one promise does not make up for the breaking of another," she says, taking the arm out of my hands, swinging it back and slapping the vampire in the face with it.

Fuck, that was hot.

I stand a little straighter, adjust my crotch.

"But it certainly makes me feel better." She proceeds to beat him half to death again with his own hand. "And this is for my fucking ribs, and this is for my jaw and my eye. And this, you piece of shit, is because I feel like it." She wallops him over and over and over.

And all the while, my cheeks grow hotter and hotter, my knickers slicker and slicker.

I don't think I've ever been so turned on.

She's feral.

She swings his arm and slams it into his face repeatedly until she drops it on the floor, the hand half hanging off, and proceeds to jump onto his lap, punching his face, splattering blood, bone and muscle on the walls, floor and both of us.

His torso has stopped spraying so much arterial blood. He's done for. The desiccation will start any moment if he doesn't get any blood, and I'm not about to give him any.

"Enough," I say. "He's had enough."

She can't hear me. She's lost herself in her rage, funnelling it all into him.

"Red," I bark. "He's not me. You can't attack him and make the pain of me keeping your memories go away."

She screams in frustration and lands a punch to his jaw that has his head rocking back. Then she's up and staring at me, her shoulders heaving. That's when I notice the tears streaking her cheeks.

I glance back at the vampire, now one armed, his face a bloodied mess. The state of him makes the curling need to punish him for hurting Red subside. He looks pathetic, all broken and bleeding in the chair. I need to put him out of his misery.

I punch my hand into his chest and grip his heart. His head comes up, his remaining hand grabbing my wrist, his eyes wide.

"You shouldn't have touched her," I say, and then I yank his heart from his chest. It's already desiccating by the time it's in my hand and presented to Red.

She looks down at it, her nose wrinkled. "Thanks?" she says, but her words are snuffly. She wipes her bloodied hand across her face, smearing the tears with blood.

She wobbles on her feet.

"Didn't Amelia give you blood?" I ask.

"Yes, I took it."

I replay her words. "It? As in, all of it?"

She nods.

"On top of the blood I gave you in the tunnel? And what you took from my wrist in the office?" I ask and take a step back. The heart rolls out of my hand.

"I did something. It wasn't really healing. But it wasn't not healing either."

"The situation Erin mentioned?"

Red nods. Fuck. Amelia was right to go to the library. We do need to know exactly what this transition is going to do to her.

I'm not going to be able to keep up her feeding needs at this rate. She's drinking like a newly turned vampire, and they are insatiable.

We're not even going to be able to keep this secret from the rest of the teams or Mother at this rate, either. Shit. Heat pools in the room. Her eyes go from wet and watery to deep and hungry.

"How long ago did you take it?" I ask.

"Not long."

I see.

She takes a step towards me, and I know where this is going, and it hurts. I want to fuck her, gods, I'd fuck her every day, every night. But even I can recognise when this is bad for us. And yet… it doesn't stop me wanting her.

She steps into my personal space and looks up at me.

"I want to forgive you," she breathes.

"But you can't?" I say.

She looks away, her eyes trailing the now desiccating heart. "I don't know."

"And yet you want me anyway?"

"We're completely fucked up," she says. "I know you want me too. I know you're fighting taking me right here in this room. I feel it here," she presses two fingers over my heart.

I close my eyes. It's true. I want her more than I want blood.

I'd kill for her, maim for her. Hell, I'd burn every last vampire in Sangui City for her. But what she's asking… for me to break a promise I made to her, for her? Which her am I indebted to?

Is it better for her to love me because of a lie, or hate me because of the truth?

When I open my eyes, her lips are millimetres from mine. She brushes them across my skin, soft, needing.

Her caress is filled with many things. The agony of the lies between us, the electricity of surging want. The bond, the blood in her system.

"This is all I can give you right now," she says.

And so I take it. Knowing that it's all fucked up and that eventually this will come crashing down. But I'd rather have her wrapped in a lie now than lose her forever later.

I crush my lips to hers. She hops up into my arms, wrapping her legs around me.

We kiss and spin until I push her up against the wall. I slide my finger to her crotch and slit her trousers. Again. This is all too familiar, but if she must insist on wearing clothes that prevent me from touching her, what does she expect? I stretch the fabric, shredding it in two and then slide my finger between her folds.

She breaks the kiss to throw her head back, rocking her hips, begging me to give her more.

I do. I give her everything, starting with her clit, rubbing gentle circles and rhythmic brushing motions over and over until she's on my lips with a bruising kiss against my mouth.

My fingers find her entrance. She's soaked. I ache to taste her. I bring a second finger to her hole and push both in at once.

She groans against me, into me.

She sucks my tongue into her mouth, holding me in place, giggling until I pull away and free myself.

"Dirty little blood sluts who misbehave like that, who think they're in control, get punished," I say.

"Yeah?" she says, her eyes fluttering under her lashes, and then sucks my lip into her mouth and bites down.

I hiss as her increasingly sharp teeth make little puncture wounds, and she practically comes from the taste of my liquid iron spilling into her mouth.

"Red, I'm warning you. Continue to be a brat and I will punish you."

She bites harder. Sinking her teeth in deep enough I stagger back, nearly taking us both out as I slip on the desiccating heart and stumble over the arm Red dropped.

She laughs as she releases me and draws a long lick over the wound on my chin. It's already healed, though.

She giggles into another kiss and grips hold of me as I try to right myself.

Eventually, I'm on steady feet and speed us out of the dungeon. As the door swings shut behind us, I recognise we probably shouldn't have been fucking next to a tortured vampire carcass anyway.

But then again, that's the price to pay for touching what is mine.

I rush her up to my office and shut the door on Frank, shouting at him not to let us be disturbed.

"Clothes off," I say as I race around my office desk and pull out the strap-on I used to fuck her last time we were in the club.

I pull the office wall curtains open, knowing damn well that the club goers are about to see her pretty pink pussy pushed up against the wall as I fuck her into oblivion.

"You know you're not the only one who's pissed off, Red. I have feelings too. There are things I can't tell you that are fucking me up just as much."

"Punish me then. Punish me the way I punished you."

I stride over to her, buckling the straps, dildo in one hand, a knife in the other.

"What are you going to do with that?" she asks, her eyes glistening.

I bring the point of the blade under her chin, press it lightly. It only makes a slight depression in her skin.

"I am never letting you go, Red. I don't care how angry you are with me. I will make you love me again."

She drags her eyes away from mine. "You can't make someone love you, Octavia, any more than you can control everything around you. That's not how it works."

I grit my teeth and drag the blade down the centre of her chest. It is sharp enough to slide through her clothes and shred them in one swift motion without touching her skin.

She gasps and leans into the pressure as her shirt pops open along with her sports bra.

I brush my hand along the clothing until I expose her nipple. The pink bud hardens in the air. I glance up, locking my eyes on hers.

"What are we doing?" she says.

"We're fucking everything up," I answer.

"Are we going to survive this?"

"I hope so, I really do. Because I can't imagine a world where you aren't mine. And I don't think I'm willing to give you up, even if you try to leave me."

I move fast, vampire-fast. I slice all of her clothes from her body before her eyelids flutter shut in a blink.

She's standing there completely naked and bared for me. Her breathing is heavy and rapid. Breasts rising and falling with the movement. Her cheeks still have the remnants of vampire blood and the rivulets of tears that flowed through it streaking her skin.

"What do you need?" I ask.

"I need you to remind me, Octavia. Remind me why I'm yours. Why I should love you."

My patience snaps. "Turn around," I demand.

She does, and a short, sharp breath escapes as she clocks the curtains are open, and the office can be viewed from below. In reality, most of the club goers will be too drunk, too intoxicated or too busy fucking each other to notice us up here, but when did reality ever ruin the power play of sex?

"Hands on the window," I say.

She presses them up against the glass, her heart rate already increasing.

"Safe word," I ask.

"Elysium."

"Good. Mine is villain." Only when I say the word this time, there's a weight to it. A weight that I am carrying. The way I keep making the same mistakes, keep playing her villain over and over. Was she right in the tunnel? Am I martyring myself for her?

Is that not what someone in love should do? Martyr themselves for those they adore, even if it means they suffer?

I strip, pulling my clothes off and letting them drop to the floor. With each item, Red's shoulders rise and fall faster.

I take a bottle of lube from the desk and deposit a load on the end of the strap-on that goes inside me. I push it into myself and flip on the switch for both ends, and then I press myself against her back.

She squeaks, not expecting the vibrations. And then sticks her arse out.

But I'm not having that. She isn't leading this. This is about her pleasure, and I'll deliver that to her exactly how I please.

I step forward, pressing her against the glass.

"It's cold," she squeals.

I press harder against her, wishing I could see her breasts plastered against the glass.

I knock her feet out until there's room for the dildo and notch it at her entrance.

She moans, the vibrations teasing her entrance. I grin as her eyes shut and she bites her bottom lip.

I shunt the cock in right up to the hilt, then I drag it out real slow and gentle. Her fingers claw at the glass like she's trying to find purchase. But there's nothing to hold on to.

"Octavia?"

"Yes?"

"Don't be gentle," she says, and a tear runs down her cheek.

It's almost enough to carve me in two. I know she suffers with the same jagged pull of emotions.

I grab her chin and guide her round until she looks at me.

"I don't want to hurt you."

"You already have," she says.

My mouth goes dry. I wish I could explain to her that it was her desperation that made me take them. She pleaded with me and made me promise not to give them back.

But how do you make someone understand that in their lowest moment, they broke their own beliefs?

Red finally looks at me. "Until you give me back those memories, you can't make it go away… So I need you to make me feel something else. Anything else…"

"Okay, Verity," I whisper. "Okay."

I thrust hard and deep, and she rocks against the window. Her eyes squeeze shut as I drive the shaft into her.

Again and again.

I drag the cock out and pump in.

Over.

And over.

And over.

Her body bangs against the glass. As I thrust, she moans a melody against the muffled beat of the club music.

"Harder," she pleads.

"I can't," I whine, knowing I'm losing the power in this scene.

"Then bite me," she says and shoves back off the window, making me stumble back.

The dynamic has switched.

She marches towards me, her whole physique radiating authority, power.

"Sit in the chair." She points at my high-backed throne, and I do as I'm told, recognising that I've relinquished the dominance to her.

Red climbs onto my lap. She grips my chin, tilting it exactly where she wants it.

"I—" I say.

"Quiet," she says, and her nails dig into my cheeks. It stings. She glares at me, a searing heat boring into me.

"How can I love you and hate you all at once?" She kisses me. It's vicious and hard and angry. All lips and tongue and nails digging into my cheeks. The pinch of her nails turns into a burn as a dribble of blood oozes out from beneath her fingers.

She releases me and slides her tongue into my mouth, lowering herself onto the cock. I thrust up into her. I might be in a sub role now, but it's still her orgasm I'm chasing.

She bounces on my lap, her teeth grazing my neck.

"Do it," I say.

I don't have to ask twice. She sinks her sharp little dhampir teeth into my throat. And then she rolls her neck to the side, making way for me to bite her.

I kiss her milk-white skin and line up with her artery. It's intoxicating. I can smell her blood even without piercing the skin, but I'm not sure I should bite her.

She pulls her teeth out of my throat and looks up at me. My blood covers her lips, her teeth, it's smeared down her throat.

If she's going to drink human blood, someone is going to have to teach her to do it neatly and tidily.

"Bite me," she says again.

Her eyes are harried and wild. She's not in her right mind.

"No," I whisper, barely able to look at her.

"Octavia," she says aghast, "fucking bite me."

And once again, the dynamic shifts between us. Switch. Switch. Switch.

Calm, quiet, with all the power that I am and that I have, I respond. "No."

She stops grinding against me, her eyes turning dark. "I said, bite me." Her hands dig into my collarbone where she was using me as an anchor.

"No."

She pulls me forward and shoves me back into the chair. "BITE ME."

I pick her up, speed her across the room and back against the wall, slamming her back into the glass.

"No."

She's sobbing now, as I let her slide down the wall until she's standing. I kneel, nudge her legs apart and draw my tongue down her slit.

"Please. Just bite me," she pleads, the tears coming hard and fast now.

I slip two fingers inside her and curl my tongue around her clit. I won't bite her because that's not what she needs right now. What she needs is to come and to hate me and to let me fuck the orgasm out of her. So that is what I'll give her.

I lap at her clit, flicking my tongue faster and faster. She's close. It doesn't take long until her pussy clenches against my fingers.

She's gasping and still pleading with me and slapping at my shoulders, pulling at my hair, begging me to bite her.

But I don't. I continue to worship her instead. I may have caused her heart to hurt, but I won't do the same to her body. Not tonight, anyway.

Her pussy tightens. I curl my fingers up, slide deeper into her, and then she spills over.

Panting my name.

I pull out of her, and she sinks into my arms.

"I'm sorry," I say. "I'm so, so fucking sorry."

She whimpers as I cradle her. We stay like that for a long, long time until she falls asleep, nestled safe against my heart.

Where she belongs.

Where she will always belong, no matter how much she hates me.