Page 162 of Evil Hearts

His tongue blazes a path through my folds and has my back arching off the stone once more, writhing on a silent scream as ecstasy takes hold once more. My mind fractures, and anotherpiece of memory breaks off, floating into a marble vault of my own creation. It’s as if my mind is saving them for a special occasion or to guide me when my wits are stolen, like a trail of breadcrumbs through the abyss of the Underworld.

My body convulses, and my inner walls clamp down on his sinful tongue, but it’s not enough to keep him inside. His tongue slips from my core and licks slow, deliberate lines up and down my clit, torturing me further. I want to close my thighs around his skull to keep him locked in place, but his strength can overpower me ten times over.

He lets out a dark chuckle. “Astériskos.” He breathes it like a sacred prayer. “There will come a time when you must choose. I cannot guide you to the answer, but the answer will guide you to me.”

His words drift through my mind, but I’m lost in a lust-induced haze. I can’t make sense of what he’s trying to tell me, and he always speaks in riddles that I can’t understand. “You’re already here,” I argue weakly and lift my hips, trying to find relief from the throbbing between my thighs. “I’ve already found you.”

“No, Astériskos, not like this. You will forget. You will falter. You will fail.”

His words pierce through my heart. “I can’t forget you.” Desperation coils in my chest as I try to sit up and look at him, but his mouth latches onto my clit again, and electricity shoots straight through my nerve endings.

“You must promise not to give up. No matter what happens.” His breath tickles my skin. “Say you swear it,” he demands roughly, his voice impossibly deep.

“I… I…” My back arches as he bites down on a tender spot inside my thigh. My pussy throbs with each pull of suction against my skin. “I swear it,” I sob out on an exhale, feeling likeevery cell in my body is about to implode with need. “Please,” I beg. “Please.”

I don’t know if I’m begging for him to stop his torture or if I’m begging for him not to let me forget him.

The marble vault in my mind takes another piece of this memory and seals it behind a keyless door. One that I hope I will remember how to open once my memories of him fade.

“Shh, dear one, you are doing so well,” he praises and sucks against the skin of my other leg, sending me ricocheting toward an orgasm. “This is where I will part from you.” His tongue curls around my clit as his mouth envelopes me.

My protests die on my tongue as I’m swept away by a tsunami of sensation. My body arches up so tightly that my muscles quiver, and my pussy clamps down on his tongue as he forces it inside the tight muscle, stroking along my walls and drawing out my climax. I feel warmth against my skin as liquid gushes out of me and onto his tongue.

Darkness dances along the edges of my vision as I collapse into a quivering mess of raw nerve endings and sore muscles. Panic leeches into the pleasure-induced haze swirling around in my brain as he sits back on his heels, and his tongue flicks out like he’s licking his lips. Only he doesn’t have any lips, so it just brushes along his exposed teeth.

“Please,” I whisper weakly as my head swims and my vision darkens. “Don’t leave me.”

He sighs and stands to his full height, his cloak of shadows and mist swirling around his formidable frame. “I am not leaving you.” He drops a kiss on my forehead as the darkness envelopes me. “You are leaving me.”

I try to pry my eyelids open to explain that there is no way in the seven layers of the Underworld that I would ever leave him, but it feels like I’ve been injected with lead, and everything istoo heavy. As I drift away, I hear his voice caress my senses one final time.

“Fight it. Don’t forget,” he implores, his tone desperate. “Thymísou me. Parakaló.”

3

Ipress my backagainst the cold stone wall as I shake off the remnants of the memory, the jagged rocks sharp against my bare skin. I inhale sharply, still reeling from the post-orgasmic sensation that memory infused in me. My trembling muscles and the thin sheen of sweat across my skin are evidence of just how affected I am by the skeletal creature that haunts my every thought.

My eyes blink back, the tears pooling on my lashes, and I readjust to the here and now, but my mind still lingers on the past. The marble vault within my mind reveals itself, the keyless door almost taunting as I regard it. My memories are in there, hidden away from whatever curse attempted to destroy them, and I have no idea how to free them.

How long have I actually been here?

Where is here?

How many are in there, and how many are similar to the one I just found?

My thoughts stray to the skeletal creature with the wickedly sinful tongue, and my body heats. Is he here? Can I find him within the crystal caverns of this place? The words of his cryptic prophecy echo through my brain.

‘The answer will guide you to me.’

“What answers?” I ask into the emptiness, my voice echoing through the shadows cast by the glowing crystals. “Where am I going to go?” My voice rises as panic grips my chest. “Where the fuck am I?!”

A loud crash shakes the ground beneath my bare soles and sends me skittering into the shadows in terror. I’m alone in a dark cave with no weapons in a land with creatures that can rip me to shreds with their claws. My chest rises and falls in rapid succession as I breathe through the fear and hopelessness still gripping me.

The silence stretches on, but I remain motionless for what feels like hours until I’m sure that nothing is on its way to tear me apart and devour my soul. I creep through the cavern and down a dimly lit corridor, trailing my fingers along the rough surface of the cave wall to keep myself somewhat grounded. It’s a short walk to the next expansive cavern, which branches into three corridors.

I take a deep breath and pick the middle pathway. I wish I could say it’s because there’s a strong feeling pulling me in that direction, but in reality, it’s just because that’s the tunnel I landed on using “eeny, meeny, miny, mo”. The darkness stretches on as the crystal lights become fewer and farther between. My feet halt as raised voices drift down the tunnel from the cavern directly in front of me.

“It is the law! She must return to the Upperworld. Her body has healed enough to hold her soul again.” A deep voice echoes through the darkness, raising the hair on my arms and the back of my neck. There’s no mistaking the authority in his tone.

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