Page 63 of The Salvation

More tears come, and I screw my brows low until she turns and kisses me. Opens her mouth, arches her back, and rocks her hips to take me deeper. Biting her lower lip and sinking my claws into her neck, I angle my neck and kiss her harder, stronger, rocking her until I break her like a wave against a shore. And watch her shatter beautifully for me as I empty myself inside her.

When her legs tighten around me, and her nails cling to my shoulders, something grows...dark inside me. Her fear of losing all of this, losing me is palpable. I can smell it in her blood.

Jaw hardening, I continue, “They called me the Demon of Death.” She snaps her head up. I kiss her brow, going on, “For twenty years, I was a toy of torture and thrall of a pet for Malachor. His favorite.” I curl my upper lip in a snarl...until she touches her thumb to the corner of my mouth, stilling me, calming my expression. My little half-ghost of an anchor. “I never lost a battle. Night after night, my only reward was thehonorof being used by the God of Blood. Merikh Howle became Malachor’s entity, existing only to serve him.

“But with the rise of the bitten vampires, the God of Blood began making his own race, choosing his vessels with care when biting them and granting them a portion of his blood. Many did not survive. And all retained their original binding power.”

“Except for you,” she whispers, touching her lips to mine as we drift, carried by a current of my making.

Now and then, her eyes wander across the lustrous creatures around us or the dark shadows of rocks, but I know she’s hanging upon my every word as she hangs upon my body...and my cock.

“Except for me.

“For the first ten years, he vowed to destroy me every night. ‘Tonight will be the night, Howle’, he would say—because I had the audacity of claiming his power and my own. But my powers were so raw and untrained, I was no match for him. And since Malachor’s greatest flaw, aside from his pride, was his boredom, he put me to work instead.

For decades, I did his bidding.” A low growl erupts in my throat, but I don’t hide my sins from her. “I battled, tortured, raped, and executed whoever he chose. One of his favorite pastimes was when we came here...” I gesture to the sea. “I would bring his victims to their near-drowning points. He would keep them alive with his blood, and we would repeat. I’d drown them, push the water from their lungs, and he would keep their blood rushing—make it last for fucking hours...days if necessary. Sometimes, he’d watch me fuck them. Sometimes, he’d join. Or fuck me as I fucked them. None could last as long as I.

“Quintessa...all those bones. The crushed ones, any that drift to shore, every corpse in this cursed sea...they have my fucking name written upon them.”

She opens her mouth as if to protest, and I narrow my eyes to black slits in a lethal warning. No excuses. No fucking reason. I could have taken myself out at any time. I could have done the world a damn favor by refusing to let Malachor turn me into his demon. But I surrendered to the God of Blood and my darker nature and became the sadist he loved.

Instead, she sighs, leans in, and kisses each of my cheeks. “You’re not the Demon of Death anymore. You’re...my monstrous boy. Mine.”

I don’t deserve her kiss, her lips upon mine. Her kiss knifes through my very being. Gods, she tastes like resurrection. She tethers my soul. This scarred, broken, and beautiful little beast sinks her claws into me to drag me from my depths. It’s the first time I’ve conveyed the truth to anyone, aside from Kyan. And that glorious fucker lived it with me.

“None dared to contend with the God of Blood. And all who heard of his Demon of Death shuddered in fear. Except...”

Her face lights up. Eyes light up. Fuck, she’s gorgeous when she thinks of him, wearing a glow to rival the creatures all around us.

“Kyan.”

“Kyan,” I confirm. “Cocky beautiful bastard. The angel came down to spy on the demon. We weren’t “at war”. No one could go to war with Malachor. But he grew bored with humans, he stole dragons, Fae, and angels. Kyan was simply the first god to give a damn enough to do anything. And I...” I swallow hard, my chest compressing. A trickle of water invades the cocoon.

“Merikh...” she whispers and rolls her hips, squeezing around my cock, and it thunders to life, keeping me from sinking.

“It started with simple battles. Malachor would pit us against one another.”

“You won?”

I shake my head with a wry smile. “Stalemate. Every damn time. Provided I didn’t use blood-binding, which Malachor would not allow. Water against air. Strongest wings vs fastest. Always a stalemate, little dove. Kyan intrigued him. The asshole infuriated me.”

“Aww...” She cups my face, reading between the lines. “He flirted with you.”

I roll my eyes with a huff. “Fluttering feathered fool.”

“Called you Merry, didn’t he?”

I press my lips to a firm seam. “Bloody brat.”

“You couldn’t break him.”

“Everything was by force,” I dictate pointedly, remembering those battles, how they ended with Malachor having me strip the angel and fuck him and bite him in open Court. “But he laughed every damn time. He laughed when I fucked him, bit him, whipped him. As if he couldn’t fathom how I believed it was some punishment when he wanted it, the winged fucker.”

“The angel wanted the demon,” she says softly and rocks against me again—clenching that warm tight pussy.

“I tossed him into the dungeon every night until Malachor finally commanded me to bring Kyan to his bed.”

“Was that the night?—”

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