Page 62 of Kingdom of Darkness and Dragons
My mind raced, scrambling for an explanation. Was this a game? A way to break me down before he did whatever he truly intended? The man looked like Tarshi, but he was a void wheremy mate's warmth should have been. This was a predator, and I was his captured prey, being warmed and soothed before the slaughter.
Slowly, cautiously, I let my own rigid posture relax a fraction. The exhaustion of the day, the pain, the terror—it all came crashing down. I was his prisoner, held naked in the arms of a man who commanded shadows and wore my mate’s face.
He said something then—a short sound, more like a grunt than a word, but the tone was unmistakably commanding. Sleep, I thought he meant. He was telling me to sleep.
I forced myself to relax, my mind racing. When he fell asleep, I could escape. I just had to wait for his breathing to deepen, for his grip to relax, and then I could slip away into the night. I would find my way back to the Imperial forces, back to Jalend and Marcus and Antonius. Back to safety.
But as the minutes passed, I found myself growing drowsy despite my determination to stay alert. The fire's warmth, the strange comfort of the feathered cloak, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat against my back—it all combined to make my eyelids heavy. The events of the day had taken their toll, and my body was demanding rest whether my mind wanted it or not.
I would just close my eyes for a moment, I told myself. Just rest them while I waited for him to fall asleep. I wasn't actually going to sleep, just... just rest...
The last thing I remembered was the feeling of strong arms around me and the soft whisper of feathers against my skin. Then darkness claimed me, and I knew nothing more.
23
My sleep was a battlefield of broken images. Jalend’s anguished face dissolving into smoke.
The sickening crunch of Sirrax’s wing. Over and over, I fell, the ground rushing up to claim me, only to be caught in arms of living shadow that were both terrifying and strangely gentle. Then I was back in my rooms at the Academy. The bed was harder than I remembered, but the ink black arms of the man who held me were unmistakable. I felt Tarshi’s warm breath dance over my skin as his lips trailed down the side of my neck, sparking a deeper heat elsewhere. I sighed, pressing back against the hardness behind me, grinding myself against him in a way that made him groan.
His hand slid from my waist, his fingers tracing the curve of my hip before settling on my breast. A thumb brushed over my nipple, and I arched into the touch, a soft moan escaping my lips. It was a delicious friction, a familiar dance. He kissed the nape of my neck, his stubble scraping my skin in a way that sent shivers of pleasure through me. I pushed back against him again,already wet and wanting. I felt his cock slide, long and hard between my legs and I moaned, rubbing myself over him.
He gasped, his breathing harsh and rugged, his hand dropping to my hip to rock me back and forth over his length. His hips bucked against me, a single, sharp thrust that was pure, possessive demand. It was so like Tarshi, that raw, impatient need he sometimes showed when we’d been apart too long. A thrill shot through me, hot and sharp. I whimpered, a sound of pure wanting, and tried to twist in his arms to face him, to kiss him, but his hold was iron-strong, keeping me pressed with my back to his chest. He didn’t want me to turn. Another game.
I tilted my head back, trying to find his lips, but he only buried his face in my hair, his growl a vibration against my skull. His free hand snaked around my front, fingers tangling in the curls between my legs. He found my clit with unerring accuracy, his touch sending a jolt of lightning straight through my core. I cried out, my hips bucking wildly against his cock as he worked me with a brutal, single-minded rhythm. It was almost too much, too intense, pushing me right to the edge.
A low growl rumbled in his chest, vibrating through my back. It wasn’t Tarshi’s familiar, playful sound; this was deeper, more feral. The sound snagged on the edges of my sleepy haze, a dissonant note in a perfect dream.
A word tore from his throat, a guttural sound in that strange, harsh language. It was a sound of pure, unadulterated possession.
My eyes snapped open.
The cave walls, flickering in the dying firelight, came into sharp, horrifying focus. The man holding me wasn’t Tarshi. The arms pinning me were corded with unfamiliar muscle, the skin covered in tattoos that writhed in the low light. And the eyes that stared down at me over my shoulder, burning with a black,consuming fire, were not warm brown. They were the colour of storm clouds and winter ice.
I was naked, wrapped in a stranger's cloak, held captive in the arms of the shadow mage.
And I had been grinding against him. Moaning for him. My body, tricked by a dream and a familiar face, had betrayed me completely. His hand was still between my legs, slick with my release. His breathing was a harsh rasp in my ear, his arousal a rigid brand against my skin. He had been touching me. Not in a dream. In reality. While I slept, while I thought he was my mate, he had… oh gods. His fingers were still circling my clit, his hard cock still sliding through my wetness, and though I should have felt afraid, should be utterly terrified, all I felt was desire, intense, driving me on. My mind told me I was crazy, but something deeper urged me on. It wasn’t just my body betraying me, it was something far stronger, primal almost.
A whimper escaped my lips, a sound of utter shame and unwilling pleasure.
He felt the change in me, the moment horrified awareness replaced sleepy compliance. A low sound, something between a chuckle and a growl, vibrated against my back. His hand tightened on my hip, pulling me impossibly closer, grinding the rigid length of him against my pussy. He wasn't Tarshi playing a game; he was a captor asserting his dominance.
He drove a finger inside me, then two, stretching me, filling me while his thumb continued its relentless assault on my clit, claiming me in a way that was both a violation and a dark, twisted homecoming.
Every push of his hips, every stroke of his fingers was a brand, marking me as his. I was coming apart, unravelling under the hands of a monster who wore my mate’s face, and the most terrifying part was that I didn't want him to stop.
Thought dissolved into pure, splintering sensation. My orgasm ripped through me, a silent scream that arched my back and sent my whole body into violent tremors. I shuddered against him, boneless and gasping, my mind a white-hot void. His body went rigid behind me, his own release a shuddering wave that pulsed against my thigh. He groaned, a long, low sound of pure animal satisfaction, and buried his face in the curve of my neck.
For a long moment, the only sounds were our ragged breaths and the soft hiss of the dying embers. Shame, cold and sharp, warred with the lingering heat in my blood. I was his captive. This was a violation. Yet my body hummed with a satisfaction so deep it felt like a betrayal of my very soul. He held me as if I were a cherished possession, his hand resting possessively on my hip, his thumb stroking lazy circles on my skin.
I didn’t dare move. I lay perfectly still, my mind a maelstrom of confusion and self-loathing. He had taken my pleasure without my consent, yet some dark, primal part of me had craved it, had met his silent demand with a frantic need of its own. It was the feeling of a mate, the undeniable pull I felt for Tarshi, but twisted into something dark and predatory.
He shifted behind me, his hold never loosening. His lips brushed the shell of my ear, and he whispered a single, soft word in his harsh tongue.
“Aeveth.”
“What?” I asked, my breath still catching in my throat, but he made no reply. He sat up suddenly, letting me fall onto my back. The feather cloak was bunched up under me, but the sheer size of it still protected my back from the hard mud packed floor of the cave. Before I realised what he was doing, my captor had pulled my legs apart and was trailing his mouth up the inside of my thigh.
I gasped, trying to clamp my legs shut, a pathetic attempt at modesty and defiance. He simply wedged his shoulders between my knees, forcing me open. A low sound of approval rumbled in his chest as he nuzzled against the damp curls at the juncture of my thighs, his white hair a stark contrast against my skin. His tongue swept out, a hot, wet stripe from my inner thigh up to my pussy, and my hips jerked off the ground. He was tasting me. Tasting my release, and his own. The sheer, possessive intimacy of the act sent a fresh wave of heat coiling low in my belly.
