Read Hollow by Caroline Peckham Chapter 39 –
Hendrix grasped my face between his hands and kissed me so forcefully that my entire world narrowed down to that point of contact between us. My fingers curled around his wrists, holding him right there in that place, dragging him to me in case there were any lingering doubts that this was what I wanted.
Because despite me knowing the full truth to the darkness in him, despite me realising the entire breadth of who and what he was, my want for him hadn’t lessened at all.
If this was insanity then I would gladly be carted away for it, locked in some dark space to forever dwell on the feeling of his mouth against mine, his aura surrounding me like a blanket of shadow and heartache, my own reaching out to combine with his and join in its pain.
And this was pain. This connection between us burned with so many hurts and wounds which we’d both suffered, so much injustice and despair, the agony in our hearts so sharp it cut us open to bleed into one another. Yet his pain was somehow a balm to my own, the hurt and want and loneliness he had endured in it a mirror to the aches of my own soul. And as our kiss deepened and his dark power roamed wild around us, I only found myself needing more of it.
Hendrix’s fingers pushed into the silver strands of my hair, electric energy spilling in spikes of teal that cast light through the darkness of his lethal power and somehow held it at bay.
“All those times I was drawn to the forest and denied it,” he cursed against my lips. “Only to find that it was you I was aching for all along. I should have come here sooner.”
“No,” I said roughly, my gaze rising to meet with his, the shadows in the room making his eyes appear the darkest I’d ever seen them but there was a vibrancy to them too, a spark of life which I hadn’t even realised he’d been missing until I found its focus pinned on me. “I wasn’t me in all those past lives. The woman who lived twelve times before failed in every single attempt to come here and face this destiny. I’m not like them. I won’t fail. And no other version of myself would have been the one who is standing here with you now.”
“Then I am glad to have waited six-hundred years to come seeking you, lightwing, for no other creature has ever captivated me the way you have and I am wholly convinced that you were worth the wait.”
“I think it’s time we both stopped waiting then.” I stepped away, breaking from him and he hounded after me, backing me up towards the wall while I unfastened the buttons of my tunic, his gaze devouring the movements as I tugged, one, two, three of them free-
Hendrix grabbed hold of me, driving me back so that my spine collided with the rough stone of the wall and taking my wrists into his grasp before pinning them above my head.
I gasped and his mouth collided with mine as he devoured the sound, his free hand gripping my jaw so that he could tilt my head back to meet with his. I pushed up onto my tiptoes, aching to close the distance between our bodies, his huge frame consuming me in its shadow, his powerful body pinning me against the hard stone.
The full length of his cock drove against me in urgent want, straining at his fly, his want for me so visceral I could taste it on the air I gasped down between his ravenous kisses.
His tongue sank between my lips and I moaned, my spine arching so that I could press myself more firmly to him, feeling every hard plain of his body and wanting to explore each inch of it at leisure.
Hendrix’s hand slipped from my jaw down my throat and to the neck of my tunic. He groaned into my mouth as he slowly began to unfasten the rest of my buttons, his fingertips rough against my skin as they brushed my flesh.
He kept going at that torturously slow pace, his body coiled with tension and his power thick in the air as if he was working hard to restrain himself but I didn’t want him holding back with me. I wanted every rough edge, every piece of his strength.
He tugged my tunic off of my left shoulder, releasing my breast and I moaned loudly as his hand finally found the rounded flesh, his fingers tugging on my hardened nipple and sending a jolt of heat directly to my core.
But he was still holding himself back, his touch more of a caress than a claim.
I broke our kiss, my teeth tugging at his bottom lip and drawing a growl from the back of his throat as I stared up at him, panting with want and a determined need.
“I won’t break,” I said roughly. “So don’t treat me like I will.”
“I’m Fae, lightwing,” he growled, his chest heaving, that restraint so close to snapping in his gaze. “Your kind and mine are not built the same. I can’t bear it if I hurt you. I can’t be the cause of your pain-”
“Then stop holding back,” I demanded, flexing against his hold on me, tugging at my wrists and forcing him to tighten his grip to keep me in place beneath him. “I want you, Hendrix Bane,” I said roughly. “I want you in all of your darkness and corruption, I want you in the depths of your strength. I have lived thirteen times over and have been waiting for you in every one of those lifetimes. I don’t have to remember them to know that’s true because I can feel it. Can’t you?”
“Yes, lightwing. I feel it,” he said, his mouth inching closer to mine, the fragile control he was maintaining on himself threatening to shatter. And oh, how I wanted it to shatter.
“Then don’t make me wait any longer,” I demanded and at last, he broke for me.
Hendrix kissed me so hard that there was no space for even a breath of air between us, his tongue invading my mouth, his body crushing me to the wall while his grip on my wrists tightened to the point of pain.
I moaned loudly, the need in my flesh all consuming, my breasts aching for his touch, my cunt so slick and wanting that I grew desperate for him to sate that haunting want. I’d been thinking of this moment from the second I’d laid eyes on him, devouring the sight of him, drinking in fantasy after fantasy and never once allowing myself to admit such a thing, even within the confines of my own mind. But we’d stripped ourselves bare in this place, set aside all lingering lies, given up our most harrowing truths. The only thing left wanting was this. Him and me. The biggest lie we’d both been guilty of, the one I was most eager to shatter.
Hendrix dropped his hold on my wrists, hauling me into his arms where I knotted my legs around his waist and arched my back against the wall so that I could feel the hard ridge of his cock riding over my clit.
I almost fell apart at that single, wicked point of friction, wanting to give in to the building pleasure which my body already knew he would be wringing from every piece of me this night.
He gripped the sides of my tunic and ripped it down my arms, baring my breasts entirely and dropping his mouth to capture one of my nipples between his teeth.
I cried out as he bit me, a sinful jolt of pleasure spearing from the point of pain to my core just as I ground myself against his cock again, tension coiling in my flesh so tightly I could hardly draw breath.
Hendrix cursed at the sound which spilled from my lips, gripping my ass in his hands and rocking my hips again, the rough fabric of my trousers where it was caught between my clit and his cock creating a beautiful friction which had me moaning even louder.
“Oh lightwing,” he groaned, rocking my hips again. “You’re making this too fucking easy for me.”
My hands landed on his shoulders as he leaned back, my fingers knotting in the fabric of his tunic and tugging as I tried to haul it off of him. But as I made to drag it upwards, he rocked my hips again, the friction between us almost too much to bear.
“Wait,” I gasped, trying to tug his tunic off of him but he only repeated the movement, faster, harder, the length of his cock providing the perfect pressure against my clit. It was happening too fast, too easily. I’d been wanting this for so long, while if been denying myself the pleasure of even satisfying those needs myself, refusing to admit what I’d been wanting from him and knowing that if I gave in to pleasuring myself to relieve this ache it would have only been this infuriating male on my mind while I did so.
So I’d buried this want, this need, for weeks. And now he was going to unburden me all too easily.
Hendrix leaned back further, rocking my hips so that my clit ground against his cock over and over again, gaining speed with each thrust, his gaze fixed on my breasts as they bounced at the motion. My hands fell to squeeze them and his eyes lit with a feral need as I tugged and teased at my nipples, relieving some of the ache in them while he only built me up higher and higher and-
A cry burst from my lips as I came for him, pleasure exploding through my body and burning its way across every inch of my flesh.
Sparks of teal electricity glistened in my hair, my cry echoing in the hollow tower and his groan of need punctuating the heat which burned brightly throughout my soul.
Hendrix kissed me hard, keeping hold of me as he moved us away from the wall and instead lay me out on the floor beneath him.
My body felt boneless in the wake of the bliss he’d delivered but still I reached out, my fingers tugging at the hem of his tunic until he gave in with a dark laugh which promised me we were nowhere close to done.
I sucked in a breath as he threw the tunic aside, his dark hair falling over his shoulders, the skeletal hands which were inked around his throat seeming to inch lower and tighten on his skin as he swallowed thickly while drinking me in.
I lay panting beneath him, biting down on my bottom lip while surrounded by a swathe of silver hair and he took my ankle into his grip before deftly unlacing my boot.
The swirling vortex in his gaze told of his need to have me, the feral want in his expression filling me with a bravery I’d never fully felt while in a position such as this with any other. His gaze was a worship upon my flesh, his hunger a need to which I was the only thing that might sate him. I was the only thing in the world beneath his scrutiny, the only thing that mattered at all in the heat of his stare. And I knew that I was looking at him in exactly the same way.
My eyes drank in the powerful build of his body, the cut of his muscles nothing short of sinful where they carved across his abs and then dipped over his hipbones to delve beneath his trousers.
His cock was a rigid outline against the thin material which was straining and threatening to burst beneath the stress of his want for me. The size of it had my pulse racing, wetness pooling in my core, my flesh already desperate for more of the vicious delights I knew he was about to deliver to it.
“Stop stalling,” I panted, my hands roaming down my body, teasing at my aching nipples again while he took far too long in tugging my other boot free.
“Just enjoying the view,” he replied, his voice dark and wanting, his eyes pinned on my movements just as mine were pinned on his.
I cursed him and slid my hands down my body so that I could tug at the ties of my trousers, pushing a hand inside them the moment they were free and moaning loudly as my fingers dragged over my throbbing clit. Then lower, a ragged exhale escaping me as I arched my spine and pushed my fingers inside my cunt, soaking them with my wetness and offering up a hint of the pleasure I was so aching for.
Hendrix growled in an utterly animalistic sound, falling too still, in a way that was all Fae and not human at all. I met his gaze as I drove my fingers in deeper, a challenge bright in my eyes as I gave my body a taste of what it wanted, sighing loudly and arching my spine into the movement, though I knew I wouldn’t come close to satisfaction until it was him in my place.
“You should not have done that,” he warned and I gasped as he caught the ends of my trousers and tugged them so hard that I was yanked almost into his lap by the movement, my ass hitting his knees where they pressed to the floor.
My hand was still buried in my undergarments, my fingers driven deeper inside me by the jerk of motion. I whimpered beneath him before drawing them out and circling my clit with them instead, my wetness making the sensation all the better.
Hendrix caught my wrist and tugged my hand free, lifting it to his mouth and capturing those same fingers between his lips. He sucked on them hard, his tongue driving between them and licking firmly, his eyes on mine with nothing but promise in them.
I cursed, my heart fluttering like a butterfly’s wings in my chest at the warning in his gaze.
I tried to push up onto my elbows, reaching for him, wanting to touch him, explore his scars, paint the lines of his tattoos with my fingertips. But in the same moment he released my fingers from his mouth and took hold of my hips, flipping me over so that my knees struck the wooden floorboards, my silver hair falling like a shroud around my face.
“Hendrix,” I begged, bracing on my forearms in anticipation of his cock, but in place of it he gripped the backs of my thighs and widened them before dropping his mouth to my core. Hendrix gave me a kiss which was enough to break my world apart into so many shattered pieces that I knew it would never fit back together in the same way again.
I cried out as he buried his face against me, his tongue dragging over my clit before roaming backwards and sinking inside of me. No one had ever done such a thing to me before but I knew with that single action that even if a hundred men had attempted it before him, none would have come close to doing what he did with that wicked mouth of his.
I fell forward, my chest striking the wood, hands grasping either side of me and fingernails biting into the floorboards as his grip held my ass up and he drove his tongue even deeper inside me.
The noises I made were worse than sinful, they were depraved, delighted and utterly immoral. And if I died right there in that moment with my nipples grazing the rotting floorboards of a tower in the heart of the cursed forest and my cunt being devoured by a male known to be the worst Fae that had ever lived, then I would go willingly into death without a single regret. Because I was tasting pleasure which surely wasn’t meant for the living, I was committing a sin which couldn’t possibly have deserved such bliss as its reward.
Hendrix groaned against my clit, lapping it hungrily while I fought to remember to breathe between the waves of ecstasy that were consuming me entirely.
He tilted my ass higher, sucking my clit between his lips and tugging.
I came with a cry which should have felled the tower around us, my elbows biting into the wooden floor as I arched back and threw my head to the sky in a veritable howl. My body was an explosion of pleasure, my head spinning, vision darkening but he hadn’t stopped.
“Hendrix,” I begged, my nails ripping into the wooden floorboards as I tried to haul myself out of his grasp because I couldn’t take any more. My body was wrung out, my breaths were ragged and choked in my throat and my body was humming with a bliss so pure I knew it couldn’t get better than this.
“Ferris,” he replied in a rough grow, his mouth still pressed to my clit, nothing but a warning to my name.
He released his hold on one of my thighs and for a moment I thought he would let me slump to the floor in a puddle, give me a second to breathe, to think, to-
I swore as he drove two fingers inside me and sucked my clit between his teeth in the same movement.
My body was already spent, my flesh nothing but an instrument which played to his tune no matter how certain I was that I couldn’t take any more of it. And as he fucked me with his hand and kept my clit clasped in the cage of his teeth I came again, harder and rougher than before, my cry more of a scream, my cunt gripping his fingers tight as if caging them inside me. But still he moved them, curling them and driving them deeper until the pleasure he was feasting on devoured me again.
Tears burned the corners of my eyes as I gave in to the intensity of his power over me, my body a willing prisoner to his delicious torture.
He withdrew his fingers, lapping at my wetness while pulling back and finally releasing his hold on my thigh so that I could slump fully to the floor beneath him.
Hendrix chuckled darkly as he rolled me onto my back and I lay there beneath him, utterly destroyed before he’d even begun to take his own pleasure.
“Give me… a moment,” I panted, making him laugh harder and the sound unlocked something deep within my soul, making it sing in the echoes of my climax. When had he last known a moment of happiness like this? When had he last felt the touch of another?
I wanted to ask but I could hardly make the thoughts fall into line in the wake of all he’d done to me and instead I watched as he stood and finally started to remove the rest of his clothes.
I fought back a curse as he removed his boots and socks first, still making me wait until finally, all too slowly, he unfastened his trousers and pushed them off too.
My mouth dried out as I took in the sight of his cock which sprung free with eager rigidity. If I’d thought it was big when appreciating its outline through his clothes then I’d known nothing of its truth.
A bead of moisture glistened at its tip, veins standing out along the heady length of his shaft and as he closed his fist around its girth and gave it a luxurious stroke, I almost begged him to let me take his place.
I whimpered as I watched him, knowing he was torturing me just as I’d done to him. My mouth watered as I drank in his movements and I couldn’t help but wonder what he might taste like if I took him to the back of my throat.
“Up,” Hendrix commanded and I was so deeply intoxicated in the spell of him that I didn’t even have a disparaging retort for the demand.
I forced my leaden limbs to obey, wondering if I could truly take any more of this decadent pleasure, while knowing I needed to feel the fullness of him inside me just as certainly as I needed air to breathe.
Hendrix gave me that fucking smirk as he pointed me towards a table which sat against the far wall, his eyes alight with that heavy restraint once more as he stared at the movements of my naked body. He was going to break. And when he did I wasn’t wholly sure I’d survive it. But there was no part of me that would even consider backing out now.
I obeyed him, knowing I’d live to regret it but unable to care about dominance or his alpha bullshit because if the look on his face was anything to go by then I would be nothing but rewarded for my compliance.
My ass hit the table and I gripped the edges of it as I pushed myself up to sit on it, my thighs pressed together and chest still heaving with exertion – though I was fairly certain all I’d done was fall prey to his possession.
He remained in place by the wall, his eyes devouring me as I lifted my gaze to meet his and I forced myself to raise my chin with a confidence I wasn’t certain I felt.
“Well?” I asked, tilting my head so my silver hair fell over my shoulder and concealed one breast from view. “Is that all you’ve got?”
Hendrix was on me in a heartbeat, his hands closing around my waist as he drove me further back onto the table, his lips colliding with mine as a rough and commanding growl slid between us.
Every difference between the Fae and humans was clear in him. He was so powerful, so strong, his power flaring around us and crawling up the wall at his back, making the stone quake and wood groan as the rush of emotions made it spill from him. But not one drop of his death magic touched me.
He kissed me hard, fingers knotting in my hair as he bore down on me, the taste of my own pleasure on his lips making my heart riot in my chest because I had never known anything like this male before. He was a force of nature, a magnet drawing me in, my opposite and my equal. Everything in my body was screaming at me to lay my claim on him and never give it up no matter how little sense we might make in the world beyond this moment.
Any pretence at restraint fell away as he kissed me, any attempt to be gentle forgotten as he lost himself in the heat between us as certainly as I’d been lost from the moment his mouth had met with mine.
Hendrix gripped my thighs and shoved them apart before tugging me to the edge of the table, his mouth roaming from my lips to my throat.
The tip of his cock butted against my entrance and I bit down on my bottom lip as my body throbbed with a want so consuming I could think of nothing else.
I wound my arms around him, one hand fisting in his long hair while his teeth sank into a spot just beneath my ear and the other roaming up the wide plain of his back, his muscles flexing beneath my touch.
My nipples grazed the bare skin of his chest as we crushed ourselves together and then his hips were driving forward, his cock breaching my entrance and a desperate plea spilling from my lips.
“More,” I begged as he sank in to me, inch after inch stretching me open and finally finding his place at my core.
“So fucking wet,” he groaned into my neck, his fingers bruising where they drove into my thighs. “So fucking tight.”
I garbled some noise in reply but the feel of his cock pushing into me was taking up every beat of my heart, every breath in my lungs, every thought in my mind. He was so big. It should have hurt for him to be stretching me the way he was, but he was right in praising my wetness. My cunt was utterly soaked in anticipation of him and every inch that he conquered inside my body was nothing short of bewitching because it was casting me under a spell I never wished to wake from.
Deeper and deeper he pressed into me, his muscles bunched with tension as he forced himself to take me slowly, languishing in the feeling of my cunt welcoming him home.
When he was finally sheathed to the hilt, I released a heady exhale and he lifted his gaze to meet with mine.
“If you thought there was ever a chance of me letting you go before this, then know now that I never will,” he panted, drinking me in, holding me tight, his cock so deep inside me that I couldn’t summon words even if I’d been able to think of any. “You’re mine, lightwing. And I’m going to show you how I plan on worshipping you from this moment until my last.”
A cry broke from me as he drew back then slammed into me again, the fullness within me sharpening with the thrust and everything inside me zeroing in on that contact between our bodies.
Hendrix cursed as he started to fuck me harder, the table beneath us thumping the wall and groaning beneath the force of his passion.
I clung to him, crying out with every thrust, my heels digging into his ass, my fingernails carving into his back.
Deeper and deeper he pushed, dust spilling from the walls as the mortar was knocked loose from the strikes of the table against it. He was frantic, feral and all-consuming in his lust for me, his mouth worshipping mine with a passion so intense it was bruising.
He drove forward again, knocking me onto my back and looming over me, his hands tangling in my hair, kneading my breasts, squeezing my ass and I was exploring his body just as desperately.
His cock drove into me so deeply that it forced the air from my lungs with each strike and I arched my spine up, gripping his ass to steal more and more of that divine pleasure.
“Bane,” I gasped between kisses and he pulled back, his pupils dilating at my use of that name, the one people hissed in curses all over Rathian, the one which had become a title more than a name. But I claimed it as I was claiming him. He was my bane after all. And one I so willingly clung to.
“Fucking hell,” he groaned, taking my leg and pushing it over his arm so that the shaft of his cock rode over my clit as he drove it into me again. “You really will be the ruin of me, lightwing.”
I had no words for him because a few more thrusts in that position had me coming apart at the seams, my cunt so full that I could hardly bear the sensation of it tightening around him in climax, stars bursting before my eyes as I fell into the chokehold of the pleasure he demanded from me so thoroughly.
I cried out and he groaned, fucking me harder, faster, chasing my climax and forcing it to go on and on, ecstasy spiralling through my body and bursting from me in another explosion as he finally bellowed a roar and spilled himself deep inside me.
The table gave way with an almighty bang and Hendrix somehow managed to roll as we fell so that I landed on top of him, boneless and destroyed, his cock still buried inside me.
I collapsed onto his chest, our amulets tinkling as they tangled with each other, my cunt still pulsing around him, the echoes of that pleasure sinking into my bones where I suspected they’d linger on eternally.
Our ragged breaths filled the silence as his fingers painted intricate circles against my spine and as my eyes began to flutter shut, I noticed the way his magic was creeping up the walls all around us, making the tower groan and complain – though the structure still held its ground.
I wondered if it might all come crashing down on our heads while we slept. And I wondered if I should fear that dark power coming for me while I lingered in his arms.
But I didn’t.
In the cage of his hold, I found myself at peace despite all I knew of who and what he was. And as the exhaustion in my bones called me towards slumber, I didn’t resist it. Because Hendrix Bane may have been a monster to all of Rathian and beyond. But here in the dark, where we were alone, barring the amulets knotted at our throats, I found I didn’t fear his claim on me at all.
I woke to the sound of Hendrix’s deep breaths, his presence in my space so very apparent as always. I shouldn’t have found comfort in the knowledge that he was close, shouldn’t have been nursing an ache in my chest over the truth he’d shared with me or an ache in my body from the voracity of the possession he’d taken over my flesh but…
I lifted my head to watch him where he slept beneath me, neither of us having moved from the position we’d collapsed into after our fervid union.
I supposed he might have kept me close to make sure I’d be safe in the night – and that I couldn’t run again without his knowledge. But I found myself believing he’d kept me there in his arms without motive. Simply not wanting to relinquish the distraction we’d stolen with one another in the dark.
But now daylight was shining through the gaps in the shutters and reality had reared its head to peer at us once more.
I supposed I was his captive. But I wasn’t planning on running regardless.
I should have. Of course I should have. He was every foul and evil thing I’d feared for my entire life. He was horrors and hatred and power no being should ever hold sway over. But he was also the male who had saved me more times than I wished to admit. The male who had held me in the dark to keep me from freezing. The one who had hunted me through the trees when he should have been focused on the spirits. The one who had ravaged my body with such heated desire that I knew I’d never find pleasure in the company of some mere human man again. Not that I believed the way he’d unravelled my body had simply been because he was Fae. It was because he was Hendrix Bane and I’d become his creature now, one way or another.
I was a fool for finding something redeemable in him but maybe that was just how it was. I could accept such an assessment of myself, especially after having spent so many days in this forest. Of course he might have lied in the tale he’d told me but I found I didn’t doubt a word of it. The raw emotion he’d expressed wasn’t something that could be faked and the truth was that he had good reason to covet the boon. But so did I. And that was the one true divide left between us.
But whatever I may or may not be, and whatever we were to one another, the time had come for us to end the hunt. We had four days left to unite the amulets at the heart of the forest and we could only hope that all of them had been won by one Champion or another because we were out of time to seek more ourselves.
I bit my lip as a gnawing fear started up in the back of my mind – Hendrix had won three amulets just as I had. I was counting on Rissa delivering the Serpent more than ever at this point and I still feared there was a chance that another Champion could have found more spirits than either of us.
Islasees was out there, hunting Champions and spirits alike with the aid of his heinous brethren. It was such a Fae thing to do. So underhanded and conniving. Rage ate at me as I considered the possibility of a bastard like him stealing the boon out from under me at the final moment.
I had to fight to regain my composure, reminding myself that there was a good chance he hadn’t found any more spirits and that, with Rissa’s help, I would have four to my name. It would be enough.
“Hopefully,” the Dragon mused and it did not sound at all convinced.
I eased back a little so that I could study Hendrix while he slept… or perhaps I should have been calling him Bane now? I had to admit the moniker suited him better somehow. It was darker, harsher, truer. I found I rather liked the taste of it on my tongue.
He was achingly handsome to look upon. I’d known it from the moment he’d first removed his mask and revealed his features to me but it was freeing to admit it so openly to myself while studying his strong features. There was certainly no point denying it while the ache of his cock claiming me still lingered between my thighs along with the seed he’d spilled inside me while gasping my name in frantic pleasure.
The outcast mark by his left eye was beautiful too, though I knew he hated it. But it spoke of a time which mattered greatly in his life, a change which had taken place and marked him on the inside profoundly, so I found it right that it had made its mark on the outside too. I supposed it was like my spirit marks in that way.
I carefully pushed myself upright and Bane opened his eyes as if he’d never been sleeping at all.
Had he felt my gaze lingering on his features? Had he been able to trace the pattern my thoughts were turning in?
I didn’t know. And that was terrifying in itself. I’d heard countless rumours of the terrible magic the Necromancer possessed and I was too afraid of the answers to ask him the truth of them.
Perhaps he could read my thoughts the moment they sprung into my mind. Or knew my fears more intimately than I understood them myself. Maybe he’d been conversing with the dead about me, finding out my secrets from those I’d loved and lost. Though thankfully I hadn’t been touched by death itself all too often in my lifetime. At least it hadn’t taken anyone from me who knew me well enough to be able to divulge anything of use to him.
I reached out to brush my fingers along the lines of the tattoo on his face and his brow pinched, though he allowed me to do so.
“Good morning,” I said, colour staining my cheeks and the edge of his mouth hooked into a smirk.
“That is the truest thing I think you’ve ever said to me,” he agreed, lifting his hand to caress the curve of my bare ass, a trail of heat following the path of his fingers.
I swallowed thickly. It was sorely tempting to take another taste of his flesh, to feel the power of his body owning mine once more… But if last night was anything to go by then doing so would be anything but swift and we were already more than short on time as it was.
“We should probably not follow that line of thought,” I said, disappointment colouring my tone.
“What thought was that exactly?” Bane asked, his hand trailing over my shoulder and skimming down my chest towards my peaked nipple.
He was already hard beneath me, his cock digging into my stomach, the temptation so very difficult to resist.
“Last night,” I said in a rush as I followed those thoughts through to their obvious conclusion and realised something which should have occurred to me sooner.
“Yes? I remember it well,” he teased and I knew he was going to make me say it. Every fucking bit of it.
“You… climaxed inside of me,” I said, my cheeks now scarlet though truthfully that was the least of all the things he had done to my body.
“I remember that part particularly well,” he agreed and I gasped as his other hand shifted between us, his fingers brushing over my clit in an offering I was all too close to taking him up on, but I needed to finish what I was asking him.
“Well, usually, I would take a tea after such… exertions… you know… in case of…”
I arched my brows at him and he smirked wider still, clearly planning on making me speak every part of it. I might have punched him but he chose that moment to push two fingers inside of me and I cursed instead, clutching his chest in surprise.
“Bane,” I gasped and he truly smiled then.
“Say that again. That’s fast becoming my new favourite sound on your lips, lightwing, especially when you say it with such wanton pleading.”
I tried to go on but he rolled us over, flipping me onto my back and sinking his fingers deeper inside me, his thumb taking command of my clit. I forgot my trail of thought as he explored me with his hand, rubbing and flicking and pumping his fingers until I panted his name in an exhale of pleasure and he stole the taste of it from my lips with a hard kiss.
“Don’t worry, pretty lightwing,” he breathed into my ear as I lay there panting beneath him. “My kind don’t reproduce easily and never with humans. It can’t happen. So you can enjoy the pleasures of my cock as often as you want it without having to fear ending up with a babe inside your womb for the trouble.”
His words filled me with relief because truly I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the fact that I wouldn’t find the necessary ingredients for the tea I required in these trees. And I knew I wasn’t going to be much good at resisting the temptation of his body regardless of that concern.
Bane gave me a lingering look as I lay there beneath him, clearly seeing that I was no longer capable of denying him anything and instead forcing himself to move back with an irritable sigh.
“I would love nothing more than to spend the day buried to the hilt inside of you, lightwing, but I fear we need to focus our efforts on other exertions as you call them – at least until night falls again and we find ourselves trapped in the dark once more.”
I nodded, seeing the sense to his words even though my body was very much in favour of ignoring it. But he was right. I needed to focus on finishing my task here.
Bane called the Bear from its amulet, commanding the sprit to provide us with water so that we could bathe and refresh ourselves. I was glad of how cold it was as I faced the wall to clean my body though the marks on my skin didn’t fade regardless. I dressed quickly and was glad to find Bane had done so too, making it easier for me to concentrate on what we needed to do next.
Bane’s eyes tracked my movements as I took hold of my pack and drew it closer, the corner of his lips quirking as I tugged my Fae book free of its place.
“Always seeking answers from crusty old pages,” he commented.
“Not answers,” I retorted. “But I will forever research the chaos before me in hopes of it making more sense when I’m faced with it.”
“And what particular brand of chaos are you researching on this fine morning, lightwing?” he purred, his tone of voice making me swallow impulsively.
“The Great Elm,” I said, trying not to show the moment of disquiet though he already knew how keenly he affected me.
I opened the page at the very back of the book, the final chapter in this tome on the cursed forest.
“The Great Elm is said to be in mourning,” I read, my gaze devouring the words, my fingers caressing the beautifully inked pages. “For the curse stole the minds of her children and along with it, their love.”
“I heard she was the one who spun the curse in the first place,” Hendrix interrupted.
“Why would she do that?” I asked, frowning at him over the top of my book.
“Why do any of the spirits do any damn thing? Why did Death choose to mark me as her servant instead of taking me into her grasp? Why has Providence allowed the Fae crown to go without placement for hundreds of years? Why do they sing in the sky or dance in the rain? Why choose some for blessings and others for curses? They are and always have been without any true purpose that I can define. They seem not to care for what is good or right or just or fair, neither do they revel in what is cruel or vicious, hurtful or callous. They just are – and trying to understand their purpose is a fool’s errand which I refuse to be drawn into.”
“Fine.” I snapped my book closed and stood. “You want to deal in facts? Then here are some which I have spent the night thinking on. We have taken ownership of six of the thirteen spirits between the two of us and I think it highly doubtful that any other Champion will have managed to claim so many which means we are the most likely candidates to qualify for the boon. I have hunted the haunts of both the Phoenix and the Stag – which you were present for – to no avail and so believe they have been won by others. We know that the Tiger and the Rat were taken by your Fae friend-”
“Do not even jest about me and that male having any form of kinship,” Bane growled, the sound making the hairs along the back of my neck raise in warning.
I squared my shoulders as if priming for a fight but forced a long exhale instead.
“Fine. I didn’t mean to suggest you held any care for him and I know that your confrontation with him will be unpleasant but it also cannot be avoided any longer. We have four days left before the curse consumes us and we are lost to this place. It’s time we head for the Great Elm and hope that all of the other spirits are on their way there too. If we find any to be missing then perhaps I will be able to hunt them out with the aid of the Dragon before our time lapses entirely.”
A low grumble in the back of my head made it clear the Dragon was not on board with that plan and I fought a cringe. I didn’t want Bane to know that I was currently unable to call on any of my spirits for help thanks to my mistake in enraging the Dragon and I only hoped that I would be able to convince it to work with me again before we made it to the labyrinth and whatever challenges awaited us there.
I frowned as I thought on the boon. Clearly Bane needed it as desperately as I did but my understanding of the forest’s favour was that only one Champion could earn it. And as much as my heart hurt to think of all he and his family had suffered, he had gotten them back. Rissa hadn’t even had her chance at a real life. She’d been a child when she’d been taken and no matter what I felt towards Bane, I wasn’t going to change my mind on what I’d come here to do. Nothing was as important to me as that.
“Can we agree to work together at least until it becomes clear that only one of us is able to proceed?” Bane asked, seeming to read the way my thoughts had wandered and clearly not wanting to broach the issue of which one of us would win the boon in the end.
Neither of us could kill the other for our amulets but we could offer them up willingly. I would sooner die than do so and forgo my sister’s freedom however, so there was no point in me getting into that discussion with him. No doubt he felt the same way about offering me the amulets he had won – even if they should have been mine in all fairness.
I felt that same bitterness rising in me again but I stamped it down. It would do me no good now anyway.
No, both of us would have to hope that we could convince whichever other Champions made it to the labyrinth to offer up their amulets to us. If I got lucky then there might be some humans still alive who had managed to find one or two of them. They would certainly favour giving them up to a human over a Fae. And the one Fae who I knew to be headed to the Great Elm held as much hatred in his heart for Bane as the Necromancer did for him. So I doubted he would give up his prizes despite them sharing heritage.
And then there was Rissa.
Rissa who had the Serpent working with her. Rissa who had promised to meet me at the heart of the forest when the time came.
So I was fairly confident I had four amulets to my name already. Surely the boon would be mine.
My heart pattered wildly in my chest as I allowed myself to believe in that for the first time.
I was a creature who thrived on facts and figures, on research and reasoning. And whatever way I looked at this, through some madness or miracle, it seemed like I really could be the one to claim the prize of the forest and if so, then I would finally be able to bring my sister home.
Bane met my eyes as I shouldered my pack, his gaze dark with plots and schemes of his own which made my hopeful confidence twist and sour in my gut. He didn’t look fearful or even defeated.
No, Bane Crownthief appeared to be nothing short of eager to head to the heart of the forest and face the final challenges that awaited us there.
And that alone was enough to stoke a torrent of doubt in my soul.
