Chapter 12Varos

Chapter

Twelve

VAROS

I knew what she was thinking. Since the moment she’d stepped into my cell, I’d done nothing but snarl and growl at her, showing my disdain for her. I’d rejected her on sight, letting my fear and hatred of her father guide my emotions. It wasn’t until I’d watched her and seen the beauty in her soul that I’d allowed myself to separate the bloodline from the person she truly was.

Fighting fate was an impossible feat in most cases for mates. I had been determined to do so without hesitation. But I quickly came to realize that there was no need. I would never sit around a dinner table with the High General—in fact, I still planned to destroy him in every way possible as soon as I got my claws on him, but I would no longer hold his sins against my mate.

I held her even closer to my chest. The High General was as much a threat to my mate as he was to me. Just the thought of him hurting her, imprisoning her, torturing and killing my beautiful mate had blood lust surging through me. The need to feel his flesh give way under my teeth as I ripped out his throat was an obsession I couldn’t wait to fulfill.

I strode to the edge of the pool and felt her hot cunt squeeze my shaft as she clung tighter to my shoulders and hips. I stepped over the edge, plunging us into the pool, careful to keep her head above the water. It was just deep enough to submerge me to my chest, my feet planted firmly on the sediment below. With my mate being so much smaller than me, I imagined she would have had difficulty as she bathed earlier. But I was with her now, and she would need for nothing as long as I was at her side.

I gripped her hair in my fist and tilted her head back from where it had been nestled into the crook of my neck. “Do I seem weak to you?” I asked, letting my words rasp out in a deep growl.

“What? Of course not!” she protested, tightening her legs around my hips and moaning when the movement caused my cock to jump and throb inside her.

“Then why do you think I couldn’t have stopped you if I wanted to?”

She blinked up at me, her bright yellow eyes looking like golden gems filled with the rays of the sun. “But, I didn’t give you a choice,” she said quietly, her tone filled with sadness and her expression turning to one of self-disgust. “I’m a monster.”

“You’re my monster.” I nipped her full bottom lip, allowing one of my fangs to pierce her so I could lick away the tiny drop of blood before the wound healed almost immediately. Looking into her face as she trembled with desire, I could already see the tightness in her features caused by her succubus being starved had dissipated. She looked brighter, more luminescent, and healthy. “Your guilt is misplaced, mate.” I shifted, letting my cock slide out of her snug sheath before plunging back inside swiftly, swallowing her gasp with my lips. I repeated the motion until my control snapped.

I shoved her against the edge of the pool, then fucked her hard, letting her cries spur me on. When she dug her sharp little claws into my shoulders, the brief flare of pain almost froze me, my mind immediately turning to the torture I had experienced over the eons. I bared my teeth, aching to finally break free from my shackles and destroy the one who hurt me.

“Varos,” the softly spoken name I hadn’t heard in far too long, brought me back to the present to see my hand wrapped around my mate’s neck, my claws piercing her flesh. Dark red drops of her blood, looking black in the darkness, slowly rolled down her pale flesh and disappeared into the inky blackness of the water. Instead of removing my hand, I tightened it. Self-loathing filled me at the flash of fear in her eyes.

“Mate.” My voice was raspy, less so than it had been before she fed me, but it wasn’t the same as it had been before the torture. I had a feeling that there would always be signs of my imprisonment that even the healing nature of being a demon couldn’t erase. “You’re my mate,” I said again, as much a reminder for me as it was for her. I couldn’t hurt her if I tried, but I could dominate her. I slowly released her throat, running my fingertips through the spilled blood, smearing it over her soft flesh.

Gripping one of her thighs and lifting it higher to allow better access, I pounded into her, making the water splash and churn around us. “Fuck. Need to get closer. Need to be deeper inside of you. Need to claim every inch of you.” A madness seemed to come over me. I needed to rid myself of the unwelcome reaction I’d had to her claws. I loathed the thought that I would hurt her, even unintentionally. Hatred for the demon who’d done this to me and remorse for what I’d just done to her spurred me on to prove to myself and my mate that I could separate her from the High General.

“Varos.”

The way she moaned my name the second time had my hips speeding up, my cock thrusting inside her at a maddening pace. It still wasn’t enough. With a snarl, I withdrew from her tight hold on me and relished in the disappointed cry that escaped her beautiful lips as I left the heated confines of her body. In a swift move, I lifted her from the water, placing her on the edge of the pool. I was up and out in the next breath, adjusting her body until she was on her knees.

She looked over her shoulder at me in surprise and trepidation before her lashes fluttered closed as I entered her once more. With my knees on the solid ground, I could finally get the purchase I needed to fuck her hard and deep. It still wasn’t enough, and I knew it never would be. I’d have to crawl under her flesh to feel even the smallest bit of satisfaction that I’d gotten as close to her as possible.

Sasha dropped to her elbows, and her head bowed to the ground as she screamed her release into the darkness. The pulsing tightness of her cunt massaging my cock as she came around me was enough to send me over the edge again with her. My release was nearly as painful as it had been the first time I had spent myself inside her. It was only the second of many. I hadn’t come in thousands of years, and the relief of finally being able to do so was almost too much to bear. Being inside of my fated mate was the sweetest kind of torture, the only kind I would ever willingly face again.

With my chest heaving, I draped myself over her back, my teeth grazing the nape of her neck. Without conscious thought, I allowed my fangs to pierce her soft flesh, another way to mark her as mine. As I bit into her, Sasha shuddered beneath me and whimpered. It was when I felt her walls spasm around me that I realized she had just orgasmed again. My mate liked my bite. With a wicked grin she couldn’t see, I withdrew my fangs and licked up the fresh blood that welled up. As the bite mark healed, leaving no trace behind, I growled. I wanted my mark on her forever.

After several long moments of catching our breaths, I slowly withdrew my semi-hard shaft, soothing my mate with softly spoken nonsensical words. I ran my large palm over her smooth back, relishing in the contrast of my darker skin tone against her paleness. This time, when I picked her up, it was to cradle her in my arms. When I stepped back into the pool of cold water, she shivered as the chilly water cooled her heated body.

I quickly bathed her without the aid of soap, washing away the evidence of my claiming, making me want to cover her with my seed again. Sasha snuggled deeper into my arms as I held her close.

“I need to get you out of this water, princess. I wish we had a drying cloth,” I muttered.

“Just wait until you experience a hot shower in the Earth realm. You’re never going to want to leave it. And the towels. Varek has heated towel holders in all the bathrooms in his mansion,” she murmured drowsily into the skin of my neck.

I grunted, unable to even picture the decadence of having hot water to bathe in. I had no idea of what she was describing, but I knew that I would enjoy anything she wanted to show me.

I set her back onto the edge of the pool before climbing out. I couldn’t help but stare at the beauty of her naked form sitting there as she stared up at me with hope gleaming in her eyes. This was the female I would spend the rest of my existence with. I bent down and scooped her up in my arms, relishing the feel of her there. She fit perfectly in my embrace.

It was cold in the cavern, the frigid water having chilled the both of us. As much as demons weren’t typically affected by extreme temperatures, I wanted to get my mate dry and warm as quickly as possible. I carried her through to the next chamber and out into the midday sun.

“What are you doing,” she asked with a laugh, holding tighter to my neck.

I nuzzled into her throat, feeling her pebbled flesh under my palms as I did so. “The quickest way to dry off is in the sun.”

She sighed against my neck before turning her face up to the sky, letting the warm rays wash over her. I glanced around the small clearing and frowned. I hadn’t noticed it before, but there was something different about the land. It wasn’t anything I could readily see, more of a sense that something was wrong.

Sasha raised her fingers up to my face and smoothed them across my brow. “What has you frowning?” she asked quietly. “You look, I don’t know… confused?”

I grunted as I adjusted my hold on her to allow more of her body to dry. “There’s something off about the land.”

It was her turn to frown as she glanced around as well. “What do you mean?”

I looked down at her to see she was looking back at me, taking in my features with a worried expression. “I can’t describe it. It’s a feeling I have. Almost like the land is ill.” I shook my head. “Never mind, I am probably misreading things.”

We were nearly dry, the dark sun doing its job quickly. I turned to walk back into the cave, ready to get her dressed. As much as I wanted nothing more than to sink back into her softness, we had to get moving. There was no way the guards wouldn’t be out looking for us soon if they weren’t already.

I set her on her feet and reached for her discarded shirt from the night before. It was filthy but dry. I wanted to shower her in luxury, but there was little I could do in the conditions we were currently in. I held it up. “Do you have another one of these?”

Sasha shook her head. “Just the one I was wearing earlier before we...” she trailed off with pink blooming in her cheeks. I chuckled.

I took the worn shirt and gestured for her to turn around. With a cock of her brow, she did as I indicated, giving me her back. I took the opportunity to run my fingers through her long red hair, made even darker by the water. It looked like freshly spilled blood, which shouldn’t have been alluring, but everything about my mate turned me on to the point that my shaft was painfully hard, as if I hadn’t spent myself inside her twice already.

I used the cloth to soak up as much of the moisture in her hair as possible, ensuring it would no longer drip. Once I was satisfied that I’d done all I could, I turned her back around to face me. She stared up at me, her shyness making her cheeks pinken adorably.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“It’s an honor to care for my mate.” My mother had taught us to cherish the gift the Fates had given. Mother may not have been blessed with a mate the way my brothers and I were, but it never stopped her from believing in fate. “Do you have something to comb out your hair?” I took in the tangles that did little to diminish the beauty of it.

“I have a Wet Brush in my satchel,” she told me as she reached down again.

I frowned at her words. “Why would you brush your wet hair with a brush that is also wet?” Her breathy laugh had the corners of my lips twitching. It was a foreign feeling since I never thought I would have a reason to smile again.

“That’s just the name of the brush.” She held up an object that appeared to be similar to what I’d seen long ago, but it was made from a strange material. I slid it from her hand so I could study it more closely. “That is called plastic. There is a lot of it in the Earth realm. It’s convenient, but there is probably far too much of it. Humans stopped using only natural materials hundreds of years ago.”

I grunted and gestured for her to turn around again. As I slid the brush through her long hair, I was impressed by how well it worked on her wet tangles. The last brush I remembered seeing was my mother’s, and I doubted that the coarse animal hair it was made from would have been as easy on the tangles as the one I was holding.

In very little time, Sasha’s hair was smooth again, almost disappointing me that I didn’t have a reason to continue running my fingers through the silkiness. Reluctantly, I handed the brush back to my mate, then watched as she got dressed in the same clothing she was wearing before I tore them off her. It was identical to what she had been wearing when she’d released me from my prison. Once she was dressed, Sasha picked up the stiff trousers that I had been ignoring and held them up with a smile.

“Your turn.”