Death Comes for Her, page 11
“Death is coming!” she howled like a banshee, and I surged through a door.
A glowing sliver of gold peeked through a veil of red. The sun hidden behind curtains. And I ached for the sun, for the light. I latched onto the drapes, twisting my hands in the velvet fabric, and wrenched it apart with every ounce of strength in my quivering muscles.
I collapsed on the ground, weighed down by layers of heavy red velvet. Bits of clarity blinked through my vision as I shoved the curtains off. Above me blazed six golden wings. Mother’s humming intensified, ringing almost painfully in my ears.
Burning.
When I managed to shove the curtains away from my legs, I caught flickers of the orange and yellow coals smoldering in the fireplace. Her song, her music, came not from the wings hanging from the walls, but from the hearth. On hands and knees, I crawled as if in a drunken stupor toward the fading embers.
“Deathiscoming. Death… Death is coming!”
Moved by spirits, my hand grasped the warm edge of a log sticking out. The opposite end sparked with latent flames. Cool rivers trekked down my fevered cheeks as I rose on shaking legs.
Fading tendrils of dreams left me with a frightening clarity. There I stood in Dante’s office with a hunk of burning wood in my hands. The red dawn at my back and the golden glow of Mother’s wings warred around me.
“Yes, Mother. I know what I must do,” I told her gilded ghost lingering in the corner.
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. From the flames we are born and to them we return.
With the return of reality, my heart galloped over fields in my chest. It ran wild, and my blood pumped erratically under my skin. I sucked in a sharp breath, searching for something to shatter the glass.
My eyes landed on the desk. The corner. The top drawer. I flung myself around the corner and latched onto the handle. Yanking the drawer free revealed a gleaming handle resting prettily on a stack of aged papers. With trembling fingers, I plucked it free, experiencing a rush of power—or maybe just freedom.
Using the weight of the heavy metal dagger, I slammed it into the glass. Thousands of glimmering shards exploded around me, clattering to the hardwood like clinking diamonds. I tightened my grip on the dagger, simultaneously lifting the smoking wood over my head.
Heavy, anguish laden tears seared paths down my face. It was at that moment I held the power to lay my mother to rest in the manner she deserved. All those years after leaving them behind, I had a chance to make something right.
“Goodbye, Mother,” I sucked down a sob. Then I touched the blazing end to her wings and set them ablaze.
Gold light exploded through the room. A flurry of wind sucked out the air in an overheated vortex. All six wings caught flame, melting like spun sugar. Gold wept from the pins, pooling in the glass and evaporating into gilded ashes. Mother’s aureate phantom dissipated in the rising swirls of smoke.
Burning.
My lips twitched in some semblance of victory, as though I’d won against grief. One skirmish in an eternal battle, but a great triumph all the same.
The flames spread orange and yellow, licking at the surroundings. Golden ashes fanned out in the whirlwind, sparking on every surface they danced upon. Heat kissed my legs as the velvet drapes caught fire. Then it rolled over the carpet, jumped over the walls, leapt to the desk, spreading with scorching beauty.
Burning.
My arms spread wide, soaking in the heat, illuminated and reddened by the fire. A bubble of laughter escaped as my head dropped back. Then more, and more, until the manic sound of it mingled with the roaring flames and groaning of broken things.
I spun with glee, dancing in the flames like some otherworld creature left to its manic end. If I burned with Mother, well, I didn’t see that as the worst way to go. At least that way, Father might be proud when he saw me step through and join them beyond the veil.
“Oh, fuck!” A harsh voice grated with surprise.
I spun on my heel, tense and huffing for air, a wild look in my eyes as I glared at the dark-haired vampire filling the doorway. His knuckles turned white on the frame, his lip curled up, flashing fang. The brilliant flames behind me reflected in his gaze, dancing in the depths of his hazel eyes like a forest on fire.
“What the fuck have you done, you crazy fairy?” Dante whipped into the office, taking in every burning surface and flames leaping higher than his head. Something on his desk exploded, and he threw his arm in front of his face to shield it.
Burning.
A reply formed on my lips, but only manic laughter vented free.
Dante snapped his head at the sound, gaze wide and bewildered as if looking at me for the first time. Really looking at me, taking in every inch of me from my deranged, wild expression with tears staining my cheeks to my tensed muscles, ready to move, and finally to the dagger gripped possessively in my white-knuckled hand.
“Hand that over, Sierra,” he demanded.
His stance shifted, forgetting about the fires raging around us as he angled toward me. A predator tensing, going taut in preparation to lunge at its prey. But he didn’t realize I contained the pure unfiltered rage of a prey animal cornered, knowing it was soon to be eaten. Fueled by abject dread and vicious desperation, those instincts tangled with my unleashed grief to carry me further than he’d ever expect.
That trapped animal feeling behind my ribs writhed, scratching at my ribs.
Burning.
“You look like you’ve eaten the sun.” The cacophony of the fire almost stole his reverent whisper. He stole a step closer, shoulders rising and falling with each slow breath. The rage in his eyes dimmed, drowned out by the flames—no, snuffed out by heat of another kind.
I tipped the point of the dagger, aiming at the center of his chest. “Stay where you are, or I’ll eat you too.”
The corner of his mouth jerked, and his eyes gleamed dangerously.
“I believe that’s my line.” His stance hardened, every sculpted muscle in his mountainous frame fluttering under his skin. “Run, Sierra, because when I catch you, I’m going to do just that.”
He lunged, blurring through the air.
I shot my hand out, reacting on pure instinct and power. The blade made contact, slicing through fabric and flesh. Splatters of dark red blood sprayed the ash strewn floor.
“Fuck!”
I spun on my heel, leaping through the spreading flames and darting through the doorway. The vampire bellowed behind me, enraged and animalistic. But the sounds of his heavy thumping steps quickly followed as he gave chase. A predator on the hunt.
Burning.
Swirls of smoke clung to my skin as I barreled down the hallway. The cooler air in the corridor soothed the inflammation on my skin, but did nothing to calm the spark flickering in my belly. Fear and a wanton impulse struck against one another behind my navel, igniting like flint on steel.
Adrenaline slingshot me through the halls, a set of stairs, several twists and turns. My breath punched out of my lungs, the perspiration from the heat dripped down my spine, and my muscles strained with the effort of flinging myself into the chase—the game.
The bastard would punish me when he got his hands on me. I’d stolen back the dagger, set Mother’s wings to flame, and in the process destroyed his office, his personal space. Yet I’d held no concern over consequences once I’d woken from my walking dreams. Not when the vampires wanted me alive, not when they wanted me.
Even as I ran, even as fright twisted up within me and shredded my insides apart, I recalled Dante’s fingers in my core and how it felt when he made me orgasm. An unspoken understanding floated between me as I fled, and Dante as he chased. We knew, we understood, that a game was afoot, and it would merge with a punishment. A dangerously sweet punishment.
Burning.
“You can’t get away from me, pet. No matter where you go, where you run, I’ll be right there,” Dante shouted down the hall, voice echoing off the walls. “I’m inside you now, and I’ll fucking chase you down to the ends of the world.”
Those words sent a delirious thrill through me. It was madness, pure insanity, but the insides of my thighs were slick.
Gods-damn, I wanted… I wanted him to catch me. His fingers inside me, his thumb on my clit. It wasn’t enough. Not when I wanted the promised punishment, the cruelty, the rage. I wanted his violence in response to my actions. And I wanted to delight in abusing the intoxicating effects of his venom.
Scared, alone, with grief in my heart and ash in my lungs, but I gripped a dagger in my hand that tethered me to something ancient, something primordial. Something powerful.
Something golden.
Burly arms belted around my waist. A hard chest slammed into my side, and the momentum sent us both flying. He twisted, caging me against his body and blocking the brunt of the fall. We rolled until a particularly hard landing unlocked his arms.
Burning.
I sprawled out on the hallway runner, hissing at the scrape of carpet on my elbows and knees. Coughing up acrid smoke and sucking in a lungful of cool air helped my aching muscles. I pulled myself into a crouch, dagger aimed at the vampire.
He kneeled before me, prowling closer with bloodlust in his eyes.
“Feral little thing. Looks like my brother was right about you,” he smirked.
“That pompous git doesn’t know his head from his ass,” I spat, then tipped my head to the side.
His barked laughter made my skin crawl. He leapt into a crouch, mimicking my posture. Fangs flashed when he shot that wicked smile.
“Tsk,” he clicked his teeth, “now that’s no way to talk about your master, not when I know how much you loved sucking his cock. Quite rude of you, pet.”
The pressure between us coiled, like a hunter’s bow pulled to the breaking point.
He lunged.
I swung.
Dante hissed, and I felt a flush of liquid pooling against the side of my hand. He bent over me with my back to the floor, his expression twisted in delighted surprise. No hint of pain despite my dagger lodged to the hilt in his side or his crimson blood trickling down my forearm.
His hips slotted between my spread legs. With my scant silk nightgown ridden up to my hips, the evident bulge of his arousal pressed into my core. Heat swooped and coiled in my belly.
“You fucking stabbed me,” he groaned, grinding himself into me. The friction of his tented trousers rubbing against my wet folds made me arch into him. Using one elbow to brace himself, his free hand reached down and dragged it through his blood. He swiped his bloodstained fingers over my gaping mouth, smiling like a demon as he did. “There. You’re so beautiful with blood on your skin.”
A foul urge controlled me, and I sucked his finger into my mouth. His blood coated my tongue and my teeth, tasting like violence and every dark thought I’d ever had.
Burning.
The tension snapped, finally stretched beyond its breaking point with us caught in the unfortunate middle.
I jerked the dagger from his side. Dante shuffled, ripping open his pants and lowering himself. I placed the blade to his throat, hand deceptively steady. He gripped his cock in his free hand, and our eyes locked.
His gaze traced the dark red painted over my lips and chin. I admired the scars etched across his handsome face. And my hips tipped up, gliding my slick heat along the length of his shaft. My breath hitched at the girth of him, parting my lower lips.
The plush head of his cock nudged my clit, and I keened at the bliss that rocked through me. I writhed in pleasure as he notched himself at my entrance, clenching with need. He leaned closer, but I didn’t let up the pressure of the blade.
Ruby droplets kissed the dagger as he slid himself inside me.
My head dropped to the floor, and a roar vibrated through his chest. I spread my legs further, bracketing his hips. He bottomed out inside me, stretching me more than ever in my life. My arousal wept around his cock, coating him in the embarrassing evidence of my need.
“So fucking wet for vampire cock. Gods, your cunt feels so good, Sierra.” He pulled out and slammed into me, so rough the hardwood would bruise my spine. “You’re so wet for me, aren’t you, little fairy?”
“Shut up.” My eyes narrowed at him. “Shut the fuck up, you undead bastard!” My arm flung over him, and the dagger pierced into his shoulder.
“Fuck!” He roared. “You fairy bitch.” Those unhinged hazel eyes rolled back in his head. He thrusted harder, fucking me into the floor. And when his mouth smashed into mine, claiming me and my air, I wanted to erupt.
Burning.
Dante dipped his head and sank his teeth into my neck. His venom erupted through my blood and gold spilled into his mouth. I tightened my grip on the dagger, twisting in his shoulder.
It spurred him on, encouraging him to snap his hips with increasing vigor, as if he needed to split me in half. He enjoyed the pain, and he savored my blood, and he lavished in the wet heat of my cunt gripping him like a vise.
He pawed at my breasts, tweaking my nipples. Bliss fluttered through my stomach with each rough touch from his calloused hands. The undead took from me and I accepted, taking in return. Two unbalanced creatures finding a joint frenzy of pleasure, bound by blood and venom.
The venom coiled low in my belly, worsening the enthralling sensations sweeping through my insides. Dante rocked against me in such a way that my inner walls and clit were targeted, enticed. The mix of pleasure and pain surged low and hot inside me, and I came undone, shaking and whimpering.
Burning.
“Look at how pretty you are coming on vampire cock, lovely fairy whore. Such a good whore for me, aren’t you?” His words made my stomach quiver, and I yanked the dagger from his flesh. He groaned, and it must have been the pain and my fluttering walls milking him that sent him over the edge.
Of course, he liked the pain, the masochistic bastard.
Dante hovered over me, still half-hard inside of me. Several huffed breaths stretched the silence as the hysteria of the moment passed. The afterglow of an orgasm lingered under my skin thanks to the venom, leaving me in an odd pool of satisfied delirium.
Something unreadable flashed in his eyes. Somewhere far away yet all too close, the frantic shouts of concerned servants bounced off the walls. The fact there was an active fire raging in part of the manor crashed down on my mind, startling me from the odd liminal space Dante and I had temporarily hovered in. Not quite a truce, but something tense and raw and wild.
He caught my chin and lifted my face. His lips sealed to mine, intermingling the fresh golden blood on his mouth with the drying vampire blood on mine. The kiss was rough, claiming, and punishing, as he bit my bottom lip and shoved his tongue into my mouth.
Dante’s hands were stained with unfathomable amounts of blood, yet he cradled my face with misleading tenderness.
Burning.
When he broke away, he avoided looking at me. Even as he hooked a meaty hand around my arm and hefted me off the ground. My knees wobbled and my inner thighs were sticky with our combined release. The vampire didn’t say a word as he dragged me down the halls to my room.
Hazel eyes full of treacherous wanting, and darkness noted the dagger still protectively clutched in my hand. His upper lip curled in a snarl before he slammed the door behind him.
When I tried twisting the handle, I found it locked from the outside. And I was truly caged at that time. Yet I dropped my head back and the manic laughter returned.
And I laughed and laughed until my chest ached and the laughter turned into chest-wrecking sobs that left me breathless. I cried glittering tears of gold, clutching the dagger to my chest, to the hollow place where my heart once belonged and lamented over being trapped.
Only the comfort that Mother received the last rite she deserved softened my misery. And all the while, everything burned.
Chapter 12
A week later, still confined to my room, Imani informed me that the fire had completely destroyed Dante’s office and the neighboring rooms. That wing of the manor left uninhabitable for the time being. A flutter of triumph moved through me at the news, and I tucked into my meal gladly.
It didn’t surprise me as much as it might have that Dante had locked my door from the outside. I’d enjoyed unheard of freedom in my captivity, and I couldn’t expect not to face consequences for my actions. Though they were justified in my eyes, I couldn’t fathom the Ambrose lords’ understanding of my endeavors.
What surprised me more than anything was that I still possessed the dagger. Dante hadn’t taken it back when he’d abandoned me to assist with putting out the fire. He’d fucked me brutally into the floor, then locked me away, leaving me with my ill-begotten—but rightfully mine—consolation prize.
Crim wove through Imani’s feet as she went about the room, idly chatting. Several times she hissed at the cat, nearly tripping her before going right back to her tasks. She put away another set of new dresses in the wardrobe, and I briefly wondered where they came from.
“… the fire wasn’t near the guest rooms, so I don’t imagine they’ll set the date back…”
“Understandable,” I mumbled, fiddling with the pages of the book in my lap.
“Cleaning up has been taking a while, but things are going well.” As Imani rambled on about the excitement after the fire and rumors surrounding an upcoming event, I let my mind drift.
Dante and Simon’s venom and the heat of our encounter had exhausted me. I’d slept for almost two days before waking up in some fucked up fever dream, wandering through the manor and set fire to the office, releasing Mother’s wings to the embrace of flames. Dante found me, chased me through the manor, and rutted me into the floor.
Why didn’t he take the dagger back? It had been a week of silence from both vampires…
Only Monarchs had three sets of wings. Both lords knew of the six scars on my back.
The Ambrose Lords weren’t average vampires. They had status, power, intelligence, and enough clues to put the pieces of my poorly hidden secret together. It wouldn’t stay a secret for anyone smart enough to read between the lines.
