Chapter 42

Ishould wash up and head straight to my chambers, but I can't shake the nagging thought that I should go find Sin. It's possible I overreacted to his note, and his apology did seem genuine, but it doesn't excuse his behavior. He insinuated I belong to him, and nothing could be further from the truth.

I made sure of that when I snapped the tether.

The ballroom was beginning to clear out when I left, and I didn't see Sin lingering about anywhere. I head down the corridor towards the staircase, expecting he may have returned to his room. He may be less than thrilled if I invite myself to his quarters, but I need to talk to—

"Little witch."

My stomach somersaults at the sound of his voice. The massive doors of the Great Hall are propped open on my left, and Sin sits in his high-backed throne, a cup of mead in his hand and a bottle on the dais next to him. Firelight from the wall sconces casts deep shadows across the room, across his face. He watches every step I take towards him with scrutiny, a lone wolf assessing its next meal. His wrist flicks lazily to the side, and the doors slam shut behind me, the locks audibly clicking into place.

"Is sitting in the dark while you drink yourself to death and conjure up new ways to torture people a frequent hobby of yours, Your Grace?"

He smiles around the glass he brings to his lips. "Not all people—only the beautiful women who refuse my gifts."

"Would you like to talk your way out of the scintillating note you left some more?"

Sin cocks his head in a movement almost feral. "Is that all he wanted to do with you? Talk?"

Incredulous laughter falls from my lips, and I fiddle with the comb in my hair. "Cornelius was a lovely conversationalist, actually. Why—jealous, Blackheart?"

"Why did you come with him?"

"He asked me," I retort, as if the answer should be obvious.

With a final pull of his drink that empties his glass, he sets it on the floor next to him and rises from his throne, his height accentuated by the raised platform. "Do I need to remind you what happened the last time you found yourself alone with a Langston?"

"I wasn't alone with him, and perhaps I need to remind you that the only reason I was in that situation with Bennett in the first place was because you forced me to spend time with him."

"It was war, Wren," he drawls my name. "It was strategy."

"You would have let me lie down for him if you thought for a second I wasn't going to kill him, risking your precious strategy. Since apparently, as your note suggested, I am only worthy when I'm warming someone's bed."

"That's not true," he snarls, stepping off the dais.

My hands ball into fists at my sides, my magic licking my veins as rage floods through them. "You were only there to keep me from exposing your little scheme."

"I wouldn't have cared if you killed him, Wren."

"Then why didn't you let me?"

"Because I wanted to kill him!" Sin roars. He's directly in front of me now, his shadow casting me in darkness. When he takes one last step towards me, closing the gap between us, the torrid heat simmering in his eyes is enough to plant a fever deep inside me. "I was never going to let him even touch you. And when he tried, there wasn't a force in the realm that could have caged that anger. He was dead the same second he even thought about you that way."

"You tethered me to you against my will," I remind him, tilting my chin up.

"Are you going to fault me for a spell you were able to break yourself?" he asks, reaching to adjust the comb I twiddled loose.

"I broke it with blood magic! Magic I gained fighting for you."

"And I seem to recall you liking the rush it gave you," Sin whispers, dipping his head lower and grazing his teeth across the crown of my ear. "Fighting for me, fighting with me."

It consumes all my self-control to not tremble beneath his touch, to hold my ground. "You shouldn't have put me in that position."

"Then what position should I put you in, little witch?" He cups the side of my face in his hand and drags his lips across my cheek, to the corner of my mouth. Pausing, seeing if I will refuse him.

You're drunk," I say, smelling the honey mead on his breath.

He chuckles once. "Hardly. Just enough to forget that I shouldn't be feeling this way about you." Still firmly holding my jaw with one hand, his knuckles lengthen into claws, and he trails a long nail down my bare sternum.

I should run. Shove him away and run far from this place, far from him, but heat feeds my center like timber to a fire.

Sin hooks a nail into the deep neckline at my navel. "I've been wanting to rip this off you all night. Consumed with thoughts of what I wanted to do to you after I shredded it from your body."

I gasp when his hands suddenly collar my neck, tilting my head back as he kisses my throat.

"I haven't been able to stop thinking about how pretty you'd sing with my tongue inside you," he murmurs against my jugular.

His words send a storm barreling between my thighs, and even now, with the smell of spiced wine hovering between us, he waits for me to make the next move—to give him some small sign I want this.

Ignoring every instinct screaming for me to bolt out of here, I grab a fistful of his silky hair and yank his head back. "Prove it."

Faster than I can blink, we're entwined in a maze of limbs and tongues, my dress hiked up to my hips and my legs wrapped around his waist. My hands act of their own volition, tearing his clothes from his body until only his trousers remain between us. And then he does the unthinkable.

Sin sits me on the velvet cushion of his throne, spreads my knees, and kneels between them.

His lengthened claws dig into the backs of my thighs, his hand just above the dagger still strapped to one of them, and slowly, he swirls his tongue through my wetness. I shove my hands into his hair as he tastes me in long strokes, and a strangled cry falls from my lips when he slips his tongue inside. Wicked pleasure rocks through me, sending my thighs quivering around him as I watch as the Black Art laps at my cunt.

Seated in his throne.

One strappy heeled shoe hooked over his shoulder.

Where Sin struggles with words, he more than makes up for it with his actions. And if thrusting his tongue inside me while he kneels at my feet is his way of apologizing, I'd let the man drive a stake through my heart.

My moans threaten to shatter the windows behind us as he consumes every inch of my neediness, drinking me in like my pussy is the sweetest wine he's ever tasted. I twist my fingers in his hair, his dark head bobbing between my thighs, his long nails still firmly gripping the undersides of my legs. "Sin," I choke out, desperately aware of how empty I am.

He pulls back enough to raise his eyes to mine, a feral smile crossing his lips. In lightning speed, Sin swipes the dagger from my thigh. He flips the blade in his hand and presses the handle against my opening, his irises burning with unbridled need. "Do you want more, love?" he asks, swirling the hilt around my center.

My legs jerk closed in reflex, pinning his arm between them. Sin has placed a blade to my throat before, but this is different. The thought of him fucking me with the hilt of my own knife paralyzes me with fear, my thighs going rigid as if the brush of the cool hilt electrocuted me into permanent stillness.

And my pussy weeps in response.

"Spread your legs. Now," he adds when I hesitate.

Swallowing my fear, I allow my knees to slowly fall apart.

"Such a good girl," he breathes against my delicate skin. "Now listen very carefully, Wren. I'm going to fuck you with your dagger so that the next time you think of pulling it on me, you'll remember how I made you come all over it."

Fucking hell.

"Tell me to stop if that's not what you want, love," he murmurs, dragging his nose across my thigh, his light scruff pricking my skin.

Absolutely not. Tell him to stop. Goddess above, tell him!

Fuck.

I tilt my hips towards him and barely glimpse the ravenous look on his face before he plunges the hilt inside me, and my eyes roll deep in my head. The sounds of my wetness rival my moans as he begins to move it in and out of me, the hilt becoming slicker as my pussy invites it inside like an old friend.

"Just like that, Wren. Fuck, you're taking it so well."

He pumps the dagger inside me faster, and with his other hand, strokes my clit in small circles, sending a pleasure as dark and ancient as the gods pulsing through me.

"Look at me." His voice cuts through my howls of rapture. "Look at me while I make you come."

I force my eyes to open and lower them to where Sin watches me intently, his erection straining against his pants as he brings me to orgasm with my own weapon. The last of my restraint shatters as ecstasy washes through me, and I allow the Black Art to claim me again. Sin slides the blade through my slick folds once more, letting me ride out my release until the very end, and then slowly pulls the handle out and sucks my cream from the hilt.

When he's finished cleaning the knife with his mouth, he pulls me to my feet, his chest pressed to mine and his cock throbbing against my belly. He curves his hand under my jaw and parts my lips with his, letting me taste myself on his tongue, desire licking at my thighs all over again at the flavor in my mouth. My hands trace across his chest and around his muscular arms, arriving at the waist of his trousers where my fingers promptly work to unfasten them.

A guttural moan escapes his lips when I take him into my hand and curl my fingers around his girth. His head falls back to look at the ceiling as I stroke him, again and again, delighting in the impossible swelling of his cock as it beads and pulses in my palm.

Sin's hand catches mine, and he spins me around so my back is towards him, his lips at my ear. "Grab my throne. And I suggest you hold on tight, little witch."

I lean forward and grip the arms of the chair as he yanks my dress up so my full ass is exposed, rubbing against me and—

Pain thrashes through me as my pussy stretches around his hardness, my fingers curling over the armrests and a deep moan spilling out of me. He doesn't wait for me to adjust to the size of him before he's pulling out and slamming into me a second time. Again.

And again.

Whatever animosity I was still harboring towards him, Sin fucks the last of it out of me, claiming me with each merciless thrust. I give it right back, grinding my ass against his hips, pulling his own grunts of pleasure from his lips, one after the other.

I whimper as he suddenly pulls out of me and look over my shoulder, but he snaps my head forward. A moment later, something clatters to the floor behind me, and I almost look when the smell of him invades my senses.

Sin's blood, as fragrant as the hyacinths of early spring, permeates my nose, my tongue, my throat. I nearly go cross-eyed when he brings his arm to my mouth, blood pouring from the fresh wound on his forearm.

He sliced himself with the dagger.

"Drink," he demands, his voice low and full of need.

My lips part over his arm now sobbing crimson rivulets, and my cunt throbs with the need to consume him, my chin going taut as I strain to keep my mouth off him.

"I want you to taste me while I fuck you. So be a good little bloodwitch and fucking drink," he orders again.

Sin roars as I latch onto him and buries himself deep inside my warmth. I drink and drink and drink, moaning as his blood crawls down the back of my throat, coating it with his essence, and I grow wetter with each slurp as if his juice drips all the way to my pussy. I let him control me like this, allow him to show me just how much he hates and needs me at the same time, and with the taste of his blood sticky and sweet in my mouth, I soar to new heights.

The sound of my climax hurls the Black Art into his own release, and his cock spits into my core, flooding me with his warm cum. My head falls back to rest on his chest, and he wraps both arms around my front, our breath rapid and uneven.

I don't know the exact moment it happened, but somewhere along the way, sparks ignited between us. As Sin buries his face into my shoulder, they rear up in an all-consuming fire, setting my heart ablaze and filling my body with ash.

And the worst part about loving him isn't his need for control or violence. It's knowing that no matter what he does, or who he hurts, my heart will still burn for him.