10. deliverance

10

deliverance

Rivian

I hated the way it felt to see my wife like that. Jaded, drained, and ashen. If I'd kept her down there much longer, she'd have likely desiccated due to lack of blood. I ached to just let her go. Instead, I found myself toying with her if only for a little bit longer because that's the side of me I've come to cherish, revel in. It's who I am in nature and no matter how deeply I feel for the path of destruction I led my sweet sin to, I can't help who I am.

The moment she bit into the cookie though—I watched the way her mouth chewed on the pastry and how her throat bobbed as she swallowed it, the little moan she'd hummed to indicate just how much she liked the taste of them—I saw the lavender working away at her curse. I could see it in the way her eyes glittered back to their normal silvery color. I didn't realize just how much I had missed looking into her normal eyes. I could also tell in her demeanor how the herbs coursed through her system and counteracted against the curse, bringing my little one back to me.

I ripped the chains from her limbs the moment I knew it was safe and I walked away. I left her a vial of blood to consume and hoped she would follow me in return. Needing her to follow me.

The bath water runs now, hot and sudsy. I light some kind of fancy gold-crusted candle that smells like smoked vanilla woods that Natasha brought up—thankfully Kacian was able to save her from the fire before it all went to ashes—and I turn on the same music I know Lucynda liked to listen to while she cooked.

That was next on the list, to get her to cook. Not because my sister thinks all women belong in the kitchen but because I know that's where my wife finds solace, amongst other places. But right now, I wanted to get her to relax and to help her clean off the sins she's committed in the last forty-eight hours.

I open the window to let the crisp October rain act as an angelic ambiance against the running water, the flicker of the candle glow, and the light reverberance of the piano tunes playing gently.

"Wow. All this for me?" I didn't realize I was holding tension in my shoulders, but the moment I hear her voice, her unaffected and serene voice, I let it all go. Sighing a soft breath of air and turning to find my wife standing at the door frame, a small smirk curled delicately on her perfect lips and a mess made of her otherwise. But God, is she still just as beautiful as any other given day.

"It's the least I can do," I say, knowing damn well that I probably could do more but right now, all that matters is giving her peace to find the quiet in her mind so that she can figure out what she wants to do next.

I hold my hand out for hers, waiting to see if she'll take it. And when she does, I bring my eyes up to hers where we meet each other once more. It's like the fire turning to ice, like when I found her at the Gilded Hollow, but this time the warmth still radiates from her in other ways. I feel the thaw of her curse, and her heart is still dying for a safe place to land but her walls remain half built.

I look at her, and an eruption of regret berates me, knowing that with or without the tether, no matter who she was and where she came from, she was always meant to be mine. And I sacrificed her for my eagerness to enact reprisal in light of my childhood upbringing. I am a fucking fool.

"Thank you. Whatever you gave me, it-" I shake my head at her. I don't want her to think too much about what it was I gave her, because then her mind will go to all the things she's done. Once she realizes the severity of what she's done, I know she won't be too happy with herself.

"It won't last long," I say to her as I guide her to the tub. "So let's not think too much about it right now. I just want to get you taken care of while I still have you here." I know she wants to argue, even if just a little bit. She's always fought me on things she felt she could excel in independence. And she's been right for that, but I admire her for letting me have this one thing even though I know I don't deserve her limited trust.

Lucynda and I get to the tub, the steam billowing out from under the bubbles foaming on top of the water. I reach over to turn the faucet off and all that we're left to is the sound of the music playing softly against the patter of the gloomy afternoon rain. That, and I can hear her heartbeat and her small breaths.

"Are you gonna just stand there and listen to me breathe or are you going to help me out of these clothes?" Her tone isn't sarcastic at all but laced with the softest plea, indication that she wants me to stay; her voice also layered with worry and regret.

I step up to her, a grin painted on my face as she turns her back to me. I come up from behind her and watch her in the faded reflection of the open window as she unbuttons her soiled blouse one by one. When she gets all the buttons fished through the loops, she rests her hands at her sides and waits for me to do the rest.

Carefully, I take one of my hands and trail it down the length of her arm until I reach her hand, interlacing our fingers together. I use my other hand to reach the top of her shoulder where I tuck my fingers under the blouse and pull it down her arm slowly. I lean in, watching the rise and fall of her chest in the reflection of the window, and press my lips gently against the back of her shoulder.

It's a dangerous move, especially when I hear her sigh. After the other night, I can't be too eager to throw caution to the wind, needing it to ground me as I touch my wife.

I skim my fingers down her shoulder, lowering the blouse until I can pull her arm through the sleeve to free her of the fabric. I spin her around to face me, the shirt hanging loosely off one side of her body, her bare breasts pebbled like gooseflesh as she watches me with lust heavy in her eyes.

I take my time to continue to free her from the button up, pulling one arm through then the other before finally allowing it to drop behind her to the floor. She gasps, the cold air brushes against her from the open window and it takes everything in me not to grab her and pull her into me to keep her warm. But the desire in her eyes is making it very hard to have restraint.

I won't touch her, though I want to. But I can't use her for my own selfish needs and I don't want her to fall victim to caving in to her own hidden needs as well. But fuck, I want to touch her. Just not yet.

I move back to let her pull down her panties before she steps out of them, tossing them and the shirt over to the laundry hamper, and then I help her step into the steamy tub.

I watch her as she closes her eyes and sinks in, positioning herself so that her arms rest on the rim of the porcelain, claw- foot tub and her head falls back to relish in the pleasurable warmth. I watch her breath through her nose and the sight before me is an image of absolution on its own; creating a desire in me to need nothing more than what's right in front of me. But I know all too well that it isn't that simple; it's too late to want the simplicity in life when I've carved my path to be nothing but villainous and alone.

I stare at her for only a few more beats before I decide I should leave her to herself, to think and relax. Turning on my heel, I make my way out of the bathroom when I'm stopped.

"Please stay." Lucynda's broken but sincere voice reaches me in a very calm cry for company.

Maybe I thought she'd want this time alone to take in the last few days. I can't imagine her emotions are doing anything but ravaging her mind, body, and soul right now. Just how I want to. But maybe, after feeling so alone in the dungeon and regret eating at her brain, all she wants is someone by her side and I won't be the one to deny her of that.

I turn back around and start to undress myself. Her eyes stay closed as I do, stepping out of my shoes and pants, everything hits the floors in an intimate fashion.

I walk up to the tub and she lifts her head up, eyes trained forward as she makes room for me to sit in behind her. Once I'm positioned, she slides back and presses her back to my chest, leaning back into me as she did with the tub itself.

The cold breeze from the rainy air mixes with the incredible warmth from the bath water, creating an intense pleasure as Lucynda presses her skin into mine, as if we are a true married couple without any problems to face once this bath is over.

I don't say a word, and I keep my arms at the side of the tub as hers are now pulled into her lap. I can't touch her, but she's too close.

This was a mistake.

"I never predicted your betrayal," she breaks the silence and says to me as the rain patters against the windowpanes and the scent of the October air mixes with the candle lit nearby. I can feel her breathing against me, the water waves gently in the tub.

I look down to see Lucynda's bright white strands melt into the soapy shimmer of the water, swirling around my chest. Her dark, black roots are starting to show, giving me a glimpse at the parts of her she tries to keep hidden if only to repress the life she refuses to be a part of.

I don't know how to respond to her statement, though I know the truth that rings behind it. It makes me feel amiss, hollowed and pissed off at myself that I had so much power and I used it to break apart the only person who could possibly save me from my demons. Instead, I used mine to bring out hers and now, she's on the edge of no return because I didn't want to pursue something that could only be my weakness, my undoing.

"I don't know what you want me to say." I don't let my voice get louder than the rain, or the hiss of the burning candle. This moment is far too intimate. I know no one else can hear us, but this is only for us.

The water ripples as Lucynda brings her knees up to her chest and she leans forward, wrapping her arms around them and leaning her head down. I miss the warmth between us, but I don't move as she positions herself anew, and it takes only a second to realize that she's starting to cry.

Her soft sniffles and a few quieted whimpers are let out. It's hitting her. What she's done, what I've done. She wasn't allowed a moment of grief because she was so overcome by the curse that the emotion of sadness and the feeling of pain were irrelevant to her at the time.

Now, it's torturing her.

I lean into her, wrapping one of my arms around her body and using the other to brush her wet hair to one shoulder so that I can get a better look at her from the side.

"I've got you," I whisper to her, knowing that I can't say anything else in the moment to prevent her from feeling the guilt that eats at her.

"I killed all those innocent people," she whines, her cries becoming more audible as she lifts her head up and turns to the side to look up at me. "I don't even know how I could have enjoyed something like that and it was like a sport to me. I…" She trails off as sobs wrack her, her body shaking as her tears spill.

"You couldn't help it." I wrap both arms around her, holding her in and trying my best to comfort her. But I've never had to comfort anyone in my life. No one has done so for me so that act is foreign but somehow, I know how to comfort her. I've done it before and will do it for as long as she'll let me.

"I could help it." She wipes tears aggressively as they fall from her eyes, mixing with the bathwater. "I chose to act on the one thing I knew I didn't want. My desire to hate the monsters so much that all I wanted to do was to hurt others."

"Revenge," I whisper, knowing that is the one thing she's talking about. The one thing I made her believe she desired most of all.

"I'm so sick of that word. Why is that something that anyone desires? Look at where it’s gotten us." Water splashes around us as she turns around to face me, she brings herself up on her knees and waves her hands around us. "Look at us!" She shouts again, purposefully slamming her hands back into the water and that's when I realize that underneath the layers of soap and bubbles, the water is tainted with red. Blood she's worn since the night she committed her intended requital against me, trying to pay me back for the pain I inflicted on her by murdering innocent people in the midst of her curse.

"In vampirism, it's inevitable to want blood, little one. And given who we are and what we've gone through, and what's happened to you, your actions were not of your control." I try to reassure her that her actions weren't of her own natural doing. She was cursed, forced to want for something she didn't necessarily seek the need for to begin with. It's not her fault. She has to see that.

I see her tears still falling from her grayed irises, her body half out of the water and her breathing is harsh as she tries to talk down on herself. She's tormented with the pain caused to her and hating the way she justified that.

I lean into her, brushing wet strands of her hair from her face, taking any trace of tears with it, and resting my hand against her neck, needing to feel her pulse before I decide to feel anything else. Because I can't feel it.

I can't feel sorry.

I can't feel pain.

I can't feel desire.

My focus can't be on me. It needs to be on my queen and the kingdom I've betrayed.

"You and I, we were born in blood," I tell her. "We weren't given a choice. And the trajectory of our lives are manufactured from the cards we've been dealt. Vampire or not, Lucynda, you were always meant to fall on hatred for those who have betrayed you."

Her face falls, her eyes close and her lashes flutter against her cheeks. The rain picks up heavier now, thunder growling in the mass of the darkened sky.

"What about you?" Her eyes open back up softly to look at me, swollen from crying.

Her eyes tell a story of broken promises and hidden happiness. I can't stand to look into them knowing that I am a cause for both.

I reach for her and turn her back around, nestling her against my body once more, and she lets me.

"It's my fault you're cursed," I start. I know that when she talks of monsters and darkness, I am now a subject in both of the categories in her life and her curse is only in question because of me. "Vampirism isn't supposed to feel this…"

"Guilty," she finishes for me. And she's right.

We aren't supposed to hold guilt over much, over anything really. She only feels it as deeply as she does in this moment because her vampirism wasn't formed out of a normal transition. As smooth and peaceful as I tried to make her final night, as gentle as I was with her when we consummated, I couldn't have known that her demons and her dreams were fighting a war that turned against her in the end, causing her transition to be heightened with the symptoms of her feelings and twisted into the curse that was unavoidable for someone like her.

But it was me who made it all a reality. If she had never met me…

"I led you astray, just like your family did. You desired one thing because you were deprived of it for so long. But I forced the burden you've carried to manifest itself because I was too afraid to fight my demons alone." My truth is that I was too stubborn to face my darkness alone. I needed hers to emerge to justify my needs. I wanted her hatred to resonate with mine so that I might find solace in knowing that I am not alone in my aversions for those who make a mockery out of me. My life wasn't meant for anything other than to take back what was taken from me, condemning everyone to whatever destruction I left in their path because they were in my way.

"You don't have to be alone, Rivian," she murmurs, obviously trying to discern my own grievances.

I appreciate her attempt at sentiment but I don’t want it to be her job to try and comfort me.

I lower my voice before I try to give her an answer. "I didn't allow myself to believe in something as lethal as-"

"Stop." She turns her head slightly to look back at me, her eyes burning holes into mine in an apparent plea to quit with my aspersions.

She thinks I didn't trust her enough to let her give me the things I pretended I didn't need and part of her is right. I didn't trust that she wouldn't do to me what I watched everyone else in my life do but also, I couldn't trust myself not to ruin it all.

She turns back around, the water still warm between us as she takes a deep breath.

"You don’t want to be alone and I don't want to be a monster, Rivian." Something I can't pinpoint slightly shatters inside of me at her words. But it's strong enough for me to physically feel it, almost in resemblance to the day my mother was taken from me.

"You're far from, Cyn." I try to reassure her, knowing that her actions don't stack up to the actions of those I've witnessed. She didn't act out of pure evil. She was acting on what was expected of her given the situation she's in.

I find myself inadvertently caressing her upper arms on either side of her body. An unconscious act of soothing her as she rests against me. An act I find dangerous once I realize I'm doing it, but I don't stop because part of such is comforting to me as well and I see how her body responds to it.

"What happens when this little magical herb wears off? What if I can't control myself and I-"

I cut off her words, tilting her head back to face me before I pinch her chin between my thumb and index finger. Her mouth parts on a gasp and she looks up to me with glossy irises and wet lashes. I can see her freckles so vividly from this angle and having her so close is unnerving to my reprieve, no longer wanting to hold back the desire to touch her.

"I will be right there," I whisper to her, making sure to hold my eyes on hers. "I will do whatever I can to fix this."

"I don't know if I can ever forgive you for what you've done." The smooth timbre in her raspy voice quakes as she speaks a truth I don't want to hear. But I knew it would be spoken soon.

I let go of her chin, allowing her to turn back forward. I can't stand the look of sadness that swims in her eyes. It haunts me.

"I know," I respond as I let the regret I feel grip my tone.

A few beats of silence in the rain pass by. I feel Lucynda push herself into me as far as she can get while trying to go undetected. I try my best to pretend to not notice but my body reacts to her. I can feel my dick pulse with the need as she presses the small of her back against it. I've tried so hard to suppress the desire I have for her but fuck, it's not easy.

But her attempts to get my attention right now aren't like those from the Gilded Hollow; where we used each other as a distraction, as a relief to the frustration we both had felt in the moment and for the sake of feeling power over each other.

No. This is genuine and even more threatening to my reserve, needing to breathe air that isn't hers because all I want is to ravage my wife. My fingers still on her arms, noticing how her skin pebbles under my touch and little hum escapes her throat.

"Lucynda," I warn. Whether she's doing it consciously or not, she has to stop satisfying my senses or I won't be able to stop myself.

"You can touch me, you know." Her tone isn't teasing. She is trying to ease me into her wants, and I would normally tell her to be direct, to use her words to ask for her needs. But she's telling me that I can touch her, that she wants me to, but she needs me to want the same thing as well.

"I don't know if that's a good idea, Lucynda," I say to her, not oblivious to the fact that I technically already am touching her as my fingers sift through the water then back up her arm. This time, trailing warm water up to her shoulder and watching it trail forward down the front of her body. The bubbles have since dissipated so I watch the little bead of water fall right over her nipple into the bath water.

"When you look around at your empire," she starts, her fingernails now gently scratching up and down my shins at her sides. "Look at all the guards and the power that you claim you need, at the control and all the wars that start because you condemn yourself to this burden of needing revenge , the one and only thing that matters above all of that is someone you can trust and someone who can trust you back. I'd say that right now, not a lot of people can trust you, Rivian. And it’s obvious that you don’t trust us either."

Somewhere in the midst of her sirenic voice leading up to my ears, listening to her words and letting them sink into my mind, I allowed my fingers to fall from her arms down to her sides, slowly traveling up to the dip at the top of her thighs.

Her breathing slows as I touch her gently, continuing my perusal of her body.

"I don't want to use you for your trust," I whisper in a heated, dark tone. I am too lost in my senses for her, needing to fulfill them all in order to satisfy the ache I've been carrying since she entered the bathroom.

"And I want to trust you to not use me," she responds as her own fingers slide up to my thighs before returning back to my shins. "Not to hurt me,” she adds.

Her voice is just as impassioned as my touch, now trailing upwards of her stomach to locate the curve of her breasts; still covered by the water but visible for me to see.

I glide the tips of my index fingers over her nipples, and the way she arches her back slightly is a sin I won't allow her to not repent for. I will have her confession so deep in my mouth as I take her breath away if she doesn't fucking stop.

But hypocritically, I can't stop either.

"I don't mean to hurt you," I nearly growl in a low tone as I run my fingers back over the front of her breasts, her fingers dig into my skin as I do and a lusty gasp leaves her parted lips.

"I need you to want me," I say to her as I trace back down her body but instead of sending my fingers back over her thighs, I let one sit at the curve of her thigh and I center my other hand to trail down the front of her, leading down to her core.

My fingers stop at the top of her pussy, not quite teasing her clit just yet but rather rubbing circles over the apex of her thighs.

"And I want you to need me." She practically whimpers her response, and while I know the serious meaning of her words—in response to the serious meaning in mine—I take the intimacy from them for now and allow myself to touch her where I know we're both dying to go.

" Oh ," she moans as she arches her back when my finger falls over her clit.

I massage it gently, allowing her to revel in the feeling of pleasure the way I know it plagues Nocturnes as we feel everything more intensely.

She presses her back as far as she can into my chest and simultaneously grinds herself against my cock.

The urge to sink my teeth into her skin while I rub soft circles around her clit is what has me leaning to her neck. I prime her by kissing her first then sucking her flesh into my mouth, feeling the pulse underneath her skin pound heavily against my tongue.

I open my mouth and let my teeth graze gently over her skin before she stops me.

"No," she protests. "No blood. Not right now." I hear the desperate plea in her voice and though I've never let anyone else tell me that I can't have something I want, I listen to her.

Only to her.

I understand her request. Blood is what got us into this mess to begin with and I can tell she wants this without the burden of remembering why we're in this detrimental situation.

I focus back on her, pinching her clit gently between my fingers and I can feel her body tense. I grip her hip tightly with my other hand as she moans and pants against me. I slide down her slit and into her entrance, feeling her already tighten around my fingers as I push in.

"That feels so good." Lust grips her tone and her eyes flutter to close as she squirms into me while trying to push my fingers deeper. She wraps an arm around my neck to hold herself to me, molding us together.

I grind the palm of my hand over her clit as I thrust my fingers in and out of her. I move my other hand up to palm her breast, squeezing it gently. I need her to chase her orgasm. I need to feel her come undone because I know she needs it, and I want to know I gave that to her.

"You deserve your pleasure, little one," I whisper the words into her ear. “You really are such an angel.”

" Fuck ," she cries out in broken moans. I feel her pussy squeeze around my fingers and her swollen clit pulses against my palm.

"Take it." My words skate darkly against her neck and that's when my sweet sin lets go.

She crashes against me, her head falling back into my chest as she cries out in pleasure, riding my fingers. Her orgasm escapes her in a parade of sinful symphonies as she relishes in the waves of her gratification.

It's an ungodly sight. My wife, fucking my fingers, desperately christening us in a bath of blood water—an act of repentance— hating me for my ruination and impurifying her with my own sins.

I am her nightmare but this . . . this is a delectable dream that I refuse to wake up from, surrendering to the rapture of my atonement.

Her moans die down after a moment and she starts to control her breathing again. I remove my fingers and watch her as she slinks against me.

But not a second later, she turns around in front of me and stares me right in the eye as she reaches for my aching cock.

"No," I tell her. Knowing that this needed to be about her. I want nothing else from her other than her pleasure, but I can't lie. I love the way her small warm hand grips the girth of my dick.

"I won't take no for an answer, Rivian.” She slides in closer, her touch becoming more possessive as she leans in and presses her lips against mine. I kiss her back. Her mouth feels like heaven.

"Not here." I nod my head toward her bedroom, but she only licks her lips before she responds, "I think here is the perfect place."