Ember's Light: Stryx, page 24
part #1 of Vampires & Strygoi Witches Series
One of Stryx’s fangs had cut deep into his bottom lip.
Blood and venom. I need both. Venom wouldn’t be a problem. He gave her that freely enough, but he’d never offered his blood.
Ember braced herself, preparing to taste something metallic, and lunged as far as the manacles would allow. She ran her tongue over his lip and the blood welling there. It tasted smooth like wine and warmed her, sending tingles shooting through her. When the cut closed, she bit to reopen the wound, sipping at the fresh flow.
His blood did something to the magic in hers. Something was beginning, trying to become. But it was just a spark where she needed an inferno. She hadn’t taken enough blood. She needed more and bit him again.
Stryx growled, placed a hand on her chest, and shoved.
Ember laughed as she landed on the pillows. She felt his erection pressing into her stomach. He liked what she was doing, but thought he was going to be in control.
She eyed the healing cut and licked her lips. She was going to enjoy every moment of taking it from him.
STRYX
Stryx was close to losing it. His Dragă drinking his blood, and biting him to take more, sent his vampire side into a frenzy. Was she trying to provoke the darkness in him? Human and fragile, she wasn’t prepared for what would happen if he let it take over, especially when he was already hanging on to himself by threads.
Finally, his Dragă craved the bond as much as him, but she did not get to dictate terms. Some part of his life had to remain his, stay under his control. Soră was trying to add him to her collection, but the bond would allow his mind quiet and keep him from falling completely into the silver girl’s clutches. Ember was his.
Even if she could win a physical fight against a man, she was no match for a mage. Nor was she in any way prepared to handle the vampire inside him. He couldn’t allow her to risk herself again—not even with him. The bond would make her understand.
He yanked Ember’s body down the bed, stretching her arms straight over her head and pulling the manacle chain tight.
“You wanted to leave me. You put yourself in danger.” He caught her gaze. The moments he’d seen her fighting were some of the best and worse he’d experienced in a thousand years, heart unable to decide whether to flip-flop or pound. “When I am done, you will never leave again. No more running into the sun to escape me. No more of this disobedience. You belong with me. Deny it.” When she didn’t, he rewarded her by cupping a breast and pinching her nipple.
“You will never have another. Deny it.” His hands moved over her body, touching her everywhere, marking her as his, even if there was no physical sign left behind.
“You have never felt like this before. Deny it.” He moved down her body, settling himself between her legs, tongue tracing slow circles on her abdomen.
Her green eyes promised retribution when she was free, but he would make sure she forgot about that. “Be still, my Dragă.” He meant it as a teasing remark, a gentle reminder. She hardly had any options, but her eyes blazed and she didn’t break their staring contest as she lifted her left leg, then her right, moving them even further apart before tilting her hips up in challenge.
Still, she defied him! Why couldn’t she learn?
Placing his mouth at the juncture of her thigh to her body, he bit, but only a nip, not hard enough to break the skin. She hissed. Stryx smiled against her skin. She wanted venom, and he wanted to give it to her more than anything, but first she needed some punishment. His Dragă needed to learn he was in control, not her.
To complete the bond, the vampire had to come out. He hated the manacles, but they would keep her hands away and let him remain in command of himself.
Stryx reveled in every hitch of her breath and every begrudging sound of pleasure he wrung from her as he worked his tongue, lips and fingers against her, but only taunting, refusing to give her satisfaction. He led her to the edge of bliss and retreated, offered the promised of release only to withdraw.
He pulled away from her every time she moved, and told her to settle, trying to show her she would only get what she wanted when she did what he said. Why must she make it so hard for him to show her how good he could make it for her? She panted and writhed, but he held her in place, and when she stilled, he lowered his mouth to her once more.
His own breaths ragged, the next time she moved, he lifted his head. “You are mine. Do you not see how it can be between us?”
Ember’s eyes, an intoxicating combination of furious and aroused, met his gaze. Her voice was husky when she answered him. “I see…”
Encouraged, Stryx lunged up her body and braced himself with his hands on either side of her head. The beast inside him howled for its freedom. Venom filled his fangs. Blood surged and his heart pounded. His Dragă would tell him she was his and he would finish the bond to make her his forever.
“... you have a problem finishing what you start.” She turned her head to the side and bit deep into the flesh of his forearm.
Surprised, frustrated and enraged, Stryx reared back, tearing his flesh from her teeth. His Dragă's aggression threatened to snap all his restraint.
Snarling, he flipped Ember onto her stomach. She laughed as she scrambled to her knees. He pounced, seizing her hips and slamming himself into her. Ember gasped as she took all of him all at once. He growled in satisfaction as he held her in place, head down with a heavy hand on her neck as he fought for control.
EMBER
Apparently, he thought in this position, Ember could only take what Stryx did to her, and she understood on some level he meant this as a punishment. Whether it was for leaving him, striking him, defying him, biting him, or all of it, he hadn't bothered to explain. It didn't matter. She liked this darker side of him.
And she understood why the Dragăs let vampires believe they were sex witches. In the moment, she believed Stryx could take her to new heights of bliss. Every muscle and all his focus, even while he wanted to punish her, offered nothing but pleasure. The monster she’d goaded from him was all raw power. It was hot as long as he wasn’t using it to try and control her.
Ember wanted to deny she was his, bristling at the thought of him treating her like property or not having free will, but that argument was probably best made when he didn't have his hands all over her, and she wasn’t stuck to a wall.
She smirked. He would never have the submissive pet he seemed to want, and she had no problem enjoying his vigor.
Ember had only taken a little more of his blood when she bit his arm, but it was already weaving with her magic, strengthening her. Stryx kept up his brutal pace. She pushed back against him, meeting his thrusts, and he snarled in her ear. She laughed.
His grip on her neck tightened, and he yanked her up so her back was against his chest. He tangled a hand in her hair and pulled her head back. Her mouth opened against the shock and slight pain of her neck bending so far back. She would not tolerate a bond with someone weak, but he needed to learn his place. She squeezed her inner muscles around him.
His unrelenting thrusts faltered and slowed to deep glides into her. He pressed something to her mouth. His bloody wrist. It was a deep wound, and the blood poured freely. He kept a tight grip in her hair, thinking to direct her movements.
Irritated, she threw her head back. He startled and loosened his grip. Of her own volition, she opened her mouth and accepted his wrist. She sucked at the wound, swallowing mouthfuls of blood rather than drops.
He moaned and muttered something in a language she didn’t understand. His fangs sank into her neck and the venom he’d been withholding flooded into her.
Blood and venom. Now she had both.
He fed from her, taking deep pulls of her blood she felt all the way down to her toes in languid, full body caresses. A long, tortured moan escaped her lips before she thought to stop it. Her body tensed and arched as the pleasure he’d been denying her swept over them.
“Enough.” He tried to pull his wrist away from her.
Ember growled at him, not finished yet. She needed more. Tearing her head from his grip on her hair, she fell forward, trapping his arm between the wall and her teeth. She bit harder, reopening the wound as she sucked. He groaned, pressing his body against hers.
A nimbus—a dark orange with swirls of gold, yellow, pink and red colors of sunrises and sunsets flowed from her soul to fill the air around her. This was her magic. While part of her wanted to weep, having been closed away from something so incredibly beautiful her whole life, most of her exulted in this new awakening as the colors twined around her.
“Enough!” Stryx’s harsh, raspy voice broke into her wonderment. Was that the first time he’d spoken? He sounded like he’d been yelling.
She swallowed the last mouthful of his blood as he yanked his arm away and pulled her down to the bed with him. Pinning her in place, he rested his head in the crook of her neck as he licked up and down her throat, humming in satisfaction.
Releasing her manacles from the wall, he curled himself around her. She lay still as he ran his hands over her, petting her like she was a cat and murmuring things to her in that strange language.
“Ki murangen.”
The bond between them asserted itself in her mind. She could feel him, not just behind her, but present all around her, and his feelings—his smug satisfaction she would never leave now, his need to protect her. Before her fury made her push him away, the words he murmured translated themselves in her head — words of adoration and devotion and…
Ki murangen.
He loved her? He seriously needed to work on his communication skills.
But most of all, anxiety flooded him as he searched for the bond already completed for her. He couldn’t feel it, and his fear the bonding hadn’t worked was a sharp pain in her mind.
Curious, she sent a tiny bit of her emotions toward him. She didn’t even know how she did it, it was all instinct. She let him feel some of the resentment she felt toward him for his high-handed treatment.
He seized the link, but went still, and his puzzlement returned to her before he pulled her closer to him. His hands roamed over her, but instead of possession, he tried to offer reassurance as he murmured in her ear.
Interesting.
Had he really not understood what he'd been doing when he treated her like he did?
She sent a little bit of contentment to him. She was feeling very satisfied at the moment, but she would not let him know too much of that. He was already insufferably smug. The moment he sensed that little bit of contentment from her, he relaxed, his relief almost audible in her head.
Very interesting.
When he relaxed she felt how tired he was, how scared and worried he’d been when he didn’t know where she was and seen her fighting. And the overwhelming rage he felt toward the mages who had hurt her and Musette. Her sister! She clamped down on the sudden need to find out how her sister was doing, and sent him massive amounts of feeling sleepy.
Stryx kissed the back of her neck and murmured something about getting her something to eat. He pressed her manacles to the headboard, rose, dressed, and left the room.
CHAPTER FORTY ONE
EMBER
In addition to the bond she now had with Stryx, something else was happening. A pressure in her head, but not in her head. Whatever was trying to get out pushed hard, and Ember winced, shoving back. But this wasn’t something trying to get in, like Stryx and the bond he’d created, this was something already in her trying to get out.
She closed her eyes and concentrated, tracing the intrusion. The sensation grew warmer as she neared the source. Fleeting images that made no sense played behind her eyelids like a movie on fast forward, without context or sound.
Something pushed again, and this time she didn’t push back. A bright, orange light exploded like a supernova behind her eyes, and magic—there was no other word for it—filled her. She reached for it, but while it was inside her, it remained apart from her rather than a part of her.
The face of the woman with black hair and green eyes filled her mind. “Now you can see.”
“See what? Who are you?”
Ember’s life played backwards. The memories started slow, of her and Musette as adults, went faster when they were teenagers, and sped up as they were girls, then babies.
Ember’s mind jolted as her memories stopped. No. Not stopping...merging. There was some resistance as other consciousnesses joined with hers. Musette’s was familiar, a third was similar to Musette’s but a stranger. The fourth was larger and felt safe. It surrounded Ember, Musette, and the third mind with warmth and love.
Mother. This is our mother. But Musette and I didn’t have a sister. We were only twins.
Ember and Musette never knew their mother. Aunt Bridget told them their mother died in childbirth. This mind movie gave lie to those words. Their mother gave birth to triplets and cuddled the three babies close, kissing each and speaking words Ember couldn't decipher until a younger version of Aunt Bridget came and took two of the babies away.
Why would their aunt have lied all this time? If their mother might be alive, where was their father? Did Aunt Bridget know where the rest of their family lived? Was that where she went on her trips to 'find herself'?
Temper flaring, Ember resolved to get answers from Aunt Bridget.
The movie played on. Ember’s memories became those of her mother, and she watched her mother’s life in reverse as she grew younger, until they merged into her mother, then her mother before her. They followed the line from daughter to mother, passing through hundreds of women and thousands of years until they arrived in a place of rolling green hills and the woman with black hair and green eyes.
She stood on a hill overlooking a stormy grey sea, black hair blowing around her head, sword propped on one shoulder.
“We all started with you,” Ember said. “Who are you?”
The woman turned, Ember’s own green eyes stared back at her. “I am The Morrigan. I am War. I am Fate. I am Death. You are one of me.” The Morrigan inclined her head. “I was a goddess once, now I am little more than memories. But the magic that made me only faded, never disappeared.” She spun her sword in her hand and extended the hilt to Ember. “Another magic calls to it, wants to make something new, and now this part of me is yours.”
Ember reached for the sword, but hesitated. There would be no going back from this. “Musette is Fate. That’s why she has feelings sometimes. The other baby was Death.”
As Ember's hand closed on the hilt, magic surged—a beautiful shade of ebony, shiny as crow’s feathers swirled around her in a cloud. She threw her head back and laughed, mind full of knowledge, body full of raw strength.
The magic coalesced and sank into her, filling her with fury, power, and aggression. A need to fight a battle and destroy. Ember embraced it, letting it take over. “I am War.”
The urge to find every mage and all their minions to smite them filled her soul. She’d let the Formorians choose to drown rather than face her. She wouldn’t show that mercy again. Every mage and all their puppets would suffer on her sword. There would be no mere stripes of war paint on her face—this time when she slew her enemies, she wouldn't just have blood on her hands—she would bathe in it.
Her own blood sang in anticipation of her kills.
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
STRYX
His Dragă was fearless, but insane. She’d pulled the darkness from inside him and...laughed.
Had the bond worked? It didn’t feel complete. If she felt as little from him as he was getting from her, maybe the Dragă magic had evolved so much the bond didn’t work the same way anymore.
Or maybe, since joining the magic in his blood to Soră's and Selene's, he wasn't vampire enough anymore—could he be too much witch? Was it possible in trying to protect his Dragă, he'd become some anomaly that couldn't have a Dragă?
With his magic part of the wards, he had a hyper-awareness of the territory he couldn’t shut out. He felt where Soră went. Heard birds in the trees and felt which branches they perched on. Sensed where the vampires were. Wind blew over his skin.
It was too much all at once. Too many emotions and sensations. His head swam. His magic burned. His heart hurt. His soul ached.
How did humans regulate these feelings? He felt like everyone and everything but himself and almost wished for the numbness he'd lived in for a thousand years.
The fragments of Ember’s emotions coming through the bond affected his heart. It thumped in a steady pattern when his Dragă felt content. Her anger and resentment made it seize up, like the useless technology he couldn’t touch.
Hunger. Not his. His Dragă needed to eat. Ciaran had food. Stryx headed for the kitchen where he found Ciaran making sandwiches. Of course. “I need some food—”
A sudden fury and desire to fight stopped Stryx in his tracks. At last, something familiar he could relate to. The need to smite every enemy and bathe in their blood drowned out everything else.
Ember had been safe here at the compound, and Ciaran let her go. Ciaran had helped Ember leave not only safety, he'd helped her leave Stryx. If he did it once, he could do it again. An overwhelming urge to destroy this risk to Ember swamped him.
He watched his hands grab Ciaran around the neck and toss him into the dining room table. Before Ciaran could recover, Stryx was on him, sitting on his stomach as he rained blows down onto his face and chest. “You let her out!” He raged as he threw another punch. “You betrayed me! They almost had her again!”
Boot steps pounded toward him. When the footsteps reached him, they would stop him. He threw his punches faster, one after another, his fists a blur as they thudded into Ciaran.
Ciaran didn’t defend himself, which only fueled Stryx’s rage.
Stryx heard a rib snap, then blood poured from Ciaran's shattered nose. Stryx drew two fingers through it and held them up. War paint. Two stripes on his face—
