Page 79 of Crown of Chaos

Aria was the sun peeking out from behind the clouds to heat your face after a long winter. She could smile, and light up the entire world. Fuck, she had done so with me. One slender woman with a killer smile, and sparkling eyes had knocked me on my ass. Hard.

Since the moment she’d stepped her dainty feet into this world, everything she encountered had been brutally against her—myself included. Aria still thrived and hadn’t allowed being cut off to affect her. Slowly, she had found allies, people who didn’t want to use her or own her or control her, and I hated them as fiercely as I appreciated them.

Inhaling her essence deeply, I rumbled with desire coursing through my veins like fire. She really was close, and Aria in heat was like being at the mercy of a storm front rolling in and not being able to do anything but brace for impact. I had felt nothing like her in my long life. Last time it had hit her, the anger that had driven her to attack had been raw and beautiful. She’d sobbed while riding my cock, telling me how wrong we were to enjoy hurting one another. Not that we were wrong to enjoy it. It was quite the opposite, really.

Considering what I was and what she might be, our need to shred one another to the core made perfect sense. It was violent but also beautiful. Our breeds fucked like savages, fueled by the need to exhaust one another to ensure neither escaped the nest before the mating was finished. Aria, dressed in nothing more than her glorious rage, had knocked the air from my lungs. She’d fucked me without restraint and hell if I hadn’t given it back against her silken, soft body. I’d fucked her slippery cunt for hours and hadn’t even gotten close to satisfying my hunger for her. But saying I hadn’t loved every moment of the twisted, sick shit she’d begged me to do to her greedy, tight pussy would be a lie.

The tent had been in tattered ruins, and her stare had focused on the men. Every mother fucker present had been hard and craved a taste of her savage side. Aria hadn’t shown interest in any of them, which had caused pride to swell in my chest. Instead, she’d fucked me right in front of them, squeezing her perky tits while she rode my cock. It was instinct, and a show of dominance. I’d blown my fucking load seeing the snarl of warning she’d given them.

I’d turned that moment against her, fueled by the rage of her allowing them to see her smooth body. It hadn’t been gentle, either. I’d slammed her onto her back, thrust her legs apart, and pounded into her silken cunt as it gushed for me. I’d held her by her hair, forcing her to watch the men while she submitted to me. So what if we were savages? I didn’t care, and neither had Aria. Of course, she also wasn’t coherent enough to remember us doing that in front of the men. Those bastards hadn’t had the same problem, though.

She and I weren’t made like others. Creatures like us didn’t tend to be gentle, loving things, not even to each other. We thrived on destruction, and we gloried in savage lust that burned hot enough to burn worlds down to the ground. Aria did not know what it meant when she sensed the need to release her flames, but I did, and I wanted them to escape the hold she held and burn us to nothing more than ashes.

My tongue slid from my mouth, roving over my lips. My cock jerked, growing ready to ease her ache, but I refused to move. I didn’t trust myself not to do something I’d regret. The sultry siren who bathed, oblivious to the monster watching, did not know the erotic picture she painted. Aria rose to her knees within the bath, and I slid my gaze to where her cunt would be had it not been hidden behind the wall of the tub.

The sweet noises she whimpered were full of stubborn determination. Aria was good at a lot of things, but this wasn’t one of them. She’d bragged about it, but I had watched and had disagreed. I’d made her scream for me with one finger, and the arrogance I’d felt at watching her come undone had only grown. My lips curved into a dark smile, feasting on the feminine perfection of her beautiful, frustrated-as-shit face. It probably made me an asshole to enjoy her chagrin, but I did, and I didn’t care.

The growl that escaped her throat caused my balls to tighten. Her eyes closed, and she exhaled a shuddered breath, making my stomach clench. Everything within me was coiling, poised to attack the innocent prey who was bathing her sultry, enticing curves.

She slipped from the bath, and my gaze followed the droplets that ran down her creamy flesh. I swallowed hard as my stomach tightened with need as my gaze lowered to her cunt. I missed her using my body to sate her hunger. Waking up against her had fed my life meaning, even if only fleetingly.

Aria dried off while turning toward my side, to peer absently at where I sat invisible to her gaze. Clenching my jaw, I studied the new ink covering her from her hand to her shoulder blade again and then lowered where she had runes in a spiral formation over her womb. It looked wickedly sexy, with the ravens covering her rib cage. The battle ravens had always been the symbol of hope for me. And she wore them as if she owned them.

People almost never realized there was a difference in ravens, but Aria did. She knew the difference on the same fucked-up level as I did. When I’d asked her if she knew the tales of them, she’d floored me by arguing which god used them for sinister purposes, or for the right reasons. Her lady balls had given me pause, and fuck if I didn’t like that, she had a pair on her. One I didn’t want her to lose any more than I wanted to lose her.

I could sense her need for space, and intended to honor it. There was also the fact she hated me, and it was better for her to continue doing so. I was poison, and everything I touched died. Aria was spreading her wings, learning to fly, and I wouldn’t be the asshole to hold her back. If I tried to cage her, she’d hate me. Creatures like Aria didn’t survive in captivity.

So, I’d push her away for now and let her learn to fly on her own. Aria was young, so fucking young that I didn’t have any right to her, but fuck losing her. I would have her, but it couldn’t be right now. Too much shit had happened in the past couple of months, and we were both struggling to regain our footing.

Death had knocked us down, but we’d drifted to one another during the pain. I wanted her in my arms, warming my bed, and filled with my babes swelling her belly. But I couldn’t have her and wage war. Not right this minute, anyway. Especially not when Lennox planned to plant more babes in her womb, and Ember wouldn’t object to it happening.

Aria may not trust me, and I hadn’t given her many reasons to honestly. I intended to prove to her I could be what she needed. I was a miserable asshole, and she was sunshine and whisky on a bright summer day. If I wanted her back, I’d need to show her I wasn’t the asshole who’d endlessly abused and slandered her. I wanted her to know who I was without the broken pieces cutting her. We healed each other, and that wasn’t something either of us realized until I’d held her pieces together, and promised to breathe for her. I’d never even considered how brutalized and broken she was because Aria carried those scars inside and didn’t let them change who she was.

Aria was a unicorn in a land filled with monsters. She was chaotic, broken pieces that you never noticed until you looked closer. I’d seen her soul and felt it shattering. I knew better than most people what that felt like. I was about to inflict more pain, and it couldn’t be avoided. If I wanted her to know where she belonged, and who she belonged to, I had to free her. The knowledge of it made me sick and sent anger pulsing in my temples.

She was prowling, which meant she was looking for me. I hated to break the silence or end my hours of just watching her, but the head on my table was stinking with the rot setting in. Peering down, I smiled at the lifeless head and then closed down my emotions before I revealed I was here, watching her.

Chapter Forty

Aria

I’d finally cleared the nestup and fought through the emotions I’d been avoiding for months. It hadn’t been easy, but it had been the last step in removing the reminder that I’d survived the tragedy. I refilled a small area with a couple of fresh, softer blankets that I’d eventually sleep in if I wasn’t forced to leave the library before I got the chance.

After I was satisfied with how the space looked, I moved around the room, lighting candles, and a tub appeared close to the barrier. Exhaling the unease of the day, I stripped out of my blood-covered clothing and slipped into the water, sighing in bliss as the heat and scented oils eased the aches in my bones.

I didn’t scrub my skin or even really move for long moments as I watched his side of the library. It was dark, almost completely cast in shadow, and I prayed he wasn’t out releasing his grief on people who didn’t deserve it like I had done.

“Snuff” by Slipknot started, and I leaned back against the cast-iron tub, my lashes fluttering against my cheeks as I listened to the lyrics. Knox had felt the song deeply enough to have the library play it as he’d awoken from sleep. It was a sobering experience to see him react the way he had, hearing his soul-crushing pain rending through the room.

The thought of it tightened my chest, and when I opened my eyes, tears swam within them. Not for me or because I felt sorry for him but because he didn’t think he could love again. He was so badly wounded, so fucking deeply, that he didn’t think he deserved to be.

Unfortunately, I could relate to that feeling. Not because I didn’t think I’d be loved but because maybe I wasn’t meant to be. I’d misjudged my entire life, reading everyone wrong. I’d thought I had people who wanted me around and who loved me unconditionally. Yet, they’d turned on me and walked away the second I refused to let them use me anymore.

I snorted, reminding myself not to dwell on what I couldn’t change because it did me no good. I should be focused on a way forward, on finding the elements and then getting Esme and myself to the cave where I’d found Eve. The idea of going in blind bothered me, too, because not to be concerned about it seemed like an attitude that would invite trouble.

Nothing would ever be so simple in this shit-hole because, while it was breathtakingly beautiful, it was also a murder pit. Even the bugs tried to eat you here, but then, we’d had some shitty ones in Haven Falls, too. The song ended and immediately started playing again, causing my brow to crease and my lips to tug down at the corners.

I narrowed my eyes on the shelves on Knox’s side of the library and twisted my lips. Something about the shadows drew my attention while also pushed it away, so I let my gaze drift toward the door before I stood and held a hand out for a towel.

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