Shard, page 5
part #2 of Cruelly Made Series
I turn my head enough I can just barely see Rot over my shoulder. He’s absolutely scarlet.
Smoke intervenes, taking pity on both of us. “Back to the Warden. He tempted fate a few days ago. He’s the one that unleashed the Blightling.”
Blood sighs. “Since when were you the wet blanket, Smoke?”
“Rot clearly doesn’t want to take advantage of her.” Smoke’s tone is brittle.
Blood walks his fingers down my spine, teasing me lightly, a smile dancing in the swirl of his fingertips. “Fair enough, fair enough. I’ll play gently.”
Rot’s practically on fire from mortification. “I—I, um…”
“She needs rubs of one variety or another,” Blood bids Rot, tone easy. He lifts his fingers off me and retreats to his own cot, watching with a pleased look on his face. Smoke just sighs at him.
“Sorry about this,” Rot mutters under his breath as he places both hands just above my knees. “I really am not a freak. I swear.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” I tell him, eyeing Blood. “You’re in good company even if you are.”
5
Crystal
Rot really needs to stop blaming himself for what happened between us.
I’m awake. Everyone else in the prison—even the ravens—are asleep. Blood’s little petal dragon has decided to curl up in his hair, and it makes little fluttering, purring noises as it snores. Blood’s worried about something, otherwise it wouldn’t be out and about. It senses its Mage needs it for something.
Maybe wherever he is, ScatheFire has his familiar curled up on his head like that.
Rot’s not a monster. He scared the shit out of himself. He almost got lost.
It’s a reality of being a Mage. You’re lucky if you live long enough to die.
I thought we had worked this out, but clearly, we haven’t.
So I need to fix this before it turns toxic. Time to fall back on my Heart training and see how far it gets me without magic.
Although I might just make the situation worse.
I rub my blanket between my fingers. Should I just mind my own business? I’m not their Shard, I’m not their Heart, I’m just a problem. But this doesn’t need to be a problem, and I don’t want Rot feeling like something happened that didn’t happen.
For his sake, I’m going to have to take the risk. I rehearse a plan in my head, stepping through each action a dozen times.
I slip out from under my blanket and step over to his cot. I trail my fingertips along his hand, light enough to not startle him, strong enough that he knows I’m not a bug and don’t smack me. His eyes flutter open, strange and swampy in the gloom.
Without a word and before I can second-guess myself, I lift his blankets and slide in next to him.
Damn, he’s a lot warmer than I am. Snuggling has its perks.
He shimmies over as much as he can to make room for me, but there isn’t much room on these cots, so I’m half on top of him.
He mumbles something awkward and I feel the flush on his skin. Mortification, desire, more shame.
At least he hasn’t told me to get the fuck away from him. It’s a start. I can work with this.
“I want to talk to you,” I whisper, lowering my face to his. My hair falls around us.
“Okay,” he whispers hoarsely.
“What happened wasn’t a bad thing.”
“I know you did it to save me,” he says, shrinking away in mortification like a horse trying to avoid a touch without actually moving its hooves.
“Yeah, well, I did, and I came really hard and I liked it.” Sometimes you’ve got to just be blunt, so there’s no confusion in the team. That is also part of the plan, and I’ll just deal with my own internal cringe.
“Then why are you shaking right now?”
Crap. Am I trembling?
“I know you’re scared,” he whispers.
“I’m not scared of you.” Not really. Not like he means.
“You’re scared I’m gonna be mean to you and tell you to get lost.”
I scramble. This is not part of the plan.
“You don’t really want to be here,” he whispers. “It’s okay. You don’t have to try to make me feel better.”
“But I don’t want you to feel bad!” I insist. “Because you didn’t do anything wrong! And I’m used to getting thumped on.”
“And you don’t trust me to not thump on you because you still think you deserve it.”
His marsh-colored eyes reflect the faint light. My skin shimmers softly. Tiny buds of magic seem to bubble to the surface. I struggle with a tangle of words and emotions in my throat. He’s kind of right: I’m braced for the moment when he tells me to get lost, mind my own business. But I can’t mind my own business, just like I can’t believe ScatheFire’s dead. I’m probably delusional.
Shamefaced, he says, “I’m not dumb. I know women can cum even if they’re getting mauled. Just like you can force a guy to finish even if he doesn’t want to.”
“Is that what happened for you?” I ask softly.
“No. But I know how hard I was holding you. I know you couldn’t have gotten away. I know you were throwing up afterwards.”
“I was upset that I lost control of my magic and damn near brought the ceiling down on all of us, and that you guys are down here at all,” I say. “Don’t you remember the day I touched your thread? You weren’t bashful then. You told me to keep going.”
“Well, yeah, but…”
“But?”
He squirms. This cot is too small for a big guy like him to squirm. “That was different.”
Now it’s his turn to be blunt, because that makes no sense. “Why?”
“When we fucked, the Blight was telling me things. Like how I needed to fuck you hard, you deserved to get railed, trying to spoil my fun…” he shudders. “That’s how it feels. When you’re in deep with the Blight. It feels good. And that’s why Fells need Shards, and why Fells hate having Shards. Shards get to hold the whip, and sometimes you need to be whipped. Then after you were with Blood, I found out how your last team treated you and…”
I tell him, softly, “That was the Blight talking to you. It says whatever it needs to say.”
“In my head I did something bad to you.” His shame pours out of him like the water from the wall. “When I found out how your last team treated you, I know I did something bad. And you’ve been so beat up you can’t even get mad about what happened. I wish you were mad at me.”
Blight-warped memories and thoughts are things that happen to every single Mage. And Mages that get close to the edge? Go over but get hauled back by their Heart or Aegis or Shard? It leaves marks. You can’t unsee it. You can’t unthink it. You can’t forget it. In your mind, it’s all real. And maybe in reality it’s real too, and that’s when it really poisons a team: when someone goes over the edge, and does something terrible, and there’s no taking it back.
It’s one of the ways the Blight destroys Aether teams even from a distance. Seems it’s how it can destroy a Fell team too.
Sometimes you don’t want to come back from the abyss.
I touch his face. His guilt is so plain it hurts. I run my finger along his cheekbone. There’s a scar there. I feel it, even if it’s no longer visible. Must be really old. “I could have stopped you. I could have shoved crystal through your throat. You didn’t take anything that wasn’t there to be taken.”
“I promised myself I’d never become… you know,” he whispers.
“One of them?” I ask, not knowing exactly who them is, but I don’t need to be a Heart to take a guess what a Fell street kid had seen in their life. That promise he’d made to himself—probably born out of some deep trauma branded on his bones—was probably why I’d been able to latch onto him. The Blight had overtaken him, and my getting close to him had invoked a primal response and the Blight seizing on his deepest personal nightmare. It’d given me a huge target to hit.
He whispers, “You deserve to be treated nice.”
The Warden disagrees, and the Warden isn’t wrong about some things. “I destroyed my last team. I got ScatheFire dragged below. I’m going to live my life as a fraud. The Warden says it’s just a matter of time before I kill again. That it’s my nature.”
“That’s not your fault,” he hisses. “None of that is your fault!”
Then he sighs with realization.
I snuggle closer.
“You deserve to be treated nice,” he says again.
“So are you here to tell me what I should think nice is?”
“Blood says we can’t trust you to know better because of you know… how you’ve been treated.”
I’m going to punch Blood in the dick for presuming to tell me how I like my sex. But right now… “So treat me nice.”
“What? How?”
“I can think of a few ways.”
“You mean…”
“Why does everyone in this damn prison get to be horny except for me?” I ask with a petulant sigh. I pull at his lower lip with my thumb, a little too hard and rough. “Can I touch your Fell thread again? I’ve been thinking about it since that day. You can lick my Aether. I’ll trade. How about that?”
“It won’t stop at just your Aether.” His tone is husky.
I push my palm flat into his chest, then feel my way along the chiseled bulk, counting each rib until I get to the thick, silky, satin-stitched Fell thread. “Who said I was going to stop at your Fell thread? Unless you want me to stop there.”
“No, don’t stop.”
I caress the thick stitching. I can’t see it under the dark and covers, but my magic can, and my skin shimmers softly. Rot bends his head and kisses my shoulder, then my chest, moving towards my Aether. I sigh. His lips are so soft. Not at all what I’d expect from a guy as big and dense as him. I sigh again as he kisses between my breasts, swirling his tongue along one of the lines of my stitching. His Fell thread trembles.
“How do I taste?” I whisper. No point in waking Blood and Smoke up, although that’s probably going to happen, anyway.
“Like snow,” he rasps. “Like snow. Can I… touch you?”
Nobody’s ever asked me that. “Yes.”
He cups one of my breasts in one big hand, groaning very softly, and lowers his mouth. He tastes my Aether, my flesh, teases my nipple with his tongue, before rolling it with his thumb, very gently, like I am as fragile as my Aether makes me look. He alternates between breasts, slow and unhurried. Then he pulls back and looks down at me in the gloom. Without a word, he brushes his fingers over my lips and down my throat to my chest, tracing the loops of my Aether. The magic shimmers softly under his touch.
I touch his Fell thread again, then trace one of the indents created by his abs to another indent, and another, until I get to the valley where his torso meets his hips. I trace a small pattern in the line. “May I?”
“Yes,” he rasps.
My fingers curl around his body. He bites his lip to hold in his groan. He’s hot and hard and silky all at the same time. Smooth, not veined like Blood or ScatheFire. Huge, though, like all the rest of him. I can’t see the detail in the gloom and shadows, but I enjoy savoring the feel of him. My thumb grazes the head. He’s already slick.
His attention moves from me. I twist a bit. Smoke is awake. Rot asks, “Do you want to watch?”
Mute, Smoke nods.
I glance towards Blood’s cot. Blood’s turned over on his other side and faces the wall, his familiar curled up on his head also with its back to us. He raises one hand to indicate pass.
Rot pulls the blanket off of us to give Smoke a better view. I stroke his cock, marveling at how damn hard he is. He groans softly. “Don’t do that.”
I freeze.
“I meant,” he says hoarsely, “you’ll make me finish.”
“You don’t want to?” I ask.
“You first.” Then he adds, with a hint of soft shyness. “I’d like to do that for you.”
“You do?” I whisper.
He shifts and presses his body against my hip, and then caresses my thighs, and reaches his hand between my legs. He touches me so gently it’s like a whisper at first, then he cups me in his huge palm, and sighs against my neck. His fingers caress my slit, my lips, then he dips his finger inside me, just a bit. His hips grind into me and he groans softly. “You don’t even have to touch me to make me finish. But I can wait for you.”
In my peripheral vision, Smoke leans back against the wall, his cock in his hand, working himself slowly.
Rot pulls wetness from my pussy over my clit, using his crooked thumb to slowly stroke me. He’s so gentle, so unrushed, so patient. He bends and gently sucks one of my nipples, then the other, sampling my Aether as he slowly works my body, dipping his thick fingers into me and exploring. I whimper and reach one hand along his hip.
“No,” he whispers. “I’m going to spoil you.”
He works me very gently, but somehow I squirm and come to the edge for him. I gasp and keep the moans between my teeth, which makes it even more intense. He removes his hand, and slowly licks his fingers clean with a sigh, then he bends and kisses me. “I just want to finish right now.”
“So—”
“No. It wouldn’t be nice.”
He touches me again, groaning softly as he slides his fingers back into me. I buck and squirm, unconsciously clawing at his thick arms, urging him closer. Rot looks at Smoke. “She’s so wet and sweet, Smoke.”
Smoke’s rhythm on his cock increases. His eyes are riveted to us.
“Her clit is so sweet too,” Rot says softly, stroking it with his thumb. “I’m not going to taste it though. I want to wait for that.”
The dirty talk is making this so much more intense, and knowing Smoke’s watching, with his hand on his cock—I can hear the rough thickness of his breathing. I try to turn my head to look at Smoke, but Rot stops me with his lips on my throat and a whispered, “He watches you. You don’t watch him.”
Fuck, why is that so damn hot?
He strokes my clit very gently, teasing me at the same time it’s bringing me closer and closer to an orgasm centered deep inside my pelvis, while his tongue plays with my nipples, everything so slow and gentle and before him it’d have never done a damn thing for me, but he’s just a giant mountain of gentleness.
It’s sweet, beautiful torment. I claw at his arms, sink fingers into his Fell thread, and kiss him. It’s like getting strung up with sweet, painful wires.
“She’s going to finish,” Rot tells Smoke, his voice thick and raspy. He licks my nipple and I barely manage to not moan loud enough for the entire Pit to hear me.
Smoke’s heavy breathing undercuts everything. I wish I could see him. I’ve never seen someone jerk off to me and enjoy it. I keen in my throat. I feel Smoke’s gaze on me, just as heavy and thick as Rot’s touch is painfully gentle. Rot strokes me a final time, shoving me over the edge.
He groans into my neck as I writhe against him, arching up onto his hand as I bite down a cry. Smoke groans. Rot, breathing hard, suddenly shifts, bracing himself over me with one hand, and his other grabs a fistful of my hair. He groans and his back arches, and his cock shoots white ropes onto my abdomen.
He shudders, breathing hard, his cock twitching a few more times. A few pearly beads hang from the quivering tip. Smoke’s heavy breathing undercuts Rot’s and my own.
White slides over my belly. Down my side.
“I told you,” he whispers, “you didn’t need to touch me to make me cum.”
I collapse back onto the cot, quivering and aching.
“She’s not done.” Smoke’s voice sounds curiously strangled and choked.
Rot caresses my clit once, twice, again, and I arch as another orgasm yanks through me. Smoke groans. Rot, as I’m in the throes of it, tells me, “He’s cumming again. You should see his hand. It’s covered in cum from watching you.”
My half-over orgasm starts from the beginning and I can’t hold in my cry. I grab Rot and bury my face in his chest as he pushes his fingers inside me and strums my body over the brink.
Smoke groans. I can’t see him, but I know he’s sagged back, hands at his side, dick softening.
I release Rot slowly.
He contorts himself to crawl over me (without bumping into me) to get out of the cot, fetches some water, and—with a bunch of totally unnecessary shyness—cleans the semen from my belly, careful to get the bits that have dripped down my sides. I’m still breathing hard. He uses another rag to wash between my sopping wet thighs.
“Don’t bother,” I say weakly. “There’s already a wet spot.”
“I know,” he says, sort of bashful.
“Shit, Rot, if that’s what you mean by nice…”
He blushes but smiles smugly. Sort of a funny expression, really.
I twist my neck to get a look at Smoke. He’s toweling ropes of cum from between his fingers. His expression betrays nothing. I sit up abruptly and grab Rot by the hair with both hands. “So, we have this settled?”
He blushes scarlet.
I kiss him gently. Time to not overstay my welcome. “I’m going back to my own cot. That was amazing. Both of you.”
I blow Smoke a kiss and leave the wet spot to Rot.
6
Crystal
The ravens start cawing and flapping.
“The hell.” I bat at invisible flies. It feels like the shadows are crawling on me. A couple of crows flap down our hallway, screeching about something, bat their wings against our bars, and then leave again. “What are those flying golem-rodents cawing about?”
“Everyone up!” the Warden’s voice shouts. “Fall in!”
“What?” Rot looks at me. “What’s going on?”
“Don’t ask me, I don’t have a clue.” I curse for the zillionth time ScatheFire not being here. None of us know how this shit works.
