Page 77 of The Salvation

He deadpans, remembering the words of our past. “And I’ll take your breath. I am the storm of your soul, Merikh.”

“We are not safe." I bare my fangs.

He shakes his head in confirmation and lowers his head toward mine, his mouth a breath from mine. “We are gods. You are agod, Merikh Howle. More god than any of us. Because we were born. Youbecame.”

Because blood becomes. Every. Damn. Time.

The next thing I know, we’re ripping at one another’s clothes. Sheets of rain lash at us, but we strip to nothing right before we lock eyes and line ourselves up.

And with all the heat and blood in my body pushing toward my cock, with us gripping one another by the neck, with our pulses roaring and breath howling and tongues dueling, we shove into one another. Hard. Merciless. Heaven and hell.

We drive our hips against one another.

Until Shadow snaps, growls, and flips me over. Off his leash, he jerks out of me before grinding me into the mud and entering me again.

“Feel you everywhere, you feathered bastard fool,” I groan from the weight of his hardness, the gravity of his god force ashe slams into me like a battering ram, making sure I feel it with his claws breaking the skin on my scalp. His wind rocks into me, giving him more power, more momentum.

“I own you...” One silky low purr as he leans in, deepening his strokes. “I am the nightmare you birthed.”

“I became the dark dream.”

“The one I turned you into.” He pushes me down harder until I smell every grain of salt in the sea-coated mud.

“Don’t fucking deserve you,” I growl back at him. “Or Kyan.”

“This is how I remind you.”

He ejects from me again until we are writhing in the mud, our wings getting coated in it until we bury our lengths in one another again. Mouths slam together. Our climaxes rip through us. Wind and blood and hunger and wave after wave of fever and abandon. Our breaths rattle in our chests. Mud covers every inch of us, from our naked shafts to our wings.

In the aftermath, I imprison my partner’s eyes and finalize, “You are the nightmare. I am the dream. Andsheis the one who will wake us up. I gave her us, Shadow. Gave her all of us.”

Shadow’s dark strands cover portions of his face, fracturing his deep-set eyes as his heavy breaths settle across me. I cannot read his expression. All I know is his blood rushing through his veins, his erratic pulse, his muscles primed, and his spine tensioned when it should be more at ease.

Balling my hand into a fist, knowing the dark storm is not finished, knowing he wouldn’t have done this without something triggering him, I rise up, grip my partner’s throat, and demand, “What have you seen, Shadow?”

He grips my throat in a flawless, mirrored move. His pupils dilate in a precursory of prophecy, of him becoming Oracle to shed the fragments of the future, a glimpse, a glimmer. “She has sacrificed much for you, Merikh. What are you willing to sacrifice for her?”

I open my mouth, fully prepared to answer ‘everything’, but Shadow squeezes my throat in a death lock and continues, “For centuries, you’ve wished to rise from the depths. Let tonight become your quest. Surrender to her hand of eternal night. And rise in her resurrecting light.”

She must make it out of the Hollows then.

Shadow blinks. The black of his eyes turns to the glinting indigo of the other half of the partner I don’t deserve. On the impulse, the storm clouds begin to clear, and Kyan shakes his head with a chuffed laugh.

“Only you and Shadow,” he says, eyes scanning our bodies, taking in our states.

“What did you learn, Kyan?” I ask, grabbing my discarded clothes and embarking into the sea to wash the mud.

He follows behind me, heaving a sigh. “As difficult as it was torestrainmyself, I did as you asked, brother. Reaver’s cults have infected every damn clan in your Hollows realm. Some born, some bitten, but they do not truly answer to him. It’s more anarchy than anything.”

I sink beneath the waves as he does until we rise and shake out our wings. No questions asked Kyan sends his wind to pulse all around us and dry our bodies, wings, and clothes.

“The race of bitten vampires is broken,” he goes on. “When their true origin has never revealed himself, and when they succumbed to the same Waste Curse of Kronos, they are more than eager to curry favor with the origin God of Blood. So desperate to be free of the Curse, they will follow Reaver’s command as he seeks to resurrect Malachor. Because short of all our Curses ended and all four of us rising, he is the only match for Kronos.”

I growl low in my chest. Because—“Iwas Malachor’s fucking match. And my Curse is already broken.”

Kyan shakes his head, curving his wings toward me. “It’s too late for that, brother. They’re out for blood and vengeance against Kronos. They’ve waited thousands of years, surviving off precious-thin amounts of human blood while deteriorating worse than all other races. They don’t know Quintessa as we do. They will never put their hopes on the heart of a human with half a soul. They’ll put their hope in Malachor instead. Especially when they believe the race of vampires will rise up to conquer all other realms, which is Malachor’s full intent.”

It would.

---