Decimation, page 14
“There’s a time and place for sensory deprivation,” he said. “But this is the opposite. This is learning to focus on what’s external, to keep you out of your head and heart.”
Old news. “I know this one.”
Bragi let go of my hand, to trail a finger up my arm, until my sleeve stopped it. “This isn’t about school and what you learned there. This isn’t about detaching or doing a job. The point is to enjoy it.”
His touch was so light it was barely there, and I realized I was holding my breath, waiting for the next brush of his hand.
“Concentrate on the sensations and enjoying all of your senses.” Bragi moved to my neck, my jaw, and along the edge of my ear, before trailing back down.
“All of them?” Gods this was basic, but incredible. I was fully dressed, and if he kissed or nibbled the right spots, I might come from the release of anticipation.
Maybe not, but…
Bragi traced along my bottom lip and slipped two fingers into my mouth. “All of them.”
I sucked and licked and groaned in disappointment when he pulled away from me.
He pushed the bottom of my sweatshirt up, up, up to expose my stomach, and glided his fingers under my waistband. “Tell me you want this.” His voice was pure command.
“I want it so much.” I was supposed to enjoy it. That was the point—to lose myself in the physical.
Fuck yes.
I felt his smile through his touch. Self-satisfaction, and more of the same need that filled me.
“Because I’m going to strip you down a piece of clothing at a time.” He pulled my sweatshirt over my head, leaving me in a lacy bra—red, to contrast with my skin. “I’m going to explore every inch of you. I’m going to taste you and discover which buttons make which sounds and when you think you can’t take anymore, I’m going to fuck you until you scream so loudly that the people across the street complain.”
Yes, please. “That’s a big promise.”
“I’m a big man.”
The playful retort was the perfect sprinkle of levity, and I grinned. “I remember.”
He tilted his head closer, the way I had with him in the other room. His breath was hot on my neck. “Such a good, dirty little girl.” The purr in his words sent a rush through me. “I hope you didn’t plan on wearing these home.” He ripped the seam of my leggings, exposing panties the same color red as the bra.
The instant he slipped his fingers between my legs, he’d find out I was already wet.
Fuck, this might just wreck me, and at the moment that sounded like the most incredible thing in the world.
SIXTEEN
BRAGI
The anticipation I felt, stripping Magnus down and covering her body with kisses, was like no experience in my past.
I’d had sex with countless people over the centuries, and I’d even loved a few of them.
Nico was the most recent, and before Magnus, the only one who left enough of an impression that I still dreamed of him.
I’d been with Magnus before as well. This was more… real. As in, there were no masks here. No fakeness or playing pretend.
We each knew who the other was, and she accepted me despite that.
Or maybe it was because the more time went on, the more she could relate.
Creation I hoped she never completely understood, but I knew on some level she did.
I told her to be present during this, to stay outside her head, and she deserved the same from me. I used my full body to nudge her toward the bed. As we walked backwards, she fiddled with the buttons on my shirt.
“What are you doing?” I asked playfully, covering her hands but not stopping her.
“I’m supposed to be feeling the physical, aren’t I?” There was a laugh in her question. “I like the feeling of undressing you, and I’d really like the feeling of your skin against mine.”
There was no way I could turn her down with a reply like that. I let her finish unbuttoning my shirt, as I teased my hands up her sides and down to her hips again.
She pushed my shirt off my shoulders, and danced her fingertips over my chest, sending tremors of need shuddering through me.
With a bump, I knocked her off balance and sent her tumbling onto the bed to land on her ass.
Her laugh was incredible.
I should feel the joy that came with that sound. It should ping in my chest the way it did hers, and buoy my mood more.
That was another thing that was different about this—the lack of her emotion in my head. I was trying to teach her how to focus on only the physical, and for the first time in my life, I was having sex and didn’t have a choice but to not know what my partner was feeling.
The sensation—or lack of sensation—was both incredible and suffocating.
I crawled up Magnus’s body, pushing her to the mattress in the process, while I kissed along her neck. Her chest. Her shoulders.
I covered her entire body in kisses, then came back for another round, tugging her bra down to tease and suck on her breasts.
This was incredible. Hearing her sigh, feeling her squirm underneath me… I could do this for hours. Each gasp she made tugged harder at my desire and my cock.
She hooked a finger in my belt and tugged my waist closer,
I planted a knee between her legs to catch my balance, and she shifted her weight, pressing into my thigh. Her heat radiated through fabric, her core tempting me further.
For the most part, the centuries had taught me patience. All of that knowledge evaporated now, with her underneath me, yielding and playful. Giving herself to the moment and to me.
I wrapped my lips around one of her nipples, to suck and nibble, and she jerked against my leg.
The longer I licked, the harder she ground into my leg. She was so wet, I felt it against my skin, through her panties and my slacks.
Her breath came in delicious pants, and her body heaved from the attention.
I pinched and rolled one of her nipples between my fingers, as I moved my mouth up her body. I nipped at her neck. Her earlobe. “Come for me, gorgeous.” My voice was gravel. “You want it. You deserve it.”
Magnus worked her hips harder, faster, humping my leg. Pressing her pussy into me, while I pressed back. Her entire body shuddered as a series of whimpers tore from her throat.
For a heartbeat, the entire world froze when she tensed. And she fell back against the mattress with a happy sigh.
I claimed her mouth. Kissed her with dozens of tiny pecks, and ignored the whisper of a nag in the back of my mind.
“What’s wrong?” Magnus asked, picking up on something I didn’t want to acknowledge.
“Nothing. I love the sound you make when you come. How incredible you look. The universe revolves around you when you’re turned on.”
Her smile twisted into a question. “But…?”
Me keeping the words tucked away apparently wouldn’t stop her from recognizing them. “But I’ve never not felt it before.”
Magnus brushed her fingers over my cheek, and a spark of emotion flamed to life inside me.
I had an idea what she’d done, I used to do something similar with Nico. This was different though. This wasn’t her just sharing what she was feeling, but it was me. This was my power, flowing through me.
Muted, but familiar. Enticing.
“How’s that?” Magnus asked.
“Incredible.” I pulled her hand up to nip at her fingertips.
Her magical, delicious, sexy fingertips.
She wrapped her legs around my waist, and reclaimed her hand to fumble with my pants. She undid my belt, then the button and zipper, and pushed the remaining clothing down my legs with her feet.
Her need spilled into me, mingling with mine. So did the fun she was having. The joy.
Fuck this was…
I didn’t dare vocalize it and ruin the moment. Instead, I leaned in to crush my mouth to hers, in a long, hungry, messy, sloppy kiss. A feedback loop of lust and desire.
Somehow in the middle of all of that, I finished kicking off my trousers, and she managed to wrap her fingers around my cock. Her fingers were softer than a soldier’s should be, and her grip was warm. She stroked, knowing she was teasing.
I groaned and lost myself in her touch.
This was good. This was incredible. I needed more.
Again, I glided my body up hers, and she wrapped her legs around me, trying to coax me inside her.
“I don’t want this to end,” I said.
“It won’t be the last time.”
Simple words that meant so much more than it sounded like. She meant every implication.
I penetrated her with a long groan. She was so tight and slick as she sheathed and gripped my cock.
Pushing one of her knees to her chest, I angled my body to one side and gripped her fingers. I kissed her palm, then bit enough to make her yelp, and moved her hand lower, between her legs.
“Make yourself come,” I said.
She stroked her fingers over her own clit, and I felt her jerk and clench around me.
Fuck me.
No. Really.
I barely moved inside her, but stayed buried deep as she fingered herself. The way her chest heaved as she neared climax again, the look on her face as she reached that peak of orgasm, it was all amazing.
When she was spasming around my cock, crying out at the height of orgasm, I stopped holding back.
I slammed inside her, hard and fast. Frantic. Pinning both of her knees to her chest and pounding at a steady, insistent pace.
She was still riding her climax, I felt it inside me as I neared my own. The circle of her need built on me, drew out hers, heightened mine, again and again.
I came hard, spilling inside her, and continuing to fuck like a frantic beast until the high ebbed.
We slowed to a stop, and I rested inside her a bit longer, before rolling aside and pulling her into me.
Until now, I’d convinced myself that I didn’t miss the empathy. That I was glad it was gone, and I’d be fine if it never came back.
But in that brief moment, I was whole. Which left me desperately wanting to feel that way again all the time.
For now, I could enjoy what I had. Magnus, in my bed and in my arms. I held her close to me, and kissed lightly along her shoulder and back.
“You think this was a mistake.” Her voice was soft.
“You misunderstand.”
“Oh?”
“Now that I’ve had you, I can’t give you up.”
Magnus’s laugh was light and clear. Sweet. Perfect.
“Besides, you’re not focusing on what I feel, you’re still focused on the physical,” I said.
She pressed her back closer to me. “For training?”
“For sanity.”
We lay quietly for a moment, until Magnus pulled away to roll onto her side. She propped herself up on one elbow to meet my gaze, and brushed her fingers along my shoulder. “Where did the scars come from?”
“Failures.” It was tempting to leave the answer there, but I felt compelled to finish the thought. “Most of them are early attempts to learn about the technique I used on you. I suppose a few are incidental, from other battles fought over the centuries, but most…”
“Yeah. I get it.”
“I didn’t mind at the time.” I told myself it was all in the name of making sure that when I lost my power, I could get it back. Fat lot of good that did me. “I was drowning in the agony that was TOM, and this was a way to punish myself.”
So much for post-coital bliss and whispering sweet nothings.
Though, that wouldn’t be us, would it?
“How did Nico get his memories back?” I asked.
Magnus dragged in a deep breath and her nostrils flared. “I kissed him. I wanted him to remember.”
“The same way you did with me a few minutes ago.” When my empathy came back.
Unlike with Nico, mine didn’t stay.
“I guess in a way,” Magnus said. “It wasn’t a conscious thing either time. Tonight it was more like… you wanted the experience back and I wanted to share it. That was all I was thinking.”
Why did Nico keep what he lost, and I didn’t? Was that part of her unconscious doing? Could she do it again, with purpose?
“I’m not kissing Vidar.” Her comment startled and sickened me.
“No, you’re not.”
The corners of her eyes tugged up. “I can’t do it on purpose. I tried yesterday, and I blew up a dozen test dummies.”
“I’d rather not be blown up.”
“I’d rather not be the one doing the blowing.” Magnus paused with a frown, and then chuckled lightly. “You know what I mean.”
I did.
It amazed me that she had this kind of control after so little time. What she was doing had taken me centuries to figure out. I could offer a number of excuses like she had help and I didn’t have a need to suppress what I was…
But less than a month was impressive regardless.
“I’ll introduce you to Vindres,” I said.
“And all I had to do was fuck you, to get a yes out of you,” she teased.
We both knew that wasn’t what we’d done. “Are you complaining?”
“It was worth it.” She dropped to the mattress again, and snuggled into me.
Silence wrapped around us once again. This was one of those rare moments where I was at peace, and I was going to treasure it for all I was worth.
“Why does he want me?” Magnus’s question seemed to come from nowhere.
I could tease her. Ask if she meant Vindres, but her tone had grown serious. “Vidar?” I asked.
“Or does he? Am I just a stepping stone to someone else? Dahlia? If he took that data center—”
“He doesn’t want Dahlia.” I was certain of it. “He may want her out of the picture, because she can do a lot of the same things he can, but he wants you.” I hadn’t been certain until recently, but I should’ve seen it years ago.
“Why?”
I’d wondered that myself. Some of the students got special attention. Kirby, it was easy to figure out early on who she was and why Hel and Vidar would want to control her. Some of the other Nobles had their own unique pasts and lineage… Not that they’d ever achieve their potential.
And I knew why I was drawn to Magnus.
But I’d never unraveled why Vidar focused on her. “His attention to you pissed Hel off. She always assumed it was because of Dahlia. That he had some sort of soft spot for her because she was one of his, and that extended to you.”
Magnus lifted her head from my chest. “How do you know that wasn’t the case?”
“I felt it in my heart of hearts.” I pulled her back to me.
“Has he always known I was a conduit?”
“Possibly.” It was a huge surprise to me, but if it never came up between us, he never had to lie about it. “On the subject of Vidar, I paid a visit to an FU facility that should have been abandoned. He’s reopening it, and has removed an ancient relic of Skuld’s that was a part of the security. I don’t know how that’s related to what you’ve found, but whatever he’s up to, it can’t be good.”
Magnus traced a lazy path over my chest, occasionally pausing to play with the short hairs. “When Kirby came back to TOM after Hel was dead… When things were falling apart…”
After Dahlia left. When I was planning my exit. “Yes?”
“It was really important to Vidar that Kirby make me a Valkyrie. She wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t want it, but he pushed me toward it.”
“No.” Pieces clicked in my mind. I remembered all of that. The things I wasn’t there for, someone told me about. “He was pushing for her to use her powers on you.” After a mission went bad, Kirby had healed Magnus, who turned around and was able to do the same to other soldiers for a few moments. That was what Vidar was looking for. “Kirby was proof of concept. Evidence that you were capable of what Vidar suspected.”
“But why does he want me?” Magnus looped back to the beginning. “So power flows through me—He gets his from other places, and it’s not like I’m going to give him more.”
I didn’t have an answer for her. “I knew another conduit and so did he. Not that long ago.”
“As in last week or last century?”
I was entertained by her qualifier. “Closer to the latter.” Sometimes the decades blurred together. “She was fascinating as a person. As a conduit? It was never important for me to dig into. She had a twin—an amplifier. I remember, put them together and one would absorb the magic and filter it and the other would enhance it.”
“Did they fight together?” Magnus asked.
Back then the question would’ve been ludicrous. “That’s not what we did—fighting. They put on some incredible light shows with it.”
Magnus sighed and flattened her palm against my chest, over my heart. “I want to live long enough to say fighting isn’t what we did with our strength.”
“You will.”
“You promised no more lies.”
“I’m not lying.” I believed it. “Any doubt you feel is yours.”
“Yeah, it is.”
SEVENTEEN
MAGNUS
I was reluctant to pull away from the comfort of being wrapped in Bragi’s arms. Had I really forgiven him enough that this felt safe? That I wanted to stay here?
I didn’t know, but I did understand him more than I ever had before. “I need to go.” With the words, I forced myself to sit up.
“Mhm.” His grunt was unhappy.
I didn’t have the full control of my empathy that I wanted, but I was close. Everyone was background noise unless I let them in or I slipped. “This was good. No, this was incredible. Thank you.” Not only the sex—though that was the highlight of the evening—but the way more of my self-doubt had been bled away.
An invisible wall seemed to slide into place when I climbed from the bed. The extended moment was over, and this was business again.
I was tired of everything being business. Especially falling—
