Unveil: A Dark Ballet Retelling, page 24
That one desperate look, her voice quiet but loud amidst the rolling thunder…
Her pussy clenching me hard.
I fucking lose it.
Snatching her hips, I snap mine forward, impaling her on a brutal thrust. Her shriek of half-pain, half-need calls to the deepest, darkest, most feral parts of me, and I answer with my own roar. My thumbs dig into the dimples on her back as I thrust with ruthless abandon. A true fucking.
Claiming my wife.
Her body trembles in my hands, and instinct tells me she’s close as her cunt tightens like a vise around my cock the higher she climbs.
But then I see it. Blood trickles down her arm. Fresh blood. It takes me a second to realize it’s not mine.
It’s hers.
I fist her hair, wrapping my arm around her front as I pull her back to better see the slash on her shoulder I didn’t notice before.
“When did this happen?” I snarl. “Who did this to you?”
Her eyes narrow with rage back at me as she spits the answer, “A Wilde.”
The fight plays in a flash in my mind, stopping on the moment I thought I’d saved her from the knife grazing her shoulder. I’d failed her.
My fury explodes in my chest. I lick the cut, making her hiss, then glare into her eyes as I cleanse the metallic stain. Her pain tastes sharp, like steel and hate, and once I’ve lapped up every trace of what they did to her, I crash my mouth to hers. She moans, lips parting to take the bloody offering, our kiss a frenzy of hunger and vengeance until I can’t tell where her anger ends and mine begins.
I finally wrench myself away, leaving her breathless as I confess how the fight ended.
“They’re dead,” I promise. “All of them are dead by the same knife they cut you with.”
Gorgeous brutality flashes in her eyes. “Good.”
Pride fills my chest, but my voice hardens. “That goes for anyone who touches you. If anyone hurts you, a shallow grave is all they’ll get.”
She cups my cheek. “Good.”
I growl at her ruthlessness that rivals my own, and pull her in for another kiss, teasing her clit with my fingers while I thrust into her again. She braces against the tree trunk, completely at my mercy, until her thighs tremble and her muscles lock around me.
“Come for me, wife.” She tries to close her eyes, but I shake her. “No. Eyes on me. Let me see you come undone.”
Her eyes flutter closed, but I tap her clit as punishment, and she shatters, sobbing as her body bows over. My grip in her hair keeps her upright so I can witness her break for me. Gorgeous tears spill down her cheeks, but her clear blue gaze stays on mine. My name falls from her lips on a long, low moan of surrender. Her pussy strangles my cock with rhythmic clenches, so tight I nearly tip over the edge with her, but I maintain my speed and thrusts as her hips push back against me, meeting me stroke for stroke.
“There it is,” I encourage her, my voice deep. “Ride my cock. Fuck, you’re so beautiful falling for me like this. You were made for me to catch you.”
I do just that as she goes limp in my arms, totally sated. My thrusts slow but never stop as I ease her forward onto the soft bed of moss, then prop her hips high, opening her wide so I can take her the way I need. I pull out only to slam back in again, over and over, until I lose all sense of time watching my wife’s face twist in ecstasy.
Blood seeps from my wound, running down my chest and abdomen until it slicks my shaft again. Her virgin blood mingles with the blood I sacrificed in her name, blending together as I claim her, and I’m suddenly overcome with the aching need to fill her with everything I can give.
I hook one hand over her clavicle, my palm resting over the skull tattooed on her shoulder blade. The Fury mark. My other grips her hip, fingers digging into the cracked skull I designed. My mark.
My thrusts quicken, an unforgiving pace as my fingerprints stamp into her flesh. She arches and rocks back against me, on the verge of another round of pleasure, strangling my cock with her tight little cunt. I drag my tongue up her spine and nip her neck beneath her ear.
“Again, Luna. Come for your husband.”
She shrieks, convulsing around me. My hand clamps her throat as I snarl.
“I’m going to come inside my wife. Always your cunt, do you understand? I’ll fuck my seed into you for the rest of our lives, until you’re good and fucking bred by your Fury.”
“Yes,” she begs. “Please. Come inside me, Orion. Give me everything.”
She’s mindless right now, and will probably hate me later, but I can’t care, too primal to think of anything other than claiming her from the inside out. I’ve made my stance on possessing her in every way possible pretty damn clear, so I take the invitation for what it is.
White-hot sensation explodes through me, and I go blind with pleasure as my balls draw up. My cock surges, and I press my hand to her lower belly to drive deeper against her sensitive channel.
“Orion!”
Fisting her hair, I twist the tendrils aside to sink my teeth into the crook of her neck. She screams as I bite to bruise, to mark, to scar, all so she can never forget me. Copper teases my tongue, and I come harder than I ever have, buried to the hilt inside her.
I release her on a roar, and she jerks in my arms, another orgasm racking her body until she comes undone again like a woman possessed. Because she is. She’s mine, and what we just did sealed it, binding us in mind, body, and soul.
We’re riddled with aftershocks, and it takes a while for my racing heartbeat to finally slow as adrenaline bleeds out of me. I gather Luna before she can collapse, pulling out with a hiss at the loss of her heat. She clings to me, sobbing into my neck.
“Fuck, baby, come here,” I murmur, even though she’s already as close as she can get.
Holding her tight, I sit on my shirt and lean against the trunk, then guide her to straddle me. Raising her hips enough to slip my cock back inside her, I bite down a groan as residual spurts of cum leave me, coating her channel. Once I’ve got a handle on my shit, I cradle her against my chest and wrap my jacket around her trembling form. The sight of blood welling where my canines pierced her, bruises already darkening to a rich purple around them, makes my cock stir again, but I tamp it down and lave the marks gently, making her shudder.
I hold her to me, keeping us joined, the connection necessary not only for her, but for me too. I could’ve lost her today, and it’s a miracle she survived.
No. Not a miracle. It was a sacrifice. The loss of one of her best friends.
I feel the exact breath when her cries shift to something that’s no longer from ecstasy. A pained wail escapes her chest, and she sags into me, depending on me to hold her together as the weight of everything she’s gone through tears her apart. Unfortunately, I know some of the emotions too well.
Pain. Grief.
Guilt.
No matter how Benoit died, even with the Wildes the clear enemy, Luna will wear the blame like an anvil on her back. I’ll hold her through it until she forgives herself. Maybe one day, she’ll help me do the same.
Rocking her slowly, I massage her scalp and whisper fiercely against her temple, saying all the things I wish had been said to me.
“It’s okay.”
“I’ve got you.”
“You’re safe now.”
“It’s not your fault.”
I repeat them, wondering if the words even register, hoping she internalizes them somehow if they don’t.
Eventually, her sorrow releases its chokehold, letting her breaths even, and she goes fully limp in my arms. When sleep finally claims her, I hold her impossibly tighter and make the same vow I have every night so far.
“I love you, wife.” I kiss her forehead, pouring everything I am into her. “I love you, and I’m never letting you go.”
Luna is killing me.
Those watery, clear blue eyes have been fixed in a hollow stare since we got back to the cabin, the sight of Benoit’s body no doubt bringing back fresh hurt and guilt. I know that feeling. Seeing the burnt graveyard was a sucker punch to the chest, and it’s been six years since I confronted my mom’s death, not little more than six hours.
Luna collapsed at her friend’s side as soon as we walked up, her tutu fanning around her like broken wings as she tucked her legs beneath her and pulled him into her lap. She’s still wearing my jacket and the crudely fixed bodice laced together with ripped tulle. The blood from Benoit’s gunshot wounds has dried, rust-colored flakes crusting the holes in his shirt and speckling her fair skin. But she wouldn’t have cared if she’d been soaked through.
Benoit looks worse now, despite the rosy glow of early morning creeping in through the cabin slats. His skin is pale and waxy, slick with October dew, lips an unnatural bluish-gray. The only saving grace is that his eyes are closed. You don’t come back the same after looking into dead eyes. That image never stops haunting you. Luna’s silent, catatonic, and cradling him like they might open at any moment.
I’d do anything to take away her pain, but all I can give her is a few minutes to mourn in peace. So I check the traps that ended up being useless, confirm we’re alone, then hide bodies in the brush so Luna doesn’t have to see them. When I return to the cabin, she’s in the same position, a portrait of grief frozen in time.
I crouch beside her and rub small circles on her back. She leans into me enough that I feel the quake of her sobs as she lets them free. I press a kiss to her crown, reveling in the trust she has in me, trust I don’t deserve, and hating myself for ruining it with what I have to say next.
“I need to check him, little bird.”
She recoils, hissing and wrapping around him like a swan guarding her cygnets. “No.”
Exactly the reaction I predicted. My girl’s fiercely protective over the people she loves, one of the many reasons I fell for her. But that devotion is also how I know she can’t handle watching me search her dead friend’s pockets for anything useful.
Out here, we can’t count on anything but surprises. Everything is used and nothing is wasted. A practical, sometimes harsh rule of the woods I would’ve hoped to teach her in much better circumstances. But it’s a lesson that might keep us alive, especially with Luna still hurt and the possibility of the Wildes hiding anywhere in the Lost Cove trees.
I don’t say that, though. Her emotions are an exposed nerve right now, and I’m afraid one wrong word will set her off into a devastated spiral. So I rub my thumb at the nape of her neck and offer a truth she can digest.
“I have to make sure there’s nothing on him that can hurt you.”
Her eyes narrow. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. But I won’t take chances with you.” I tip my chin toward the door. “Go, please. I promise I’ll be quick, but you won’t want to see this.”
Her eyes well up as she holds him tighter. “You won’t hurt him.”
Way to break my damn heart.
I shake my head. “I promise. I’ll treat him like my own.”
She waits a beat, then nods slowly and passes him to me, holding his head like a baby’s. I take him just as gently and watch as she limps to the porch with barely a grunt of pain. She doesn’t go far, stopping at the railing. Her fingers dig into the wood as she stares out across the lake where the mist lifts in the sun’s meager rays. Her back is straight, jaw clenched. The soft wind wafts through her hair and ripples her skirt like water, and she visibly shudders, as if from a cold chill like a ghost passing by.
The guilt weighing on my chest makes it hard to breathe.
My strong little bird is wrecked. Black, blue, and purple marks paint her fair skin, some I’m proud of, like my claiming bite and the fingerprints mapping my touch. Others make me murderous.
The welt on her cheek from that Wilde’s backhand is the worst of them, the cut on her shoulder a close second. I wish I could drag him and his knife-wielding friend back from the grave to fuck them up again, toy with them like a cat with its prey. At least Luna helped take out the first one, cracking his neck under her foot.
But it’s not just her wounds that’ll worry me until I get her safe in Dark Corner. It’s been almost a week, but she’s already losing weight she couldn’t afford to. Her spine is more pronounced, cheekbones sharper. The bodice I ripped still fits, but only because of my hack job stitch-up, threading tulle like a corset through slits I cut. It hugs her lean frame and pushes her breasts up so high it’s a wonder she can breathe. I want the thing off her as soon as we’re safe. The once-white fabric and remaining feathers are nearly black now, stained by bog mud and dark crimson blood.
Forcing my gaze away from my girl, I focus on Benoit, laying him on the floorboards to work swiftly. I don’t touch the gun he never had a chance to fire. No matter how helpful it could be, the bad luck that comes with a dead man’s weapon ain’t worth the risk. But I pocket his cracked phone, keys, and an unlabeled pill bottle. Then I zip up his jacket, covering the bloodstains so she won’t have to see them again.
“I’m finished,” I murmur.
She appears before the last word’s out, dropping beside him and gathering his body into her lap again to rock him. Her face returns to that blank expression I hate, churning my stomach.
I slowly rise and step outside, giving her space she probably won’t even notice. Glancing back at her, I pull Benoit’s phone out and swipe through it, then bring it to my ear to make the call I’ve been dreading.
It’s answered on the first ring.
“Benny? You okay, kid? You missed your check-in.”
Fuck. Me.
The casual tone slices through my resolve deeper than I’d expect. I suck my teeth, rub at the pang in my chest, then let out a hard sigh.
“Bordeaux.”
There’s silence before Luna’s father answers gruffly.
“Explain.”
Imove farther down the muddy path toward the lake, as far as I’ll allow myself away from Luna, keeping her within my line of sight but out of earshot. Still, I lower my voice.
“Benoit is dead.”
“You mother—”
“I didn’t kill him.” My eyes flick back to my distraught girl, still exactly as I left her, then sweep the woods again. “But I’ll give you one guess who did.”
A pause, then Sol grits out. “The Wildes.” Rage roughens his voice. “None of this would’ve happened if you’d never stolen my daughter.”
My grip tightens around the phone.
“Let’s get one thing crystal fucking clear. You made a vow. King Fury’s kin kept our end, and we didn’t tell a soul. But somehow the Wildes found out. The only reason I had to ‘steal’ her in the first place is because you’ve got snakes in your own garden.”
I give him a second to choke on that before twisting the knife.
“You didn’t even know that Ozias was a Wilde, did you?”
“The hell he is. What did you do with him? He’s been missing since that night.”
Missing? He was supposed to be at the hospital…
I blink, pushing past that question to answer him, my voice firm. “I handled Ozias because you didn’t. And his cousins? Bart and Rufus? They slipped right past your precious shadows too. They drugged her, Sol.”
He sucks in a sharp breath. “No way that happened in my city.”
“I’m telling you… It. Did. If you don’t believe me, ask my brothers for the photo of the Pining blister pack we found on Rufus. There was some plan between him and Bart to take Luna. Maybe Ozias was even in on it too.”
Silence stretches between us, but I can practically hear him connect it all.
“We found Rufus dead,” he finally admits, less hostility in his tone. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that, I guess. “What of Bartholomew and Ozias?”
“This is the first time I’ve had signal in nearly a week, but last I heard from my brothers, Bart’s in the wind.”
Luna’s dad grunts his disapproval. “And Ozias?”
“My brothers were supposed to drop him off at the hospital, but if you haven’t seen him…” I let the words drift before continuing. “I’m not sure how much he had to do with it, honestly, if at all. Hurting women’s usually off-limits with Zy. But just in case, I gave him an invitation to fuck right off.” My lips quirk wryly. “He won’t be smiling about much from now on.”
“Good.” Then Sol mutters, almost to himself. “I still can’t believe this.”
“Believe it. This is like King predicted. You’ve underestimated the Wilde-Fury feud. I was under your nose for years protecting Luna. You really think someone just as determined to do the opposite couldn’t pull off a long con too? I didn’t take her to fuck with you, Bordeaux. I took her because she’s mine, and she was in danger. If I hadn’t, who knows how far they would’ve gone. Benoit’s death proves the lengths they’ll go to.”
“I’ll shore up my defenses, then. We’ve never needed Furys before, and we won’t now.”
I seethe. “We’re in a war, don’t you get that? Luna’s not just your daughter anymore. She’s my wife. The Wildes will do whatever it takes to stop the pact between our families. Without me, she’s a sitting duck.”
“She’s not your wife unless she chooses it,” he snaps. “You’re forcing her into something she doesn’t want.”
I shake my head, eyes returning to the cabin. Luna finally looks at me, and as soon as our eyes meet, her expression softens.
“I don’t think that’s true anymore, Solomon.”
“We’ll see about that,” he grits. “Turn on video and give Luna the phone. I need to speak with my daughter.”
“Only if she wants to,” I shoot back, needling him even as I’m on my way back to her.
“You little…” He rattles off what I’m sure is a string of New Orleans-style French curses.
I mute him as I take the porch steps in two strides. When I’m beside Luna, I squeeze her shoulder and crouch to meet her gaze, phone extended.
“You wanna talk to your dad?”
She releases a ragged exhale, then nods, taking the phone and switching to video. My jacket’s fallen off her shoulder, so I tighten it around her. One because even though she says she doesn’t feel the cold, she’s trembling now, and to hell with my wife being cold. And two… Solomon Bordeaux will kill me if he sees the bite mark I left on his daughter. I’m not afraid of the guy, but there’s nothing wrong with having a healthy respect for your father-in-law, especially when he’s the most dangerous man in New Orleans.
