Page 79 of The Blood of Gods and Monsters

I have no words for his command, but as he dips his head again and begins to move inside me once more, I lose all other rationality that allowed me to think in the first place. With his cock buried in my cunt, Theos drives me to the brink again and again, but he must still retain some of his own sanity because he has no problem stopping just before we ever reach the point of no return. I pant. I curse him. I scratch at his back like a wild creature.

When he tries to kiss me again on the mouth, I bite, drawing blood and eliciting an amused chuckle from him. “So violent.” He doesn’t sound angry. “So perfect.”

My eyes burn at that statement and all I can do is cling to him as fresh tears well up, soaking through my lashes. No, I want to tell him. Don’t ruin this with lies no one would believe.

I’m a killer. I’m a monster. I am one of the dangerous creatures in the dark. That’s why Caedmon came to me. That’s why he believes I’ll be the one capable of killing the God King. No one good can be asked to do something so heinous.

“With me, Kiera.” I blink as Theos rocks into me, sliding back and forth between sore folds. Hands come up to cup my face. “Look at me.” I do and frown. “You’re with me, right now,” he tells me. “No one else.”

How had he known?

Wet slick sounds squelch through the room as he continues to thrust into me. A thumb slips over the bundle of nerves that is my clit and Theos is not the only one who can produce lightning. It ricochets through me, stealing away my breath and leaving me a mindless, sobbing mess of pleasure as I come all over him. It only takes an instant for him to follow me into the drowning darkness of release and then the two of us collapse against one another, panting, trembling, and shaking with the aftereffects.

I don’t know how long we lie like that, our skin pressed so close together that it begins to stick. I’m not the one who interrupts the peace that settles into my bones in a way that nothing else ever has.

“We need to talk.”

I roll my eyes at Theos’ now calm tone as his hand strokes up and down the goosebump speckled flesh of my back.

“Yes, because you’re so good at talking,” I mutter.

His hand leaves my spine and comes down in a sharp strike against my right ass cheek. I lift up slightly on his chest and arch a brow at him.

Theos scowls at me. “I’m serious,” he says.

Propping myself up on his chest with one hand, I wave my other in a gesture for him to continue. “By all means, Master Theos, talk.”

Another half-hearted slap and another roll of my eyes.

Finally, he speaks. “I need you to know that we will protect you.”

I stiffen at the implication his words bring to mind. Rolling away from him onto the other side of the bed, scorch-marked sheets dig at my backside. “I neither need nor do I want your protection,” I tell him.

“Tough shit.”

I ignore him and sit up in bed, pulling the straggling strands of my hair away from my face and twisting the spiderweb-colored locks into a knot on the back of my head. “Forget it, Theos,” I say, sliding off the mattress to pad across the floor. I scrub a hand down my dry face. Old remnants of the tears I shed last night still linger on my skin—I can feel the dried, salt-scented tracks on my cheeks. “We’re allies, I’ll give you that, but after this mission is over, you’ll go your way and I’ll go mine.”

“Are you fucking serious?” His sharp tone penetrates my mind but doesn’t dissuade me from moving about the room, gathering my trousers from the night before along with my underwear. I don them first before I grab my under corset up—thankful, at least, that he hadn’t torn apart this bit of clothing.

Tying the laces at the front of my pants to keep them closed, I slip into the under corset and redo the laces Theos had loosened. With the clothes covering my skin again, I feel stronger—like I’m putting on armor instead of thin fabric.

“Kiera.” I don’t turn to look at him even when I hear the angry note in his voice. “You’re insane if you think after everything we’ve done that you’re going to walk away at the end of this.”

If there even is an end. My fingers still at that thought. It’s a sensible consideration. We could die. All of us. If the Gods find out the truth of everything, they could just as easily execute us and no matter how many secrets we uncover, if the rest of the world remains ignorant to the secrets hiding in the corridors of these academies then we have no real protection.

I hear the soft whisper of sheets moving and then footsteps on the floor. “We couldn’t have a relationship before because I thought you were a Terra—a human—but now?—”

I pivot to face the lightning-eyed Darkhaven, stopping him with a hand raised against his chest before he can reach for me. “Nothing has changed about that other than the fact that you know the truth about my bloodline,” I state coolly. “There is no relationship here. Not with you.”

Gold turns to wounded bronze. “And my brothers?” Theos asks.

“Not with them either.”

He stares back at me with silent rage. The emotions swarming in the depths of his gaze batter at my soul like a wicked storm wanting to be let into the safe haven of a castle that has withstood hundreds of its kind. I lock the doors and windows and let him see the icy control that has returned reflected in my own expression.

“I see.” Theos steps back, taking the warmth of his body with him. I curl my fingers into my palms, nails stabbing at the soft flesh there to keep from doing something ridiculous such as reaching out to bring him back.

I watch him carefully as he strides away from me and bends to pick up a pair of discarded pants. The hard planes of his muscled frame ripple as he steps into them sans underwear and does up the laces before turning back to face me. There is blood in my mouth. I blink and realize I’m biting down on the inside of my cheek so hard I’ve broken skin.

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